A question on comma usage

Question

I was proofreading an article when I stumbled upon the following sentence:

"The truth is, basically we haven't laid the foundation of the medical infrastructure in our country."

I know that this type of sentences (along the lines of: "The good thing is + Independent sentence") are meant to be offset from the upcoming sentence with a comma.

I got a sense that we have to offset the adverb basically with a comma before the independent sentence it's bound to, starts. This way:

"The truth is, basically, we haven't laid the foundation of the medical infrastructure in our country."

Is that correct, or is it considered an overuse of commas?

Answer 1

I would use commas before and after 'basically', but I agree with Chenmunka that the word "basically" is one of those verbal tics that people have nowadays that mean nothing. It's like "you know" and "like."

So take it out, unless it's a quote from someone who talks like that.