OPINION
Slay the single-payer myths: Ocasio-Cortez is the latest to spread falsehoods about what it will cost
By BILL HAMMOND
DEC 13, 2018 | 5:00 AM
It’s hard to take Medicare for All seriously when its proponents keep saying deeply unserious things. The latest case in point comes from Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive firebrand from the Bronx.
In a Dec. 2 post on Twitter, she appeared to argue that Defense Department accounting irregularities could somehow pay most of the cost of a universal health plan.
“$21 TRILLION of Pentagon financial transactions ‘could not be traced, documented, or explained,’ †she wrote, quoting a Nation magazine article. “Medicare for All costs ~$32T. That means 66% of Medicare for All could have been funded already by the Pentagon.â€
That claim was spectacularly, obviously wrong, as multiple fact-checkers soon confirmed.
It turned out that $21 trillion was a tally of questionable accounting adjustments, both positive and negative, over 18 years — a measure of bad bookkeeping, but not necessarily waste or fraud. It was definitely not a pool of money available to be spent.
Indeed, some fact-checkers pointed out that $21 trillion is probably more, without adjusting for inflation, than the entire history of U.S. military spending.
https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-slay-the-single-payer-myths-20181211-story.html
