# Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, on How to Pay for Medicare for All **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 3, 2018, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-ocasio-cortez-on-how-to-pay-for-medicare-for-all/825514 "2018-12-03T18:43:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 29
**Author:** ![Airbeck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/airbeck/32/6574_2.png) [@Airbeck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airbeck)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2019, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-ocasio-cortez-on-how-to-pay-for-medicare-for-all/825514/561 "2019-01-17T14:39:18Z")
Since you guys voted for the pussy grabber in chief, you don’t really get to criticize anyone else’s rhetoric. You’ve given up that right. Sorry. Your complaints are moot and you should feel bad for trying to clutch your pearls like that as if anyone would for a moment think it was sincere. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2019, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-ocasio-cortez-on-how-to-pay-for-medicare-for-all/825514/562 "2019-01-17T15:13:45Z")
Since I didn’t vote for Trump, I can criticize anything I want. Sorry, not sorry. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2019, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-ocasio-cortez-on-how-to-pay-for-medicare-for-all/825514/563 "2019-01-17T15:19:09Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > It does not seem so much like “waving a wand” rhetoric as gang rape rhetoric [(cite)](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ocasio-cortez-vows-to-run-train-on-progressive-agenda-in-bizarre-turn-of-phrase). That’s more difficult to admire. A Trump supporter getting the vapours over salty language? Or, maybe, just a pathetic hypocrite desperately grasping for something they can pretend to be upset about. If you’re going to ignore language when POTUS uses it, don’t be surprised when people think you’re a hypocritical POS when you complain about AOC saying something less offensive. Sad! ---
**Author:** ![Airbeck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/airbeck/32/6574_2.png) [@Airbeck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airbeck)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2019, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-ocasio-cortez-on-how-to-pay-for-medicare-for-all/825514/564 "2019-01-17T15:20:27Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Since I didn’t vote for Trump, I can criticize anything I want. > > Sorry, not sorry. > > Regards, > Shodan So you oppose Trump but you defend his side? Sounds schizophrenic. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2019, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-ocasio-cortez-on-how-to-pay-for-medicare-for-all/825514/565 "2019-01-17T15:22:07Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Since I didn’t vote for Trump, I can criticize anything I want. I think first Fox News has to tell you what to criticize and that you want to criticize it. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2019, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-ocasio-cortez-on-how-to-pay-for-medicare-for-all/825514/566 "2019-01-17T15:29:42Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Since I didn’t vote for Trump, I can criticize anything I want. > > Sorry, not sorry. > > Regards, > Shodan I’m sure you’re voting for him next time. You’re clearly enjoying his presidency. ---
**Author:** ![Grim\_Render](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@Grim\_Render](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Render)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2019, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-ocasio-cortez-on-how-to-pay-for-medicare-for-all/825514/567 "2019-01-17T15:41:36Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Elvis, pay closer attention. Grim Render sparked a subtopic discussion of nationalizing all parts of the entire medical system as the UK has. The analogue to that in the U.S. is definitely the VA. > > Pressed for time ATM. Will respond to some other points/questions later. That is not what “nationalization” means. Nationalization is not when the government provides a service that may also be provided by private enterprise. Nationalization is when a government seizes something with no, or below market value, compensation. The UK medical system was never nationalized, the National Health Act of 1946 did not work like that. What I said was that if Vermont had been allowed to use the money currently going to government healthcare in Vermont, such as for Medicare, Medicaid, VA etc to set up it UHC system, the financial calculation would have looked far different. A Beveride style system would have been one option for that, but so would Bismarck and NI. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2019, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-ocasio-cortez-on-how-to-pay-for-medicare-for-all/825514/568 "2019-01-17T17:45:41Z")
> **[Fox News Debuts Premium Channel For 24-Hour Coverage Of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez](https://www.theonion.com/fox-news-debuts-premium-channel-for-24-hour-coverage-of-1831814505)** > > NEW YORK—As part of its effort to provide the most comprehensive reporting possible on the freshman congresswoman, Fox News announced Wednesday the debut of a new premium television channel that will offer continuous, around-the-clock updates on Rep.... NEW YORK—As part of its effort to provide the most comprehensive reporting possible on the freshman congresswoman, Fox News announced Wednesday the debut of a new premium television channel that will offer continuous, around-the-clock updates on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). ---
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2019, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-ocasio-cortez-on-how-to-pay-for-medicare-for-all/825514/569 "2019-01-17T17:53:14Z")
> [@Airbeck](#): > > So you oppose Trump but you defend his side? Sounds schizophrenic. More “CYA” than schizophrenic. Buyer’s remorse. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2019, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-ocasio-cortez-on-how-to-pay-for-medicare-for-all/825514/570 "2019-01-17T19:15:43Z")
> [@Grim\_Render](#): > > That is not what “nationalization” means. Nationalization is not when the government provides a service that may also be provided by private enterprise. Nationalization is when a government seizes something with no, or below market value, compensation. Take a little pity on someone who was no doubt raised to think that ACA was “the government taking over health care”. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2019, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-ocasio-cortez-on-how-to-pay-for-medicare-for-all/825514/571 "2019-01-18T00:59:05Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Take a little pity on someone who was no doubt raised to think that ACA was “the government taking over health care”. What the actual fuck? 😕 Are you disingenuously strawmanning me here, or are you so black and white in your thinking that you can’t perceive distinctions between people who don’t agree with you in every detail? (And don’t try to weasel out by saying you were referring to Shodan here: the post you quoted was a direct response to me.) So let’s just review some facts about me: —I’m a Democrat. I have voted in the past five presidential elections, for Gore, Kerry, Obama, Obama, and Clinton. And I will be voting Democratic again in the 2020 election. —My main complaint about the ACA was that it didn’t cover enough people, leaving me out in the cold due to the “family glitch”. —As for how I was “raised”, that’s a real LOL given that my dad was a Marxist anthropologist who owned every volume of Das Kapital and specialized in medical anthropology; my mom is a Ralph Nader and Jill Stein voter who went to Cuba when you had to go via Mexico, and will gladly wax rhapsodic about the hours-long Fidel Castro speech she attended there. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2019, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-ocasio-cortez-on-how-to-pay-for-medicare-for-all/825514/572 "2019-01-18T01:29:17Z")
I’m no great fan of AOC, but I will defend her on the “train” thing. I seriously doubt she was using the gang-bang idiom there. I assume it was something more along the lines of keeping the trains running on time (without, of course, meaning to allude to fascism either). Like “this MFA train is leaving the station”, that kind of thing. > [@Grim\_Render](#): > > Its one option. Beveridge-type systems seems to be the most effective in terms of healthcare per dollar in developed nations. > > I am curious about the numbers behind that assertion? Checking multiple sources, I was unable to find a comprehensive list, but I was able to determine that the following UHC countries do or do not have Beveridge systems: > **[Health Care Systems - Four Basic Models | Physicians for a National Health...](http://www.pnhp.org/single_payer_resources/health_care_systems_four_basic_models.php)** > > An orgaization of 14,000 American physicians advocating for single-payer national health insurance. Beveridge: The UK, Cuba, Spain, “most of Scandinavia”, Hong Kong, New Zealand. Non-Beveridge UHC: Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Taiwan, South Korea, and Latin American countries “to a degree”. So unless there are a bunch more Beveridge countries to add to that side of the tally, non-Beveridge UHC looks like the majority to me. > [@Grim\_Render](#): > > “Drab” does not actually reduce outcomes in any measurable way. I also think it is far preferable having only the emergency room for a health response. Some of them are pretty drab too. I seriously doubt it has no impact on outcomes, given the other research findings showing that positive vs. negative states of mind have a huge impact on outcomes. But I can just grant your point for the sake of argument, and it still doesn’t change the fact that VOTERS do not act strictly on an actuarial, data-oriented basis. If a new health care law resulted in hospitals becoming much more drab, they would be very unhappy about it. > [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Is this what you think hospitals in London or Berlin look like? Germany is not a Beveridge country. But this blogger (who seems to be a British medical student) indicates that a major London hospital is pretty drab: [https://nicholasjparr.com/2015/04/29/artificial-lighting-drab-corridors-a-london-hospital/](https://nicholasjparr.com/2015/04/29/artificial-lighting-drab-corridors-a-london-hospital/) > [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > And that was a strawman hijack. Can we get back to real proposals, please? I’ve had several people crankily insist that there has as of yet been no concrete proposal made, just an insistence on UHC, with the details to be fleshed out over the next few years. Even though Bernie calls his bill “Medicare for All”, for instance, that is really just a branding name and not an expansion of Medicare at all (something many people in this thread seem unaware of). His bill would erase all out of pocket costs for patients, whereas Medicare puts a lot of the cost burden on patients. If we actually wanted to do real MFA, I would be okay with that and it ought to be extremely simple, as depicted in the last season of “The West Wing” when the Jimmy Smits character proposed it in his presidential debate against Alan Alda: just repeal the “over age 65” part of the law, and boom: you’re more or less done. But in any case, it’s exceedingly unlikely that Bernie’s exact bill will be the final law. Vanishingly unlikely. So why can’t Beveridge systems, which are the law in several major countries, be part of the discussion? (I suppose we could, similar to the above, strike the “for veterans” wording out of the laws that govern the VA hospital/clinic system.) I mean, OFA is a proud socialist, but we’re not even willing to discuss true socialized medicine? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2019, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-ocasio-cortez-on-how-to-pay-for-medicare-for-all/825514/573 "2019-01-18T01:50:55Z")
What makes you think Bernie is relevant to anything? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2019, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-ocasio-cortez-on-how-to-pay-for-medicare-for-all/825514/574 "2019-01-18T02:30:21Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > What makes you think Bernie is relevant to anything? Seriously? He is the one who recently introduced the so-called “Medicare for All” bill that OFA is presumably supporting. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2019, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-ocasio-cortez-on-how-to-pay-for-medicare-for-all/825514/575 "2019-01-18T02:53:41Z")
Who the fuck is OFA again? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2019, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-ocasio-cortez-on-how-to-pay-for-medicare-for-all/825514/576 "2019-01-18T03:18:07Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Who the fuck is OFA again? Sorry, AOC. :smack: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Looks like I glommed “AOC” and “MFA” (Medicare for All) together, into Obama’s campaign initials. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2019, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-ocasio-cortez-on-how-to-pay-for-medicare-for-all/825514/577 "2019-01-18T12:22:08Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Is this what you think hospitals in London or Berlin look like? > [@SlackerInc](#): > > But this blogger (who seems to be a British medical student) indicates that a major London hospital is pretty drab: [https://nicholasjparr.com/2015/04/29/artificial-lighting-drab-corridors-a-london-hospital/](https://nicholasjparr.com/2015/04/29/artificial-lighting-drab-corridors-a-london-hospital/) Speaking as someone who has been in pretty much every hospital in southeast London (including Guy’s), they vary wildly depending on how new the buildings are or when they’ve last been renovated. The newer ones are modern and shiny, the older ones are a bit more worn and “drab”. I’ve been in ones where renovation was being done by section and parts looked old and worn and other parts looked new and shiny (in one, the radiology section looked like a freaking Greek spa). But if the worst criticism one can level at them is that they’re “drab”, that in itself is a compliment. They’re _hospitals_. They look like _hospitals_. Linoleum floors, strip lighting in the halls, walls painted institutional green or white, boring waiting rooms, etc. They look like most of the hospitals I’ve been in in the US. None of the ones I’ve been in were crumbling, rat-infested shitholes (although if one looked one could probably find some examples of poor conditions, particularly if one looked during periods when the Tories were cutting back money spent) and many of them were quite nice. What matters in the end is the service you get. Nobody says to the ambulance driver, “Take me to the prettiest hospital”. And if that’s really what you want, as noted there is a second-tier private system that you can access which will indeed give you nicer rooms, better food, prettier nurses, etc…but, for the most part, the exact same medical outcomes. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Kumquat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gary\_Kumquat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Kumquat)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2019, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-ocasio-cortez-on-how-to-pay-for-medicare-for-all/825514/578 "2019-01-18T14:56:14Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I mean, did you know that eating certain “superfoods”, or even just getting a little midday sun, reduces blood pressure as well as medication or better? You won’t hear that from Big Pharma, I assure you. > > In point of fact, I did change my mind and began fully vaccinating both my children (then 3 and 5) in 2005 after seeing the “overwhelming evidence”. But most of those studies had not yet been published in 2000 when my eldest child was born. Fuck me, you really are a constant bollocks merchant, aren’t you? 1. There’s no such thing as a superfood \* 2. Are you really too stupid to realise that while pharmaceutical companies are out to make a profit, the various socialised health systems out there pay for doctors who don’t have any interest to hide how such amazing (non existent) superfoods are just as good as meds, so funnily enough would just tell their patients to eat brocolli, get a bit more sun or whatever, if it was true. 3. There was a fucking stack of evidence showing no link before 2005, because Wakefield (may he fucking die screaming, on fire) published his bullshit in 98, provoking responses almost immediately pointing out his findings were bollocks, backed by statistics showing no link\*\* > [@SlackerInc](#): > > IBut this blogger (who seems to be a British medical student) indicates that a major London hospital is pretty drab: [https://nicholasjparr.com/2015/04/29/artificial-lighting-drab-corridors-a-london-hospital/](https://nicholasjparr.com/2015/04/29/artificial-lighting-drab-corridors-a-london-hospital/) Could you at least read your own fucking cites: “I am a 25 year old former architect student having graduated from the University of Brighton in the summer of 2014.” So an architecture graduate is unimpressed with the layout of a 1970s hospital building…you think this is some sort of comment on universal healthcare? Grasping doesn’t even begin to describe your level of desperation. - [https://www.irishtimes.com/news/science/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-superfood-it-s-nonsense-1.1998166](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/science/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-superfood-it-s-nonsense-1.1998166) \*\* [MMR vaccine is not linked with autism, says Danish study - PMC](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1124634/) ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2019, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-ocasio-cortez-on-how-to-pay-for-medicare-for-all/825514/579 "2019-01-18T15:05:51Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > What the actual fuck? 😕 Are you disingenuously strawmanning me here, or are you so black and white in your thinking that you can’t perceive distinctions between people who don’t agree with you in every detail? (And don’t try to weasel out by saying you were referring to Shodan here: the post you quoted was a direct response to me.) > > So let’s just review some facts about me: > > —I’m a Democrat. I have voted in the past five presidential elections, for Gore, Kerry, Obama, Obama, and Clinton. And I will be voting Democratic again in the 2020 election. > > —My main complaint about the ACA was that it didn’t cover enough people, leaving me out in the cold due to the “family glitch”. > > —As for how I was “raised”, that’s a real LOL given that my dad was a Marxist anthropologist who owned every volume of Das Kapital and specialized in medical anthropology; my mom is a Ralph Nader and Jill Stein voter who went to Cuba when you had to go via Mexico, and will gladly wax rhapsodic about the hours-long Fidel Castro speech she attended there. Then you should have little reason to think that MFA or expanded ACA or any other form of UHC is “nationalization”, just as you should not have thought that the NHS was “nationalized”. If your understanding of nationalization is incorrect, that is an easier lift than if your basic understanding of the nature of UHC systems vs our own. If you mean “nationalized” as in “a national system”, then it is only a disagreement on terminology, not ideology. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2019, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-ocasio-cortez-on-how-to-pay-for-medicare-for-all/825514/580 "2019-01-18T16:01:14Z")
> [@Gary\_Kumquat](#): > > “I am a 25 year old former architect student having graduated from the University of Brighton in the summer of 2014.” > > So an architecture graduate is unimpressed with the layout of a 1970s hospital building…you think this is some sort of comment on universal healthcare? Grasping doesn’t even begin to describe your level of desperation. Also worth noting that the 1974 tower isn’t the whole of Guys. There are many other newer outbuildings including a new cancer centre opened in 2016 (after that blog post was written in 2015) and a separate children’s hospital, opened in 2005, over by its partner facility St Thomas’s Hospital, right across the river from the Houses of Parliament. I know that Britain went in for horrible concrete brutalist architecture in a big way for a while after the war (see also the South Bank Centre and the Barbican) but that’s not the NHS’ fault. Given that Guys dates back to the 18th century (and St Thomas’ to the 12th), I think they’re doing pretty well. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-ocasio-cortez-on-how-to-pay-for-medicare-for-all/825514.md?page=28) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-ocasio-cortez-on-how-to-pay-for-medicare-for-all/825514.md?page=30)