Right!
Her answer here is straight up bullshit. It is like she didn’t know Colbert’s Truthiness was a parody.
One thing I will say is that Mrs. Cortez is being taken way out of context in her remarks about “Some people care more about being semantically, factually correct than being morally right” (paraphrasing). She’s not saying that it’s more important to be morally right than factually correct, she’s saying some people care more about factual details than about the bigger picture of what she’s trying to say.
If there’s one thing I don’t care for, it’s mischaracterization. It puts an absolute halt to any kind of meaningful debate.
If any of the consequences of her policy proposals hit home, became something Americans would have to shoulder, they’d turn on her in a heartbeat. But everything she proposes is wonderful in the abstract, without all of those messy numbers getting in the way.
Edit: Should be “Ms. Cortez” above. This five minute rule is brutal.
I like how you assume that her policy proposals would be bad if actually implemented. Whereas there’s a nobel laurate economist who thinks her proposals are actually pretty good, probably because she’s been getting up-to-speed with briefings from other nobel laurate economists.
Alright, well, as soon as those massive tax increases are on the table across the board (not just the super wealthy), we’ll have a talk about what all went wrong with Ms. Cortez’ popularity.
Considering her proposal is for tax increases only on the super-wealthy, I think that’s an unlikely outcome.
You cannot possibly pay for “Medicare for All” with only a massive tax hike on the super wealthy. This is probably why she dodges around how she’ll pay for it, saying “You just pay it!” and the like. Bottom line is, her policy goals would necessitate an across the board tax hike.
http://time.com/money/5495760/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-70-percent-tax-rate-rich/
Since the only people she needs to keep happy at this point are those in her district, I don’t think that will be a problem.
Medicare for all is two trillion dollars cheaper than our current system, per a right-wing think tank that went out of their way to exaggerate the costs of medicare for all.
Which means we certainly can “just pay for it”. And save 2 trillion dollars in doing so.
Saying we’ll need a “massive tax increase” to pay for something that’s $2 TRILLION DOLLARS CHEAPER than the more expensive thing WE’RE ALREADY PAYING FOR that it will replace is bullshit sophistry. I suspect everyone who makes that claim is knowingly lying or an idiot.
The last time I linked this analysis by a Manhatten Institute economist, his character became the focus, but I’ll link it again.
Also, I will speak for my fellow lower middle class sorts and say that I would love to see my former customers, the 1% of the 1% of the 1%*, get completely raped by the IRS. Won’t happen, but a brother can dream. 
-
- We called the 1% of the 1% “gappers” and used them to fill holes in the schedule. We ignored the 1%.
I think the focus was on his undergraduate degree in economics rather than his character, however poor it might be.
I think I’m going to pass on getting my economic analysis from an undergraduate posting to Twitter, thanks anyway.
Perhaps you should wonder why the only person you can find to support your ideas is an undergraduate posting to Twitter?
I think there might be actual Nobel laureates in economics with opinions on the cost of “Medicare for all”. I wonder what they think? Perhaps you can tear yourself away from Twitter, research that question, and come back to us?
Describing a handful of tweets as “analysis” is being very generous indeed. Show us this guy’s in-depth analysis that consists of more than firm declarations based on take-my-word-for-it and we might take him seriously. That tweet-dump was basically worthless.
You know what just increased my happiness level? I now have Dacian on ignore. Really, I can only tolerate a certain amount of stupid verbiage on any random day, and Trump is monopolizing that. No need to add to it with Dacian’s nonsense.
Playing “cite the economist” seems like a perilous stance for an AOC fan to take. Economics is notorious for having many right wingers in the field, and those who aren’t right of center are still almost all center-left, which is still well to AOC’s right.
I wish we could get some traction for a universal benefit of a HDHP (no premiums charged) and a HSA that the government would fund to the tune of a few hundred bucks per year. Everyone would have skin in the game, people would be incentivized to shop around and help “bend the cost curve”, and you wouldn’t get the kind of situation so many cities struggle with in terms of trying to reduce frivolous 911 calls from people who have Medicaid and don’t have to worry about any patient financial responsibility. Which is very likely the case for a lot of the calls described in this NPR story:
Then there’s the unique randomized study in Oregon of Medicaid expansion. Per Wiki:
If these people knew a bill would soon come in the mail that would either decimate their HSA or have to be paid out of pocket, they’d likely think twice. OTOH, no one would ever owe so much money that it is ruinous. Medical bankruptcy would disappear, as it should.
She has a profile that’s very high for a newbie to Congress. If she’s planning to just stay representing that district and not run statewide or nationwide, and has no aspirations to chair an important committee or become part of the Democratic leadership, then you’re right: pleasing her own constituents is all that matters, and should be a pretty easy lift. But that’s a big “if”.
Part of the problem with asking people to shop around and bend the cost curve is that our system is just so goddamn complicated.
I think you fixed part of that problem with a universal HDHP. Universal insurance, even an HDHP has the advantage of one set of coverages and one set of pricing for all possible medical services. I don’t have to shop around for providers because ALL providers are inherently ‘in network’ as there’s only one network, and they all charge the same prices because there’s one negotiated list of prices.
In terms of ‘skin in the game’ that’s generally a terrible idea, because the real effect is to discourage people from getting care they actually need. There’s no evidence in your link that these people have Medicaid, but there is evidence that at least some of these people have a tenuous link to the medical community at large. No regular doctor, no clinic they always go to, just zero medical care until they have an ‘emergency’ and then they don’t know what to do, so they call 911.
Universal HDHP and a few hundies for checkups (or fully covered preventative care, my HDHP does that) would help people like the lady with the cough form a relationship with a primary care doctor, so she can go there for questions instead of 911.
I’d prefer more, but UHDHP is a better idea than just about anything floated by an actual politician in this country.
Coincidentally, here’s an article out he wrote today.
Thanks for playing.
Did she apologize or correct her $21 trillion statement? The only thing I recall is her press secretary giving a statement along the lines of your point: Doesn’t matter if she’s wrong on facts, she’s right in her heart.