It appears that in their haste to tout a plank in their progressive platform, two darlings of the Democratic socialist movement stretched some basic facts when it comes to a survey they referred to recently.
CNN’s Jake Tapper (shown above left) fact-checked Democratic socialists Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont (both shown above right) during a Friday segment.
The two had claimed that a study funded by the Koch brothers — two billionaire brothers at the helm of a powerful conservative political network — showed that universal health care would save the U.S. government money.
The study in question, conducted by the Mercatus Center of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, was written by senior research strategist Charles Blahous.
And Blahous said Ocasio-Cortez’s and Sanders’ claims were not what the report actually concluded, as The Daily Wire noted.
“It is likely that the actual cost of Medicare for All would be substantially greater than these estimates, which assume significant administrative and drug cost savings under the plan, and also assume that health care providers operating under Medicare for All will be reimbursed at rates more than 40 percent lower than those currently paid by private health insurance,” Blahous wrote in the paper’s abstract.
That’s according to factcheck.org.
Tapper said CNN was not looking to deliver an opinion on any potential benefits of Medicare for All, as The Daily Wire noted.
But he also said, “It does seem pretty clear that the presentation being made by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez about this study lacks a lot of context.”
Thank you, Koch brothers, for accidentally making the case for Medicare for All! pic.twitter.com/speuEL6ETC
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) July 30, 2018
Watch Tapper debunk the claims of both Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez in the video below.
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