AOC reality checked when she uses South Korea as example to push Medicare for All

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez attempted to bash the United States healthcare system in a tweet on Thursday, comparing our response to that of South Korea. The reason?

To push her socialist Medicare for all agenda.

“Want to know one major reason why South Korea has had stellar rapid response and quickly produced & scaled up to 10k+ tests/day?” Ocasio-Cortez asked. “They have a single payer, #MedicareForAll system. We don’t. Please remember why it’s so important for us to fight for healthcare as a human right.”

It didn’t take long for people to start pointing out all of the flaws in the premise of her tweet:

This is wrong. South Korea’s testing kits are produced by a private company. The normal regulations were waived.

Moreover, the vaccine for coronavirus will likely be produced by the profit-driven private pharmaceutical industry, which the authors of #MedicareForAll hate.

Stop. https://t.co/jV0TT3XT8g

— Joel B. Pollak (@joelpollak) March 12, 2020

Pollak linked to a CNN article on Seegene, the molecular biotech company that began focusing on the virus before it had become a global pandemic. Owned by Chun Jong-yoon, the group made the production of testing kits a priority even before the country had its first confirmed case of the virus. Their efforts to get ahead of the illness have so far paid off, but are in no way attributable to the government or Medicare for all.

“While some nations have struggled to get enough test kits to diagnose suspected patients, South Korea has provided free and easy access to testing for anyone who a doctor deems needs it,” the article explains. “The country’s Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (KCDC) says the country has 118 facilities that can test — and all report their results to KCDC. To date, the country has tested more than 230,000 people.”

“It has even rolled out drive-through coronavirus testing facilities, where motorists are met by health workers dressed in hazmat suits,” the write-up notes.

Other Twitter users were quick to remind AOC of some pretty basic facts:

Alexa, what is China

— Take precautions against the Wuhan virus (@jtLOL) March 13, 2020

Italy has single payer healthcare.

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) March 12, 2020

South Korea has a a single-payer program (that is both publicly and privately financed) that pays for PRIVATELY PROVIDED HEALTH CARE.

On the other hand, ITALY has a public single payer system.

And health care DELIVERY is not the same as health care payment.

Stop campaigning.

— RMKR (@kidsistah) March 12, 2020

Socialized medicine is going fabulously for the Italians.

“Those who are too old to have a high likelihood of recovery, or who have too low a number of “life-years” left even if they should survive, will be left to die. “https://t.co/1T3Er3AO9E

— Margaret ???? (@Margare14571757) March 12, 2020

In contrast, the US is VASTLY more ready for pandemic and has more ICU beds per capita than any other developed country with a socialized healthcare system.

The US has almost 6 TIMES as many ICU beds per capita as UK, which has a system a lot like M4A.. pic.twitter.com/eGmqCnbngm

— Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) March 12, 2020

In South Korea the cost of the corona virus test was $134. It wasn’t free. Only people with the virus and those who had close contact with them got it for free. Why wasn’t testing wasn’t done more expansively here? GOV REGULATIONS PREVENTED IT. https://t.co/JX6xdQbEX8 pic.twitter.com/ziweHOMCDr

— Chris Manning (@Manning4USCong) March 12, 2020

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