, 12 tweets, 3 min read Read on Twitter
We keep hearing that Trump is some sort of uniquely dishonest politician and journalists need to be vigilant and constantly call him a liar. The we get stuff like this reported uncritically. usatoday.com/story/news/nat…
How much will it cost to "pay for the health care insurance costs for 600,000 city residents"? "About $100 million a year." That amounts to $167 a year per person.
That's 1.7% of the $9,845 cost per enrollee of New York state's Medicaid program in 2016, as per Ballotpedia. ballotpedia.org/Medicaid_spend…
The fake news story itself contains numbers that ought to call de Blasio's into question.
New York state's population is 130% greater than New York state's population. According to these figures, the cost of providing "comprehensive health care" statewide would be 170,000% as much as de Blasio claims he'll spend doing so in the city.
The statewide figure doesn't quite add up either if the comparison is apples to apples. Divide $170 billion by the state population and you get $8,564 per person, which is within the magnitude of current Medicaid spending.
So maybe it's a (lowball) estimate of total annual spending under a statewide single-payer regime. Still, there's no way de Blasio's promise of insuring 600,000 people for $100 million a year adds up.
It appears the reporter here is just parroting numbers without understanding what they mean, or even questioning them.
We do get this vaguely skeptical quote in grafs 12-13.
But here's the headline. How is this better than "Mexico to Pay for Wall, President Announces"?
End of rant.
*than New York City's population
Missing some Tweet in this thread?
You can try to force a refresh.

Like this thread? Get email updates or save it to PDF!

Subscribe to James Taranto
Profile picture

Get real-time email alerts when new unrolls are available from this author!

This content may be removed anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime, convert it as a PDF, save and print for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video

1) Follow Thread Reader App on Twitter so you can easily mention us!

2) Go to a Twitter thread (series of Tweets by the same owner) and mention us with a keyword "unroll" @threadreaderapp unroll

You can practice here first or read more on our help page!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just three indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3.00/month or $30.00/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!