ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Once upon a time, Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska and ex-vice presidential candidate, called out the government-run health care plan known as Obamacare for its death panels — or, in bureaucratic lingo, its Independent Payment Advisory Board — and for that, was soundly mocked and scorned by both members of the media and Democrats.

Now, one of the left’s own darlings, the newly elected congresswoman from New York, socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is using Palin’s line to describe private health care plans as a means of advancing her own policy pursuit of “Medicare for all,” which is to say taxpayer-funded Medicare for each and every American.

Talk about a twist on truth.

Here’s what she just tweeted, The Hill noted: “[W]e have for-profit ‘death panels’ now: they are companies + boards saying you’re on your own bc they won’t cover a critical procedure or medicine. Maybe if the GOP stopped hiding behind this ‘socialist’ rock they love to throw, they’d actually engage on-issue for once.”

Thing is: Engaging with a socialist “on-issue,” as Ocasio-Cortez wants, means this: Your voice, in America, land of the Constitution, home of the democratic-republic, means nothing.

Socialists have nothing worthwhile to contribute to America’s political debate because their policies and platforms and lines of thinking are completely contrary to this country.

They don’t belong. That’s the issue.

That’s the “on-issue” moment that ought to be raised every time Ocasio-Cortez speaks.

But since it’s not — here’s how Jim Hanson, the president of the Security Studies Group, responded in his own set of tweets: “Nice try. But commercial insurance gives people choices about what coverages they want & decide to pay for. Your single payer nightmare will replace that with a one size fits none ‘choice’ decided by faceless bureaucrats. Coverage for all. Treatment for few.”

Hanson then wrote: “Ask the Brits how they love the #NHS. You’re all playing the Other People’s $$ will pay for it game. … Free Healthcare ain’t free.”

Exactly.

But explaining economics to a socialist is about as fruitful an endeavor as planting money trees and waiting for them to grow.

In fact, that’s a good analogy to describe how socialists actually think — only in their world, the money tree actually exists. They call it: the taxpayer pocket.

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter, @ckchumley.

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