It was a simple question. She made it complicated.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., danced her way through a CNN town hall Wednesday night, artfully avoiding a direct answer to a simple question: Should illegal immigrants receive taxpayer-funded healthcare?
The progressive star — whispered about by admirers as a 2028 presidential contender or even a future Schumer challenger — appeared beside Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to discuss the lingering government shutdown.
A viewer named Jill Ireland, a California Democrat in the insurance business, posed the question plainly:
“Do you think taxpayers should be paying for the medical care of immigrants who are in the country illegally?”
Ocasio-Cortez deflected, accusing Republicans of spreading a “common lie” that Democrats seek to fund healthcare for illegal immigrants.
“We already know that it’s federal law and federal statute that undocumented people cannot be covered by the [Affordable Care Act], they cannot be covered by Medicaid, they cannot be covered by Medicare. Period,” she said.
The Squad member then turned her ire on Vice President JD Vance, charging that he was “trafficking this other misconception” about emergency Medicaid — what she called “whole cloth storytelling.”
She went on:
“The truth of the matter is we have a federal law, as it should be, that any person who walks into a hospital in desperate need of medical attention receives that medical attention regardless of their insurance status, and regardless of who they are.”
But CNN’s Kaitlan Collins pressed harder: did Ocasio-Cortez believe such care should be taxpayer-funded by law?
“I believe, personally, that healthcare is a human right,” she said. “I believe that every person should be able to go to the doctor. But I believe that right now, federal law is the federal law.”
Collins asked again:
“If you could choose, do you believe that the federal law should be changed from that?”
Once more, the congresswoman sidestepped:
“I don’t — I believe in a single-payer healthcare system, where if you go in and you need a doctor, you can get the medical attention that you need,” she replied.
In the end, she said much — and answered nothing.
Watch the clip below:
AOC gets the question on whether taxpayers should pay for healthcare for illegal aliens, dodges the question by advocating for single-payer. Bernie goes back to yelling about the billionaires pic.twitter.com/e8OxmkUyzE
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) October 16, 2025
