On MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes on September 30, 2025, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) crossed the line from political spin into outright slander. She claimed:
“What I’m not going to do is tolerate 4 million uninsured Americans, because Donald Trump decided one day that he wants to just make sure that kids are, are are dying because they don’t have access to insurance. That’s what’s not gonna happen. And so if those senators think that we’re having a shutdown because of me, they’re free to enter my office and negotiate. Because what we’re not gonna do is allow all of, of millions of people in this country to not be able to afford their insulin and chemotherapy.”
To say Trump decided one day he wants to make sure that kids are dying because they don’t have access to insurance isn’t just dishonest — it’s slander. No president, Republican or Democrat, has the power to personally decide who receives cancer treatment. Healthcare access is determined by law: Medicaid, Medicare, CHIP, the ACA, private insurance, and hospital mandates that guarantee emergency care regardless of coverage. Even under Republican reforms, Medicare and Medicaid spending continues to rise every year — it just grows more slowly than Democrats want.
AOC’s “4 million uninsured” claim is exaggerated because it ignores context. That number comes from speculative projections based on policy assumptions, not hard fact. And even when children don’t have traditional insurance, there are still multiple safeguards in place: Medicaid and CHIP (which cover millions of children, often even when their parents don’t qualify), EMTALA (which requires hospitals to provide emergency care regardless of insurance status), hospital charity care and financial assistance programs, community health centers, and state programs or nonprofit foundations that help kids access lifesaving treatments like chemotherapy and insulin. Even with Republican reforms, funding for programs like community health centers is debated — but they are not being eliminated. By ignoring these realities, AOC inflates the number into a crisis and then weaponizes it to accuse Trump of wanting children to die — a baseless and slanderous charge.
At the end of the day, Democrats lean on fear and slander to paint Republicans as villains while crowning themselves as saviors. What they don’t want to discuss is the billions they steer toward illegal immigrant programs instead of directing those funds toward lowering drug prices, cutting coverage costs, and strengthening healthcare for Americans — including the very cancer treatments AOC invoked as a scare line.
AOC isn’t defending sick kids — she’s exploiting them to slander Trump and score political points.