Paul Krugman writes:
The truth is that given the state of American politics, the way the Senate works is no longer consistent with a functioning government. Senators themselves should recognize this fact and push through changes in those rules, including eliminating or at least limiting the filibuster. This is something they could and should do, by majority vote, on the first day of the next Senate session.
Don’t hold your breath. As it is, Democrats don’t even seem able to score political points by highlighting their opponents’ obstructionism.
It should be a simple message (and it should have been the central message in Massachusetts): a vote for a Republican, no matter what you think of him as a person, is a vote for paralysis.
Actually, I think that this was the central Republican message in Massachusetts.
Dave N. says:
Of course, Krugman is a) playing to the cheap seats in the Olbermann wing of the Democratic Party; and b) never going to run for office himself. He will just opine and criticize.
Before people jump in, yes, I know he has a Nobel in Economics. I even agree it is worth a bit more than the President’s Nobel in Peace. But when he’s talking politics (and even economics outside his area of expertise), he’s a political hack.
February 8, 2010, 6:06 pmPhatty says:
Bingo! The Democrats in power can’t grasp the concept that many people don’t want anything to happen in D.C. Everything that Congress touches gets screwed up, so the less they do, the better. If a politician campaigns on a promise to vote “No” on every bill, I would vote for him in a heartbeat.
I once heard a guy mention (while arguing that there were too many laws on the books) that a good rule would be to require Congress to repeal two old laws every time they passed a new law.
February 8, 2010, 6:07 pmThe Rich Wasp says:
Given the Health Care Reform Proposal, the misnamed Employee Free Choice Act and Cap and Trade proposals, paralysis sounds good to me. Perhaps I should write Paul Krugman and thank him for helping solidify my decision to vote Republican.
February 8, 2010, 6:12 pmYYY says:
“It should be noted at the outset that American politics is designed to produce gridlock. The governmental structure was carefully calibrated to thwart grand, ambitious programs like Obama’s socialist remolding of America; the founders deliberately shackled government by pitting interest against interest. Obama does not accept that, and so he despises the American system of republicanism. He acknowledged that political debate is deeply entrenched: “These disagreements, about the role of government in our lives, about our national priorities and our national security, they’ve been taking place for over 200 years. They’re the very essence of democracy.” Then he dismissed the very essence of democracy in a single stroke: “But we still need to govern.”
Obama’s alternative is government as a single blunt instrument wielded by him. “What the American people hope — what they deserve — is for us … to overcome the numbing weight of our politics … it’s time the American people get a government that matches their decency; that embodies their strength.” This is 100 percent wrong. The American government is designed to be limited precisely so that the individual decency and strength of Americans can be unleashed. The government does not embody us — it serves us. ” – Unix-Jedi
February 8, 2010, 6:15 pmB.D. says:
There’s something distressingly . . . I don’t know . . . fascistic about trying to bully principled opponents into supporting the ruling party’s agenda by labeling them “the party of No.” I hate to throw out that word, but it’s at the very least an authoritarian impulse.
As much as I dislike the way our current healthcare system operates, I’d rather we have “paralysis” in the political process than pass legislation that will make it worse. “Moving forward” or “progress” is not always preferable.
February 8, 2010, 6:18 pmeyesay says:
Phatty wrote, “The Democrats in power can’t grasp the concept that many people don’t want anything to happen in D.C.” The Democrats certainly do grasp that “many people” don’t want anything to happen, but the Republicans either don’t grasp that most Americans do want health care reform to go forward, or more cynically, realize that if the Republicans don’t stop it, Americans will rightly give most of the credit to the Democrats for something that will be popular, but if Republicans stop it, A lot of Americans will be too stupid to blame the Republicans for stopping it, and instead blame the Democrats for failing to accomplish what Democrats support unanimously in the Senate, but haven’t passed due to Republican obstructionism.
February 8, 2010, 6:26 pmArrowSmith says:
Yay for paralysis of Fabian-socialism. I want more GOP obstructionism!
February 8, 2010, 6:27 pmeyesay says:
Of course, Dave N. is a) playing to the cheap seats in the Volokh wing of the blogosphere; and b) never going to run for office himself. He will just opine and criticize.
February 8, 2010, 6:28 pmArrowSmith says:
Maybe the Democrats should try for something that the public can get behind, like insurance vouchers for the uninsured instead of this latest attempt to sneak Single-Payer through the back door. The public is a lot smarter then you guys give them credit for!
February 8, 2010, 6:28 pmTrue dat says:
Throwing around the word “fascistic” when attacking a political talking point (such as calling the opposition party the “Party of No”) seems a bit extreme and probably hypocritical if any one doing so fully supported the Bush Administration’s extreme expansion of executive power under their Unitary Executive theory, and other “fascistic” extensions of executive power like the Patriot Act, etc.
February 8, 2010, 6:32 pm11-B.2O/B4 says:
I, for one, generally vote for paralysis. My fondest hope is that one day I will see a government so hopelessly divided they can’t even pay themselves. If it ever happens, I will celebrate with champagne.
And monkeys.
February 8, 2010, 6:33 pmDana White says:
You must have attended the Robert Gibb’s school of political science: to wit, those voting for Scott Brown were really voting for Obamacare.
February 8, 2010, 6:34 pmDave N. says:
Eyesay,
You do not know me. I blog semi-anonymously. I was making two simple observations. You snidely suggest I have the same motivation as Krugman. With respect to your second point, I will note that I am a candidate for political office this year, TYVM.
February 8, 2010, 6:34 pmArrowSmith says:
You assume you will be able to afford champagne by then. Most likely you(and the rest of us) will be receiving our Soylent Green rations.
February 8, 2010, 6:38 pmB.D. says:
OK, you don’t understand my point. That’s fine. But please don’t make assumptions about me.
I used the word fascistic to describe the mentality that so many on the left, including Krugman, have adopted with respect to the Republican opposition. It’s fine and dandy to explain why your side is right on the issues. But that’s totally different than appealing to the other side to roll over for the sake of “progress.”
February 8, 2010, 6:38 pmShelbyC says:
You don’t hear many stories about republicans going to their leadership and saying, “Look, you gotta let me support health care. The phone calls, the letters… my constitutients are demanding I support it. I’m sorry, I’m just going to have to break ranks on this one”. Democrats, on the other hand…
February 8, 2010, 6:39 pm1040 says:
Ummm… then don’t. Nobody’s, well, forcing you to do it, you know?
February 8, 2010, 6:40 pmRelic says:
True dat:
Fascist fits where fascist fits. It’s not hypocritical to point out that a given impulse is fascist or totalitarian in nature even if you support a fascistic or totalitarian program in another area (I don’t think that much, if any, of Bush’s decisions up till TARP can be described this way, though).
February 8, 2010, 6:40 pm1040 says:
you’re right. tort reform is what america needs most now to prevent health care from breaking the bank :) that and shutting down the death panels.
February 8, 2010, 6:42 pmeyesay says:
YYY wrote, “The governmental structure was carefully calibrated to thwart grand, ambitious programs like Obama’s socialist remolding of America.” Please give details on that socialist remodeling of America. Where are the plans for the soviet worker councils? Oh, by socialist remodeling of America, did you mean temporary government support for General Motors, which is not very different from the 1979 loan guarantees for Chrysler that saved the company and never cost the taxpayers a cent? Anyway, Obama’s action toward GM was made necessary by the Republican recession of 2007-09, which is not over yet.
Or maybe you were referring to Obama’s support for national health care, like the socialist countries Taiwan and Canada have. In fact, every industrialized democracy in the world has national health care, so are they all socialist? Please give more details on Obama plan to turn the United States into a worker’s paradise. Inquiring minds want to know.
February 8, 2010, 6:42 pmricky says:
“A vote for the Social Democratic Party of Germany, no matter what you think of them, is a vote for paralysis”
February 8, 2010, 6:44 pm-Joseph Goebbels
eyesay says:
Dana White wrote, “You must have attended the Robert Gibb’s school of political science: to wit, those voting for Scott Brown were really voting for Obamacare.” Uh, haven’t you read the polls? Most voters in Massachusetts, including Republicans and including Scott Brown voters, favor the state’s health care program, which is fairly similar to the bills passed by the House and Senate.
February 8, 2010, 6:46 pmlgm says:
I interpreted the Krugman column differently. He wasn’t just complaining about paralyzing health care reform. He was talking about Republicans preventing the Senate from getting its routine business done. Senate Democrats had to overcome a Republican filibuster to raise the debt ceiling, without which the government would shut down. That will be impossible now that Republicans have a 41 to 59 majority.
Maybe the minority should be able to hold up the majority on occasional items. But they shouldn’t hold up the majority on everything.
February 8, 2010, 6:46 pmMatt W. says:
Could is be possible that a party hypothetically could be a Party of No?
The way I see it, there are two proper responses by the party in opposition to legislation.
1. There is no problem
2. There is a problem, and here we have written up an alternative piece of legislation that fixes it properly.
So far, I have seen neither coming from the GOP. But maybe I havent heard the latest from their camp w/r/t their proposals (not being sarcastic).
But to my main point: If they neither deny a problem exists, nor propose REAL alternatives to fixing the problem, then would you call that party an obstructionist party?
February 8, 2010, 6:47 pmeyesay says:
Dave N.: Sorry for my false assumption. Good luck on your campaign!
February 8, 2010, 6:47 pmB.D. says:
I hate to throw it out because it’s a highly charged, yet commonly misunderstood, word. I can’t think of a better word to describe this mentality, though.
February 8, 2010, 6:47 pmDjDiverDan says:
Sure, I, too would like to see health care REFORM go forward. Just what does that have to do with ANYTHING likely to come out of the Democrat-controlled Congress, the Democrat-controlled Senate, or anyone in the Obama Administration?
Do you honestly think that if they call a bill “reform” often enough, that will make it so? The whole point of the Obama-led “Health Care Reform [sic]” is to (a) require everyone to buy insurance (thus vastly expanding demand for health insurance); and (b) make every insurer cover every ill, with no exception for pre-existing conditions (thus significantly increasing the costs to provide insurance), and so (as if by magic), (c) make health insurance cheaper. Does anyone here with even a passing familiarity with the law of supply and demand see the flaw in this logic? You don’t want Obama as President, you want Harry Potter. If that works to “reform” health care, Congress’ next step should be to make it easier for NASA to send men to the moon by repealing the law of gravity.
February 8, 2010, 6:48 pmmadawaskan says:
Krugman is the same guy that wrote that a $500 billion dollar deficit under Bush was ‘the great unraveling”, now when the deficit is talked about in the trillions rather than billions -he turns into Bob Marley-
“Don’t worry!”.
Add to the irony the cover of his book ” The Great Unraveling” includes as an advertisement-only one quote from one person-
“Paul Krugman is a hero of mine. Read his book.”-Al Franken
Link to cover art
February 8, 2010, 6:49 pmricky says:
“But to my main point: If they neither deny a problem exists, nor propose REAL alternatives to fixing the problem, then would you call that party an obstructionist party?”
Now ask yourself this: “Why haven’t I heard about any of the alternative solutions that have been proposed?”
February 8, 2010, 6:51 pmmadawaskan says:
Do I really need to say more?
February 8, 2010, 6:51 pmG. May says:
I find it intriguing that until the election of Senator Brown, the “no” that these Republicans had in their arsenal didn’t have the power to “obstruct” jack squat. I guess the people who have been tossing out the word “obstructionsism” with such reckless abandon are grateful their use of the word is now legitimized.
It’s probably just wishful thinking to hope that these same folks will quit using “no” as a pejorative.
February 8, 2010, 6:53 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
eyesay,
[M]ost Americans do want health care reform to go forward[.]
If you mean that “most Americans” would like more people to be insured, and want their own premiums to go down (or at least not rise quite so rapidly), well, of course they do. If you mean that “most Americans” positively want the Senate or House bills, or some amalgam of the two, to be passed, permit me to doubt it.
February 8, 2010, 6:56 pmeyesay says:
To those who accuse Krugman of being “a political hack” and being “fascistic,” I think you need to read the referenced column America Is Not Yet Lost (New York Times, Feb. 7) again. He criticized Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) for having placed 70 holds.
The Senate conducts much of its business by unanimous consent. A senator withholds consent by placing a hold. The hold is supposed to be because the senator wants more information about the issue, not because the senator wants pork-barrel projects to benefit his or her own state. Shelby has not stated his issues supporting these 70 holds. In fact, he doesn’t have any and he has admitted as such. The only purpose of these holds is to blackmail 98 senators who represent states other than Alabama to give him something that Alabama does not deserve to receive, at least not by blackmail.
Krugman is right. Shelby’s action is utterly unjustifiable and should be roundly condemned by his own party’s leadership.
February 8, 2010, 7:01 pmjstar says:
Matt W.-
There’s at least a third proper response, but it’s a bit more meta.
3) Is this problem something that’s properly within the scope of our jurisdiction/responsibility to address?
I can think of lots of issues off the top of my head that are legitimate problems (and I think you can, too), but that aren’t any business of our national Legislative Body.
February 8, 2010, 7:06 pmAlanW says:
While I think political paralysis is generally underrated, I don’t believe for a second that voters will actually reward it if the country’s state continues to deteriorate. I think voters want to see politicians do things, but they have conflicting impulses between the deficit, the economy, the wars, and on and on. Whether the federal government can or should do anything about any of that usually doesn’t enter into it.
Yeah, voters in Massachussetts didn’t like the health care plan, but they don’t want their (similar) plan to go away. Cynical? Nah, just self-interested.
I don’t think there’s any message in any of this except people will vote against the party in power when the economy sucks. Reading more into it is just wishful thinking.
February 8, 2010, 7:09 pmDave N. says:
eyesay,
I actually agree that there is no justification for Senator Shelby’s holds on all pending Obama nominations.
February 8, 2010, 7:13 pmA. Zarkov says:
Strictly speaking he does not have a “Nobel” in economics. There is no Nobel prize for economics. Circa 1969 the Bank of Sweden created the prize in economic sciences in honor of Alfred Nobel. They bribed the Swedish Academy to administer the prize for them. If being administered by the Swedish Academy is the whole of the reason the real Nobel Prize is prestigious, then we should call the the award something like, “The Royal Swedish Academy Prize” in Physics etc. Moreover this fake prize has been awarded for work that’s demonstrably wrong like the Capital Asset Pricing Model. It’s been awarded for unoriginal work like the Black-Scholes Option pricing formula. Edward O. Thorp derived the same formula in the 1960s along with option pricing theory. The really original work was done by Louis Bachelier circa 1900.
February 8, 2010, 7:14 pmbyomtov says:
Michelle Dulak Thomson,
If you mean that “most Americans” would like more people to be insured, and want their own premiums to go down (or at least not rise quite so rapidly), well, of course they do. If you mean that “most Americans” positively want the Senate or House bills, or some amalgam of the two, to be passed, permit me to doubt it.
Unfortunately, getting more people insured involves doing more than just saying so. The bills in Congress may not be perfect, but they are not socialized medicine, or a government takeover, or anything of the sort. They are, basically, an attempt to deal with issues that arise when you try to get broad coverage.
While there may be grounds for criticism, much of the opposition stems from wild misrepresentation and exaggeration.
Instead of asking Americans whether they like the bills, let’s ask them whether they would like insurance to be available at reasonable rates regardless of pre-existing conditions, etc. Then ask whether you should be able to buy insurance on the way to the hospital. I wonder what answers you’d get.
February 8, 2010, 7:14 pmorca says:
The Dems just need to play hardball and cut off all the pork Alabama wallows in…I’m sure they’ll get there shortly.
February 8, 2010, 7:15 pmeyesay says:
G. May wrote,
After the 2008 election, the House rapidly passed a series of bills favored by Democrats, but the Senate did not pass most of these, because with only 58 Democratic seats, and with Obama committed to bipartisanship and compromise, Republicans were successful in filibustering most of the Democrats’ agenda in the Senate. On April 28, 2009, Arlen Specter joined the Democratic party, which brought the Democrats to 59 seats. Due to Norm Coleman’s lawsuits dragging on for over 8 months, the Democrats did not have a 60-vote majority until Al Franken was sworn in on July 7, 2009. Even with a 60-vote majority, Republican senators continued to use every method at their disposal to delay the Democrats’ agenda, which is why the Senate didn’t get a health care bill passed all summer long. So, yes, G. May the “no” that these Republicans had in their arsenal did have the power to “obstruct” just about the entire Democratic Party agenda.
February 8, 2010, 7:16 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
eyesay,
The only purpose of these holds is to blackmail 98 senators who represent states other than Alabama to give him something that Alabama does not deserve to receive, at least not by blackmail.
My outrage about Shelby is tempered a little by my knowledge of the bribes members of the Democratic Senate caucus have already demanded and received for their own support of the health care bill. When the majority party has to hand out constituent-candy even to get its own members’ votes, it’s not altogether bizarre that members of the minority party want in on the action. It’s an unseemly spectacle, but then so is practically everything that happens in D.C.
February 8, 2010, 7:17 pmPhatty says:
Isn’t that a fairly good argument for allowing states that want to implement a health care program to do it themselves? And, if Massachusetts voters were against national health care because they already had a state health care plan in place, why were state politicians like the late Ted Kennedy pushing so hard for national health care if it wasn’t going to provide any benefit for the citizens of Massachusetts?
February 8, 2010, 7:18 pmHary Schell says:
I will jazz my SG rations up with some Tabasco held in reserve just for the occasion! Much easier to carry and conceal than champagne. A guy has to have something to live for…
And I doubt Mass voters favor their healthcare scheme, or Teddy or Bawny or Lurch would have bargained to exclude Mass from the national disgrace. Indeed, the only thing that will save the Mass plan is a national plan of the same ilk. The state will go Tango Uniform financially in a few years, and voters (I live in CA) are getting fed up with that kind of stuff. Even some of the real loons are pinching themselves.
February 8, 2010, 7:28 pmPhatty says:
You’d have to be drinking a huge amount of Kool-Aid to believe that load of B.S. There was massive in-fighting going on in the party that delayed the health care bill. Large differences of opinions between Democrats (with large egos) in the House and Senate led to a power-struggle and showdown within the party. Whenever there is a giant bill pending, all of the legislators start licking their chops at the opportunity to slip in provisions favorable to themselves and their constituents. Add to that the handful of Democrats that saw an oppoturnity for a big payday if they held out, and the bill never had a chance to pass quickly.
February 8, 2010, 7:30 pmI honestly believe the fact that the Democrats gained the 60th vote in the Senate is what doomed the bill. Once they got that filibuster-proof vote, they got greedy. I think, at that point, Obama said, “Screw the Repubs. We don’t need them any longer so keep them completely out of this.” Instead of being forced to craft a compromise bill, they had everybody in their own party shooting for the moon.
Michelle Dulak Thomson says:
byomtov,
Instead of asking Americans whether they like the bills, let’s ask them whether they would like insurance to be available at reasonable rates regardless of pre-existing conditions, etc. Then ask whether you should be able to buy insurance on the way to the hospital. I wonder what answers you’d get.
I do too. It’s pretty much what HRC was asking Obama during the primaries, when she was for purchase mandates and he was against.
Suppose there were a mandate for high-deductible catastrophic coverage (or, what comes to much the same thing, a catchall Federal insurance program for medical expenses over some percentage of AGI, as Megan McArdle was just arguing for over at The Atlantic), and otherwise everyone paid for their own medical expenses? I really don’t see the downside, apart from maybe the coverage of expensive but chronic conditions. What people generally buy insurance for is to avoid crushing, sudden expenses. Let’s make sure everyone is shielded from those first.
February 8, 2010, 7:32 pmCaptain Carrot says:
And the Godwin’s Law Award goes to… ricky! An honorable mention to B.D. for invocation of the term “fascistic,” but unfortunately that’s just short of making it across the finish line.
A word of advice for my fellow VC commenters. If you wish to convey to others that you are more interested in right-wing partisanship than intelligent debate, please continue using terms like “Obamacare” and “Democrat Party” (instead of “Democratic Party”). This is a time-saving way for informed persons to quickly surmise whether you have anything valuable to contribute.
February 8, 2010, 7:35 pmh2u says:
“Obamacare” is a widely used term, Captain Carrot. Here‘s a link to TIME using it — and I hardly think that publication exemplifies right-wing partisanship.
And using “Democrat party” as opposed to “Democratic party” is hardly reason to devalue the remarks of a commenter. It’s not exactly unfair to use a subtle omission to ridicule a party that, to be perfectly honest, has been acting rather ridiculous.
February 8, 2010, 7:56 pmCato The Elder says:
Ah, more “false consciousness” and “what’s the matter with Kansas??!”-type arguments. As a GOP supporter, I’m loving it, as it means your mistakes still haven’t sunk in yet and we’re guaranteed a hefty bounty in the fall. But I’m sure your very pithy inner monologue trumps the voters’ basic understanding that one cannot increase demand with constrained supply and end up with lower prices and equivalent quality.
February 8, 2010, 7:57 pmCato The Elder says:
Here’s something popular the Democrats could have employed to bolster support for the all-so-important health care bill: Voting for the Deal Amendment that would have explicitly prevented federal health-care dollars from going to illegal immigrants. It would have been an immensely popular addition, I can assure you. But they didn’t, because their ideology is one of identity politics and corporatism, none of which benefit the White middle class — the 800-pound gorilla of our electorate. Looks to me like they obstructed themselves.
February 8, 2010, 8:03 pmeyesay says:
A. Zarkov wrote, “Moreover this fake prize has been awarded for work that’s demonstrably wrong like the Capital Asset Pricing Model.” CAPM is not intended to be an airtight formula like Sir Isaac Newton’s F=MA (force = mass times acceleration). It is intended to be exactly that — a model — and as such, it is useful for modeling a variety of situations.
A. Zarkov wrote, “It’s been awarded for unoriginal work like the Black-Scholes Option pricing formula. Edward O. Thorp derived the same formula in the 1960s along with option pricing theory. The really original work was done by Louis Bachelier circa 1900.”
Please explain why every academic paper relating to options pricing cites …
Black, F., and Scholes M. (1973), “The Pricing of Options and Corporate Liabilities,” Journal of Political Economy, 81, no. 3, 637-654.
… and not the Edward O. Thorp paper or the Louis Bachelier paper. And please explain why options traders and market-makers prior to 1973 were clamoring for a workable model to value options. While you’re about it please provide citations for the Thorp and Bachelier papers that showed how to value options.
February 8, 2010, 8:04 pmgeokstr says:
Because as usual, leftists ignore, dismiss or ridicule proposals from the other side of the aisle. A very quick google for “republican health care reform” turns up tons of links. Here’s one from that notorious right wing cable outlet, CNN, in June of last year:
House GOP outlines health care bill
Not only were there a number of GOP health plans, but they offered lots of common sense amendments to the Dems plans, all of which were voted down in party line votes, mostly at the committee level, including putting in explicit language that neither abortions nor illegals would be covered by the D’s plan, both promised in TV speeches by Obama himself.
You know, there’s a reason that lots of major legislation got passed in the Bush era, even though he never had even close to veto-proof majority. That’s because he proposed or supported lots of policies that the Dems loved: S-CHIP, No Child Left Behind, McCain-Feingold, Prescription Drug coverage, etc. He even supported amnesty for illegals. All of these had major compromise with the Democrats in them.
But it’s only called bi-partisan now if the R’s are totally willing to abandon principle and swallow whatever the D’s propose. When the Dems refuse to even offer fig leaves to the R’s, and the R’s refuse to capitulate, they are labelled obstructionists.
Nice when you control the definitions of words. NewSpeak is double plus good at getting the sheep to take part in the two minute hate drill against whoever you’ve chosen to be the Emmanual Goldstein on a given issue. Then the doublethink doesn’t result in so much cognitive dissonance.
The only thing Orwell got wrong was the year.
February 8, 2010, 8:07 pmbyomtov says:
Michelle Dulak Thomson,
Suppose there were a mandate for high-deductible catastrophic coverage (or, what comes to much the same thing, a catchall Federal insurance program for medical expenses over some percentage of AGI, as Megan McArdle was just arguing for over at The Atlantic), and otherwise everyone paid for their own medical expenses? I really don’t see the downside, apart from maybe the coverage of expensive but chronic conditions. What people generally buy insurance for is to avoid crushing, sudden expenses. Let’s make sure everyone is shielded from those first.
That depends on a lot of things, like what percentage of AGI you’re talking about, to start with. At some point that looks like an ordinary plan with an ordinary set of deductibles and copays.
Also, what’s a catastrophic to some people isn’t to others. I guess that’s why she advocates using a % of AGI, though I have my doubts as to how well that addresses the problem. Further complications arise when people stint on preventive care, etc.
Expensive chronic conditions are probably common enough not to be shrugged off. Even cancer can fall into this category over some period of time. I’ve known several people who died of cancer, but after a few years of treatment. (And the treatment was far from worthless, BTW. I’m not talking about being bedridden with tubes, etc., but about leading a not-too-far-from normal life in between hopsital visits, etc.) So a crushing expense can come all at once or be stretched out over many months. It’s crushing all the same.
Anyway, it’s not clear what the arguments for such a scheme are. Maybe it would reduce medical costs somewhat, as people might be a little more reluctant to go the doctor for minor matters. That can backfire, of course. And I suspect administrative costs would be reduced a bit also, since some paperwork would be eliminated.
I do agree that we need to pay attention to coverage levels and deductibles, etc., and it’s possible to overdo things (I have an HSA myself). The devil is in the details.
February 8, 2010, 8:08 pmAnonymous says:
It’s not fascism, it’s just a series of bills increasing the levels of mandatory wealth redistribution in order to maintain our most important state-invested industries, like medicine, banking, agriculture, automobile manufacturing, and professional licensing.
February 8, 2010, 8:10 pmeyesay says:
Michelle Dulak Thomson: Your point is interesting, but catastrophe coverage alone is not sufficient. In addition to catastrophe coverage, we need to provide health coverage for people who can’t afford even non-catastrophe medical care. That is why comprehensive care is the only way to go.
February 8, 2010, 8:13 pmMark Field says:
Let’s see if I understand this post and the comments which follow:
1. Paul Krugman is a hack because
2. He pointed out what Congressional Republicans are doing, and
3. The conservatives and libertarians in this thread think it’s a good thing the Republicans are doing what Krugman is a hack for pointing out.
February 8, 2010, 8:23 pmeyesay says:
Mark Field wins the thread.
February 8, 2010, 8:27 pmjccamp says:
“I think that this was the central Republican message in Massachusetts…”
A feature, not a bug? OK. Sounds right.
And in his usual pithy analysis, Krugman does manage to trivialize several hundred years of Polish history into “The legislators did it!” Forget Sweden & Russia, religion, geography even…
February 8, 2010, 8:31 pmDave N. says:
Mark Field,
I am the one who called Paul Krugman a hack (in the very first comment no less). However, I consider him a hack not for this particular article, but rather because of a pattern I have seen in his writing going on for several years now.
February 8, 2010, 8:32 pmLindsey Abelard says:
Krugman wants the U.S. to pursue the same disastrous fiscal stimulus policies that Japan pursued in the 90′s. Ones that have resulted in Japan having a government deficit of nearly 200% of their GNP.
Way to go, Krugman!
Remind me why anyone still listens to this hack.
February 8, 2010, 8:39 pmMike S. says:
One reason the Founders made it difficult to pass sweeping federal laws was the fear that those in power would use that power to further their interests or those of well-connected insiders rather than in the interest of the citizenry who sent them. Now look at some of the early moves of the Obama administration: appointing people with colossal tax problems to high posts, handing two automakers over to the UAW pension funds in sweetheart deals, canceling a voucher program in DC popular with everyone but the teachers’ unions, giving themselves waivers from their own policy to appoint lobbyists to federal positions, and all the deals with special interests and states with holdout senators to get votes on health care. Does all that insider dealing have nothing to do with people’s reluctance to trust the government on the health care bill? Even people who recognize that the status quo is intolerable? The Democrats have no one to blame but themselves for losing public support.
February 8, 2010, 8:40 pmDavid McCourt says:
“a vote for a Republican, no matter what you think of him as a person, is a vote for paralysis.” You mean, when the candidate runs on a pledge to be the “41st Senator” opposing something, that a vote for him is a vote opposing that something? Ya think? I can see why Krugman wins prizes.
That little “whatever you think of him as a person” by Krugman is a nice touch, but we know what Krugman thinks of Republicans, at least the 168 House Republicans who, along with 44 Democrats, refused to swear allegiance to the IPCC propaganda machine: they’re traitors. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/opinion/29krugman.html?scp=3&sq=betraying&st=nyt
Captain Carrot, does calling your opponents traitors qualify as “intelligent debate” only when Krugman does it, or are there others with a similar dispenation from you? And are Republican partisans the only ones convicted in your Captain Kangeroo court? Or perhaps I misjudge you, and you have even-handedly surmised from Krugman’s rhetorical excesses — those who oppose the Democrat’s healthcare legislation must be racists and “birthers,” etc., etc. — that he too is a person with nothing “valuable to contribute.”
Forget a Nobel. Being called a traitor by the likes of Krugman is, as Victor Laszlo says, “honor enough for a lifetime.”
February 8, 2010, 8:52 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
byomtov,
Yes, of course, there are all sorts of complications that would need fleshing out. The point is, though, that the Congressional bills are far away from such an approach, and indeed make some high-deductible catastrophic plans (that real people hold now) illegal.
What are the benefits? Well, you mentioned them. People don’t treat doctor visits, prescriptions, &c. as “free” if they have to pay for them personally. And you don’t have minor, everyday medical expenses, no matter how small, routed from patient through patient’s insurer through to provider.
A major benefit, so far as I am concerned, is that “health insurance” becomes like everything else we call “insurance” — a hedge against disaster, rather than the equivalent of a university dormitory’s meal card.
February 8, 2010, 9:03 pmOhio Lawyer says:
Krugman was an advisor to Enron. How bright can he be?
February 8, 2010, 9:09 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
eyesay,
Michelle Dulak Thomson: Your point is interesting, but catastrophe coverage alone is not sufficient. In addition to catastrophe coverage, we need to provide health coverage for people who can’t afford even non-catastrophe medical care.
You mean, like Medicaid?
One reason everyday health care is so expensive is precisely that it’s lumped in with catastrophic care. Disconnect the two and, for one thing, we’ll have a better idea what the respective expenses are. You can’t really make emergency care “competitive” — once you’re in an ambulance, you generally don’t have much say in where you’re going, even if conscious — but low-level medical advice and services are another matter. (Which is why every time I read an article about Wal-Mart’s clinics, or similar ventures, from the left perspective it’s harshly negative; if for-profit [!] ventures can provide cheap, reliable medical care for ordinary purposes, some of the fierce moral urgency leaks out of the balloon.)
February 8, 2010, 9:14 pmEMB says:
Huh? When in Scott Brown’s campaign did he say he wanted to paralyze Washington? He was very strongly opposed to the health care bill as it stood at the time and made it clear he intended to stop it, but he also made specific campaign promises to support other parts of the democrats’ agenda (e.g. reform of financial regulation).
It’ll be interesting to see what Brown’s position ends up being on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, as he essentially refused to express an opinion about it on the campaign trail.
February 8, 2010, 9:18 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
byomtov,
Forgot to add, re “stinting on preventive care”: I don’t think people, by and large, are affected by monetary expense here nearly as much as by other considerations.
If my doctor tells me that I need to lose weight, and prescribes diet and exercise, what are my actual costs? There’s the cost of the doctor visit, of course; there are the costs of any dietary change (though if all s/he recommends is less of whatever I already eat, the change ought to save me money) … and that’s really it, presuming that I’m willing to walk or jog or run in place or do jumping jacks. It might be hard to work yourself into a good sweat and raise your heart rate for an hour or so, but it isn’t actually expensive.
On the other hand … I have to go visit the doctor in the first place, which is going to cost me an hour or two, some hassle, and likely some unpleasantly frank conversation. I have to exercise, which is presumably going to cost me several hours weekly however I go about it. I need to mess around with my eating arrangements, which might be settled and habitual and comfortable. And I will probably have to resign myself to feeling a bit hungry most of the time, which is not fun.
I really don’t think the doctor-visit copay is the determining negative here.
February 8, 2010, 9:27 pmRicardo says:
First, you would benefit from reading Krugman’s writings on Japan at the time when it was in the midst of its recession. Then, read what he is advocating the U.S. do today and what he is criticizing it for not doing.
February 8, 2010, 9:29 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
For those willing to tolerate some harsh language and the odd typo, The Angry Pharmacist has a recent rant about the consequences of zero copays.
February 8, 2010, 9:37 pmRicardo says:
Medicaid has strict income eligibility requirements. If you have a chronic condition that requires you spend, say, $600 per month on medicine and you don’t have insurance, you have to wait until you are sufficiently impoverished for Medicaid to kick in.
On routine versus emergency care, routine care is simply a relatively small slice of total health costs. I have no problem with anyone trying to make routine care cheaper and more affordable but let’s stop pretending that’s at the heart of the health care cost problem. Most health spending is for chronic conditions or for emergency care. The former obviously cannot be insured against once you develop the condition. Since not everyone holds insurance all the time, anyone who develops a serious chronic condition becomes uninsurable and is stuck with astronomical health care bills.
As for emergency care, not everyone is able to secure catastrophic insurance. Catastrophic insurance tends to be expensive precisely because of the adverse selection problem and gets very expensive once you get to the age range of 50-65 — too old to be considered young and healthy but too young to get Medicare. Moreover, if you have any pre-existing condition or more than a minor negative mark on your medical record, it can be between difficult to impossible to secure even minimal catastrophic insurance. The government already effectively insures emergency care by subsidizing emergency rooms with billions of dollars every year to pay for care that patients themselves could not.
February 8, 2010, 9:39 pmbyomtov says:
Michelle Dulak Thomson,
(May I call you MDT for simplicity?)
People don’t treat doctor visits, prescriptions, &c. as “free” if they have to pay for them personally.
But there’s a limit to that effect. If the deductible is so low that you know you’re going to hit it, then they are “free.” And once you’ve hit it there’s no doubt. And of course ordinary plans have some expense-sharing also. So I wouldn’t expect a huge benefit from that, and there would clearly be some downside in terms of less preventive care.
BTW, if I were a conservative I would be a bit cautious about claiming administrative savings from my proposals. Having multiple insurers drives these costs up tremendously (and I base this on actual experience and what actual doctors say.)
It’s tricky. My plan, for example, despite being high-deductible, covers an annual physical and eye exam, as well as immunizations. So the insurance company thinks there is some value there.
I suspect that once you sort everything out a mandatory “catastrophic” plan that makes sense for most people is not going to look radically different from an ordinary policy.
February 8, 2010, 9:40 pmUnderdog says:
Before claiming that “a vote for a Republican … is a vote for paralysis,” the Democratics need to answer why Obama and their Congress are unable to move an agenda with the largest Congressional majority in decades. Why are they so much different than previous congresses?
The hated Bush and his predecessors managed to pass more, with fewer numbers. While it may be satisfying to blame Republican “obstructionism”, many of the members are the same ones who crossed lines (in both directions) in the past in order to pass legislation. Why won’t they now?
“Paralysis” in government is a function of both sides, and Democratics need to look to their agenda before they start trying to recast borderline Repubs as Atilla-the-Hun types.
Krugman is a “hack” for offering political cant and invective instead of sober commentary. His column is no better than if Coulter were to write that a vote for a Democrat is a a vote for a fascist police state. Satisfying to their fringe supporters, but worthless as analysis.
February 8, 2010, 9:41 pmA. Zarkov says:
They cite that paper because Thorp did not publish his work. He used the formula in his own proprietary codes he used for trading. You can find the story in the book by Poundstone Fortune’s Formula. Taleb has also written about the Black-Scholes formula here. From the abstract.
The Bachelier paper was unknown until Samuelson found it in a Paris library. You can find a translation of Bachelier’s thesis in the book The Random Character of Stock Market Prices. Note the date, 1964. Black and Scholes did’nt copy that work, they just didn’t know about it. Thorp also published most of the theory in his 1968 book Beat the Market, but that was about warrants not options, nevertheless the theory is similar and he provided the essentials of the argument B-S used.
The B-S formula is not all that useful for actual trading because you have to input the future volatility which you don’t know. The formula essentially is a re-expression of volatility. Not only that the formula doesn’t even really work in practice because of something called volatility smile. The B-S formula assumes a Gaussian random walk (in the log domain). With Thorp you can use other distributions.
No one is his right mind invests using the CAPM. In 1992 Fama and French published their famous paper showing the size effect which invalidates the original CAPM that won that prize. Just recently Falkenstein showed that expected return is not proportional to risk. The theory works only at the low end. Really risky stuff has a lower return. See his book Finding Alpha. It’s not that the CAPM is almost correct, it’s completely wrong.
February 8, 2010, 9:41 pmBrett Bellmore says:
I wish I had half as much confidence in the GOP as Krugman does.
February 8, 2010, 9:46 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
byomtov,
“MDT” is fine. And the fact that I actually shop rather a lot at MDT is, I assure you, purely coincidental.
But there’s a limit to that effect. If the deductible is so low that you know you’re going to hit it, then they are “free.” And once you’ve hit it there’s no doubt.
But I was talking about high-deductible plans, not low. The assumption is that you pay for your own care until you hit some ceiling, probably in four figures if the existing plans I know about are any guide.
Sure, once you hit the deductible ceiling, you’re on “free.” But you’ve also spent several thousand dollars out of pocket. Very few people are going to do that unless they really need the care (or, of course, have a compliant prescriber and a thriving private market in Oxy — but let’s not go there.)
February 8, 2010, 9:49 pmKrugman says, “a vote for a Republican, no matter what you think of him as a person, is a vote for paralysis”: | Liberal Whoppers says:
[...] here: Krugman says, “a vote for a Republican, no matter what you think of him as a person, is a vote for… [...]
February 8, 2010, 10:10 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Ricardo,
eyesay wrote,
we need to provide health coverage for people who can’t afford even non-catastrophe medical care.
And I wrote,
You mean, like Medicaid?
And you:
Medicaid has strict income eligibility requirements. If you have a chronic condition that requires you spend, say, $600 per month on medicine and you don’t have insurance, you have to wait until you are sufficiently impoverished for Medicaid to kick in.
Yeah. IOW, if you really can’t afford non-catastrophic medical care, Medicaid reimburses it. If you can find a way to pay for it, it doesn’t.
I do agree that a fantastically expensive chronic condition is, for practical purposes, a financial catastrophe, and that it’s not made much easier by the bills being spread out month-by-month. Any proposal for universal “catastrophic” insurance would have to deal with these illnesses.
But most day-to-day medical expenses are not like that; they’re more like minor complaints that a decent NP could diagnose rapidly and that don’t need anything massively expensive in the way of medication.
February 8, 2010, 11:07 pmRicardo says:
Agreed, but keep in mind the old 80/20 rule: as in many things, the vast majority of medical expenses are incurred by a relatively small number of people. We all wind up paying for this one way or another except for the small proportion of those unhealthy few who happen to be rich and under 65. So we might as well find a way to cover these costs as efficiently as possible.
To say that most day to day medical expenses are routine and could be treated for far less than we do today is true but also a bit beside the point. It’s like Lehman Brothers worrying back in 2008 that it is paying too much for office supplies while it’s facing billions of dollars in losses on derivatives contracts. It’s a distraction from the real issue.
February 8, 2010, 11:25 pmMark Field says:
Ok. But ironically enough, several people jumped in after this post (the one quoted above) and reiterated the compliment.
February 8, 2010, 11:41 pmDavid Welker says:
Oh, is a promise of paralysis the message that comes out when Republicans like Scott Brown say we should go “back to the drawing board” and “start over?” Silly mean, I thought that saying we should “start over” meant we should “start over.”
Too bad the average voter probably actually takes the GOP at their word, and don’t realize that “starting over” is apparently code-speak for promising paralysis. The problem is, that the less sophisticated among us, like myself, naively think words have actual semantic meaning. We naively think there is a semantic difference between “starting over” and “paralysis.” In fact, for us less sophisticated types, there is a descriptive word for people who say one thing, but intend another. Liars. I agree with Mr. Zywicki that the central policy intention of the GOP is paralysis rather than progress. But, what Zywick doesn’t seem to realize is that conceding that the GOP intention is paralysis when the campaign message is working hard to make cautious progress (i.e. “starting over”) is to concede that the GOP campaign is built upon lies.
The bottom-line is Todd Zywicki is dead wrong. Paralysis was not the central message that the GOP ran on. If it was, they would have gone down in flames in Massachusetts. Instead, they ran on language suggesting that we should proceed, albeit with caution. Now, when the GOP says they want to “start over,” perhaps politically sophisticated people like Zywicki interpret that as promising paralysis. But people who think politicians actually mean what they say think “starting over” means that they concede there is a real problem that needs to be tackled.
February 8, 2010, 11:44 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Ricardo,
Agreed, but keep in mind the old 80/20 rule: as in many things, the vast majority of medical expenses are incurred by a relatively small number of people. We all wind up paying for this one way or another except for the small proportion of those unhealthy few who happen to be rich and under 65.
And the relatively few (mostly) young folks whose first contact with medical professionals is being pronounced DOA, generally after a car crash or a murderous assault. (Don’t discount them; they’re doing their part to make sure US life expectancy stats look lousy compared to Europe’s.)
To say that most day to day medical expenses are routine and could be treated for far less than we do today is true but also a bit beside the point.
Is it? I think if you were to add up the cost of the hundreds of thousands (guessing here; don’t sue me) of ER visits yearly that might have been handled equally well by cheap clinics … it’s not an impressive number when you set it alongside the care for anyone in an ICU, but it’s not negligible when you multiply by the number of patients.
So we might as well find a way to cover these costs as efficiently as possible.
Said by you about a different set of costs, but isn’t it still true?
February 8, 2010, 11:51 pmDavid Welker says:
Silly
February 8, 2010, 11:51 pmmeanme, I thought that saying we should “start over” meant we should “start over.”Michelle Dulak Thomson says:
David Welker,
Silly mean,
Man, you are genuinely pissed off, aren’t you?
The problem is, that the less sophisticated among us, like myself, naively think words have actual semantic meaning.
Meaning that they “actually,” erm, mean things? I should hope so.
February 8, 2010, 11:56 pmDavid Welker says:
Oh, it looks like according to this article, “start over” means “start over” to the GOP too. That is a relief.
I guess even the GOP thinks words have meaning. That is a relief. I guess Zywicki is alone in his belief that to campaign on starting over is to campaign on paralysis.
February 8, 2010, 11:58 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
David Welker,
I guess even the GOP thinks words have meaning.
Semantic meaning. Words matter. ;-)
February 9, 2010, 12:02 amDavid Welker says:
Michelle Dulak Thomson,
Indeed. =)
February 9, 2010, 12:15 amrpt says:
You would prefer, of course, to return with the Palmreader to the worse policies of the 2,000′s?
February 9, 2010, 12:45 amOperationCounterstrike says:
A lot of you don’t seem to realize what it will mean if we allow our current health-care non-system to continue.
It means ALL raises we get in our lifetimes will go to pay for health care. Static wages until death, for everyone.
February 9, 2010, 1:20 amLess partisan logic says:
The Democrats are preventing the Republicans from passing their reforms.
February 9, 2010, 3:42 amDavid Nieporent says:
Is there any precedent in American history for a group of advocates simultaneously claiming that their policy proposal is extremely popular and yet complaining that it’s a dirty trick to associate thepopular president with this policy proposal?
February 9, 2010, 6:25 amDoc Merlin says:
Yes, its exactly what Scott Brown ran on. His whole campaign was based on paralysis. This strongly helped him win.
February 9, 2010, 6:25 amDavid Nieporent says:
If that were in fact true, it would not be “static wages” at all. It would be increasing wages that you choose to spend on health care. (Under our “current health-care non-system” — unlike with Obamacare — there is no “individual mandate”; if you’d prefer to spend it on something else, go ahead. To be sure, our current system stupidly tax-privileges employer-provided health insurance over other forms of wages, but that’s a relatively simple reform.)
February 9, 2010, 6:35 amiawai says:
Those interested in rebutting, refuting, and generally exposing Krugman as a partisan hack may be interested in a recently created blog: http://krugman-in-wonderland.blogspot.com/. Started just this year, it already has 43 entries responding to Krugman’s horribly strained “economics” and political posts and articles.
February 9, 2010, 8:59 amShelbyC says:
Er, aren’t they all built upon lies?
February 9, 2010, 9:18 amsardonic_sob says:
A great deal of our present trouble stems from the fact that they cannot do this. If 21st Century America had a single guiding political philosophy, it would be, “There oughta be a law!”
Fortunately (or unfortunately if you’re Mr. Krugman) the full version is, “But only if I get to write it, otherwise, screw you guys, I’m goin’ home.”
February 9, 2010, 9:56 amG. May says:
Well, actually, no they didn’t use “every method”. They had a number of prodedural hurdles they could have used that they didn’t bother with. The undeniable fact of the matter is that the Democrats had the power to pass HCR without Republicans and they couldn’t. You can try to spin this some other way, but as Phatty already pointed out, you have to drink a substantial amount of Kool Aid to buy into that nonsense.
February 9, 2010, 10:38 amA. Zarkov says:
When Krugman first start writing his NYT column, he provided some informative commentary. He was also accessible– I used to exchange emails with him. But he gradually became more partisan, and less concerned with teaching his readers about economics. Over the years he morphed into a kind of Jekyll-Hyde personality. Sometimes he would publish some really good stuff. But lately Mr. Hyde seems to have taken over, and he’s become a much diminished source of information.
A regular Krugman reader would have gotten little warning of the impending burst of the housing bubble, with the consequential take down of the stock market and the economy. Anyone who regularly read the blog Calculated Risk, Petr Schiff, Nouriel Rubini, Steve Keen, or listened to the UCLA economist Christopher Thornberg, knew what was coming. If you read and understood Professor Didier Sornette analysis of super exponential growth, you knew approximately when the housing bubble was going to burst. All this proved valuable for me personally. I made money where most others lost. Krugman gets $20,000 for a one-hour speech. Is he worth that?
According to Wikipedia Krugman is becoming a post Keynesian and is “gravitating towards the Keynes-Fisher-Minsky” view of macro economics. Well he needs to gravitate more because Fisher’s debt deflation theory along with Minsky’s financial instability hypothesis say that too much debt caused the crisis we are in. Yet he keeps pushing more debt to solve a problem caused by debt. How can this be right?
Krugman is probably a very nice guy in real life. Too bad he got immersed in all the partisan stuff.
February 9, 2010, 10:41 amShelbyC says:
Well, basic economics, right? Partisan crap is easier to write, and probabally gets more hits.
February 9, 2010, 11:11 amA. Zarkov says:
In 1999 he wrote about the flaws in the book, Dow 36,000. He did a good job on that. Funny thing, the Dow is now lower than when the book was written.
February 9, 2010, 11:20 ambyomtov says:
MDT,
A few final comments. I’m all for clinics with NP’s, though I’m not sure what that has to do with the high-deductible scheme.
As for the latter, my response boils down, I suppose, to “meh.” Yes, people will probably seek less care when they have to pay for it themselves. Whether that nets out favorably or not I don’t know. The occasional disaster from not attending to something early can erase a lot of savings from not worrying about things that turn out to be trivial. However it nets out, you do have to consider both aspects.
Also, I assume you are not going to prevent people from buying more comprehensive plans, and a lot of them will do that. I don’t think HSA’s are wildly popular. So whatever savings there are will come from a minority of the population.
And of, course, as we agree, much is in the details, and just saying “catastrophic coverage” doesn’t tell us much.
That said, better than nothing. My own opinion is that it is disgraceful that in this country a serious medical problem can lead to financial ruin. I remember many years ago seeing signs in a grocery store asking for contributions to help pay for a child’s liver transplant, (I don’t know if that financing problem has been solved or not) and thinking that parents shouldn’t have to beg like that. Not in the wealthiest and most powerful country that ever existed. Not all the free-market tracts in the world could justify it. And they can’t justify the situation today either.
February 9, 2010, 11:29 amVader says:
Paul, don’t you wonder why that is?
February 9, 2010, 1:54 pmLindsey Abelard says:
The keynesian policies that Krugman promotes lead only to increased deficits. Trust me on this one. Japan tried to pump up its economy with keynesian policies during the 90′s and all it did for them was to rack up their government debt to nearly 200% of their GDP. Krugman basically proposes we do the same, which will have the same effect.
What Krugman fails to understand is that the current recession is a necessary self-correction to an unsustainable bubble. He believes the bubble economy represented real productivity. It did not.
Austrian economic theory is the only concept of economics that makes a lick of sense.
February 9, 2010, 1:56 pmDavid M. Nieporent says:
I just love the moving goalposts. Originally the mantra was that people should be able to get treatment for their serious medical problems; now it’s that people shouldn’t even have to pay for that treatment!
February 9, 2010, 2:06 pmLe Messurier says:
I don’t read Coulter or Krugman. They haven’t had anything worthwhile to day for several years. They are the most partisan commenters in media bar none. I’ve been following this thread for my own amusement and I find it difficult to believe that a post was actually written about a Krugman article. What a waste of time.
February 9, 2010, 2:57 pmbyomtov says:
I just love the moving goalposts. Originally the mantra was that people should be able to get treatment for their serious medical problems; now it’s that people shouldn’t even have to pay for that treatment!
What are you talking about? Who said people shouldn’t have to pay? The point is, they should have insurance available. The shape of an insurance program was what the discussion was about. Please pay attention.
Besides, in case it’s escaped your notice, bankrupting someone is really not an effective way to get them to pay, so I guess I don’t see the virtue of that.
February 9, 2010, 4:24 pmJane says:
My own opinion is that it is disgraceful that in this country a serious medical problem can lead to financial ruin.
And yet, it seems the currently proposed solution is to lead us to the country’s financial ruin. This is somehow better?
February 9, 2010, 5:41 pmSarcastro says:
Yes, this is not a controversial position at all, and is in no way the main point of this whole debate.
February 9, 2010, 7:05 pmmarkm says:
“a vote for a Republican, no matter what you think of him as a person, is a vote for paralysis”
I wish.
February 9, 2010, 9:35 pmDavid Nieporent says:
See what I mean? I thought they should have health care available. Now all of the sudden the issue is that they shouldn’t have to spend their own money on it?
I don’t know what you mean by “get them to pay.” Bankrupting them is the (potential) result of them paying, not the incentive for them to pay.
February 9, 2010, 9:45 pmCalifornio says:
“Paralysis”? what, exactly , is being frozen? Perhaps our glorious, scientific, march to a shining (collectivist? socialist? nationalist? eco-friendly?) future…. Comrades, er, I mean citizens! The future belongs to me/us! now if we only had a song to express this hope for the future….
February 9, 2010, 11:15 pm