A Memo To Mr. Krugman From The Center
Paul Krugman, always the tolerant one, has a post up today in which he attacks the center for failing to rally behind the health care bill. Speaking as a moderate who has been open minded to the proposals I am quite offended by his tone and thought I’d give him my own view.
I do think we need health care reform and as TMV readers may recall I was favorable towards the Baucus proposal and many of the provisions currently being discussed. I can’t speak specifically to the current Senate bill since we don’t yet have one but I am supportive of a number of ideas including:
- Making it mandatory for people to get health insurance
- Providing subsidies to those who cannot afford it
- Prohibiting denial of coverage for pre exisiting conditions
- Limiting or prohibiting caps on lifetime or annual coverage
- Increasing funding for local health clinics
- Requiring coverage for annual physicals and preventative care
I am more reticent about public options and feel that we should perhaps start with this step and then examine more extensive reforms later. I also have issues with placing so many surtaxes on current so called “Cadillac’ plans. I realize that it is probably neccessary to place more of a burden on the wealthy but despite the fact I am not part of that group I have concerns about putting too much on them.
I am also concerned about the extent of abortion coverage in some of the plans, though I do not go as far in that area as some on the right.
In short I am favorable to the basic concept of reform and supportive of large portions of it.
But for Mr. Krugman and company, if I don’t fall lock step in with every single part of their own plan I am somehow either weak and without principle or worse yet an evil and almost satanic monster who wants people to die. If I question the cost or effectiveness of certain parts of the plan I am cold hearted and mean. Not exactly the way to get people on your side.
This whole situation is somewhat deja vu to me as I had similar problems with tax cuts and war policy during the Bush years. I was generally supportive of the broad proposals but had issues with some of the details and I was similarly lumped into a harshly condemned category (in that case by the right).
So Mr. Krugman, if you want to get people on your side perhaps a way to do it would be to actually listen to them and accept their right to have a different opinion. I realize that this is difficult for ideologues on either side of the fence, they tend to think that only they have the correct and compassionate view.
But before you go after me for not rubber stamping what you want, perhaps you might check out the log in your own eyes.
Just a thought.
13 Responses to “A Memo To Mr. Krugman From The Center”
I don't think Krugman is referring to actual centrists/moderates, but to the self-proclaimed (and Broder ordained) Senate centrists. To me, there is a world of difference.
Krugman is just a hack, as he routinely has been (like many lefties who corrupt their positions with their politics — he's not the only Northeastern “economist” to be blatantly far-left politically and use his name and position in such a role*). It's still an open question how many lefties truly face reality now and salvage something in the name of sensibility, and accept whatever incrementalism and retained kind of “momentum” they may recover now, versus how much of it is once again dishonest and misleading (even if the more pathetic individuals of note may be at most just trying to mislead or reprogram themselves).
Not one of them grasps the esential point, that the lib Dems' own overreach on this as well as on all year by lunging too far stupidly leftward, they themselves, and their own actions, have ruined their health care “reform” effort. The GOP has been bypassed and sidelined; they can't honestly be blamed. They go below their voters' already low-50s IQ level if they actually try to blame Bush again, for this failure….
* Interestingly, where is Lester Thurow these days? Why isn't he gunning for a federal takeover of health care on “economic superiority” grounds and competing with Germany and JapanXXXXX China, Incorporated (though China's health system is no idol), or reconstituting his industrial policy stuff from years ago and going gung-ho for a new “green industrial policy” massive commitment by Washington (outdoing what Krugman would insist on, loudly) on behalf of today's heavily PC-playpen favored new industries? (Watch Michigan governor Granholm's eyes go supernova…)
I believe this is a fine example of what you have referred to in the past as “mirror talk”.
And there were many who did just that. Patrick, I am of course not including you among them, but I believe Krugman is mostly just fed up with people who talk and talk but won't do the walk, that walk Yglesias referred to as:
…as opposed to useless and expensive legislation that does little to help the common man and woman who have built this country, who have kept it running, and who are now struggling to make ends meet.
Patrick, I don't know how many specifics you know about the bill that is about to be voted on in the Senate, but if it makes you feel better, there is no public option in it. That was taken out about two weeks ago, I think. Then there was the Medicare buy-in provision, but that was also stripped out after Joe Lieberman, who had always supported Medicare expansion before this, threatened to filibuster the bill if it wasn't removed.
As far as the abortion coverage, the bill's language prohibits federal funding for abortions. Women *are* allowed, as of now, to purchase policies on the exchange that include abortion coverage, if they pay for the premiums with their own money. When you hear opponents of abortion say the bill eliminates the Hyde amendment, it is the second part — the fact that women are still allowed to use their own funds to purchase abortion coverage — that they are referring to. To them, prohibiting federal funding but allowing women to pay for coverage on their own is “eliminating the Hyde Amendment and allowing federal funding of abortion.”
Well Kathy, I am familiar with the bill, at least to the degree we have details but thanks for offering a comment.
As to the provisions, again we don't know what the final bill will be but that wasn't really my point.
My point was if you want moderates to work with you and consider your proposals, it helps not to insult them and call them names if they dare to ask questions. This is not what Mr. Krugman has done or is doing here.
Gotta realize that those on the further wings hate moderates that don't agree with them, especially from their own party or cacus.. Limbaugh hates Olympia Snowe, and Krugman hates moderates like Lieberman. Its just the way the extremists like Limbaugh and Krugman work, they find moderates reasonable when they agree, and in error when they don't.
I don't understand how anyone can compare Krugman and Limbaugh, one is a respected academic with a Nobel Prize, the other is a racist hate-monger who spews lies and hatred on the radio on a daily basis.
I wish everyone would stop using the term “health insurance.” There is no insurance aspect of the current health care financing system. Since there is no financial control of risks, there is no insurance.
The healthcare finance reform is two part: one is that healthy people will subsidize unhealthy people no matter the reason for ill-health. Second, the government will try to regulate the retail delivery of healthcare to try to control prices.
Considering how poorly the public schools are in the deep blue cities and counties, one has to wonder if the government can really deliver on retail level health care. My guess is that many inner city and urban hospitals will have to think about closing and that poor health care practitioners will find areas to practice that is far away from the government (think dermatology and ophthalmology).
And for all of the wonk wanna-bes. What does the Senate bill say about dental care, optometry, mental health, and immigrants. As long as the bill as being sold as a new entitlemtns that others (read rich whites) will pay for, most people are going to support it.
When Krugman is discussing trade theory (for which he received his prize) he can be held as a respected academic, when he acts as a pundit on other items, he is little different from Limbaugh, just another extremist pundit.
Leonidas, your comparison of Krugman to Limbaugh is almost absurd beyond words. I thought you had a bit more concern for credibility than that.
SD The Netherlands and Switzerland work with private insurance, but HEAVILY regulate what they can do. Many on the Left are weary of this bill because it follows the Swiss model without the regulation…
wish everyone would stop using the term “health insurance.” There is no insurance aspect of the current health care financing system. Since there is no financial control of risks, there is no insurance.'
The healthcare finance reform is two part: one is that healthy people will subsidize unhealthy people no matter the reason for ill-health. Second, the government will try to regulate the retail delivery of healthcare to try to control prices.”
Unfortunately, true for now. Will they improve it substantially, “down the road”? Maybe, if they hire qualified people from the insurance industry that they vilify. Think FMMA and FDMC.
My point was if you want moderates to work with you and consider your proposals, it helps not to insult them and call them names if they dare to ask questions. This is not what Mr. Krugman has done or is doing here.
I understand what you're saying, and I respect your reaction to Krugman's piece. I understand that Krugman's language comes off to you as insulting and name-calling. I understand why it might feel insulting, but let me point out a different way to look at this. First of all, I really think that Krugman was referring to Congress members, not the general public. How I read what he's saying is that there are all these self-identified centrists and moderates in Congress, like the Blue Dogs and like Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, who say they want fiscal responsibility and cost control, and who have insisted that any health care reform bill must contain those elements. But the parts of the legislation they most object to, and the parts that they say must come out to get their vote, *all* are the parts that are most cost-cutting in nature. These are highly educated and smart and budget-savvy people who should know that if you take out the public option, you take out the cost control. So it just seems hypocritical that these centrist Congress critters would go on and on about cost control and then try to kill the most cost-controlling parts of the bill, and *then* complain that the bill costs too much.
I can see why, if you don't agree with that underlying premise, you would feel insulted by this analysis, but objectively it really is true that a strong public option and/or Medicare expansion are the most fiscally responsible parts of the bill, and both gone now because of centrist Democrats who claim to support fiscal responsibility. It doesn't make much sense.