Krugman Assails Obama on Health Care Again
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One more time.
In his
New York Times column today, Paul Krugman further proves that progressives
and others backing Obama really are confused or maybe it’s seduced by this season’s political Pied Piper. Still working
through the unearned endorsements of movement progressives, again, I think about
John Edwards and the issues he fought to bring to the forefront, only to have
his own candidacy overtaken. Letting flash top substance in can’t we all get along fervor is not going to further
our Democratic ideals. But that’s not really Obama’s goal. He’s not nearly as progressive on issues as Edwards,
or as passionate and experienced about Democratic policies as Clinton, which is proven by the
one issue that progressives have in our ideological sights.
But as I’ve tried to explain in previous columns, there really is a
big difference between the candidates’ approaches. And new research,
just released, confirms what I’ve been saying: the difference between
the plans could well be the difference between achieving universal health
coverage — a key progressive goal — and falling far short.Specifically, new estimates say that a plan resembling Mrs. Clinton’s
would cover almost twice as many of those now uninsured as a plan resembling
Mr. Obama’s — at only slightly higher cost. … ..
Of course, Krugman also mentions Obama’s
negative Harry and Louise mailers he’s sending out. That mailer really gives Obama away, offering up what Ezra Klein called “fearmongering,” by resuscitating the insurance industry characters of Harry and Louise to scare voters about Hillary’s health care plan because she, like John Edwards, believes strongly in mandates. As Krugman again proves, you just can’t get to universal coverage without them, even as Obama makes them a nuclear issue.
You see, the Obama campaign has demonized the idea of mandates — most
recently in a scare-tactics mailer sent to voters that bears a striking resemblance
to the “Harry and Louise” ads run by the insurance lobby in 1993,
ads that helped undermine our last chance at getting universal health care.If Mr. Obama gets to the White House and tries to achieve universal coverage,
he’ll find that it can’t be done without mandates — but
if he tries to institute mandates, the enemies of reform will use his own
words against him.If you combine the economic analysis with these political realities, here’s
what I think it says: If Mrs. Clinton gets the Democratic nomination, there
is some chance — nobody knows how big — that we’ll get universal
health care in the next administration. If Mr. Obama gets the nomination,
it just won’t happen.
Frankly, I’m just not convinced Mr. Obama is committed to getting universal health insurance passed. I don’t think he believes in it. If he did he’d offer a plan that can get us there. His health care plan seems almost to be just good enough to allow people to hold it up, but in the end too conservative to actually work for all Americans. It’s my belief that if elected he’d let’s make a deal us into something that leaves the
emergency room option on the table for tens of thousands of uninsured. As a result it would cost the rest of us a bundle, not to mention make the whole situation worse, while
our Democratic platform and the ideological principle of adding to F.D.R.’s safety net will get lost. Like
he’s said so many times, he’s just not an ideologue, being “a little bit conservative” when it comes to ideology.
“I think that I have the capacity to get people to recognize themselves in each other. I think that I have the ability to make people get beyond some of the divisions that plague our society and to focus on common sense and reason and that’s been in short supply over the last several years. I’m not an ideologue, never have been. Even during my younger days when I was tempted by, you know, sort of more radical or left wing politics, there was a part of me that always was a little bit conservative in that sense; that believes that you make progress by sitting down listening to people, recognizing everybody’s concerns, seeing other people’s points of views and then making decisions.” – Barack Obama (on ABC’s “This Week”)
His health care approach proves it. Unfortunately, people are giving
him a pass because they’re under the throes of Obama’s word swoon. If he’s our nominee we’ll all end up paying for it.
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