Krugman: "The Sanders health plan looks a little bit like a standard Republican tax-cut plan"

[Cali_Democrat]

But here’s the thing: we now have a clear view of Sanders’ positions on two crucial issues, financial reform and health care. And in both cases his positioning is disturbing — not just because it’s politically unrealistic to imagine that we can get the kind of radical overhaul he’s proposing, but also because he takes his own version of cheap shots. Not at people — he really is a fundamentally decent guy — but by going for easy slogans and punting when the going gets tough.

<...>


To be harsh but accurate: the Sanders health plan looks a little bit like a standard Republican tax-cut plan, which relies on fantasies about huge supply-side effects to make the numbers supposedly add up. Only a little bit: after all, this is a plan seeking to provide health care, not lavish windfalls on the rich — and single-payer really does save money, whereas there’s no evidence that tax cuts deliver growth. Still, it’s not the kind of brave truth-telling the Sanders campaign pitch might have led you to expect.

And look: if the political theory behind supporting Sanders is that the American people will vote for radical change if you’re honest about what’s involved, the campaign’s evident unwillingness to fully confront the issues, its reliance on magic asterisks, very much weakens that claim.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/weakened-at-bernies/?smid=tw-nytimeskrugman&smtyp=cur&_r=1

[bluestateguy]

1. Hrmph! Well, Krugman is just another DLC/DINO/Third Wayer/Conservadem!

nt

[Matariki]

2. Krugman contradicts himself in his own article

"and single-payer really does save money, whereas there’s no evidence that tax cuts deliver growth"

[Cali_Democrat]

6. Read the entire article:

On health care: leave on one side the virtual impossibility of achieving single-payer. Beyond the politics, the Sanders “plan” isn’t just lacking in detail; as Ezra Klein notes, it both promises more comprehensive coverage than Medicare or for that matter single-payer systems in other countries, and assumes huge cost savings that are at best unlikely given that kind of generosity. This lets Sanders claim that he could make it work with much lower middle-class taxes than would probably be needed in practice.

While it does save money in the long run, the assumptions of huge cost savings are "at best unlikely".

It also assumes much lower middle-class taxes than would be needed.

[Motown_Johnny]

3. Then why did the numbers work for Politifact?

Their numbers say the median savings would be about a hundred bucks a month and COVER EVERYONE!!!

[SunSeeker]

9. Bernie won't give the real figures on what the middle class will be taxed to pay for his programs.

He wouldn't defend the single payer tax in Vermont. He knew it would be toxic to his political career.

[Motown_Johnny]

14. So many things wrong with that post.

1)If Bernie has not given the real figures then Krugman is just making shit up.

2) Yes, he has given the real figures.

https://berniesanders.com/press-release/medicare-plan-detailed-sanders-improves-health-care-cuts-costs/

3) He is in the Federal government. The Vermont single payer attempt was within the State government.

4) If he was worried about things toxic to his political career, why has he been running as a Democratic Socialist for 30 years?

[SunSeeker]

30. Bernie's cost savings assumptions have no basis in fact.

Putting aside the fact that single payer's chances of getting through Congress are "nil," to use Sanders’s words about reparations, the projected cost savings are just guesses at best. Plus, he assumes each employer continues over $12,000 for health care to each employee now. That's wildly not true. So taxing employers 6.6% of each employee's salary is not a savings to the employer if they are contributing nothing or less than $3,000 per employee now--and all his figures are based on an employee making $50,000 per year.

Vermont is the most liberal state in the union, that is how Sanders was able to run and win as an Independent, who said he was a Democratic Socialist. What he didn't do was hit anyone in Vermont with that high taxes that socialist programs cost. I'm not saying those taxes are not necessarily worth it for what you get, but Sanders did not even try to defend the 9% Vermont single payer tax. He was all over the media touting Vermont's proposed single payer law as the "model for the nation," happily helping getting it passed. But when it came time to fund the new law, he clammed up. He knew it was too "eye popping" for Americans to accept.

Now he is trying to muddle what the middle class will pay by claiming they'll only pay an additional 2.2% tax on income, while the employer pays the other 6.6% (totaling 8.7%) and "cost savings" will make up the rest. Sanders and his Amherst economist are just guessing at cost savings. They offer no basis for their cost savings figures, which is Krugman's point.

[mythology]

43. You didn't read past the headline of the politifact article

They talk about how the current Sanders plan relies on 40%+ savings and how the numbers are dodgy because he wants to eliminate copy and deductibles but doesn't fund that.

[SunSeeker]

4. Bernie is not being honest about how much his programs will cost middle class taxpayers.

He knows if he was honest, the programs would not be popular. Everyone loved single payer in Vermont until they found out the middle class would be hit with a 9% tax to pay for it. Bernie knew that was toxic and didn't even try to defend the tax. He just walked away.

[Motown_Johnny]

18. Then why do we pay more than anyone else in the entire freaking world?

Everyone with single payer systems save money compared to our system. Thinking that our costs won't also be less is simply bizarre.

[SunSeeker]

28. Lots of reasons, including for profit fee-for-service doctors and hospitals.

Last edited Thu Jan 21, 2016, 04:28 PM - Edit history (1)

Bernie's single payer "plan" does not change that.

[mmonk]

5. He's really into the third way lately. But that in a way

makes him a little hypocritical since they are budget hawks he always complains about. It's why I like Robert Reich a lot better. He understands the harm of income inequality.

[HerbChestnut]

7. Wha...BAHAHAHAAAAA!!

Okay, now I know things are getting bad for Hillary. Single payer healthcare is a Republican idea? Holy moly.

[Cali_Democrat]

8. WOOOOOSH!!!

That's the sound of Krugman's article going right over your head!

I can't blame you, Krugman is a Nobel prize-winning economist.

Sometimes his stuff is just too complicated for some folks.

[HerbChestnut]

11. I read it, and it's a garbage article with no data attached to it.

He makes claims without backing it up. The guy supports Hillary, we get it, but at least be honest with people.

[Matariki]

16. +1

it's a dumb, self-contradictory editorial

[uponit7771]

23. You make Krugmans point, theres no data cause Krugman is saying Sanders Magic Asterisks don't ..

.. have any associated with them

[HerbChestnut]

25. Not true

Bernie's most recent plan is mostly how he will pay for single payer. His 2013 legislation is much more detailed. He has said repeatedly that this new plan is basically the same as the 2013 one but will cost less because of changes through the ACA.

[uponit7771]

33. well any REAL data... its mostly republican like conjecture on savings vs concrete numbers from

... real sources

[Gothmog]

36. That is not what Prof. Krugman said

GOP tax cut plans work on the basis of magical growth that will be generated by the tax cuts. The assumption of this growth is based on belief and not facts. Here Prof Krugman is saying that the Sanders medicare for all plan depends on massive cost savings that are speculative and can not be measured until the plan is implemented. Assuming increase in tax revenues due to a tax cut is not that different from assuming cost savings from a plan that has no details and has not been implemented

[Hoyt]

10. Third Way, Oligarchs -- Krugman and Klein. Folks can't handle the truth.

"On health care: leave on one side the virtual impossibility of achieving single-payer. Beyond the politics, the Sanders “plan” isn’t just lacking in detail; as Ezra Klein notes, it both promises more comprehensive coverage than Medicare or for that matter single-payer systems in other countries, and assumes huge cost savings that are at best unlikely given that kind of generosity. This lets Sanders claim that he could make it work with much lower middle-class taxes than would probably be needed in practice."

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/weakened-at-bernies/?smid=tw-nytimeskrugman&smtyp=cur&_r=2

[ViseGrip]

12. Ha ha the only republican thing here Krugman is the one you're shilling for....nice try.

[ViseGrip]

13. PS. now, i have lost all respect for Krugman. Even he will do as he's told. barely a man....so sad

[sufrommich]

15. Predictably,there goes Krugman,under the bus.nt

[coyote]

17. No We Can't!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ron Green]

19. We're paying for the best system now, we're just not getting it.

Why don't we use the same (or less) money to get a better system?

Huh?

[artislife]

20. The new Third Way battle cry

"Don't raise MY taxes, even if it is for the greater good and there will be actual savings if I dared to look."

I gots mine.

Everyone needs to pull themselves up from their own boot straps.

Greed is good.


Somewhere along the way, the DNC became soft and stopped caring for the least of us, unless it is a 501 C and we can write it off at the end of the year. It will be great if we get to go to lavish parties, dress up and see Bitsy again too. Oh and it is so worth it to drop some cash and have my picture taken with Russ or Hills.

[uponit7771]

21. Here we go with all those facts and shit !! CORPORATIST!!! /sarcasm <---- cause this is needed

[uponit7771]

22. *** MAGIC ASTERISKS *** This is the replacement for unicorns

[immoderate]

24. Krugman is telling us, "You can't get there from here."

And it sounds like bullshit to me. Another example of American exceptionalism, as in "we don't do single payer."

--imm

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

26. "..and single-payer really does save money.." Krugman

[Dawson Leery]

27. Bernie is being dishonest about the costs to lower income families.

Austan Goolsbee has an analysis which states working class people will end up paying more than they are now.

"And look: if the political theory behind supporting Sanders is that the American people will vote for radical change if you’re honest about what’s involved, the campaign’s evident unwillingness to fully confront the issues, its reliance on magic asterisks, very much weakens that claim"

If Bernie, in his heart, believes that Americans will vote for radical change, then he should be honest about every detail, including costs.

With that said, Krugman is a Nobel Prize Economist. Bernie is a lifelong professional agitator.

[TM99]

29. I don't know why people continue to give

two shits what Krugman says.

Krugman's work and Nobel are in international trade and finance. He has never met a free trade deal he didn't like. Like most neoliberals and New Dems, he thinks he is a liberal because of his social stances but it sure as shit isn't because of his economic ones.

He is so entrenched in his support of Clinton that this 'hit piece' tells us more about his psychology than anything having to do with healthcare policy or financing.

Just to be clear: Hillary Clinton is no paragon of political virtue, although she’s nothing like the monster everyone on the right and some people on the left like to portray.

Terrific, Paul, so just because she isn't a 'monster' all of the other shit is A-OK?

Actually, on policy she has generally been pretty good (Iraq aside, but that was a special and awful time).

Really Paul, pretty good - bankruptcy reform, Iran, Libya, etc.? Iraq aside, because that was special and an awful time? Of bullshit, Paul, others saw through the Bush admin lies. 9/11 was not caused by Iraq Paul. But yeah, you just continue excusing that!

You know Paul, other economic intellectual disagree and think Sanders plan for Wall Street is just fine. Actually I think there are 170 of them publicly coming out in favor of it. So no that is not a cheap shot by Sanders to discuss that. And it sure as shit is not comparable to the cheap shots Clinton is taking you fucking partisan.

Here's the cheap shot you fucker. Comparing in any way shape or form Sanders attempts at a federal healthcare plan for all Americans to Republican tax cuts. Seriously you couldn't just criticize it and ask financial questions, you had to say it was like the GOP tax cuts. That is what all the Clinton surrogates are doing. Justifying their shitty behavior behind rationalizations and a desire to see her president. In the process, they are doing so much damage. Healthcare for all of us like any other civilized country is NOT like tax cuts. Ever!

[Beacool]

31. There goes Krugman under the bus.

By now they had to raise the bus to fit all the people under it.

Remember voodoo economics? This is a voodoo health care plan.

"On finance: Sanders has made restoring Glass-Steagal and breaking up the big banks the be-all and end-all of his program. That sounds good, but it’s nowhere near solving the real problems. The core of what went wrong in 2008 was the rise of shadow banking; too big to fail was at best marginal, and as Mike Konczal notes, pushing the big banks out of shadow banking, on its own, could make the problem worse by causing the risky stuff to “migrate elsewhere, often to places where there is less regulatory infrastructure.”

On health care: leave on one side the virtual impossibility of achieving single-payer. Beyond the politics, the Sanders “plan” isn’t just lacking in detail; as Ezra Klein notes, it both promises more comprehensive coverage than Medicare or for that matter single-payer systems in other countries, and assumes huge cost savings that are at best unlikely given that kind of generosity. This lets Sanders claim that he could make it work with much lower middle-class taxes than would probably be needed in practice."

[workinclasszero]

40. Yup. Bernie needs to be honest about the costs

"This is a voodoo health care plan."

Are kids in their 20s ready to pay for healthcare for old farts like me?

I wonder.

Bernie seems strangely silent about the MIC also.
This is the main reason we can't have good things in this country. The worldwide American Empire takes trillions out of the economy every year.

[Broward]

32. Krugman may be applying for a job in a putative Clinton administration.

[Gothmog]

34. Here’s One Big Problem With The Bernie Sanders Plan For Health Care Utopia

This plan will not be adopted nationally http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-health-plan_us_569ff110e4b076aadcc50807

The Bernie Sanders health care plan, which the Vermont senator released this week, sounds pretty spectacular at first blush. It’s a proposal to create a single-payer system, which means that Sanders would wipe away existing insurance arrangements and replace them with a single government program. Everybody would get insurance, free of co-pays or deductibles.

That’d be an upgrade in benefits, even for seniors on Medicare. And while people would have to pay higher taxes, Sanders claims most people would come out ahead financially because they wouldn’t be paying private insurance premiums anymore. A typical middle-class family would save about $5,000 a year, according to a rough analysis commissioned by Sanders' presidential campaign, while society as a whole would end up saving something like $6 trillion over the next decade.

To help pay for his plan’s unprecedented benefits, Sanders proposes to extract unprecedented savings from the health care system. Here is where the details get fuzzy and hard to accept at face value, even beyond the usual optimistic assumptions that figure into campaign proposals. Sanders expects a large portion of the savings to come from reductions in administrative waste, because insurance billing would basically end. Another big chunk would come from squeezing the industries that produce health care services and supplies -- and squeezing those industries hard.

That last part should set off alarm bells for anybody who remembers the fight to pass the Affordable Care Act. Two particular episodes from 2009 -- one widely publicized, one barely noticed -- are a reminder of how much power those groups wield in Washington. For Sanders to realize his vision for single-payer health care, he’d have to overcome even greater resistance than Obamacare’s architects faced. And Sanders has offered no reason to think he could do that, which is something Democratic voters might want to keep in mind.

Two lessons from Obamacare

The first and better-known episode from 2009 was the battle over the “public option” -- a proposal, crafted by Yale political scientist Jacob Hacker, to create a government-run insurance plan that would compete with private insurers for customers. Hacker and others figured the public option could dictate lower payment rates to suppliers and providers of medical care, just like Medicare does, thereby keeping premiums low and forcing private insurers to match them.

Voters liked the idea, according to polls, and experts had certified that it would save the government money. But it ran into huge opposition -- not just from insurers, who didn’t want the competition, but from doctors, makers of drugs and medical devices, and hospitals, all of whom understood the proposal would cut into their revenues....

Bernie's vision vs. Hillary's

No, this grim political reality doesn’t mean Sanders or anybody else should stop advocating for single-payer. Progressive achievements like the minimum wage and civil rights began as ideas that the political establishment once dismissed as loopy. And the kind of reform that Sanders envisions would have a lot going for it. Single-payer works quite well abroad and a version of it could work here too -- even if, as Harold Pollack and Matthew Yglesias noted recently at Vox, it would ultimately require compromises and trade-offs that supporters rarely acknowledge.

But voters comparing Sanders and Hillary Clinton, who has proposed bolstering the Affordable Care Act rather than replacing it, should be clear about the choice they face. This isn’t a contest between a candidate who can deliver health care nirvana and one who is willing to settle for less. It’s a contest between a candidate imagining a world without political or policy constraints, and one grappling with them; between a candidate talking about what he hopes the health care system will look like someday, and one focused on what she can actually achieve now.

[lumberjack_jeff]

35. "and single-payer really does save money"

I'm afraid I lost your point there Paul.

[berni_mccoy]

37. Didn't Krugman get it wrong with Obama as well? Ah yes, yes he did.

You know why? Because he's a Hillary shill.

[Cali_Democrat]

38. What did he get wrong about Obama? nt

[berni_mccoy]

41. Really?!? You don't remember all the dire predictions he made

About Obama's stimulus package? I do. And I remember his mea culpa too.

[Cali_Democrat]

44. Do you have a link to these dire predictions by any chance?

I remember the stimulus quite well, but I don't remember Krugman's take on it.

This stimulus was almost 7 years ago.

Thank you in advance.

[berni_mccoy]

45. Riiiggghhtttt.

[Cali_Democrat]

46. Huh?

Do you have a link to these dire predictions or not?

You're the one that made the claim so why not back it up with some evidence?

You could be right, but I would like to see it for myself.

Thank you in advance.

[berni_mccoy]

48. Here you go (your even in some of the discussions):

Krugman - ACA worse than nothing: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x120613

You're even the OP on this one - Stimulus package failed to create jobs (whoops that was wrong):
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x761135

Obama ignored History .. er Krugman (yours was the Krugman reference):
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php/www.leftyblogs.com/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1665540

Need I go on?

[Cali_Democrat]

49. so....Krugman was correct.

This stimulus wasn't nearly enough.

[berni_mccoy]

50. He admitted he overstated his predictions

Why can't you?

[Cali_Democrat]

51. I like both Krugman and Obama

Here's what I would say in hindsight (which is 20/20

Obama did the best he could considering the circumstances.

More stimulus would have helped out tremendously considering the financial hole we were in.

Krugman was correct to say that we needed more.

[berni_mccoy]

56. Except that Krugman didn't just say More was needed

Instead he said the stimulus would fail at worse and be ineffective at best.

[DanTex]

47. He was spot on about Obama's stimulus package.

He said it was too small, and wouldn't fill the gap in GDP, and that's exactly what happened. He also said that the GOP would seize on the fact that a too-small stimulus didn't bring unemployment down quickly enough and argue that it failed. And exactly that happened also.

Krugman has been right about things more than pretty much anyone in the last decade or so.

[Romulox]

39. As well as NAFTA, TPP, etc. etc. He's a "centrist". nt

[Vinca]

42. I'm really surprised at Krugman's take on this. It doesn't make sense at all.

[Bill USA]

52. Jesus!! Do you want to be burned at the stake!! We don't bring up inconvenient facts like that here

BS land! They're coming with the torches!!!

[revmclaren]

53. But 'high rec counts' and 'Burn baby Burn...

will beat a Nobel prize winner in f@#ked-up logic world! I don't think throwing Krugman under the bus will work though... he has too much respect in the 'REAL' world by 'Real' Democrats. Opinion submitted without ANY chance of reply to the USUAL suspects!

[Cali_Democrat]

55. Yup

[DonCoquixote]

54. et tu, krugman?

especially as how you attacked Obama, often justifiably (not always). Now the very single payer you used to defend gets attacked, called Republican?

I used to think the one silver lining of Hillary winning would be that she would appoint you to some position, now, I see you drank the neolib kool-aid.