Hrugman on Obama's health care BS: The mandate muddle

[robbedvoter]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/07/opinion/07krugman.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Finally, Mr. Obama is storing up trouble for health reformers by suggesting that there is something nasty about plans that “force every American to buy health care.”

Look, the point of a mandate isn’t to dictate how people should live their lives — it’s to prevent some people from gaming the system. Under the Obama plan, healthy people could choose not to buy insurance, then sign up for it if they developed health problems later. This would lead to higher premiums for everyone else. It would reward the irresponsible, while punishing those who did the right thing and bought insurance while they were healthy.

[maximusveritas]

1. That's from a month ago; Obama has since explained

that his plan will institute a penalty for those people who choose not to buy insurance and then sign up when they get health problems.

[papau]

5. But a penalty might make the insurance "unaffordab;e" - what a crock - all plans come

with subsidy.

Is it so hard for Obama to day he made a mistake - at least Hillary says "if I knew then what I know now".

[maximusveritas]

12. That doesn't make sense.

How can a penalty make it "unaffordable"?
Hillary has subsidies, but there's no way of telling if it's enough to make it affordable. If it's not, then people will be forced to buy insurance when they can't afford to.

[Egnever]

18. I don't know abut subsidies but

Unlike the current health system where insurance premiums send people into bankruptcy, the plan provides tax credits for working families to help them cover their costs. The tax credits will ensure that working families never have to pay more than a limited percentage of their income for health care.

thats from her website.

Tax credits do nothing to help people afford insurance till after they have paid. If they cant come up with the cash in the first place a tax credit wont help them one bit. Its a huge lie and a gift to the insurance companies.

[papau]

24. The premium is to be limited to a percentage of income that varies - effectively a subsidy

[Egnever]

32. percentage of income doesnt affect cash on hand

If I am making 100k but spending 99.5k per year on a house and other bills. It doesnt matter what percentage you throw on it I still wont have the cash.

[CTyankee]

41. But how do you pay for your health care now?

If you say "private insurance from my employer" then you can keep it and it's deducted from your paycheck just like before. If you are not covered by your employer then you can join one of the government plans. With everyone in the pool, the risk is spread widely enough that the cost is lowered and your rates don't go up if you have a serious illness or accident.

[rinsd]

28. Then those people would be on plans like MediAid, MediCare & SCHIP

Basically the same thing as Obama's plan dealing with those who cannot afford it.

The difference is Obama lets people who afford to pay into the system to opt out.

[Egnever]

34. You keep saying that "those people"

Those people include a lot of people who are over extended in their mortgage but are still making plenty of cash. Unless "Those people" include everyone who has a high debt to income ratio then those people can include any income level.

[rinsd]

37. So your plan to combat irresposible financial behavior by those w/$ is to let them opt out?

[Egnever]

55. My plan is single payer

shared responsibility for veryone. Mandating it does not equal the same thing.

[Leopolds Ghost]

73. "Those people" are irresponsible by virtue of being poor. That's why your Clinton kicked them out of

Welfare and Public Housing, two programs which "encouraged their irresponsibility and slovenly, immoral state of povertyness."

Now you wish to extend "those people" to working poor and lower middle class wages, such as me. Be my guest and lose. I'll be glad to see the Clinton agenda go down in flames if it means that we get a real Progressive Democratic party that supports Welfare, Public housing, and nonprofit non-commoditized non-mercantile monopoly health-insurance. Of course you have no idea what mercantile monopolism is like, never having read about it or experienced it. You're only familiar with the fact that YOU, somehow, have never tried to live without, say, a car and auto insurance eating up your food budget because you, yeah, CHOOSE to drive everywhere. Yeah.

[papau]

23. How can a penalty make it "un-affordable"? - you get sick and the premium goes up because you could

have bought it when you were well

the new higher premium is un-affordable

but prior refusal was because you were trying to game the system - and just did not pay the affordable premium.

Obama's "no mandate" - but with "penalty for those gaming the system" - is a logical joke.

[CTyankee]

43. What I don't understand is why wouldn't people want to buy health insurance

if it is at reasonable cost which is doable on their income and if their rates won't go up if they get sick. You have to explain that to me, cuz I'm not getting it...

[papau]

59. It is called gaming the system - paying for insurance is sharing the risk - but some

prefer to not "share the risk" - and would instead "just get mine"

In Obama's plan this "just get mine" is possible

until you get sick you do not pay the insurance

When you are very sick you buy the insurance

When you are better you drop the insurance

the next time you are sick you buy the insurance again

The person "gaming" the system this way has out of pocket costs reduced by the value of the premiums that he did not pay.

The "gamer" sticks the rest of us with his medical costs

just a bit unfair -

and it is more costly for society than a system with a mandate.

[Leopolds Ghost]

67. Screw this, so you think people who do not buy a car are "gaming the system"

Because they drag down the rest of us by using money losing public transportation, eh?

That is EXACTLY the solution to the "Problem of Public Transportation"
that lines up with your DLC solution to the "Problem of Health Care".

(and yes it is a DLC solution, I remember when the DLC as an organization
first announced mandated commoditized health care in their official think tank.)

We should force EVERYONE to be good corporate citizens and, under pain of
prosecution I suppose, buy EVERY SINGLE FUCKING PRODUCT that you complain
is SLIGHTLY too expensive for YOU, even if it is TOTALLY OUT OF THE
NEED-BASED PRICE EQUATION for us.

[sandnsea]

25. He has said he would consider remedies if necessary

His plan does not include any of that now. His approach is to make health coverage affordable first, and then see what the problem is with the few stragglers who aren't signed up.

[papau]

2. Obama folks on DU do not want to here the obvious - if it says Obama is incorrect

[KittyWampus]

15. there is a definite debate here and Krugman's isn't the only valid argument. Mandates have problems

in their execution as seen in MA, for instance.

[Leopolds Ghost]

71. You talk as if this is affecting other people and not you.

How many people on this blog are uninsured due to job or life situation?

(show of hands?)

How many of you are just waiting for the Government to threaten you with a fine?

I guess the Democratic Party is announcing that I am a deadbeat, along with all the working poor they have already cast out of the party for being too religious, too rural, too union based, or too "inner city".

[enid602]

3. insurance

Non-mandated universal health insurance = uninsured = what we have now.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

10. Mandated private insurance =/= universal health coverage.

15% of drivers do not have auto insurance, despite it being mandated.

[enid602]

26. insurance

I don't know of ANYONE who drives without insurance, but the majority of people I know don't have health insurance. And not by choice.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

29. Well most unisured people don't go around admitting it to everyone

And your comment about health insurance is making the argument against mandates. It's like Obama said, the reason people don't have coverage isn't that they're not being made to get it.

[enid602]

36. insurance

"Well most unisured people don't go around admitting it to everyone." I suspect you're right, but so many people without health insurance these days are so outraged; admitting it is the least of their problems.

[Leopolds Ghost]

80. Dont you see, Its not only impolite to those with high premiums, its terribly socially inappropriate

Almost as bad as those deadbeats who don't drive a car because they can't afford the mandated auto insurance and the mandated private inspection at a list of approved private for-profit companies, and insist on our subdivision spending more money for the bus system instead. Your Democratic rulers have all kinds of stuff to worry about already, like being forced by the private, for-profit housing association to paint their house a certain color.

[Leopolds Ghost]

79. I am unashamedly uninsured. I don't have to "admit" anything to you.

Go buy a third car to supplement your government required second vehicle and pay the mandated auto insurance and continue bitching about the county sales tax for transit to support all those non-drivers licensed nannies in your neighborhood while you're at it.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

91. Hey! I'm just responding to someone who said s/he doesn't know any uninsured drivers

I was pointing out that it's not like they're going to tell her while they're socializing.

[DJ13]

4. Hrugman is a Killary lover

[libbygurl]

6. LOL! And actually, methinks that Krugman/Hrugman is an Edwards lover! nt

[papau]

9. Krugman is both an honest voice and knowledgable -a contrast to the liar (because he was

SS director and was told of the 3rd projection and its history of being the correct projection and the fact the 3rd Soc Sec projection shows no problem ever)Robert Reich.

[robbedvoter]

20. No, he isn't. He is always credible.

[BlackVelvet04]

7. One of the reasons I don't support him

is the naive attitude that everybody will buy health care ins. if it's cheap enough. There are lots of people who are too irresponsible and can't be bothered. These people will continue to over-tax the emergency rooms. I don't care for mandates in general but in the case of health care I have come to support mandates.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

16. What's naive is believing that "mandated Hillarycare" will not DESTROY us in the general election.

Imagine how this will be spun by the GOP. Now, imagine Clinton wonkily trying to explain the specifics and nuances of her plan during the debates.

It's a disaster and I cannot believe the willingness of Clinton and her water carriers like Krugman to hand them the club to beat us with.

[CTyankee]

47. Make it like Medicare Part B, that's how it can work.

To discourage the elderly from opting out of Medicare Part B (dr's office visits) which is deducted from their SS benefit check each month, Medicare warns you that if you don't sign up at age 65 when you get Medicare Part A (hospitalization, no extra cost), when you do sign up later you'll pay a higher monthly amount -- that's a "fine." However, if you have a private plan that you like, as I do, which is cheaper and covers more you can keep it but inform Medicare if you will be discontinuing that coverage and will start on Medicare Part B. Then you are not penalized.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

8. I'm getting more than a little tired of Krugman's vendetta against Obama

I've always respected his work but lately he's been acting like a petty jerk.

Mandates are a disaster for us in the general election, for one thing. And Krugman's disdain for the working poor is palpable. Not surprising considering how much he luuuuuurves outsourcing.

[papau]

11. truth telling is a vendetta -Mass mandate result is 75% of uninsurred covered - w/o mandate only 30%

were expected to sign up.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

21. 25% non-compliance rate. Higher than that for auto-insurance. Not surprising. nt

[rinsd]

30. 25% still uninsured vs 70% still uninsured.

Obama rather just let people who can pay into the system opt out.

[no name no slogan]

39. It'll creep back up. It did since the 1980s, when Dukakis first "mandated" coverage

People seem to forget that MA had a "mandate" for universal coverage back in the 1980s. "Mandates" do NOT work, never have, never will.

As long as we keep private, profit-driven insurance companies in the mix, the system will remain broken.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

45. Thank you. If were going to mandate something

Let's mandate single payer with no insurance companies involved, unless people want to choose to buy supplemental insurance for special private care.

[CTyankee]

48. Well, they work for Medicare Part B. See my post explaining this upthread. n/t

[Leopolds Ghost]

72. Does Medicare Part B require all Medicare recipients to obtain for-profit drug insurance?

Hmmm?

[CTyankee]

87. Goodness, you don't KNOW the answer to this question?

No, Medicare does not require this. What Medicare is interested in is whether you are paying for private health care if you are NOT paying Medicare part B. They probably don't want you showing up on their doorstep in awful condition after "opting out" of Medicare for several years and then discovering you are in dire physical shape and in need of medical care. I don't know what is so difficult to understand about this. Makes sense to me from a public health perspective...

[mrreowwr_kittty]

40. And Clinton would threaten people with fines if they don't buy her healthcare plan.

[rinsd]

44. Not, that's Obama's plan. Fining familes will letting the childless opt out.

Hillary has yet to state what her enforcement measures would be though they are likely to be a form of a fine.

The Edwards model would probably work best basing it on tax returns.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

46. Why won't she state her enforcement method? It's kinda important to the whole thing, dontcha think?

As for the families, Obama has explained that's because children don't have a choice.

[rinsd]

49. How is fining just families because they can't afford insurance somehow better than fining all?

That's right that children don;'t have a choice.

How many parents of the nearly 9 million uninsured children do you think forgo insurance because they somehow don't care about their children?

Or do you think its more likely they cannot afford such coverage?

So why should the childless who can afford to pay for insurance be allowed to opt out while families who cannot afford to pay for insurance must face fines?

[mrreowwr_kittty]

52. Why do you assume that childless people can afford the insurance?

Hell, we don't get the tax breaks that families do and we don't qualify for any government programs, including Medicaid, unless we are living far below the poverty level.

Children are a responsibility. You can't "opt out" of feeding and clothing them so health care should be no different. Plus, it's a lot easier to get state aid if you have them. The income ceiling for person with a child to qualify for AHCCCS (AZ's medicaid) is more than twice what mine is. Basically, I'd have to be making minimum wage to qualify for it.

So a lot of childless people would be choosing between paying for healthcare or for other essentials with mandates.

[rinsd]

54. I don't. I am asking why its ok to fine families but horrid to fine the childless.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

56. It has nothing to do with "horrid".

I'm not morally opposed to the mandates and I understand the rationale behind them. I'm just pointing some practical and political realities about them that Clinton supporters seem stubbornly unwilling to acknowledge.

[Leopolds Ghost]

69. It's not OK to fine families

And it's not going to happen anyway. This is part of the DLC plan to ensure another Republican presidency and provide, literally, "INSURANCE" if the Democrat wins -- they will spend 4 years fighting and losing ON THE SIDE OF A BUNCH OF FUCKING FOR-PROFIT CORPORATIONS who cooked up this plan

(I remember the press release when they did it, I read about it in the journals.)

[CTyankee]

88. Well, the plans have a path of getting us to universal, single payer health care. It's a shot.

What, may I inquire, is YOUR plan to get us there?

[Altec]

63. Threatening with fines

is the same thing as fining those who go to the hospital after they refuse to buy healthcare from Obama's plan.

[Leopolds Ghost]

70. Mandated for-profit insurance of any kind is pretty fucked up.

At least in the case of cars, you can argue that you are buying the insurance WITH the vehicle, although you still have to place yourself in a "Corporate citizenship" ladder distinct from the rights enumerated under the Constitution. But a car is not essential, it is a commodity... RIGHT?

[CTyankee]

89. Essentially, you make a good point. But most VOTERS in this country

would probably make a distinction and say that automobiles are a commodity and so is health care. We do not have the European idea that health care is a right that we should have.

Go back and read your history. The socialized health care of Western European countries was largely implemented in the wake of WW2. Many people were displaced, cities were destroyed, economies a wreck. Since whole economies were being built from the ground up, it was much easier for socialized medicine to take root and grow. Both in Europe and in the U.S. the kind of commodified health care we have today was largely unknown.

The American style health care that evolved to what we have today was actually instituted by big business. In the face of wage and price controls, big business, in order to compete for employees, started using the "carrot" of medical insurance tied to employment to lure more workers to their company. It became the industry standard. At the time, the European nations had no comparable idea, so their socialized medicine became their "standard."

And that, dear Leo, is why we have what we have today and the western Europeans have what they have.

[maximusveritas]

14. Agreed.

He doesn't even try to be fair. Every time he talks about the election, he takes a shot at Obama, while praising or ignoring the rest.

[rinsd]

17. Maybe because the Obama campaign went after him when he dared critique Obama

"Mandates are a disaster for us in the general election, for one thing"

So its too tough a fight for Obama to undertake? Is he gonna fight for anything for us?

[mrreowwr_kittty]

22. Why does he need to fight for Hillary Clinton's stupid idea?

And Krugman's a tool. Immature petulant little crybaby. He's pretty much in the Maureen Dowd category for me now.

[Egnever]

13. well that was complete crap

The point of the mandate is to force people to buy insurance weather or not they can afford it and a tax credit after the fact isnt going to help one single person afford it that cant come up with the cash in the first place.

Her mandate is horrible.

[rinsd]

33. "Her mandate is horrible." But Obama mandate is all sunshine

Magically those people who could not afford Clinton's plan will somehow be able to afford Obama's plan even though he allows those who can afford to pay into the plan opt out.

[Egnever]

35. I don't like his mandate either

Don't try the he said she said thing. The only sunshine in his is that it only applies to kids.

[CTyankee]

50. But people "manage" to pay their taxes. It seems to me that if you are in a higher tax bracket

and you can't pay for health insurance, how do you pay your taxes, another "mandatory" item? I know what I do. I look at my disposable spending: it may mean I don't take a costly vacation or I look for an affordable car, or shop at sales. I don't see that as in the least "unfair."

[Egnever]

51. most peopel have their taxes taken from their checks

They dont pay them. You my friend are not the norm of people who this will affect.

Disposible spending for many of them is the difference between gas and food.

[CTyankee]

57. They "don't pay them" because they're deducted from their paychecks?

Of course they do! And that's my point. They adjust to the income they have left after taxes. That's why I think the mandatory part should be part of the tax structure that already exists and can be adjusted fairly to people's income level. I don't hear everybody complain about Medicare taxes but they are mandatory.

As for me, "mandatory" is what I deal with right now with my health care. At present I have coverage under my spouse's as he still works and I recently retired due to health problems. I am required by Medicare to either pay for my private plan (which costs me $74 per month but covers drs visits, some dental and some prescription drug coverage) or sign up for Medicare Part B and D (for over $90 per month but only covers drs visits). I can't opt out without paying a fine when/if I sign up for Medicare Part B. So I have to pay or get fined. That's the way it is now. Being retired, I pay close attention to my expenditures so I am sure to have the money for my health insurance. I live more modestly than you think.

If you cannot afford basic necessities you then have to seek government assistance in Medicaid. That's what would happen to the family whose situation you pose.

[Leopolds Ghost]

77. You can't understand the distinction between percentage income tax and wage garnishment?

To support a private, for-profit creditor?

I hope your kids are helping you with your finances and I hope you have no child support payments. ("Oh, I'm not worried, alimony is no different from income tax!")

[CTyankee]

85. Oh my, Leo, you do have some funny thinking going on!

I support a French style single payer, universal health care system. It has been proclaimed by the World Health Organization the best system in the world. But I do not think we'll get there tomorrow.

I have what I have. Medicare can be better. The Republicans would like nothing better than to eradicate Medicare. I am aware of markets and I have help with my investments (not my kids, a professional, but thanks for your concern, dear). I'm doing OK. I worry about you.

[dflprincess]

19. Neither Clinton or Obama have any plan for real health care reform.

Expecting us to contiune to line the pockets of the same companies that have been screwing us over for years is not reform.

[zulchzulu]

27. Hrugman...I mean Krugman needs to do a column on how mandated healthcare insurance will happen

I want him to illustrate how a family that is living paycheck to paycheck and barely being able to make it will just go right along with an additional $1000 monthly bill that they HAVE to pay for or GET FINED or have deducted on wages.

Please, Paul. Tell us this lovely little fairy tale.

:crazy:

[rinsd]

31. Since Obama is for mandating children & fining parents, maybe you shoudl ask him?

[Leopolds Ghost]

68. So the reason Hillary opposes single payer is because Obama and Edwards opposed it too?

[mrreowwr_kittty]

42. Well we all know that they're blowing their money on Plasma TVs and stuff

And hell, why stop at fines? Let's build a JAIL for those insurance scofflaws. :sarcasm:

[Leopolds Ghost]

74. Welfare Cadillacs

That's why the New Orleans Democratic Party voted to implement the Clinton plan (Hope VI) to kill off all the public housing before the evacuated residents from Katrina could return to collect their belongings or attempt to resettle in their old apartments. We all know they were deadbeats who were dragging down the "good of the majority".

[CTyankee]

53. But they DO pay for mandatory health care NOW. It's called the Medicare tax.

And we all pay into it. You can't tell your employer not to deduct the Medicare tax from your wages because you "can't" afford it! That question doesn't even come up? And where do you get the $1000 a month cost of this family you posit? If they are poor and need assistance, they get a cost adjusted to their circumstance, that's all.

[Leopolds Ghost]

75. Is Medicare a subsidized private oligopoly? You need an ethics/economics refresher course

Medicare =/= East India Trading Company or the Plymoth Company.

[CTyankee]

83. Well, a somewhat odd comparison, but not terribly interesting.

If anything, Medicare was a stab at socialism by LBJ. I get from your reference that you think Medicare is a protected piece of federal territory which really underpins capitalism. But so does Social Security.

The fact of the matter is that Medicare can deliver the goods at a lesser cost than private health care. It does it now for seniors and can do it for the general public. And it may be our "gateway" to universal, single payer health care in the future.

The fact of the matter ALSO is that the American voting public is attuned to thinking that Medicare is benign and helpful, therefore marketable to the American public and immune to attacks by the RW. I am old enough to remember when it was enacted. American voters liked it because 1)for older people it was a relief to get a safety net, and 2) for their adult children they saw that they could inherit their parents wealth, instead of having it all spent of health care in their parents' final years.

This is the political reality as to why the candidates are offering the Medicare option. People trust the brand name of Medicare. It has meant something in their lives. And they just might eventually migrate into the "socialized medicine" idea because it makes sense by saving them money.

[Reciprocity]

38. I look at it this way, it makes no sense to have the right to buy auto insurance after a wreck.

So why does it make sense to decide that after you have a large medical expense, you can buy insurance to pay for it, after it has already happened. The bottom line is folks who have paid their dues for years are paying for those that didn't. This brings the cost up across the board.

I'm not talking about people who can't afford insurance, but those that choose not too. Hillary's plan addresses this.

[Leopolds Ghost]

76. You are creating a fake problem. First of all, Americans are not REQUIRED to buy a car

Although certain Democrats want to make it a requirement of citizenship to buy a car, and thus buy PRIVATE insurance (at inflated rates thanks to the mandate, as you know from Economics 101) and thus have good credit or go to jail. I for one am opposed to all forms of fascism and mercantilism including requiring people to purchase private commodities.

[Araxen]

58. Personally

I would rather they just open up Medicare to everyone and make it like the postal service somewhat. A seperate entity that operates on a non-profit system. It'll slowly kill off the for-profit companies while they try to compete with the non-profit Medicare. After you kill most of for-profit's off you can tweak it to universal healthcare like other nations have. You still may need to have a for-profit company in there for the impatient people who don't want to wait in lines and they'll pay for that privilege and keep those peolpe happy. The for-profit company would not be run by the government.

Both their systems are a have your cake and eat it too systems, imo. In the end I don't think either will work. The for-profit medical industry is just too ingrained in the US and you have to get rid of them first. My idea may or may not work either but it's worth a shot.

This is all off the top of my head so it more than likely is full of holes.

[Expat Sue]

60. Edwards health plan

What you are describing, opening up Medicare to all to operate in competition with the health insurance industry, was basically Edwards health care plan. This would force insurance to compete with Medicare, which would be quite difficult due to the overall efficiency of the Medicare system. This competition would likely slowly erode the for-profit health care system allowing a gradual transition to basically single-payer universal health care and was a big factor in why Krugman supported Edward's plan over the other candidates.

[Altec]

61. Plus, he sent out a negative mail ad!

Plus, he sent out a negative mail ad that is basically a play from the Republican playbook in the 90s. If this is really about past vs. future, why is Barack using tactics from the past to beat universal healthcare.

[ProSense]

62. More than 85 heatlh care experts

disagree with Krugman

[Leopolds Ghost]

65. Economics 101: What happens when a government intervene on behalf of a non-regulated oligopoly?

Example: without setting price controls for bread, the Government (which owns a major bread manufacturer, and is run by politicians who also serve on the board of several competing, for profit bread manufacturers) passes a law to REQUIRE all citizens to purchase a certain amount of bread, in the interests of driving several of the competing, for-profit manufacturers (whose bread is more expensive) out of business, leaving the semi-for-profit government subsidized bread program to pick up the slack as an unregulated monopoly with niche competition in the extreme ends of the demand curve.

What happens to the price of bread?

COMPARE AND CONTRAST / EXTRA CREDIT: What happens if, instead of requiring the customer to buy the bread, the Government requires the Bread manufacturers to SELL the bread, regardless of customer ability to pay, as in the case of all other regulated natural monopolies? Because Hillary's argument is that commoditized insurance is a natural monopoly.

[Leopolds Ghost]

66. The ANSWERS, for those of you playing at home (and every Economics prof will tell you this)

A) The price of bread/health care will skyrocket to a new, artificial
equilibrium point determined by the intersection of the inflexible demand
and the Government-sanctioned oligopoly's optimum profit margin.
Profit will be determined by supply and not by demand. This happened
in the mercantile dictatorships that France and England fought revolutions
to escape, with their India Trading Company goods monopolies.

B) If supply instead of demand is artificially fixed, The supply of the
resource will become scarce (see: Enron) as companies attempt to restrict
supply in order to drive up demand in response to overuse of a resource
that the Government is mandating production and sale of at below-market
rates (where the price market is determined by the most economically
favorable cohort of the customer base, using basic calculus.)
The Corn-Ethanol clusterfuck is an example of this.

[CTyankee]

84. "In the long run, the markets will right themselves."

"In the long run, we're all dead."

[Leopolds Ghost]

64. What a CREEP. Go commit political suicide somewhere else.

Krugman, As one of the millions of uninsured who can't afford health insurance, and does not wish to purchase health insurance at usurious rates from FORMERLY NONPROFIT government subsidized providers a la the Federal Reserve system and Fannie Mae, two OTHER government subsizdized private corporate monopolies, you can go KISS MY YELLOW DOG ASS.

On Edit:

Has the government in any nation, outside of Nazi Germany or Mercantile
French and British Empire, ever REQUIRED it's citizens to purchase a
COMMODITIZED public good from a list of eligible CORPORATE providers?

Please do not answer if you don't know what the hell I'm talking about.
Most Americans are too damn dumb to understand the difference between
universal public good and a regulated corporate monolpoly.

[More Than A Feeling]

78. Haul Hrugman? I hate that guy!

Paul Krugman, on the other hand, is awesome.

[Leopolds Ghost]

81. Why don't we mandate Americans buy cake while we're at it? And mandate homeownership.

Then the problem of food stamps and public housing (which Clinton passed a bill BANNING the construction of, in 1996) would be solved.

[More Than A Feeling]

82. The question for me is this:

Can Obama cut costs without mandates as much as a plan with mandates can? After all, the whole point of insurance is collective subsidization of those people who actually use it, as well as peace of mind. If you don't make healthy people who think they don't need it buy it, how do you avoid the same kind of cherry-picking that insurance companies already engage in, which raises costs for those who are likely to need it?

[OzarkDem]

86. No he can't

Without universal coverage, too many people will wait until they're sick to purchase insurance making it a very costly system. Sort of like waiting until you're 65 to pay into Social Security.

This is pretty simple actually, I'm surprised Obama supporters haven't figured it out yet. High cost of coverage translates into higher premiums.

Why not have a plan that allows people to buy into government insurance programs like Medicare? Why doesn't Obama like that idea? It would be far cheaper than private insurance.

[CTyankee]

90. Yeah, he's gotta do this. John Edwards is SO right onthis and so is Hillary. n/t

[eridani]

92. It's the fucking fire department, OK? Or ought to be, anyway.

The only "mandate" involved is paying your property taxes (directly or indirectly) to support the fire department, even though you probably won't ever have a fire. No horseshit about "choosing the fire department that's best for your family."

Mandates to support private insurers that exist only to take money and deny care as often as possible are an entirely different thing.

[CTyankee]

93. Nobody is suggesting this. Look closely and you'll see that all of the Dems plans

don't allow insurance companies to deny insurance or make premiums higher for sicker people. If it drives them out of business, well, the market place will have spoken and we'll end up eventually with single payer (government) health care. Good.

[eridani]

94. By "not allow" they mean establish a government oversight commission

--to which health care consumers can complain. And if they die before the complaint can be resolved, tough shit.

[ProSense]

95. Health Mandates: Why Paul Krugman's Wrong

Health Mandates: Why Paul Krugman's Wrong