PAUL KRUGMAN: HILLARY'S HEALTHCARE PLAN FAR SUPERIOR

[Yossariant]

Here’s an analogy. Suppose someone proposed making the Medicare payroll tax optional: you could choose not to pay the tax during your working years if you didn’t think you’d actually need Medicare when you got older — except that you could change your mind and opt back in if you started to develop health problems.

Can we all agree that this would fatally undermine Medicare’s finances? Yet Mr. Obama is proposing basically the same rules for his allegedly universal health care plan.

So how much does all this matter?

Mr. Obama’s health plan is weaker than those of his Democratic rivals, but it’s infinitely superior to, say, what Rudy Giuliani has been proposing. My main concern right now is with Mr. Obama’s rhetoric: by echoing the talking points of those who oppose any form of universal health care, he’s making the task of any future president who tries to deliver universal care considerably more difficult.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/07/opinion/07krugman.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin


Over all, the Obama-type plan would cost $4,400 per newly insured person, the Clinton-type plan only $2,700.

That doesn’t look like a trivial difference to me. One plan achieves more or less universal coverage; the other, although it costs more than 80 percent as much, covers only about half of those currently uninsured...

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.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/opinion/04krugman.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

[joshcryer]

1. A better analogy would be making SS optional, as Bush wanted to do.

Just sayin'. :)

Good post, btw, keep it up (we have several other posts talking about this, though, didn't necessarily need another one).

[neutron]

3. They're both excellent points

I have to go to work, and hope you guys can
keep this up throughout the day.

[Yossariant]

6. One of them is a flat out lie which I am mirroring.

I also wanted to put the flavor of what Krugman is saying in the first post.

And, maybe today, there can't be enough threads like this, getting out the truth, now that the mandate issue is being pushed.

[neutron]

2. Great Thread! And how many people know this:

Obama was against the Iraq war.

Do people realize he WASN'T EVEN IN THE SENATE
at the time of the VOTE?

And when he GOT into the senate, his war related votes
were conservative?

[Yossariant]

4. Added second Krugman link where Krugman, again, tells us that her plan is better.

[Uben]

5. Quit posting facts

People here aren't interested in facts, just hype!

Thank you






/sarcasm