Krugman: Pass the bill

[NJmaverick]

As they say politics makes strange bed fellows. Never dreamed I would be posting a Krugman article

A message to progressives: By all means, hang Senator Joe Lieberman in effigy. Declare that you’re disappointed in and/or disgusted with President Obama. Demand a change in Senate rules that, combined with the Republican strategy of total obstructionism, are in the process of making America ungovernable.

But meanwhile, pass the health care bill.

Yes, the filibuster-imposed need to get votes from “centrist” senators has led to a bill that falls a long way short of ideal. Worse, some of those senators seem motivated largely by a desire to protect the interests of insurance companies — with the possible exception of Mr. Lieberman, who seems motivated by sheer spite.

But let’s all take a deep breath, and consider just how much good this bill would do, if passed — and how much better it would be than anything that seemed possible just a few years ago. With all its flaws, the Senate health bill would be the biggest expansion of the social safety net since Medicare, greatly improving the lives of millions. Getting this bill would be much, much better than watching health care reform fail.

More at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/opinion/18krugman.html?_r=3&scp=3&sq=krugman&st=cse

Edit to add this important part:

Bear in mind also the lessons of history: social insurance programs tend to start out highly imperfect and incomplete, but get better and more comprehensive as the years go by. Thus Social Security originally had huge gaps in coverage — and a majority of African-Americans, in particular, fell through those gaps. But it was improved over time, and it’s now the bedrock of retirement stability for the vast majority of Americans.

[barbtries]

1. there's no good answer

i am so disgusted by the senate right now i could spit.

[Ozymanithrax]

2. I agree with Krugman..

but do not expect his call to be appreciated here.

Clearly, he is an incrementalist. Incrementalism is a dirty word in many progressives eyes.

I am a proud incrementalist...

[NJmaverick]

4. Yup, I never thought I would see the day Krugman was unrecced

[Ozymanithrax]

7. Yep, they put him under the bus...

DU is such an interesting and fiery place now days.

[aquart]

8. What? Did you miss the primaries?

[ClarkUSA]

18. The same folks who lauded his economic expertise last year are unreccing this OP now.

Therein lies the rub.

[Demoiselle]

63. Why can't I rec this thread?

I can't click on it. And I think we should read it whether it convinces us or not. I'm pissed as hell at the way the whole HCR thing has been handled, but Krugman has always seemed very sensible to me.

[laughingliberal]

11. This is not incrementalism. That would suggest a move in the right direction

This is a U-turn.

[Ozymanithrax]

16. Passing a bill having some slight improvements...

that can be improved later...

is the very definition of incrementalism.

I am a proud incrementalist...

[laughingliberal]

27. No slight improvement there. Nothing to build on, later

I'm sorry. I believe you believe that with all your heart. But the loss of any sliver of a public option has left us with nothing to build except the current for-profit system that ruined health care in this country to begin with. It is also going to impoverish those who are hanging by a thread, now.

I'm putting my life on the line to oppose this bill. I am one of the very few that would be helped by it. The Medicaid expansion would allow us to get some coverage we don't have now. If I believed, for one moment, this bill would do more good than harm I would support it with my whole heart. I'm sick, my husband is sick and we have nothing. If I thought there were any way this bill would not be a disaster for most I would, certainly, fight for it.

[kenny blankenship]

38. The take over of public health by private power is not a step in the right direction, large or small

The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. --Franklin D. Roosevelt

[NJmaverick]

45. How is there nothing to build on later? The bill is missing only one thing

THE PUBLIC OPTION How can that be a bill that is unfixable?

[HuckleB]

47. All or nothing thinking.

[laughingliberal]

49. By the time this bill reams the majority of the American people who still have a damned thing to

they aren't going to let a Democrat within 100 feet of health care for the next 200 years should the union survive that long. The RW has already convinced the public this bill is a 'government takeover' of health care. Think any of them will be convinced it's not and give us any chance to insert what they will think is more government takevoer. This is going to create more misery in the working and middle class. Most will not understand it was the lack of government takeover that made it a horrible bill. Had we passed a bill with any sliver of PO there would have been enough people happy with their PO that others would have seen it was not a bad thing. Now, what will we say, "trust us? We really will improve health care this time? "

[HuckleB]

65. BS...

[lapfog_1]

3. Krugman is a very smart person

who just happens to be wrong.

This bills is not reform, there are NO cost controls, and it's a massive giveaway to the insurance industry.

[NJmaverick]

6. You know he doesn't just say he's smart and you should listen to him

he makes a very compelling argument. His reasoning appears sound and his historical references are good. Consider there is no love loss between Krugman and Obama I would have to think his motives are above suspicion.

[DJ13]

5. Some of it has to do with broader questions of political power

Some of it has to do with broader questions of political power: if progressives always announce that they are willing to accept whatever miniscule benefits are tossed at them (on the ground that it's better than nothing) and unfailingly support Democratic initiatives (on the ground that the GOP is worse), then they will (and should) always be ignored when it comes time to negotiate; nobody takes seriously the demands of those who announce they'll go along with whatever the final outcome is.

http://www.salon.com/news/healthcare_reform/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2009/12/18/corporatism
Healthcare Reform - Salon.com

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[NJmaverick]

14. So what do you think about his reasoning and historical references?

or are you only interested in who likes whom?

[xchrom]

30. We should make bad legislation because history

Teaches we will make it better later?
Weak as water.

[NJmaverick]

40. How about this history lesson?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=72568&mesg_id=72568

[denem]

28. 'obamanation' huh? You should be on Faux as

the token capital L Leftist who will gleefully bash the President for them.

[ClarkUSA]

36. Isn't that a favorite Limbaugh term for Obama supporters?

Why am I not surprised?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. Krugman is insulated from the consequences of the Senate bill

He's an Ivy League professor, which already makes him royalty on the academic scale of salary and benefits, a Nobel Prize winner, which puts another few hundred thousand in his bank account, and a successful author, columnist, and speaker.

The likelihood of him or anyone he talks to facing any of the kinds of health care dilemmas that ordinary Americans face is close to zero.

Krugman is a highly intelligent man, but unlike his NYT colleague Bob Herbert, he doesn't get out and mix with just plain folks. He's a policy wonk.

He has never looked at summaries of the Senate bill and thought, "Oh no, I'd be SCREWED if that passed" or "My friend over there would be screwed."

I spent nine years in the Ivy League as a graduate student and temporary instructor. Many, if not most, people in that environment have no interest in the world outside their narrow domains and if they do think about the little people, it's often with contempt or abstract sympathy that would never bring them to actually talk to lesser mortals.

I had many wonderful experiences in the Ivy League. But the three years I spent as a temp during the Reagan recession were as educational in their own way as anything I did at two Ivy League schools. They were also the perfect antidote to the classism that I had unconsciously absorbed on campus.

[NJmaverick]

12. Wouldn't your charges against Krugman apply to Howard Dean as well?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. He's actually a medical doctor, so I trust him on health care

more than I do Krugman, who is sitting around in Princeton. Very few doctors are dermatologists in Beverly Hills. During their training, if not during their practice, they see the full range of humanity and see incredible suffering.

They have a perspective that one just can't acquire sitting in Princeton and crunching numbers.

(NOTE: I am not now and have never been a Deaniac, but on this topic, I see him as trying like a good little soldier to support an increasingly weak and corporate-driven bill until it just got so bad that he had to break with Obama.)

[NJmaverick]

19. He also doesn't have to worry about insurance. Plus doctors tend to make a healthy profit from the

current health care system don't they? I used to work in a hospital and when people complained about hospitals driving up health care costs I used to point to the two parking lots:

The employee lot- where all the old beat up cars were

The Doctor's lot- where all the shiny new luxury cars sat

[Lydia Leftcoast]

20. Money does not preclude compassion--look at the Kennedys

And from a money-oriented MD's point of view, this bill should be wonderful, because there are no cost controls, nothing to prevent business as usual in the doctor's office or hospital.

[NJmaverick]

22. Not just money it's income

To have plenty of money and be generous like the Kennedys happens. To readily cut into one's income on the other hand...



Oh and guess which channel they set the TV in the Doctor's lounge to? (hint: it had a stock ticker on the bottom)

[laughingliberal]

21. It would, except Doctors are not insulated from the effects of our health care system.

And health care policy has been a particular area of study for Dr. Dean. In their work they see, every day, the people who can't get help. The ones they don't see, they know are out there. I have seen the devastation caused by our current system from every angle. I have been an RN since 1982. I have also been at the mercy of the private health insurance companies and their bags of tricks. I have watched the for-profit hospital corporations lower the standards of patient care while their rates skyrocketed. I have seen it from every perspective and I know Paul's heart is in the right place. But he's got it wrong. This health care bill leaves the worst contributors to the debacle we have in place now in place to profit even more and does little to help most people.

[NJmaverick]

24. I worked for a non-profit hospital until it went bankrupt thanks to doctors

who couldn't be bothered to complete their charts or who padded patient's lengths of stay (which caused the hospital to lose money) so they could charge Medicare with for more in-hospital visits.

This is not to dispute that doctors in private practice don't struggle with insurance companies and their policies.

[laughingliberal]

33. I've known those kinds of doctors, too. And I've known the ones who cared.

The takeover of the hospital system in this country by the for-profit hospital corporations was one of the factors which destroyed the system. And there were certainly doctors who profited by fraud There are those who are dishonest in every profession. There are also the one who don't engage in that. A few years ago, I saw a lot of family practice physicians struggling so badly that my income was, actually, better than what they were left with after expenses.

Medicare fraud is a HUGE issue. Funny, how the answer to it (starting with Clinton) was to go after the sectors who were least responsible and let the for-profits off the hook, for the most part. HCA still has, I believe, the distinction of being found guilty of the largest Medicare fraud in history. Yet, reimbursements to for-profit hospital corporations remain untouched. Conversely, home health agencies were focused on and run out of business at stunning rates. Any savings they may have realized by finding the few bad players were offset by 1) the cost of investigations 2) the savings lost by having lack of services in areas which could have saved some of the costs of hospitalizations.An industry which had, repeatedly, been shown to save the system money has just about been destroyed. A classic example of Medicare straining gnats and swallowing camels. Why? Well, obviously an industry which was operating on such thin margins does not have a large budget for lobbying. And the hospital corporations do.

Any bill that was meant to have saved Medicare money would have increased funding for home health and hospice. Instead, home health gets another hit, hospice avoided a hit but is frozen at current levels until they decide whether to cut funding. Hospitals? Good to go just as they have been. The evidence that they meant to save Medicare in any way that would have improved care is not there. The evidence that the bill we are going to get codifies the profits of the worst criminal elements of the system is overwhelming. The help for those who need care? Minimal and will decrease, over time, as costs continue to rise at the same or higher rates than they do now.

[Ozymanithrax]

23. Dr. Dean is a rich man who pays for his health care...

He is not one of the 50+ million who will continue to die without health care at a rate of about 40,000 a year if we kill the health care bill.

As a wealthy man he lives a life that most of us only see on TV.

He is insulated from those without health care, without routine medical care, because of their poverty.

Now, if he wants to cancel his health care and let the world know that he and his family will be allowed to die if nothing is passed, then he might have some credibility.

[NJmaverick]

25. That's what I wanted to say, but you said it so much better

[Lydia Leftcoast]

26. But most provisions don't kick in for FOUR YEARS

How many people will die before then?

How about scrapping the whole monstrosity and just saying, "We're going to have single payer. The current rank-and-file employees of the insurance companies will be regional administrators, and the hell with the executives. They have enough money to retire. Single payer will go into effect on January 1, 2011."

That can be the original negotiating position. That SHOULD HAVE BEEN the original negotiating position. Obama should have gone on TV, told supporters to pester their Congresscritters to death, and had advocacy groups run constant ads with satisfied Canadians and Australians talking about their experiences.

The DLC types are subjecting the Democrats to the tyranny of low expectations and a mindless "yay team!" attitude.

They toss you stale Wonder Bread crumbs and you act as if its yummy whole grain bread.

Just look at the online comments for Krugman's column. Real people from all over the political spectrum are furious.

[Ozymanithrax]

46. Yes, the begin slowly, but nothing at all is much slower.

We are on schedule to be on par with Victorian London. My family and friends need relief soon than never.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

51. But why settle for four years from now?

How will being forced to buy whatever the insurance companies feel like gouging them for help your family and friends?

[NJmaverick]

56. How will scrapping the bill and starting from scratch speed things up?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

58. First of all, bar the door against the insurance and pharma companies

and DON'T consult them and CALL OUT any legislator who does consult them.

This nonsense about consulting the ins. co's and Big Pharma ahead of time is exactly like Cheney consulting the energy companies about what laws they were willing to obey.

If anyone tries to weasel corporate-friendly amendments into the bill, the Dems should call them out publicly, even one of their own. Far from serving as bad publicity, this will demonstrate that the Dems are interested in preventing corruption.

Start from John Conyers' and Bernie Sanders' bills, both of which are clear and simple and transparent. Leave the other 1900 or so pages for the writers of administrative rules.

Before even presenting the bills to Congress, start a massive publicity campaign. (One of the online commentators in the NY Times today suggested having popular media programs like Larry King, 60 Minutes, and Good Morning America interview people in Canada, Australia, etc about their health care systems.)

Then, once the bill is presented, Obama goes in and twists arms. "You want any DSCC/DCCC money next time? Then stop being a corrupt asshole and pass this already."

Unfortunately, we'd need a different Democratic party to accomplish this.

But I have NO faith, NONE AT ALL, ZERO confidence that a Congress that can't prevent the credit card companies from charging criminal interest rates can provide "eventual" reforms after so empowering the insurance companies.

[Ex Lurker]

55. Exactly n/t

[mmonk]

13. I'd rather pass around the bottle.

[HughMoran]

17. Mr. Krugman, meet my friend, the Bus

http://www.popartuk.com/g/l/lgpp30041+say-hello-to-my-little-friend-al-pacino-scarface-poster.jpg

[NJmaverick]

39. The tire tracks on his back are quite deep

[Bonhomme Richard]

29. I am very torn. Part of me says that this is a bad bill and

it should be sent back "to the drawing board". The other part of me says that if this is the best we can get right now then we ought to go for it. Either way the insurance companies and repugs win but passing the bill at least open the door later to make it better.
For the democratic party this bill will cost them dearly in the next election. It doesn't matter what they pass, the teabag end of the voters wouldn't vote for them anyway and now they are throwing the progressive and independent voters under the bus at their peril. I personally know republican leaning voters that pulled the lever for Obama because of the lousy health care system.

[NJmaverick]

41. Maybe this will help

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=72568&mesg_id=72568

[Bonhomme Richard]

44. Thanks. I forgot about that. n/t

[Laelth]

31. Krugman: Spare us the shilling. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[NJmaverick]

34. why do you claim he is shilling?

[HuckleB]

43. Because...

[donheld]

53. Brilliant

:eyes:

[NJmaverick]

57. It does explain how they reached the positions they have reached

[HuckleB]

61. Yes, it does.

[HuckleB]

60. Yup.

[WT Fuheck]

32. nobody's perfect.

apparently, he should stick to the economy.

[Political Heretic]

35. Krugman Rebuttal: PK gives no specifics when it comes to cost containment and regulation.

The arguments for passing the bill even though 67% of American now opposes it while nearly that same number still support a true public option are that the remaining provisions will still be a net benefit to most Americans.

And yet everyone saying this is constantly vague on the critical elements - how will this bill guarantee that out of pocket and annual costs for consumers remain low and affordable, and how will national insurance giants be regulated to prevent their exploitation of the poor and the sick and everyone now mandated to have coverage?

Details are constantly vague and overgeneralized on this critical fronts. What's described in the actual bill, so much as I've been able to read and understand, is murky and minimal at best. And what is also true is that the insurance industry has won virtually ever battle its waged on this bill. They've gotten nearly everything they want. The American people, on the other hand, who overwhelmingly want a strong public option, and strong regulation, and price caps and competition, have gotten nothing that they want.

Respectfully, when Krugman then says "pass the bill" it rings hollow to me. I'm tired of being told to bend over and take it from Washington. Sooner or later its time to fight back. We can start by putting this terrible capitulation bill down in flames. It will sting Democrats politically - but they NEED to be stung. The damage is their own fault for putting the interests of the financial elite and privilege ahead of the people.

When we keep saying "well, this will have to do" over and over and over again - we get a society that SUCKS AS MUCH AS THIS ONE DOES.

I'm not sure why people don't get that.

[NJmaverick]

42. Are you aware that this is not the final bill. The conference committee will have to work the House

bill and the Senate bill into one final plan. If it doesn't pass they can't fix it at conference

[Lydia Leftcoast]

52. So two lousy bills are going to come together as one good bill?

That would be a miracle.

[lib2DaBone]

37. 2094 pages and growing.. does anyone know what's really in this bill?

NBC Nightly News just said that only one Senator has read this bill... MSM doing their ususal crappy job of coverage.

[usregimechange]

48. Not with the level of mandates in the bill

[Major Hogwash]

50. Poor Paul, he never heard it coming.

The bus that he just got ran over with.

[NJmaverick]

54. Yeah and the tracks on his back are deep and painful

[laughingliberal]

59. Oh, he's got to be used to it, by now. He's been ignored and marginalized by the administration

all along.

[NJmaverick]

62. and now all his supporters on DU

[WI_DEM]

64. Now Krugman will be the bad guy (like Bernie Sanders) for purists on DU.