Paul Krugman: Obamacare Fails To Fail

Last edited Mon Jul 14, 2014, 02:39 PM - Edit history (1)

July 13, 2014

How many Americans know how health reform is going? For that matter, how many people in the news media are following the positive developments? I suspect that the answer to the first question is 'Not many,' while the answer to the second is 'Possibly even fewer.' The Affordable Care Act has faced nonstop attacks from partisans and right-wing media, with mainstream news also tending to harp on the act's troubles. Many of the attacks have involved predictions of disaster, none of which have come true. But absence of disaster doesn't make a compelling headline, and the people who falsely predicted doom just keep coming back with dire new warnings.

How is that possible? Think relentless negativity without accountability. The Affordable Care Act has faced nonstop attacks from partisans and right-wing media, with mainstream news also tending to harp on the act's troubles. Many of the attacks have involved predictions of disaster, none of which have come true. But absence of disaster doesn't make a compelling headline, and the people who falsely predicted doom just keep coming back with dire new warnings.

Consider, in particular, the impact of Obamacare on the number of Americans without health insurance. The initial debacle of the federal website produced much glee on the right and many negative reports from the mainstream press as well; at the beginning of 2014, many reports confidently asserted that first-year enrollments would fall far short of White House projections.

Then came the remarkable late surge in enrollment. Did the pessimists face tough questions about why they got it so wrong? Of course not. Instead, the same people just came out with a mix of conspiracy theories and new predictions of doom. The administration was "cooking the books," said Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming; people who signed up wouldn't actually pay their premiums, declared an array of "experts"; more people were losing insurance than gaining it, declared Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.

read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/14/opinion/paul-krugman-obamacare-fails-to-fail.html




Paul Krugman savages elite pundits for ignoring Obamacare’s success

July 14, 2014
ELIAS ISQUITH

The New York Times columnist argues that media elites are too out of touch to notice the program's victories

In his latest for the New York Times, celebrated economist and best-selling author Paul Krugman argues that the media has ignored the way Obamacare’s gone from a disaster to a remarkable success, largely because the media is comprised of wealthy elites who never saw the reality of poor or nonexistent health insurance for millions of Americans as anything more than an abstraction.

First, however, Krugman offers a quick recap to his audience, informing them of multiple surveys showing Obamacare has already dramatically reduced the nation’s uninsured rate. Not only is the rate down, but the data so far indicate that premiums haven’t risen much and, contrary to some conservative claims, there’s little reason to believe the sudden decrease in the number of uninsured can be chalked up to an improving economy instead of the Affordable Care Act, especially when one notices that improvements have been more marked in states that accepted Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion.

“It’s not the economy,” Krugman writes, “it’s the policy, stupid.”

Turning to the gap between reality and the media’s coverage, Krugman says there are two primary reasons the gap exists. One, because Obamacare was designed to disrupt as little of the health insurance marketplace as possible; and two, because most elite pundits are, by their very nature, shielded from the realities of life with poor or nonexistent health insurance:

read more: http://www.salon.com/2014/07/14/paul_krugman_savages_elite_pundits_for_ignoring_obamacares_success/