Krugman: The Senate bill would save tens of thousands of lives

Krugman (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/19/plan-b/):

"It sounds as if House Democrats — or at least their leadership — are prepared to pass the Senate bill if, as expected, they lose today’s special election.

That’s a shame: the House was in the process of making the bill better. But as Ezra Klein says, they should do what’s necessary — not as a matter of political advantage, although it’s probably better for them even in that sense, but because it’s the right thing to do. Imperfect as it is, the Senate bill would save tens of thousands of lives, save many Americans from financial catastrophe, and partially redeem us from the shame of being the only advanced nation without some kind of universal care."

It isn't clear how giving people a subsidy for health insurance, who otherwise can't afford it, is going to "save tens of thousands of lives". I know folks right now today who have health insurance and can't afford to use it. All we're doing it forcing people to buy insurance with money they barely have, if at all. As such, they'll have precious little if anything left to actually buy health CARE. Even with health insurance, health care costs money, and not insignificant amounts, especially for many many "pre-existing conditions" that require regular medications, tests, and equipment to treat and monitor the disease, not to mention the time off from work required to visit with physicians.

We needed health CARE reform. This reform is merely going to subsidize some who may not be able to afford to use their insurance, and drive up the cost upon people who already have insurance. Where is the explanation of how any of that "saves tens of thousands of lives"?

And as an aside, that is far from establishing any sort of right or "access" to universal CARE. It is only a requirement for us to become universal "customers" of insurance companies.

I think the trouble in Mass is that they have a similar plan and have the highest costs in the nation. I love Krugman but he has lost me on health care. We will hear all the excuses like Press and Shultz "Its the media". If it was the media NO democrat would ever be elected. The party and Obama will continue to be tone deaf and beholden to the special interests, shoveling our money at them and pretending they are giving us something. This isn't rocket science, the rest of the world has all kinds of models and he Obama picks this crap. People see it and don't like it. I wouldn't be surprised to see all incumbents tossed out.

one Jon Gruber. Krugman (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/more-on-jon-gruber/):

"Modeling health reform is a very detail-driven business: you need a detailed statistical representation of the population, together with detailed estimates of behavioral responses to incentives. Gruber has spent years developing such a model, which is maintained and update at considerable expense."

But Krugman doesn't say in what period the Senate bill would "save tens of thousands of lives".

. . . I also know that in order to get where we want to go, capitalism is going to have to be driven out of the US healthcare system. I AM ALL FOR THAT! But I don't intend to hold my breath waiting for that to happen. Something needs to break things loose. I am for a National Health Service as in Great Britain! So I think that the "public option" is far too timid. But to lose this political battle would be a disaster that would delay substantial change for decades. If politicians get the idea of Healthcare reform as a "third rail" we'll never get rid of this mess.

Krugman (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/opinion/18krugman.html?_r=1):

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.

(..)

The result would be a huge increase in the availability and affordability of health insurance, with more than 30 million Americans gaining coverage, and premiums for lower-income and lower-middle-income Americans falling dramatically.

(..)

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.

(..)

Whereas flawed social insurance programs have tended to get better over time, the story of health reform suggests that rejecting an imperfect deal in the hope of eventually getting something better is a recipe for getting nothing at all. Not to put too fine a point on it, America would be in much better shape today if Democrats had cut a deal on health care with Richard Nixon, or if Bill Clinton had cut a deal with moderate Republicans back when they still existed.

This is the point that never quite gets explained.

The result would be a huge increase in the availability and affordability of health insurance, with more than 30 million Americans gaining coverage, and premiums for lower-income and lower-middle-income Americans falling dramatically.

Other than a subsidy on the premiums, it isn't clear how it helps folks to have health insurance they can't afford to use. And I've seen nothing in either bill that ensures that the subsidy (especially for pre-existing conditions where they can charge 300% more) will sufficiently cover the cost of the premium. You take folks that have extremely limited funds and charge them for premiums they can't afford, and there's nothing left over to pay for the actual medical care.

Also, be careful about this claim:

Whereas flawed social insurance programs have tended to get better over time...

It was under Clinton that "welfare reform" was passed. There may have been a time right after the Great Society programs got started where progressives actually still held sway. But that is apparently not so true anymore. It was under Clinton that we got DADT, DOMA, and welfare reform. It was under Clinton that we heard the announcement that the "era of big government was over". The prospects for "fixing" this legislation isn't good. It is designed to manage the insurance companies through regulation. This is not a great society program where the government is making the rules and running things. This is to health care what regulation was for the banking industry (much of it passed under Clinton). This is the NAFTA of health care. And we haven't particularly "fixed" that in 16 years.

There is no guarantee this will ever be "worth it" and there are suggestions that in the long run it could make things worse for many, many people.

No, insurers could not charge 300%, or any more at all based on pre-existing conditions. It is true that they could charge three times as much, or 200% more, based on age, which is not classed as a pre-existing condition. While I don't like that part, it would not affect anyone with an income below 400% of the federal poverty level, as below that level subsidies would restrict the cost to the insured person or family to a lower level independently of age or any other factors but family size.

Under the Senate bill a family of four would have to pay about $188 per month for a policy similar to what I, as an employee of the state of NC, have to cover myself and my wife, which has acost, including employer and employee contributions of $800 per month. But currently that family of four would have to pay well over $1000 for the same type of policy if the parents were young and healthy, and far far more otherwise, if they could even get it.

about the bill! Great!

I think they should pass something -- even if it's just the Senate Bill. My allusion to the "third rail" is meant as an analogy to the third rail of electric subway train tracks: the kind with all the voltage "touch it you die." If the Democrats let healthcare sink to the level of "touch it you die," we'll be stuck with this idiotic healthcare system into the 22nd Century.

Look, I think that the health care bills passed in both houses are woefully lacking -- but letting the whole thing die here is in no one's interest, except the corporations who are profiting off of the current level of misery.

The Senate bill is better than the status quo.

I've yet to see anyone particularly demonstrate this claim, or even back it up. It would be difficult of course since they really haven't written most of the rules yet.

I think Krugman is a brilliant economist and a needed voice in the mainstream media, but I think he is being very naive about HCR. It isn't that his calculations are incorrect, it is that his entire position rests on the ASSUMPTION that the health insurance companies in America will abide by and implement fairly all of the provisions in the HCR as it now stands. In addition, there are no mechanisms in this bill to force health insurers to do anything. All of the provisions in the HCR can and will be easily side-stepped and tens of thousands of folks will still be dying due to lack of health care each year. Krugman is a good man that is simply dead wrong on this issue.

I don't get the pretense that loose regulation minus oversight and teeth is at least worthless and maybe not that good because the impression is given that the issue is resolved.

than experts like Krugman and Jon Gruber?

Appeal to Authority is not a good argument, even if the authority does happen to have expertise in the topic.

a quote by John Kenneth Galbraith:

"Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everybody gets busy on the proof."

The bill spells out what coverage must be provided and at what costs.

The fact is that health insurers WILL stay within the letter of the law of any new HCR, but they most certainly have a dozen ways to violate the spirit of any regulations or mandates. This opinion is not just my cynical nature coming out, it has historical precedence. Health insurers will cover exactly who they are told to cover and then make actually receiving treatment and care so onerous and difficult, it will be the same thing as denying coverage. They have done it in the past and there is nothing in the HCR to prevent them from doing it again.

for group insurance, and rarely, if ever, violated. Healthcare reform will extend these protections to insurance purchased in the individual market. These regulations will be easy to enforce, because any violation will be reported immediately by the victim.

Also, report doesn't mean jack about resolution. There is no enforcement.

People report and report to bought out or out gunned state enforcement and get the hose. The regulations are smoke and mirrors.

... but of course it wont be.

No evidence is presented of his position is presented but that should "be the end of the argument"? Funny way to argue.

In the long run, if this bill kills people as it simultaneously saves a handful, it is penny-wise & pound-foolish.

Who will it kill and how? Specifically.

It's so much nicer when liberals can sabotage their own party at the expense of the sick and the poor without having to think about the people they're killing.

When they were holding up the bill until they got what they wanted.

It's so much nicer when Senators and lobbyists can sabotage the country without thinking of the people they are killing and so nice for them that they can count on people like you to blame the dirty hippies instead of them.

Lefties have made compromise after compromise after compromise for decades. I've made one in every single vote I've ever cast. Tell me, what did the centrists compromise by electing another centrist?

:rofl:

grind em all up right. Its Single payer or these losers get it.

Once again, I remind you that they have actual votes in Congress and dirty fucking hippies on the internet don't.

Thanks to the people of the great state of Massachusetts. We all should give them one swift :kick: in the assets for all of their help tonight..........

Lives aren't worth as much as they use to be i guess.
Who would have thunk that with a supermajority we could accomplish so much. :sarcasm:

The loss in MA is meaningless...the core of the problem is a corrupt, and spineless party in WA and in the WH.

Democrats offer next to nothing and call themselves progessive.

Yes I know, I know, people are saying "this is it" you don't go back and tinker with it once it's done. But once the full bill is done, and you start taking votes on smaller things the focus is on those smaller things. Lets take the cadillac tax for example and raising the threshold so that it doesn't cover union plans. If Republicans want to vote against that as a separate bill, they will not be voting against health care, they will be voting against a tax cut. Republicans hate voting against tax cuts.