Government involvement is only reason our health-care system works at all
July 31st, 2009 at 08:39am Pat Cunningham
 
 Yet again, Dr. Krugman (above) EXPLODES a popular conservative myth:
It’s not just that many Americans don’t understand what President Obama is proposing; many people don’t understand the way American health care works right now. They don’t understand, in particular, that getting the government involved in health care wouldn’t be a radical step: the government is already deeply involved, even in private insurance.
 I’m eager to see if any of our Applesauce readers can disagree with Krugman specifically on the points he makes and not just dismiss him because he’s a liberal. Frankly, I have my doubts.
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5 Comments Add your own
1. shawnnews | July 31st, 2009 at 9:08 am
Krugman got the Nobel prize in 2008. His ideological opposites Hayek and Friedman, got theirs in the 70s. I’m not sure that means a lot unless the things they believe and predict can be demonstrated in the outside world.
2. Pat Cunningham | July 31st, 2009 at 9:36 am
Just as I suspected, wingnuts like mike can’t specifically dispute the points Krugman makes. Instead, we get the brilliant comment above. It’s almost Pavlovian, isn’t it?
3. Neftali | July 31st, 2009 at 9:44 am
Not so fast, Pat.
Krugman writes:
But to get that tax advantage employers have to follow a number of rules; roughly speaking, they can’t discriminate based on pre-existing medical conditions or restrict benefits to highly paid employees.
And it’s thanks to these rules that employment-based insurance more or less works, at least in the sense that horror stories are a lot less common than they are in the individual insurance market.
EXACTLY! So in other words, let’s apply these same methods used in the employerment-based insurance, and apply them to the individual insurance maket. This is something Republicans have been saying for the past 5 months!
Krugman is only attacking the “wingnuts.” Conservatives are not against government regulation, we embrace it. We have laws against monopolies to ensure proper competition in the marketplace. We have free trade agreements to help protect consumers. The list goes on. Krugman is correct in pointing out you cannot have successful medical reform without government help.
What’s more important to note in this column is the absence of avocation of the evil “public government option” for the middle class that Krugman previously pushed for. He must realize, as do fiscally consevative democrats, that GSE’s in the private enterprise can’t co-exist.
Thanks to Barney Frank, the word is out. The government public option is a stepping stone to a single-payer system, and thus, Socialism. So Krugman is whistling a different tune.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3BS4C9el98
4. realfoxnews | July 31st, 2009 at 11:31 am
Pat your on Med care why should you care about this. At least your old enough to be.
5. shawnnews | July 31st, 2009 at 4:37 pm
This was the first post I didn’t see mike talk about “The Party Of Satan.”
Congratulations.
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