Paul Krugman: Despite Imperfections, The Affordable Care Act Will Do A Lot Of Good

Paul Krugman (AP)

It’s said that you can judge a man by the quality of his enemies. If the same principle applies to legislation, the Affordable Care Act — which was signed into law two years ago, but for the most part has yet to take effect — sits in a place of high honor.

Read the whole story at The New York Times

Comments

[meg8907]

06:38 PM on 03/19/2012

Nobody gives any Keynesian credit for having the sense god pomised a billy-goat, so why does he even get coverage.

[jondekonkeroo]

02:39 PM on 03/20/2012

fifty years of unparallelled Keynsian success followed by thirty years of friedman tainted creeping fas/cism that created metastatic top end growth that has now reached flash point and will have to be undone to continue.

[HST]

08:52 PM on 03/20/2012

Spot On! F+F!

[Awake-and-Sing]

03:36 PM on 03/19/2012

If you want a public health insurance option on your state's health insurance exchange, then seek state legislators who will support it.

Blue and purple states can go farther than the provisions in this bill. Oregon and Illinois will have public options. Vermont is going for single-payer health care.

The Affordable Health Care Act is a first step forward. It was never meant to be the last step.

Instead of hemming and hawing, Republicans should be forced to defend their desire to re-allow insurance corporations to deny coverage via pre-existing conditions and rescind policies after-the-fact.

It's time for the Democrats to go on offense and make Republicans defend their immoral agenda.

[Judane]

03:34 PM on 03/19/2012

"Imprefections?" LOL

-- The CBO last week said that ObamaCare is going to cost DOUBLE what Obama promised. It was the original price take that got the majority of people to support it.

-- Less people are covered under healthcare now than before ObamaCare was passed.

-- Healthcare is more expensive now than when ObamaCare was passed.

-- 70% of Americans oppose the ObamaCare mandate and want ObamaCare rescinded.

-- Obama said his plan would be save money and be best for everyone.....yet he has already issued more than 1200 waivers......mostly to his Union supporters.

Nothing to see here citizens....move along.

[too young but old enough]

03:53 PM on 03/19/2012

Nothing reality-based to see here, citizens...Move along.

Unless you're just looking to tro|| for rebuttals, you should try basing your next comment on facts instead of previously debunked talking points.
http://www.factcheck.org/2012/03/gop-misrepresents-cbo/

[HST]

09:10 PM on 03/20/2012

Nice fact free post. I'm sure Fox would be proud.

"-- Less people are covered under healthcare now than before ObamaCare was passed."

.Since the passage of federal health-care reform last year, more than nine hundred thousand previously uninsured Americans between the ages of nineteen and twenty-five now have health insurance...
http://www.esquire.com/features/americans-2011/best-of-2011-health-care-reform-1211-2#ixzz1g6IRxRpj

More Small Businesses Offering Health Care To Employees Thanks To Obamacare
http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/01/06/more-small-businesses-offering-health-care-to-employees-thanks-to-obamacare/

"-- Healthcare is more expensive now than when ObamaCare was passed."

Name a time when healthcare costs haven't gone up.

"70% of Americans oppose the ObamaCare mandate and want ObamaCare rescinded"

On the contrary, one could look at the same results and say that a 56% majority either support the law or want it to be even more ambitious in a liberal direction.
When Republicans try to gut the Affordable Care Act next year, insisting that the country is with them, it's worth remembering a pesky detail: they're wrong.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_12/027264.php

Republicans Hatched Idea for Obama's Health Insurance Mandate
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/¬27/republicans-hatched-idea-obamas-health-insurance-mandate/

[7dr361]

03:17 PM on 03/19/2012

Paul Krugman: Yes agree with you 100% Hurray For Health Reform.......[ not for me but for younger people ]

[Ralph Lyndes Daughter]

03:15 PM on 03/19/2012

If you become sick or are in an accident in Canada, you are called a patient. If I cross the border, those circumstances make me a client/customer.
I will gladly pay my taxes, without bitchin, because I have been quite ill, (4 operations and months of rehab), and I was given the best care a gal could get. I did not have to worry my house and life savings would vanish nor would I have to go and live with my children.
When the greed is taken out of the American health care, costs will come down. When the insurance companies can no longer decline your treatment prescribed by your Doctors, you will come to understand why your President put in place what you have gotten so far. If you liked the nightmare of the evolution the health care in your country was growing into, then by all means, vote the Republicans in.

[StevieRae]

02:58 PM on 03/19/2012

As Krugman points out the main goals of ACA are to address those "Americans who fall through the cracks of our healthcare delivery system. And as more companies cut back on employer paid healthcare plans increasing those slipping through the cracks, does this anti-ACA attitude by some Americans basically come down a boot-strap world view: meaning "who said life was fair" or "take care of your own, don't look to me to help you"?

[StopMakingSense2]

02:42 PM on 03/19/2012

Single payer would have been so much better and simpler! But then America no longer does big things other than start wars it ends up losing. We all could have had the best health care in the world with the money that was squandered on military misadventures by the conservative chicken hawks!

[PickOneTwoThree]

04:42 PM on 03/19/2012

Single payer (or Medicare for all) would have been best. BUT this is the best we could get - and it's certainly better than what we have now - which is NOTHING.

[futty weet]

06:00 PM on 03/19/2012

Totally agree about America no longer doing big things except war, but l believe this health care we have now from President Obama will only be a stepping stone to single payer...YES!!! Cradle to Grave...nothing else makes sense. We are the only Industrialized nation that does Health care for PROFIT, SHAMEFUL...

[Scottish Guy]

02:07 PM on 03/19/2012

I see progressives are still trying to sell this pig.

[marco01]

02:32 PM on 03/19/2012

I see cons still could give a damn_about people without health care coverage.

[Scottish Guy]

03:49 PM on 03/19/2012

We want everyone to die, is that right?

[StopMakingSense2]

02:43 PM on 03/19/2012

And conservatives don't even have a pig to sell. Just empty BS...

[Scottish Guy]

03:50 PM on 03/19/2012

Yep we do, and we will in January.

[Bremerton]

02:05 PM on 03/19/2012

I would suggest that everyone watch Fareed Zakaria's special on CNN dealing with health care in America. I think it takes a fairly balanced view of the health care problem and some solutions. Take a moment to go to the Kaiser Family Foundation website a non partisan health care group previously associated (but no longer) with Kaiser Permanente. An authoritative site on health care issues. We should take some time to listen to these issues with an open mind. Many American's abdicate their responsibility to be informed on subjects to the bias of talk radio and others, on both sides, who have a dog in the fight. These issues are to important for a knee jerk reaction based on an emotional argument (i.e. wooooo that's socialism).

[Scottish Guy]

02:08 PM on 03/19/2012

I'm sure he will.

[blingbling65943]

02:56 PM on 03/19/2012

I do not have a very good opinion of CNN in America, but Fareed did a pretty decent job here. 

Hopefully it will start a more meaningful discussion about Healthcare in America.  

This Frontline episode is also worth watching  

If Americans only knew how badly they were being taken advantage, we'd be rioting in the streets.

[Bremerton]

03:22 PM on 03/19/2012

I agree. That's what we need in this country if we are going to solve our problems, meaningful discussion. Democrats with Republicans. Main street America needs to be leading that discussion. If the people lead the politicians will follow.

[sparafucilli]

01:42 PM on 03/19/2012

If it was the GOP's man that introduced this they'd be all for it. But McCain didn't win and they swore to make Obama's term a non-starter. Somehow the stone-walling efforts have gained traction and belief has set in that the current economic malaise is solely his fault. So Obama's attempts to plug those so called cracks (gaping holes rather) may ultimately fail. And if it does it will be because the GOP wishes to bury all those "others" in the holes their tax-cut preserving programs have created. More for "us" is less for "them" is their motto.

[indeedie]

01:39 PM on 03/19/2012

I order for markets to function, there must be three things: The ability to choose not to buy, the ability to choose which of multiple options to buy, and the ability to make an informed comparison.

None of these options exist in health care. Like water, power, sewer, roads, schools, police and armed forces, health care is something we will consume whether we want to or not, from the only source available (medical doctors and in the case of the US, via insurance companies), and of the kind available (credentialed generalists and specialists) Period. The only way to prevent or limit abuse and corruption in the provision of a necessary good from a limited or singular source is to either regulate private providers in the same way we do utilities, or make the service single-payer - ie, have the government provide it.

Since everyone must use, then everyone must pay. Since an individual can neither predict nor choose nor regulate their own time or amount of use, then the risk or cost of use must be distributed over the whole by insurance or taxes.

That is the reality. To pretend that there can be a functioning market in health care is to live in a fantasy world of the type that includes perfect "rational self-interest" and flying superheroes.

[eden4barack08]

01:45 PM on 03/19/2012

"The ability to choose not to buy, the ability to choose which of multiple options to buy, and the ability to make an informed comparison."

TWO of those options DO exist in the ACA!

[indeedie]

01:54 PM on 03/19/2012

Only as to WHICH insurance companies to use, not WHETHER to buy. Hence, the function of the market which would truly control costs is missing - the ability to walk away. Only a single-payer could exercise the ability to NOT purchase a good, and thus truly drive down its price. That is the case in fully-socialized medicine.

Since big money owns our legislative process, we remain hostage to the insurance companies and to the distortions they introduce into the marketplace. AHCA removes some of the distortions by mandating coverages and creating the "marketplace" of carriers. But as long a private profit motive remains between patients and providers (ie, profit-driven insurance companies), the distortions and lack of consumer control remain.

So the AHCA is a a huge machine to deliver a limited benefit. Sadly, it was the best we could to in our money-owned legislative and electoral system.

[StopMakingSense2]

02:48 PM on 03/19/2012

So where is the market now? There are no signs of competition! If the right to leave you dying on the street because you couldn't prove you could pay is included in the law then great. No more freeloaders that use conscientious objector status until they need care to dodge their obligations! Freedom isn't free!

[indeedie]

03:58 PM on 03/19/2012

The United States recognizes rights to LIFE, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. When Doctors, firemen, police and other life/life-safety professionals choose to enter those fields, just like a soldier who volunteers for the military, they volunteer to surrender part of their autonomy. For life/life-safety professionals, they give up the right to leave a person dying in the street. You and I are allowed to do that. These professionals are not.

If you and I have a right to life, then those who are responsible for us remaining alive have no right to neglect us. If they don't like that, they can choose a different profession - just like if a soldier doesn't like regimentation and following orders, then he doesn't have to join.

And if we are going to REQUIRE doctors, police and firemen to save everyone, then we also have to set up a mechanism to ensure they get paid. Taxes and mandatory insurance are two such mechanisms.

[muysuave41]

01:21 PM on 03/19/2012

Hopefully Mr Krugman can hold the euphoria a bit until we see what unfolds -- don't count the chickens yet. There is little evidence this law will help much.

[eden4barack08]

01:47 PM on 03/19/2012

"Almost 4 million seniors saved about $2.16 billion through discounts for their prescription medications in 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services plans to announce today."

Just to name ONE "help" for starters.

[muysuave41]

02:27 PM on 03/19/2012

But millions are still losing their health care..... millions are going bankrupt.... because of bad health care policy. Get the picture?

[PickOneTwoThree]

04:45 PM on 03/19/2012

Young people who don't get insurance through their employers (or can't find jobs) have been covered by their parents' insurance through age 27.

That's evidence - to the young people I know who have been covered by insurance.

[pyro]

01:05 PM on 03/19/2012

My wife is 61. Unemployed a little over two years. Unemployment Insc. is gone. She has zero income. No health insc. We live on my SSD. It's small.

Oregon has Oregon Health Care. But it's been cut back drasticly. Many for kids, disabled etc. She is on a waiting list with Oregon. Oddyly, it's a "lottery". (that's what they tell us)

When is the Obama's AHCA going to kick in for her?

[WowJones]

01:35 PM on 03/19/2012

Before age 65, you are eligible for free Medicare hospital insurance if:

You have been entitled to Social Security disability benefits for 24 months

[pyro]

05:38 PM on 03/19/2012

No, I have SSD, not her. Looks like she will get her SS retirement before AHCA kicks in for her.

[PickOneTwoThree]

04:50 PM on 03/19/2012

AHCA is going to 'kick in for her' and other people in her circumstances in 2014 UNLESS Republicans have their way. Then your wife is out of luck - as we are all if Republicans have their way.

Of course Republican politicians have brought legal suits in an effort to destroy the bill (before it is even in effect) and it will be decided this year by the Supreme Court. I don't know what they will do.

[pyro]

05:39 PM on 03/19/2012

2014. Thanks.

Looks like she will get her SS retirement before AHCA.

Hope she can stay healthy. (or find a job. Oregon employment is 6 to 1 currently. Worse for older folks.)

thanks for the response.

[iflew]

12:36 PM on 03/19/2012

Greed Over People critics always like to point out to imperfections. Reality is that to wait for perfection is to wait forever. Waiting for profits; the result is almost immediate. The writers of the Constitution intended the Supreme Court to be the weakest branch of Gov. As it has risen to its present status so have profits.

[jmpurser]

12:38 PM on 03/19/2012

Reality is those who take corporate welfare and call it health care reform never intend to get to real health care reform.

[futty weet]

06:16 PM on 03/19/2012

Yes thats true and shameful that the guys and gals in Black Robes are LEGISLATING FROM THE BENCH. Also not what they were intended to do. The Supreme Court has become too powerful and you are so right the Constitution NEVER intended them to be so powerful!!

[mcartri]

12:13 PM on 03/19/2012

As long as a large percentage of the electorate remains self-victimized by their own lack of factual based reality by being brainwashed by the Fox Land World they inhabit, the Greed Over People(GOP) will continue its destruction of the needs of the 99% for the greed of the 1%.