Krugman: Mandates and Mudslinging - Attacks Obama's Health Plan

From the beginning, advocates of universal health care were troubled by the incompleteness of Barack Obama’s plan, which unlike those of his Democratic rivals wouldn’t cover everyone. But they were willing to cut Mr. Obama slack on the issue, assuming that in the end he would do the right thing.

Now, however, Mr. Obama is claiming that his plan’s weakness is actually a strength. What’s more, he’s doing the same thing in the health care debate he did when claiming that Social Security faces a “crisis” — attacking his rivals by echoing right-wing talking points.

The central question is whether there should be a health insurance “mandate” — a requirement that everyone sign up for health insurance, even if they don’t think they need it. The Edwards and Clinton plans have mandates; the Obama plan has one for children, but not for adults.

Why have a mandate? The whole point of a universal health insurance system is that everyone pays in, even if they’re currently healthy, and in return everyone has insurance coverage if and when they need it.

And it’s not just a matter of principle. As a practical matter, letting people opt out if they don’t feel like buying insurance would make insurance substantially more expensive for everyone else.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/30/opinion/30krugman.html?hp

And all our candidates need to go single-payer.

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then put in the mandate. There isn't a plan that guarantees affordability. I guess people like Krugman will never understand that. Or understand that no matter how many polls there are, people keep rejecting mandated health insurance plans and the people who push them.

Single-payer IS affordable. The only plans that aren't affordable are the ones that involve scads of middle men - insurance companies, re-insurance companies, patent attorneys for the drug companies, advertising for the drug companies, and so on.

This is not rocket science. Every industrialized country in the world provides its citizens with health care and medicine, and none of those countries are 9 trillion dollars in the hole

But the people he claims would be "opting out" are not exactly the people who would be paying the big-bucks premiums to support everyone else.

Who are the people I know who have no health insurance? Predominantly twenty-somethings, who are hired on contract without insurance, or are part-time workers, or the unemployed or self-employed. The kind of people who can't afford the premiums on their own and would thus have to be subsidized by the state to some degree anyway.

I am 100% for single-payer, government-sponsored health insurance. But given that all the other Democratic plans call for far far less than that, I am really opposed to mandating purchase of insurance.

Besides, this is bullshit: whoever gets elected ... we won't even recognize their health-care plan by the time they hit Pennsylvania Avenue, and by the time it gets through the meat-grinder of Congressional legislation. Go back and look at what the candidates in '92 were promising on health care: they all changed their positions radically after the elections. Campaign policy plans cooked up by advisors mean shit ... and Krugman is a fool if he's pretending these plans are even close to anything definitive.

And the more Obama talks- the more one realizes that. Sad, because I, like many others, had high hope for him, too.

To quote Krugman from his article:

Here’s why: under the Obama plan, as it now stands, healthy people could choose not to buy insurance — then sign up for it if they developed health problems later. Insurance companies couldn’t turn them away, because Mr. Obama’s plan, like those of his rivals, requires that insurers offer the same policy to everyone.

As a result, people who did the right thing and bought insurance when they were healthy would end up subsidizing those who didn’t sign up for insurance until or unless they needed medical care.

This is an absolute no brainer. Waiting until you're sick or injured before you pay health care premiums makes no sense, fiscally or morally. No matter how it's done.... automatic deductions from paychecks like is done now for income taxes and FICA, or writing out a check every month or quarter for coverage, a financially secure health plan can only be funded if the healthy as well as the hospitalized pay premiums.

I'm hoping that Obama mis-spoke or was misquoted, or that Krugman (a guy whom I normally respect) edited Obama's comments to fit his own (as yet not understood my be) anti-Barak agenda.

As described by Paul, Obama's plan makes absolutely no sense.