Krugman: "Health reform doesn’t work without a mandate" (2011)

[ProSense]

Naked Blackmail

It turns out that in the final stages of the debt negotiations, Republicans suddenly added a new demand — a trigger that would end up eliminating the individual mandate in health care reform.

This is telling, in a couple of ways.

First, the health care mandate has nothing to do with debt and deficits. So this is naked blackmail: the GOP is trying to use the threat of financial catastrophe to impose its policy vision, even in areas that have nothing to do with the issue at hand, a vision that it lacks the votes to enact through normal legislation.

Second, this is a demand Obama can’t accept, unless he plans on changing his party registration. Health reform doesn’t work without a mandate (remember the primary? Maybe better not to). And if health reform is undermined, Obama will have achieved nothing. So by adding this demand, Republicans were in effect saying no deal — unless, I guess, they believed that Obama is a total pushover.

Awesome.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/23/naked-blackmail/

Does this mean that Krugman is not a progressive economist?

[Son of Gob]

1. K&R

[jpgray]

2. Health reform based on private insurance won't work without a mandate

I would subscribe more to his idea that this was laying the groundwork for greater progress if I saw some indication from our party that this is less than what we need, which it is. It does too little to address the cost of care and raises a host of issues that are redundant in a simple expansion of Medicare, for example.

[MannyGoldstein]

3. So why did Obama campaign on no mandate?

Concise answer appreciated.

[quaker bill]

4. Because as he said repeatedly

he believed that nearly everyone would choose to be covered voluntarily, if coverage was made affordable. The argument turned when it became clear that the only way to make coverage affordable in a private system that accepts everyone regardless of pre-existing conditions was to eliminate adverse selection and have the generally healthy paying premiums as well.

It is sort of like social security, it works because those who are young and not about to retire pay into the system. It is also similar in that the young and healthy today will be the older and not quite so healthy 20 years from now.

Social security would be vastly more expensive if people were allowed to wait to sign up until they were 50 and thinking about retirement....

[hughee99]

6. Was Obama blindsided by the part that required insurance companies

to accept people with pre-existing conditions? It would seem to me like you don't need to be an economist to know this sort of policy is going to prevent coverage from being "affordable".

[quaker bill]

14. Not blindsided, just thought it would be humane to do it.

insurance companies cutting people off from benefits when they get sick seems rather like fraud to me.

[hughee99]

20. If they're not allowed to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions

then this shouldn't be an issue. On the same note, if they have to take people with serious pre-existing conditions, how can they make it affordable unless they increase the size of the pool? I'm sure he thought most people would want to sign up, but I can't believe he just assumed that would be the case. I can't believe he didn't at least suspect that the mandate would be necessary, and that it would be challenged on constitutional grounds.

[Uncle Joe]

10. Social Security would be vastly more expensive if it was for profit and using part of that

profit to lobby/bribe future Congresses to pass laws making it even more profitable at the peoples' expense and make no mistake about it, that's precisely what will happen with this new empowering the for profit "health" insurance industry law.

[quaker bill]

15. The health insurance industry is perfectly empowered now

and extremely profitable. Actually making them continue to cover folks when they are sick is a good idea, and will end some of the fraud. All plans look good when you don't need them, the question is what will they pay for when you are sick and for how long. The current answer is not much and not long. Ending recission will put some honesty back in this business.

[Uncle Joe]

24. With 1/2 a trillion in tax money, not to mention ongoing tens of millions of captured customers,

the for profit "health" insurance industry will be even more empowered now.

That's plenty of money for lobbying and bribing future Congresses.

Combine that with the Citizens United decision allowing the use of unlimited funds for issue advocacy up until election day that will end up promoting sympathetic or bought and paid for Congress people and the nice features of this law, preexisting conditions, etc etc. will be highly at risk and eroded over time.

The result will be a loss or reduction of the good features of this law and a mandate to the individual American and U.S. government to financially support an industry; that's diametrically opposed to the peoples' best interests, ie; universal single payer, a strong national competitive public option, or some other idea that threatens their narrow, self centered, dysfunctional and immoral, for profit, business model.

[ProSense]

7. It certainly

"So why did Obama campaign on no mandate?"

...wasn't because he believed the mandate was unconstitutional. In fact, his point was affordability has to precede a mandate.

<...>

SEN. OBAMA...According to Senator Clinton...there are more people covered under her plan than mine is because of a mandate. That is not a mandate for the government to provide coverage to everybody; it is a mandate that every individual purchase health care...If it was not affordable, she would still presumably force them to have it, unless there is a hardship exemption as they've done in Massachusetts, which leaves 20 percent of the uninsured out. And if that's the case, then, in fact, her claim that she covers everybody is not accurate....

MR. WILLIAMS: And Senator Clinton, on this subject --

SEN. CLINTON...Senator Obama has a mandate in his plan. It's a mandate on parents to provide health insurance for their children. That's about 150 million people who would be required to do that. The difference between Senator Obama and myself is that I know, from the work I've done on health care for many years, that if everyone's not in the system we will continue to let the insurance companies do what's called cherry picking -- pick those who get insurance and leave others out.

<...>

SEN. OBAMA...I do provide a mandate for children, because, number one, we have created a number of programs in which we can have greater assurance that those children will be covered at an affordable price. On the -- on the point of many adults, we don't want to put in a situation in which, on the front end, we are mandating them, we are forcing them to purchase insurance, and if the subsidies are inadequate, the burden is on them, and they will be penalized. And that is what Senator Clinton's plan does.

- more -

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/us/politics/26text-debate.html?pagewanted=print

[MannyGoldstein]

8. Did Obama run on no mandates for adults

because it sounded good and he wanted to get elected? Or because he didn't understand something about mandates?

[ProSense]

9. Oh

"Did Obama run on no mandates for adults because it sounded good and he wanted to get elected? Or because he didn't understand something about mandates?"

...I'm sure he wanted to get elected and he also wanted to address affordability before considering a mandate.

[Recursion]

13. He ran in the primary on cost-containment rather than universal coverage

And if you'll recall, Clinton slammed his primary-era health plan because it left too many people uninsured.

That said, Obama is hardly the first President to pick up a primary rival's platform and run with it.

[One of the 99]

5. Thanks ProSense!

[girl gone mad]

11. Krugman is wrong about many things.

This being one of those things.

[ProSense]

12. Well,

"Krugman is wrong about many things."

...he supported Hillary.

Both Hillary and Edwards campaigned on a mandate. Despite that, there were people who swore that Edwards was the most progressive candidate. He actually wanted to garnish wages to achieve it.

[girl gone mad]

16. If you haven't noticed, he's been getting his ass handed to him..

day after day by Steve Keen.

[ProSense]

18. Wait

"If you haven't noticed, he's been getting his ass handed to him..day after day by Steve Keen."

...this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Keen#Criticisms

You have got to be joking, and if you're not...


Oh My, Steve Keen Edition
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/02/oh-my-steve-keen-edition/

[girl gone mad]

21. Explain to me, in your own words, what your wikipedia link says.

In this Keen vs. Krugman debate, Krugman is completely wrong. He made several factually incorrect statements in his blog. Keen's description of the banking system is empirically accurate, without question.

I know you do not have a background in finance or economics or any higher science or math, so here it is in simple terms: Under our modern fiat money system, banks are never reserve constrained. Banks lend money first, then seek reserves later. The Fed will always accommodate banks by providing enough reserves to meet any reserve ratio at its target rate. The Fed targets a rate not a quantity. Banks are only constrained by capital requirements and limited demand from qualified borrowers, not by reserve requirements.

Krugman is dead wrong. There is no money multiplier effect from increased reserves. QE amounts to pushing on a string. This is why, as I've said for the past 4 years, the inflationists were wrong and this administration was unbelievably foolish to put so much emphasis on monetary solutions when its clear that we needed a fiscal plan to restore full employment and get the 99% out of recession.

[ProSense]

23. You know

In this Keen vs. Krugman debate, Krugman is completely wrong. He made several factually incorrect statements in his blog. Keen's description of the banking system is empirically accurate, without question.

I know you do not have a background in finance or economics or any higher science or math, so here it is in simple terms: Under our modern fiat money system, banks are never reserve constrained. Banks lend money first, then seek reserves later. The Fed will always accommodate banks by providing enough reserves to meet any reserve ratio at its target rate. The Fed targets a rate not a quantity. Banks are only constrained by capital requirements and limited demand from qualified borrowers, not by reserve requirements.

Krugman is dead wrong. There is no money multiplier effect from increased reserves. QE amounts to pushing on a string. This is why, as I've said for the past 4 years, the inflationists were wrong and this administration was unbelievably foolish to put so much emphasis on monetary solutions when its clear that we needed a fiscal plan to restore full employment and get the 99% out of recession.

...I'm no economist, but I find the arguments about the Fed and "fiat money" to be completely useless in the context of what needs to happen.

Sure getting back to full employment means the recession is over, but that is the least of the problem when it comes to the 99%. Full employment in a system where the deck is stacked is not the solution. The quality of the jobs matter.

For example, until this country can make headway on the issues here (http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002493939), the debate among egotistical economist, especially those who are wrong, is moot.




I mean, you said the "inflationists were wrong"? Palin has an opinion on economics too. So does the WSJ and Ron Paul.

Now, what about my question, which is more to the point (a mandate) of the OP:

Both Hillary and Edwards campaigned on a mandate. Despite that, there were people who swore that Edwards was the most progressive candidate. He actually wanted to garnish wages to achieve it.

Didn't you support one of those candidates?

[girl gone mad]

26. Unemployment is not the least of our problems.

It's actually one of the worst of our problems. Our high unemployment and underutilized productive capacity don't simply hinder our growth prospects, they threaten our security and even our democracy. Future generations could inherit an economy in which they have lost the ability to produce many of the things they need and want, in which they are dependent on imports and have fallen far behind in technical innovation and basic skills. This is actually far more dangerous than the debt and deficits that neo-liberals such as the President like to fearmonger about.

Krugman's credibility is central to the argument in your original post. Krugman argues that the mandate is essential. Many reputable economists disagree. Farr made a good case for the severability of the mandate.

[ProSense]

28. There

"Unemployment is not the least of our problems."

...could be full employment driven by crappy low-wage jobs. I see people complaining with every jobs report about McJobs.

The fact is that unless the issue Harkin outlined are addresses, inequality will never be.

[ProSense]

19. You still

didn't address this point:

Both Hillary and Edwards campaigned on a mandate. Despite that, there were people who swore that Edwards was the most progressive candidate. He actually wanted to garnish wages to achieve it.

Didn't you support one of those candidates?

[girl gone mad]

22. I supported Barack Obama..

the candidate who opposed the mandate.

[ProSense]

25. So

"I supported Barack Obama...the candidate who opposed the mandate."

...you knew that the President never claimed that a mandate was unconstitutional and that he always argued that affordability needed to precede a mandate, right?

<...>

SEN. OBAMA...According to Senator Clinton...there are more people covered under her plan than mine is because of a mandate. That is not a mandate for the government to provide coverage to everybody; it is a mandate that every individual purchase health care...If it was not affordable, she would still presumably force them to have it, unless there is a hardship exemption as they've done in Massachusetts, which leaves 20 percent of the uninsured out. And if that's the case, then, in fact, her claim that she covers everybody is not accurate....

MR. WILLIAMS: And Senator Clinton, on this subject --

SEN. CLINTON...Senator Obama has a mandate in his plan. It's a mandate on parents to provide health insurance for their children. That's about 150 million people who would be required to do that. The difference between Senator Obama and myself is that I know, from the work I've done on health care for many years, that if everyone's not in the system we will continue to let the insurance companies do what's called cherry picking -- pick those who get insurance and leave others out.

<...>

SEN. OBAMA...I do provide a mandate for children, because, number one, we have created a number of programs in which we can have greater assurance that those children will be covered at an affordable price. On the -- on the point of many adults, we don't want to put in a situation in which, on the front end, we are mandating them, we are forcing them to purchase insurance, and if the subsidies are inadequate, the burden is on them, and they will be penalized. And that is what Senator Clinton's plan does.

- more -

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/us/politics/26text-debate.html?pagewanted=print

[cthulu2016]

27. You left out Sean Hannity.

[mmonk]

17. It means as constructed, it will not work without a mandate.

The ACA, however, is a corporate solution made up of the right's alternative to a government solution to the problem. It is made up of their past ideas and is similar to the Heritage Foundation's ideas on healthcare reform. Are they progressive?