"Why the Left Must Fight for the Public Option" and "Flaws in the Bill"

[amborin]

(edited for copyright purposes-proud patriot Moderator Democratic Underground)


these are various snippets of posts from Paul Krugman's blog....he posted a Kaiser chart today in his on-line blog.....but his chart and post were severely criticized by many knowledgeable posters

Obama has shown that he is willing to work with the “center-right” wrecking crew, but has no respect for the left. This is product of the simplest rule in politics “he who can destroy a thing, controls a thing”. The wrecking crew is willing to blow up Obama’s agenda by blocking it in the Senate, that gives them control over his agenda making it over into their “center-right” agenda. Unless the left shows the same willingness to blow up the President’s (now “center-right”) agenda, by sinking this bill, they will have no leverage in future negotiations, proving the President is right (politically) to ignore them.

The sum of these conclusions (since you wanted math) is that this is now bigger than HCR. Unless the left stands up now, the “center-right” wrecking crew will continue to call the shots on national policy. This will spell disaster, or rather further disasters, for our nation. Unless the left scores a win over the wrecking crew, by getting the PO back in the bill (unlikely), they have to kill the bill. Other wise the “center-right” wrecking crew will maintain their dominance in policy formulation and Washington will continue to function as a catastrophe factory.

It’s the group at the 200-400% level that is going to get hit hard, I think–the working poor and lower middle class who don’t have a few extra dollars to spend, and are probably going to be able to afford only the “Bronze” plans, which they can’t afford to use. I think a fair number of these people–care to estimate, prof?–are going to be bankrupted and a smaller number receive inadequate care.

snip

I also think that the insurance companies have a huge incentive to raise rates to a level that will sop up all available savings from this group,and how poorly regulated they are likely to be, I think there’s a great deal of cause for concern.

Moral hazard, much?

(snip)

and many more withering criticisms.....of this so-called reform bill

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/26/numerical-notes-on-health-care-reform/#comments

[leftstreet]

1. K&R

[rockymountaindem]

2. You should post this during the day when more people will read it

[elocs]

4. If it gets kicked during the day it will go to the top of the GD forum.

In fact, kicking the thread by responding will get it more read than simply giving it a Rec because Rec/UnRec only works for 24 hours but a thread can be kicked to the top of its forum for days or longer as long as it keeps getting responses.

[clear eye]

3. Not to mention families w/ higher on-paper incomes who

are putting one or more kids through college.

And excellent point about progressive Dems needing to seize some power now or expect "a catastrophe factory" as rw Dems call the shots.

[amborin]

12. .

[Echo In Light]

5. Thanks for posting

[ixion]

6. kicked and recommended

thanks for posting. This is a serious issue that needs serious debate.

[StarfarerBill]

7. K&R

[HereSince1628]

8. .

:kick:

[golddigger]

9. K&R

[Bluenorthwest]

10. Yeah, someone posted that chart of Krugman's yesterday

And I thought, wow, he's gone all Perrot on us. Charts and words where there should be numbers are red flags of the first order, as so many in the OP noted.

[peace frog]

11. k/r

[donheld]

13. k & R