Why Krugman Is Wrong

Privatized Medicine and Health Insurance, has Worked [Perfectly] Huh...

[Not]

Over 50 Million Americans [Un-Insured] and Millions of Americans [Under-Insured] and Millions Filing Bankruptcy because they can't Pay their Costly Medical Billls...

Note: If you are not 100% Covered by your Insurance Company and which would include Acceptance of [Pre-Existing Conditions]...

You are not [Insured] !!

35%-40%-50%-70% Health Coverage is not [100% Covered]

Why should there be any [Changes] to hear these so called [Conservatives]

The Medical system is just [Fine] and there is no need to [Change] the Medical- Health Care System, in [America]

The only Secure forms of Health Coverage in this Nation is ...

[Medi-Caid] & [Medi-Care] and those forms of Health Coverages have ...

Specific [Guidelines]

PS: The Medi-Care Seniors need to have their Benefits [Streamlined] before they Bankrupt the Nation and the Next Generation. Because the [Medi-Care Seniors] get far Too Many Benefits and they don't contribute to the Medi-Care System, they [Drain It]

Paul Krugman: On Sunday, the Obama administration announced it was working with trade associations, pharmaceutical groups and other stakeholders in the health care debate on a major effort that could save more than $2 trillion over the next decade. Full details will be revealed at the White House Monday.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman notes today that one of the groups involved is a descendant of the lobbyists that helped kill health care reform with "Harry and Louise." Krugman says he's wary of the shift -- he thinks industry groups will use good will created by this move to try to kill a public health plan backed by progressives). Still, he calls today's developments "some of the best policy news I've heard in a long time."

The fact that the medical-industrial complex is trying to shape health care reform rather than block it is a tremendously good omen. It looks as if America may finally get what every other advanced country already has: a system that guarantees essential health care to all its citizens.


And serious cost control would change everything, not just for health care, but for America's fiscal future. As [Budget Director Peter] Orszag has emphasized, rising health care costs are the main reason long-run budget projections look so grim. Slow the rate at which those costs rise, and the future will look far brighter. I still won't count my health care chickens until they're hatched. But this is some of the best policy news I've heard in a long time.

Canadian Health Insurance Vs. No Health Insurance Or Under-Insured Coverage.

Many Lives are Lossed each Year in America, because of Low Health Care Insurance, No Health Insurance Care or Rejected Health Insurance Claims, based on Loop Holes of Insurance Companies, looking to Avoid High Cost Associated with Under Insured Patients, whose Operations & Care [Cost Too Much]

The Insurance Companies Easy Out...

[Pre-Existing Conditions or Ailments]
---------------------

The Canadian Health Care System is a [Gem] Compared to America's Privatized Health Insurance [System]

Some say there are [47 Million Un-Insured]

I say that's Borderline Bull-Spit !

The number of Un-Insured and Under-Insured in America is Much Higher than that !!

If you count those with Low, Mid-Range or Insufficient Health Coverage, the Number is ..

[Far Greater] !!!


These People might as well be Considered [Un-Insured] because anyone whose not 100% Covered, in the Health Insurance World is [Un-Insured]

[30-40-50 % Insured]...

Is Not [100% Insured] or Covered.

An when they get that 1st Bill of...

[$ 100,000 - 400,000- 700,000]....

Its Bankruptcy or Suicide, Only 2 Ways Out, for the [Poor Souls]...

The 3rd Alternative, would be to Deny or Reject Hospital Care and simply Wither Away at Home or in some Low Cost Convalescent Care Center and thats [Suicidal] within itself, if you see, some of these Low Cost Facilities and how Patients are treated, you'd fully understand what I mean !!!
--------------------

Canadians have the Luxury of having National Health Care Coverage, so they can seek Help in Canada the USA or else where and know they will be Covered.

An if there's an [Emergency] that cannot wait, Canadians are Accepted here in the states, because the American Hospital System, know they'll be [Paid] Up Front...

Unlike the Unpredictable Privatized Insurance Companies in America, regarding their [Under- Insured Patients]

Lets face it, People are going to [DIE] no matter what, in any case, but it is Better to Die without Leaving Family Members in [DEBT] than to Leave Family Members Scrambling to Pay off your [HOSPITAL DEBTS] and that's the Vicious Cycle here in America.

Generational Debt via Gigantic Hospital Bills left Behind !!!

Regarding Torture:

What do Senator John McCain, President Barack Obama and former President Ronald Reagan have in common.

They all agree [Waterboarding] is Torture When Sen. McCain was running, for president he stated in Fla. that he agreed that the Japanese that were tried for [Waterboarding] should have been tried and convicted.

If President Obama wants them at the table then they are. I voted for him and I therefore have to back him. Honestly, I agree with John Edwards more because I just don't see us controlling health care costs in a for profit system, at least enough to cover all our people. I think the corporations currently running our health care will fight their profit loss tooth and nail, to the detriment of our country and families, the same as they do now. However, I didn't take into account that President Obama wants them on TV, in front of us, instead of backroom deals behind closed doors.

Maybe he can do it. Maybe when everything is on the table in front of the public we can actually accomplish something that will work for us all. I just want my president to know that if he wants to push then fine, I'll support him. If push comes to shove, however, I have his back with a baseball bat. Lobbyists and special interests had better realize and remember it too, and not just on this issue.

You say that no populist have won the presidency in the last century, which actually proves the point. No populist win, and everthing stays the same. No populist have won, and in the last 80 years, the rich have gotten richer as the poor have gotten poorer. No populist win, and the working class keeps taking a beating. No populist win, and labour unions diminish, real wages diminish, and CEO salaries sky rocket.

Now doesn't that tell you something? Doesn't that tell you that the "big table" politics as usual that you favor clearly don't work?

Even the programs that you trumpet that you claim were as a result of this big table approach, what did they really accomplish? The trajectory of power and wealth has continuted in one direction, into the hands of the few. Why, because super rich corperate interest were always protected at your touted big table.

You say that no populist have won the presidency in the last century, which actually proves the point. No populist win, and everthing stays the same. No populist have won, and in the last 80 years, the rich have gotten richer as the poor have gotten poorer. No populist win, and the working class keeps taking a beating. No populist win, and labour unions diminish, real wages diminish, and CEO salaries sky rocket.

Now doesn't that tell you something? Doesn't that tell you that the "big table" politics as usual that you favor clearly don't work?

Even the programs that you trumpet that you claim were as a result of this big table approach, what did they really accomplish? The trajectory of power and wealth has continuted in one direction, into the hands of the few. Why, because super rich corperate interest were always protected at your touted big table.

"Ideally, health insurance companies should be eliminated altogether. ... The only option is to curb their power and expand coverage through more regulation. ... The answer to price-gouging is to force these companies to negotiate drug prices with the government ..."

Elimination is less confrontational? Curbing their power, forcing expanded coverage, and forcing drug companies to negotiate drug prices would be less confrontational than not including them in discussions on health CARE reform?

"Ideally, health insurance companies should be eliminated altogether. ... The only option is to curb their power and expand coverage through more regulation. ... The answer to price-gouging is to force these companies to negotiate drug prices with the government ..."

Elimination is less confrontational? Curbing their power, forcing expanded coverage, and forcing drug companies to negotiate drug prices would be less confrontational than not including them in discussions on health CARE reform?

This analysis makes no sense. Alter says that "[l]eadership requires... [allowing] room for the loser to save face." By this measure, Edwards's proposal for a complete mandate is better because it creates more room to compromise and for the losers (ostensibly insurance companies and pharmas) to save face. To put it another way, never negotiate with yourself by proposing a half-measure, such as the partial mandate offered by Obama, unless of course you expect to give up even more.

Obama, to me represents real change. His grass roots support and recent success in Iowa demonstrates that some are beating back the media jungle of special interests and seeing the uglyness of US politics and policy. I am counting on Obama to begin the process of moving this country back toward its real strength, its people. TJD

Health insurers are unlikely to participate in good faith.Any fool realizes that corporations tend to act in ways that make them money. As a result, they will either not seriously participate or will propose seeming reforms that lower the quality of care, like "tort reform." To the extent our government relies on their input we will find ourselves in a worse situation. Inviting them to the table is thus either pretext or dangerous; take your pick.

I would vote for a schnauzer if I thought he would fix things, but then someone would give him a *** and some Gaines Burgers, and my beloved Schnauzer would turn on me. Corruption is so rampant that nothing short of violence will change a damn thing!

This group makes me yearn for politics Pakistani style!

George Bush is not a total disaster. This unexamined assumption dogs your credibility and mars any conclusion you seem to think you are drawing. It's too bad this fills in for "journalism" atop the heap of words you have wasted in this valuable space.

With all due respect to Paul Krugman, we live in a world that cannot be retained by model mentality. Players must be able to represent themselves, even if their positions are predicable and self-serving. His marginal utility in economics is a very high plus. Stick to it.

"When I asked Edwards how any agreement could be reached without at least talking to these players in the system, he said he would offer a seat at the table to members of Congress who represent their interests. In other words, it's OK to have the congressional stooges there, but not the interests that pull their strings?"

The lowlight in an otherwise as-usual solid, well-reasoned piece. It rings a bit hollow after speaking to how Krugman got FDR wrong, and how he was much more willing to compromise than some claim. That is, of course, true -- to a point. But FDR only brought people to the table to adopt policies the Brain Trust had predetermined, and even so, he compromised with Republicans in Congress (setting them against Norris and Wagner as bulldogs), *not* with corporations themselves. He met with "Hoover Treasury officials," as you state, but I wouldn't call that "working" with them -- he decidedly rejected Hoover's own request to come up with a joint economic program in favor of the New Deal. It doesn't seem to me that these were "let's agree on a compromise" meetings. These were "come to Jesus" meetings.

Surely there's a point there where one has to have the major players in this sort of thing across the table, but whether that's to determine what policy should be or to explain what policy will be is a distinction that needs to be made. You say that the "heat" should be applied up close -- that's the latter, and I doubt Edwards would be opposed to that. What I hear from Obama is the former, and that's something that I think neither FDR nor LBJ would have kowtowed to.