Sometimes I wonder just how credulous Dr. Krugman is:
That didn’t take long. Less than two weeks have passed since much of the medical-industrial complex made a big show of working with President Obama on health care reform — and the double-crossing is already well under way. Indeed, it’s now clear that even as they met with the president, pretending to be cooperative, insurers were gearing up to play the same destructive role they did the last time health reform was on the agenda.
So here’s the question: Will Mr. Obama gloss over the reality of what’s happening, and try to preserve the appearance of cooperation? Or will he honor his own pledge, made back during the campaign, to go on the offensive against special interests if they stand in the way of reform?
Based on the record so far of “honoring his own pledges”, the question answers itself. Unfortunately, the lack of understanding and agreement is serious. I don’t believe this is a case of just another politician going back on just another campaign pledge after the election is over. Dr. Krugman has made his position very clear: without the “public option”, a federally-administered system of insurance that potentially competes with private insurers, the proposed healthcare reform is no reform at all.
However, that’s the bit that’s completely unacceptable to private insurers. As I noted in my previous post on this subject, it’s not so much that one side or the other is being deceptive or has been deceived. There’s simply no meeting of minds. They’re talking past each other. We’re at the same impasse we’ve faced for the last generation only now the point at which the funds coming in to pay the government subsidies for healthcare aren’t enough to pay the promised subsidies is near at hand.
We’re at the same impasse we’ve faced for the last generation only now the point at which the funds coming in to pay the government subsidies for healthcare aren’t enough to pay the promised subsidies is near at hand.
You seem to imply that the funding gap is in the near future, but isn’t it in the near past? It’s been reported that Medicare taxes were less than Medicare expenses in 2008. So aren’t we already getting it deep and hard?
I know that there’s been a small shortfall for the last year or so but I remembered that as being in Social Security spending rather than Medicare. Have I misremembered? Senior moment.