{"id":197453,"date":"2008-02-04T16:44:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-04T21:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/02\/04\/krugman-looks-at-insurance-mandates\/"},"modified":"2008-02-04T16:44:00","modified_gmt":"2008-02-04T21:44:00","slug":"krugman-looks-at-insurance-mandates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/02\/04\/krugman-looks-at-insurance-mandates\/","title":{"rendered":"Krugman Looks at Insurance Mandates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Well, Krugman <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2008\/02\/04\/opinion\/04krugman.html?ex=1359867600&amp;en=a51a8e1abbd47b79&amp;ei=5090&amp;partner=rssuserland&amp;emc=rss&amp;pagewanted=all\">nails it again<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>First, he cites a study that predicts that, a plan without mandates would cost $4,400 per newly insured person, and one with mandates would cost only $2,700, because the young and healthy will take their chances, leaving only those already needing medical treatment on the plan.<\/p>\n<p>His summation nails it:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\">But while it\u2019s easy to see how the Clinton plan could end up being eviscerated, it\u2019s hard to see how the hole in the Obama plan can be repaired. Why? Because Mr. Obama\u2019s campaigning on the health care issue has sabotaged his own prospects.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\">You see, the Obama campaign has demonized the idea of mandates \u2014 most recently in a scare-tactics mailer sent to voters that bears a striking resemblance to the \u201cHarry and Louise\u201d ads run by the insurance lobby in 1993, ads that helped undermine our last chance at getting universal health care.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\">If Mr. Obama gets to the White House and tries to achieve universal coverage, he\u2019ll find that it can\u2019t be done without mandates \u2014 but if he tries to institute mandates, the enemies of reform will use his own words against him.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\">If you combine the economic analysis with these political realities, here\u2019s what I think it says: If Mrs. Clinton gets the Democratic nomination, there is some chance \u2014 nobody knows how big \u2014 that we\u2019ll get universal health care in the next administration. If Mr. Obama gets the nomination, it just won\u2019t happen.<\/span> <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Got your back, Doc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, Krugman nails it again. First, he cites a study that predicts that, a plan without mandates would cost $4,400 per newly insured person, and one with mandates would cost only $2,700, because the young and healthy will take their chances, leaving only those already needing medical treatment on the plan. His summation nails it: &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1046,977],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-197453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-healthcare","category-presidential-campaign"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197453"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197453\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}