this is a test

Actually anotehr reason they don't have a house... is because there aren't houses where they are needed; that's been the problem in New Orleans since Katrina and in other urban areas. Lack of affordable housing isn't just that people don't have the money... but also that there's been so little available. And housing has been the scandal of the Bush years that no one really talks about and that neither of the major candidates have dealt with in public in detail. I'd welcome mandates to builders - hell, I'd welcome anything - that said we were going to try harder to get more affordable housing. Obama's not bad on that issue (and he's not bad on health care)... but this argument about mandates... and using housing as his defense... seems mistaken all the way around.

If everyone acts as if the mandate-no mandate question is the ONLY relevant part of a candidate's health care plan, you shouldn't be surprised that Obama does too. He IS trying to figure out a plan to universality, so is she, hers may be better, but it depends on details we don't yet know. I defer to you on policy but I think your political rationale for a mandate is naive. The mandate + underfunded subsidies/gov't option is a real threat. You have this idea that once a gov't program exists, they can't starve it--that works for social security. It has never worked for subsidies for the poor. This whole pissing contest is misleading everyone & you're actively contributing (though you're at least being more honest than Krugman)

Ezra, you and Krugman and Hillary are assuming that the subsidies will (1) be large enough to pay for good, not crappy, care, and (2) won't be gutted by Republicans.

My suspicion is that Obama's right-- that the subsidies will get gutted and we will be left with a technocrat's wet dream-- ending the health insurance crisis by simply criminalizing the uninsured!

In any event, given that this is a VERY likely result, Obama is NOT lying.

No matter how good you think mandates are from a policy standpoint, it's hard to argue that they aren't the politically weakest point of Hillary's campaign. If Her plan can't withstand this assault now, it would never withstand what the Republicans will do on the mandate issue come the general election or even a Clinton Presidency.

Personally, I think mandates will kill any attempt to get a healthcare passed. This isn't going to be less true as unemployment figures climb and people become more economically insecure.

You're right, Ezra, I'm as bored as you are by this mandate obsession. No, I'm MORE bored than you are. Now, stop it.

Huh? This post seems at least as dishonest as Obama's statement -- which is to say, you can interpret either one as dishonest, but only if you take an uncharitable reading.

I mean, first you say "Housing isn't like health insurance." Then you go on to argue that housing is like health insurance (in that the government has to provide what individuals won't seek for themselves).

Now that's just a minor rhetorical self-contradiction. But then, your argument about the "Housing First" program is just silly. "Housing First" is nothing like a mandate; it's not as if government steps in to require people to buy houses. Rather, the principle behind the program is to make housing affordable for people, on the theory that once they're in housing, they'll be able to make better use of other kinds of social and financial support. A mandate may be a good idea, but Housing First really has nothing to do with it.

The thinking is, "Surely Obama is as smart as me, and I know that mandates are a good idea, so when Obama says they are not a good idea--well, that's just lying!"

Oh, and his mailer depicts a man and a woman seated at a table. Demogoguery!!

It seems weird to me that JUST as Edwards drops out of the race Obama puts out all these Totally Negative Messages about Universal Health Care and actual lies about Hillary's intentions regarding that issue.

I can't be the only person who was initially drawn to Edwards based on his Health Care Plan, can I?

I was very pleased to see how many elements of his plan have been adopted by Hillary. And I'm not impressed by Obama's stand on this issue.

If Obama becomes president, get used to this chorus of 'progressives' whining about anyone who dares to criticize their messiah.

Ezra,

Get a grip. He is NOT attacking mandates. He is against the application of a mandate to a plan that (in his opinion) doesn't adequately address affordability. Whether or not you agree with that argue is beside the issue. It's clear to everyone else that he isn't against mandates, since he has a mandate for kids. He's FOR affordability. Why is this concept so hard for the educated to absorb? And for you to continue attacking him by manipulating his words is beneath you. And it really needs to stop. You and the rest of the "progressive bloggers" don't care about the damage (yes, damage) you are doing to HC reform in the future. If and when he does become president and if and when he does institute mandates, opponents will turn to these nonsensical diatribes by you and the Krug and say: well, he was a opposed to mandates in the past. NO HE ISN'T! This is really sloppy journalism at its worst. I'm glad that Obama doesn't pay any of you so-called progressive bloggers any mind. To think that he has to jump and sit down when you demand him to is ridiculous. Really, who do you think you are?

Ezra: You're making an incalculably valuable contribution to the discussion. I for one am grateful. Keep it up.

Mandates teh awesome.

Check.

I'll stipulate every bad thing said about Obama's plan for the purposes of this post.

Clinton says she'll have universal coverage by the end of her second term. Obama says he'll leave 15 million uninsured but pass something in his first year.

So giving them both 1 year to get started and two terms...

Clinton plan
45 million uninsured X 7 years, zero beyond

Obama plan
15 million uninsured X 7 years, 15 million beyond

It will be 2028 before Hillary Clinton's plan has surpasses Obama's plan in 'uninsured health years' -- which is the only humane consideration, everything is is wonk wankery. You could give HRC twice as much credit for making progress during her two terms, lop the average uninsured down to 30 million for her 7 years in office and it would still be 2021 before Sen. Clinton acutally helps more people than Obama would under his plan.

It's so freaking ridiculous to parse this stuff so fine based on one policy detail (mandate) that has to be in place for TWENTY YEARS to make an ounce of differnce in peoples lives I can't hardly believe it.

I don't see a discussion of how time and space are mandated for all the people waiting for Clinton to get the full boat passed in 2016.

I am a progressive, a health care analyst and personally favor mandates, but Ezra and (especially) Krugman really need to stop pretending like every single progressive health policy expert believes in a mandate and that Obama is embracing satan by not agreeing with them.

There's by no means a consensus in anywhere but Ezra's and Krugman's heads that a mandate is the best course of action. (See that letter in the Huff post earlier in the week, Robert Reich, Merrill Goozner, among others, for examples of prominent progressives who object to, or are lukewarm to the idea of mandates.)

The advantage of a mandate is, obviously, that you should theoretically be able to cover almost everyone. The disadvantage is that, if you implement a mandate and cost controls fail, or premiums increase at rates far above inflation (as they have been doing), you are effectively creating a hugely regressive tax on poor people. Or, you could tax middle and upper income individuals and create large enough subsidies to make premiums affordable, which would ultimately become a large give away to insurance companies.
(See here, for example: http://covertrationingblog.com/general-rationing-issues/why-health-insurers-will-support-hillary-clinton)

My personal feeling is that those sorts of fears are overblown. But they are reasonably possible outcomes of Clinton's plan (especially after congressional lawmaking and lobbying come into play.)

Obama's plan is slightly less ambitious but would be easier to pass and has far fewer potential negative outcomes. I still prefer Clinton's plan, but Obama's position is a completely reasonable one and his fears are not misguided.

I also have no issues with Krugman and Ezra's incessant trumpeting of mandates. I just wish that they would stop pretending that any time Obama objects to them, he is doing so out of some wholly baseless, insane need to make conservatives happy.

Acknowledging that Obama's position is defensible would do a lot to restore some of the credibility that both Ezra and Krugman have been hemorrhaging.

not bored at all. this former edwards supporter loves obama on just about everything else, but this issue in particular concerns the hell out of me, and i want to see him pressed on it until he relents, if possible. keep working.

UHC is not a priority for Obama, his advisers and apparently his supporters.

First mandate that American workers (like European workers) earn enough to cover mandates if you insist on imposing them.

Bill Clinton's 1997 minimum wage ($7/hr) was a dollar below Ike's 1956 minimum ($8/hr). The scheduled 2009 minimum wage -- adjusted for inflation -- will end up in the exactly same place as Clinton's (2 1/2 times 1956 average income later!).

Obama is right -- and I think it is because he is at least half black (I am about three-quarters black on the inside, politically, being an old Bronx gypsy cab driver). White journalists and pols are generally pretty useless, no matter how well intended or how smart -- just sooooooo out of touch with the real world of suffering America.

A much greater tragedy than our Iraqi police action is that Americans who are making $7/hr could all be making $12.50/hr (up from a minimum of $10/hr, 40 years ago afte a doubling of average income).

25%! of our workforce is now earning less than LBJ's minimum wage for God's sake.

Today's 50 percentile families are earning $15,000/yr above a REAL poverty line: $40,000 year for a family of four.

Obama is right, Obama is right: people don't have the money.

For whatever reason makes progressives so certain that private insurance MUST be the foundation for universal health coverage EVEN if they don't like it themselves (Krugman says he would prefer Medicare for All if he could get it): why don't we just tax to cover insurance and ISSUE VOUCHERS -- that should keep your precious PIRATE insurance companies in business...

...while not leading heads of households to commit mandate-suicide.

After all this heat from Krugman and Clinton, I bet Obama is wishing he had been brave enough to propose single-payer.

I've been really impressed with how confidently Obama speaks about the war, or about abortion rights - hell, even about bombing Pakistan. But when he talks about his health care plan, in debates especially, he loses his confidence. I think Obama, like the rest of us, isn't good as pretending to believe something he doesn't. Obama has for a long time been a proponent of single-payer. I think he calculated that single-payer wouldn't succeed in the election. So as long as he was pushing something he didn't believe anyway, why not aim for what is (or what he thought would be) the most appealing to the electoral: no mandates.

That, anyway, is my guess.

D'oh, Reich and Goozner are Obama advisers. WTF do expect them to say? Obama's the one hemorraging credibility here, not Ezra and Krugman.

Ezra,

I think many are bored... perhaps because beyond just covering mandates for 30 posts or so at this point, you're only covering one specific element of the issue.

Who's lying on mandates? How about both?

In the last debate, Hillary said that her plan would make health care "affordable for everyone" because of her subsidies. Is that a true statement? Isn't the affordability question with respect to mandates worthy of some discussion?

How about the philosophical question of mandates vs. affordability, i.e. which is worse: mandating universal coverage knowing the x% will be forced to break the law or make extremely archaic family budget cuts or ensuring better subsidies? In other words, if you believed that Hillary's plan on mandates was going to require compromise on subsidies-- which would you take? Mandates with lower subsidies or no mandates with higher subsidies?

You can argue that you don't agree with that political calculus, but that is essentially what Obama is arguing. Do you agree? On the tradeoff? On the political calculus?

Even if you want to keep talking about mandates, at least broaden the issue beyond one very narrow point.

I don't get too worked up over the minutia of the candidates' respective policy proposals, frankly. It's a professional failing of wonks, I suppose -- give them a policy and they'll analyze it to death.

Whether the candidate shows an understanding of the key issues and gotchas is important, as is knowing which aspects they're more willing to compromise or stand fast on. That all goes towards how they'll respond in the process of hammering out legislation as it wends its way through Congress.

What I think is a useless waste of time is the endless hairsplitting analysis of candidate policy proposals as if the only choices were A or B. The end result is not going to look like either Clinton's or Obama's plan, so detailed arguments over which one is right or better are, frankly, not seeing the forest for the trees.

In other words, people hear loud and clear that you are pro-mandate.

Engage some of the criticisms.

-- Concerns on affordability.
-- Politically not feasible.
-- Mandates without a identified mechanism is substantively no different than promising mandates in the future if needed.
-- Mandates are likely only minimally better than subsidies alone in reducing uninsured, so it isn't worth the political risk of losing the whole reform package over the difference.

Engage in the debate. There's more to the story than saying Obama is lying, and you believe mandates are good.

He should have proposed single payer - but he might have had to understand what that meant! I'm so glad that people with actual brains and policy chops are daring to scrutinize the stated proposals of candidates. Obama has turned into a high school prom queen on the left - and I am so glad that not everyone is such a lemming.

Not bored. Learning.
And I know that Ezra has made healthcare his own special area.
But.

My priorities for a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress are :
- stop torturing; renounce it.
- a plan to exit Iraq
- a broad-based economic stimulus program that helps those who most need help
- restore the rule of law:
an end to the wiretaps
purge the politicized DOJ
- a plan to stabilize Afghanistan
- restore the balance of powers: Congress re-asserts its prerogatives
- fill the slots on the federal bench with non-right-wing judges
- undo the favor-the-wealthy skewed tax cuts.
- remove the political officers in all science-related government activities that continue to suppress factual information that works against Republican messaging; restore regular production of reports and analyses abolished by the Bushies.

And then healthcare.

I just spent most of the last two years uninsured; some of the people I love are uninsured and are suffering for it. But.

The United States has, in the last seven years, nearly lost the Republic; we are very close to an informally-established dictatorship. A major city lies in ruins. The budget is busted. The Army is broken. The economy is headed for deep recession, maybe a depression.

Somehow a policy disagreement over healthcare insurance mandates just doesn't seem, to me at least, to be among the important things to think about on the way to the polls.

Your mileage obviously varies; that's fine. This is my take.

This ticks me off, I hate to see incoming from the left in health care.

Mandates are a red herring, of course. You can solve this problem as they did in Massachusetts with a Connector authority that can exempt people while pushing for more affordability.

On the other hand, I'd like to point out that this is the second time that Hillary Clinton has put forth a perfectly moderate health care proposal, and had it quite effectively demonized. And it's not like it's being demonized without her- she's providing an assist, saying things like "garnishing wages."

That scares the heck out of me, watching another Clinton healthcare plan get demonized.

expect more lies...as in when he was asked who is Rezco? and Obama answers someone he did 4 hours of work for through his church!!!

funny how we forgot to mention that Rezco had been his campaign funder with huge amounts of $$$ for almost twenty years and he and Rezco brokered the sweetheart deal where Obama lives...

...this is what happens when everyone votes on emotion and euphoria and Obama gets a free pass from the MSM...the vetting will come when it is too late...

I am heartened to see that some of the progressives are changing their minds after examination and switching to Hillary...

there may be real HOPE yet!

Mandates without regulation, which is what Clinton proposes, will just mean poor people paying private insurers for crappy insurance that doesn't cover anything. The insurance companies love the Clinton plan and Hillary Clinton because they know that they can count on her to put money in their pockets at the expense of the American people.

I can see it now, you'll get diagnosed with cancer, and then you'll get turned down by the private insurers for treatment, while at the same time the government is forcing you to pay them.

Mandates should be laid upon the insurers not the American people. Total coverage guaranteed, until they provide that, they don't get one dime, and the moment they deny payment for any necessary medical procedure, then that insurer is booted from the system, that's the only way you'll actually be able to cover everyone, and not just say everyone is covered.

It's one thing to say everyone will have insurance that covers them, it's another thing altogether to actually make that happen.

"i want to see him pressed on it until he relents, if possible. keep working."

I would be significantly less annoyed by this series of posts and Krugman's criticisms if that seemed like the goal here. (Particularly for Krugman)

If you're trying to push someone off an issue you don't call them a lying demagogue, because they something you think is wrong.

Also I don’t think it accurate to suggest that Obama goes around 'attacking' the idea of mandates as something we should all be really concerned about, compared to the idea that he’s on defending himself against critics that think this one aspect of the policy is really, really, really big deal.

Interesting. Someone disagrees with you on a subject about which reasonable people can differ and you believe he's engaging in cheap shots and a liar.

Joel Hanes - thnx for reminder about other issues...

They are real and of utmost importance. Trying to prevent the obscene amount of preventable suffering and early death that occur in the U.S. as a DIRECT RESULT of our overwhelmingly profit-driven healthcare system with its lack of a national health insurance program. What's so extreme about wanting a system to provide equal care for all people.

Yes, the mandate discussion is very tiresome but at the same time there are a lot of real people experiencing very real and NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES FROM THE INDIVIDUAL MANDATE IN MASSACHUSETTS. Details follow.

The huddled masses here in Massachusetts are grateful that Obama "Gets it", on the inherent flaws of an individual mandate scheme.

We're also thrilled that Obama is telling lots of other people across the entire U.S. about the harmful effects of an individual mandate that forces the uninsured to buy their own health insurance and punishes them if they can't afford it. That's perverted.

In Massachusetts the state is forcing people to buy individual policy insurance in a largely privately controlled profit-driven insurance market that is within the larger dysfunctional health care system. THIS POLICY IS A TERRIBLE IDEA (unless you're the insurance industry in the state) AND IT WILL NOT WORK.

I am a nurse and health reform activist in Massachusetts and have in my possession reams of state documents that reveal how badly the mandate plan is going here in Massachusetts. Yes, 250k new people have insurance under our law but they have FULLY SUBSIDIZED or heavily subsidized coverage.

Only 4.14% of the newly insured in MA after this law was implemented have purchased insurance paying the entire cost themselves. And 75% of this group bought the crappy insurance with high deductibles ($2,000 to 4,000) and steep co-pays. Not because they were eager to buy crappy insurance, but because it is all most of them can afford.

I work as a nurse with this moderate income population and I know the cost of living in this state and I know this mandate is creating a real hardship for a huge segment of our population. The cruel irony is that many of the people who responded to the threat of the mandate will not be able to afford to use their new insurance, due to the deductible and co-pays!!! But the private HMO's will keep collecting their monthly premiums. Like I said, it's perverted.

The state is planning to use the dept. of revenue to execute the mandate penalties - up to almost $1,000 annually - simply because these individuals cannot afford to comply with the mandate and they are not eligible for a waiver.

Many uninsured residents are in a panic over the mandate penalty situation, and I know a number of them who have called their state legislators and the Governor's office for help. Mostly what they get is "It's the Law" but one woman was told to consider getting another job, maybe at Starbucks because they provide health insurance plus she would get free coffee every month. Another was told that she could default on her mortgage payment and then use the paperwork to apply for a “hardship waiver” to the mandate. Seriously.

Individual mandate schemes open the door to all kinds of negative results for the very people who need affordable health care.

The one group that is assured to do well under a individual mandate plan is the insurance industry.

Thank heavens Obama gets it.

Let's move beyond the mandate mess and make plans to demand - whoever is the next president and congress - a program of improved Medicare For All, cradle to grave in every state, and eliminate the "Part C Medicare" (the private HMO's that game the system and reap huge profits) and reform "Part D" so it actually works in the interest of Medicare beneficiaries.

Ezra,
I am proud of you. Everyone our age is a die-hard obama supporter but is unwilling to deal with these sorts of rather ugly policy lies on his behalf.
Everyone tells you to stop it. Its not cool and makes you look angry and petulant. So be it. It's hard to step up and say whats right when everyone around you wont. In that regard,keep up the good work.

Liberalism is about policy not narrative. And this is an important policy distinction. Obama's plan according to non partisan organizations, like the urban institute (a stalwart of real progressivism), believe a mandate is neccesary. But no, say Obama fans and the technocrats, its not. Well, I am sure their is techocratic soution to Social Security, and my question would be why not abandon the mandate for SS. I am sure there is some way we couold "get there" without the mandate. So why not, my friends?

Let's ask some serious questions:

Has Ezra Klein ever managed a health-care practice, of any sort?

Has he ever managed anything, beyond a word-processor and a headful of opinions?

Does Ezra have any coherent, public record of actually doing anything except pontificate in an area that he clearly is not expert in?

Why should we believe that Ezra has any real legitimate voice in the health-care debate?

I suggest that the answer to the above is clearly that Ezra is not qualified, nor an expert. He is young, somewhat cute, and suffers from an over-estimate of his knowledge and abilities. That's why he does nothing more constructive in health-care and politics than periodically display his lack of understanding in this field.

Krugman is an economist, with an adequate academic record, but nothing of substance when it comes to health-care. He simply does not know the historical record, and does not care to do so. His field within economics is trade theory. Don't assume that Krugman is doing anything else than peddling relatively uninformed opinions. He has a serious professional background and record of accomplishment, and deserves respect within his field - but that field is not and never will be health-care.

The bottom line in all of this is that it's better not to take amateurs too seriously. Look for policy specialists, not part-time wonks.

I know people who support mandates like to pretend that there is no opposition to them on the left, but it's just not true. Hillary wants to mandate that people are FORCED to buy private insurance, but doesn't have the kind of regulatory regime required to force private insurers to provide better healthcare and stop auto-denying claims.

It's hard for some us to believe that Hillary isn't just trying to fund the money of the poor into the pockets of the insurance companies who have been so generous to her campaign.

Actually, concerneddoctor, I'd rather hear what a political economist has to say on the topic rather than a doctor any day. The political economist, after all, is not making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year off the broken system that his or her profession helped create. And, if we're talking slinging "amateur" around as an insult, I'm willing to take a bet that most doctors know significantly less about economics than economists. Similarly, I wouldn't go to an economist to get my kidney removed.

I can respect those who have decided to support Obama because they think he's a stronger liberal on the whole, despite his weakness on this issue.

I cannot respect those who have suddenly decided that the universality of health care is no longer a liberal priority because Obama has decided it isn't. That's just Hugh Hewitt and the Shit Sandwich. Not one of you would have gone for that position in an Obama-less primary.

Ann Malone, RN

Thanks so much, it's refreshing to hear from someone who works in the health-care field, and understands how these issues effect the actual people who are trying to get help when they are sick and injured. I've heard similar concerns coming from my friends who work in the health-care field in Florida.

Ezra and many others who only concern themselves with statistics and numbers, or who have never had to deal with these issues personally, don't really grasp how bad things really are in this country. Nurses get to see firsthand on a daily basis the impact of these failures, and you guys and girls have been taking the brunt of the impact on the ground in the trenches as well. I know exactly what you have to deal with, and it can be very disheartening.

Hang in there, help is on the way.

Obama 08, to liberate the American people of oppression.

@ Grouchypatient

So it wouldn't worry you that your "political economist" mostly deals with international trade? Just a little different, no?

There's also a difference between running a health practice and being a doctor. Of course, that need not worry you. Same thing, right?

Anyway, I'd say that Ezra's hysterical reaction is simply intellectually dishonest. You may disagree with the analogy, but it's hardly a lie to point out that mandates are not a universal problem solver - as many people are all too well aware. What Obama says, as he has said all along, is that mandates don't solve the fundamental problem of costs and may well be unfair. They do create a huge bureaucracy, and that, in itself, is another issue that needs more honesty. Obama's reaction is reasonable enough - it's Ezra who can't seem to do anything but repeat the latest outbreak of Krugmania uncritically and without much regard for the actual facts.

Zilfant -- I am enough of a sociologist to think that when professionals start circling the wagons and saying that outsiders can't possibly understand (particularly with regard to their business practices), something is generally rotten.

Calling someone a liar is different than disagreeing with them.

You can disagree with Obama and think he is wrong, but you haven't demonstrated he is a liar, rather you demonstrated he has an opinion you don't like.

You should be careful with your use of words.

The tenor of the attacks on Krugman over the past week have been identical to the attacks on Krugman that we saw circa 2001 from the likes of Donald Luskin and Mickey Kaus. He's too repetitive. He's chasing a white whale. His ivory tower credentials are just a way to shut off debate. He really doesn't know any more about this subject than you or me.

Krugman stood his ground and remained loyal to liberal values through the absolute darkest moments of the last seven years. That doesn't put him above disagreement or criticism on every issue, but whose word are you going to believe? Krugman's? Or the supporters of a campaign that has portrayed the central problem of American politics as a lack of unity?

Krugman lost me with using a Gruber's "assume for the sake of simplicity that a mandate is 95% effective" as proof that a mandate is 95% effective. Treating an economics articles' assumptions as its proven conclusions is a classic WSJ editorial page technique, the the #1 way to use economic research to advocate for bad policy. And it's actively misleading.

Nurses don't see half the sh#t billers do.

Most of this discussion is around financing models. What the hell would make a doctor or a nurse especially qualified in that discussion is beyond me. Maybe talk to a reimbursent director or an actuary.

"I cannot respect those who have suddenly decided that the universality of health care is no longer a liberal priority because Obama has decided it isn't. That's just Hugh Hewitt and the Shit Sandwich. Not one of you would have gone for that position in an Obama-less primary."

thank you, Anonymous, but we need to get you a better i.d.; there are a bunch of anons (some not so progressive) posting here

More on VOUCHERS instead of mandates:

If you don't get a voucher even though you really deserve one because of your peculiar circumstances (at X income level) at least we don't force you pay for something you cannot afford (avoiding mandate suicides); insteadm you just land back in the old ER -- a distinctly less uncomfortable bad outcome.

To anon at 6:11: As I said above, I generally agree with Krugman, Ezra, and various others on the concept of mandates.

My specific complaint about Krugman and Ezra is that they are basically lying about Obama's arguments by describing them as conservative attacks or a disinterest in extending coverage to everyone. They're not. There is a legitimate debate among left leaning health policy people about whether or not individual mandates make sense, but both Ezra and Krugman treat the discussion as a settled matter. It isn't. There are concerns about cost controls. There is a danger of penalizing people with low to middle income salaries. There is the potential of turning a well meaning program into massive subsidy to private insurance companies. There is a distinct possibility that absent unduly harsh penalties, Clinton's plan won't really cover any more people than Obama's plan--but will be much, much harder to pass.

Obama is more sensitive or concerned about these issues than Krugman et al. It's a substantive policy disagreement that Ezra and Krugman have turned into some sort of weird litmus test about who is a true progressive.

The fact that Krugman and Ezra carry such heavy sway--at least among political junkies--makes the dishonesty much more troubling. Krugman, obviously, is hugely influential. Ezra, for better and (in this case, much, much) worse has become perhaps the leading voice in the progressive blog world on health care and they're engaging in a campaign to fundamentally distort Obama's position because they happen to disagree with it.

It's silly, and it undermines their credibility--and it gives people who don't spend their working days reading white papers on health care a wildly incomplete understanding of the issues.

I cannot agree with Ezra's point. "Cover everyone" is understood by the population at large to refer to getting coverage to everyone who wants coverage and cannot get it. I'm sorry, but it's just _not_ understood as a discussion of increasing risk-pooling and stopping (non-poor) healthy people from gaming the system. So when Hillary asserts that Obama does not care about covering everyone, she knows very well that nobody - aside from Krugman/Klein/Cohn and a small band of wonk-followers - understand her to be claiming that the main problem with Obama's plan is that he doesn't pool risk effectively enough, or that he doesn't do enough to stop healthy people from gaming the system. When her negative mailers and her stump speeches start consistently talking about healthy people gaming the system and mandates making for more effective risk-pooling, rather than just asserting that she covers everyone and he doesn't, then Obama should be expected to stop making arguments like this and more effectivley addressing the policy dispute. This is a dispute over who wants to help poor/middle class people get health care -- she's saying he doesn't, and he's saying that's not true. In this context, the debate over mandates is a red herring. That's all he's saying.

@grouchy "I am enough of a sociologist to think that when professionals start circling the wagons and saying that outsiders can't possibly understand (particularly with regard to their business practices), something is generally rotten."

I'd suggest that your logic, grouchy, leaves us in the bizarre position of ignoring the qualified in favor of our own favorite "experts". This means that we had better abandon all debate, since the qualified are not allowed to speak, and the non-qualified plain don't know what they are talking about.

Anonymous, whether Krugman is liberal hardly matters in this debate. Ths issue is whether he is adequately qualified to talk about health-care with any degree of credibility. Given his apparent lack of the relevant knowledge, I suggest that an authentic liberal perspective consists in open-mindedness, plus a willingness to ask what the source of the argument might be. In my opinion, Krugman may be a perfectly good economist in his field, but that field is NOT health-care policy. You don't expect a historian of ancient Rome to discuss the Founding Fathers, nor do you ask an expert on Impressionism to discuss Caravaggio in an authoritative way. Why should a specialist in the field of international trade claim any authority in discussing health-care. You don't ask the hospital IT specialist to remove a kidney, do you?

The people who buy into the "people can't afford it" argument need to get one thing straight: that's the reason we want to see universal health care! Seriously, what the fuck is this whole debate about if those who can't afford it won't be covered on the basis of not being able to afford it? What, exactly, is the gain from any universal coverage plan then?

Of course the subsidies will be big for those people. The idea that Clinton would include mandates without adequately addressing affordability is just transparently silly. Or do you really think her health care plan is to force poor families to go hungry in an attempt to make them healthier?

jhupp, did you notice that Clinton isn't talking honestly about where the money is going to come from? Want your wages garnished?

For my money, it's crazy to say X is a true liberal, so he must be knowledgeable on a given issue. I know some solidly liberal people, but none of them would dream of calling themselves experts in a field that was not theirs. What next? A perfect liberal record equals omniscience? Now that's how the GOP talk about their favorites, and it produces lousy results. I'd pick professional qualifications and demonstrated competence over ideological purity, any day!

Clinton has a public option hence no one is forced to buy insurance Yes, we will be have to pay for universal health care.

If Obama becomes president I hope his supporters will help people like Ezra, Krugman and me push him to support UHC legislation.

"We're also thrilled that Obama is telling lots of other people across the entire U.S. about the harmful effects of an individual mandate that forces the uninsured to buy their own health insurance and punishes them if they can't afford it. That's perverted."

Ah, if it's perverted, then it must be the Mitt Romney health insurance mandate. Even Republicans are telling him to go F himself. And even McCain and Huckabee are out there tag teaming him this very day, telling him the people will decide, not him.

What a day.

maxent: Okay, one of two things is going on here.

A) You read my comment and said, "Yes, that's exactly what Clinton's plan is! If they think they can't afford health care, we'll take their wages away. Food and heat are less important than health (I really hope you get the irony there)."

B) You don't really know what subsidy means. I refer you to Wikipedia on the word "subsidy." My wages "garnished"? Not so much. "Taxed," like everyone else's in this country, yes. Taxes pay for services, and in a publicly subsidized insurance plan, the subsidies will redistribute the payments downward and outward. I can't believe this is unclear.

Agree or disagree on the wisdom of the policy, but at least understand what it is. Or tell me what it is about Clinton's subsidy plan that is dishonest. (Her last name is not an answer.)

You are using the word "lying" when you mean "wrong." In other words, to use your terminology, you are lying when you say Obama is "lying."

It's sad to see Ezra and Krugman go so low in defense of Hillary. This is the kind of division she will bring to the nation. She'll try to ram the changes she wants down throats and use the media to manipulate. It's transparency of another sort, one without trust.

jhupp, perhaps you should spend a little time learning your candidate's policy statements. She said that she might be willing to garnish wages as a means for enforcing the mandate she has proposed. And no, she has not laid out a clear and honest plan of how to pay for her subsidies and other costs. You can't expect me to make her disingenuous fudge into a coherent plan for you.

On the word, subsidy, it seems to you to mean something like "magic solution". More realistic students of her plan will conclude that it is a) unworkable in political terms b) unaffordable c) unlikely to fundamentally improve the quality of available care as a consequence of a) and b). Try a real argument next time, not a cheap little snark.

Bilbo, whatever one's feelings about Hillary Clinton, can you at least recognize what your point was?

A) One candidate or his supporters criticizes another candidate, arguably in an unfair way.
B) Pundits agree that it was unfair and spring to defend the second candidate.
C) Those sympathetic to the first candidate accuse the pundits are "dividing the country."
C2) Those sympathetic to the first candidate accuse the pundits of being partisans of the second candidate.

If that sounds a lot like the way Bush's campaign and supporters talked when McCain/Gore/Kerry was slandered, it's because that's exactly what they were doing. C is obvious, and C2 is exactly what "liberal media" is all about. That doesn't make it wrong in and of itself, but think about how intellectually dishonest you find it when the Republicans do it. Equally so now.

Just so you can stop saying those taking Clinton's "side" here are just her apologists or whatever, let me say that the "ready on day one," experience thing is just as dishonest coming from the Clinton camp. And neither of these is as ugly as the (come on now) veiled racism that dominated several weeks over coverage. I definitely get the attraction to Obama's campaign as both a political and philosophical matter (I have it myself), but this particular line of attack is just wrong, dishonest, anti-universalism, and all the other things we should be fighting against.

jhupp, since when did universal health care on Hillary's terms become a core liberal value? There are plenty of liberal reasons for supporting a genuine national health service, but that's not the same thing as Hillary's enforcement of an expensive and very questionably beneficial "universal" system.

People are right to demand some real accounting for the costs, rather than just a string of claims about cost-reduction etc.

Disagreeing about mandates, on the merits, as Obama does, is not dishonest or illiberal or unprogressive. He argues that there are better, and less authoritarian, ways of reaching fuller coverage. Hillary's thinly veiled statism hardly sounds liberal to me.

Finally, Hillary anticipates "universal health-care" by the end of her second term. In political terms, that means never. Obama's plan is more realistic, even if less dressed up to sound nice. Hillary's extravaganza is like the proverbial pig in lipstick.

What psanders said :o)

Hey, your second paragraph was exactly what I wanted! Now that is an argument!

As to the first paragraph, she "didn't rule it out," which is not the same as saying she'd do it, so let's not get ahead of ourselves on it. I would guess that, since the demonizing of the term "flip-flop" four years ago, she didn't want to paint herself into a corner by saying "no, never" or whatever. But what's more, if the garnishment is based refusal to pay rather than inability to pay, I don't quite see why it's such a bad policy. Getting rid of free riders is central to the effectiveness of universal coverage. (Also, her answer to Stephanopolous was honest, contrary to what you said upthread.)

The second paragraph is not one I'm going to respond to because I actually don't know the cost ins and outs of health care well enough to offer an answer or if there is one. In principle I am inclined to disagree with you, because in theory I think a wider distribution of health care costs will make person-by-person care cheaper. But in reality, I don't know the math very well here, so you may be right; I just want the argument to move in a more honest direction. Thanks for obliging.

And to psanders, thanks again. That's what I want to see. I like that argument a lot, and you make a very good point contrary to mine about the "value system." I just don't want people buying into the idea that the mandates are penalties on the poor because they make them get insured. That's the whole reason I commented on this thread in the first place, and it's a weird and bad argument.

As I say, I have no monopoly on the arguments here; I know way less about this than a lot of people, and I know there are smart people who disagree. I just want to see better counterpoints made, which the last few comments have done. That's all I got.

Hell YES we need talk about vouchers. Germany and the Netherlands are among countries with excellent examples of voucher-based private insurer national healthcare. Obama and Clinton are BOTH missing the boat and offering warmed-over clusterfucks, neither of which plans are truly progressive.

Reason No. 344 I'll vote Green again.

Obama is making an analogy. Now, an analogy can be more or less apt, but it's not even possible for an anaology to be a lie!

it's not even possible for an anaology to be a lie!

There's a novel argument. Wrong though.

Hey concerneddoctor, if you want to point out that Ezra doesn't know what he's talking about, then address where you disagree with him, not whether he is young and "not qualified" with no reasons for that.

Eli above has this exactly right. Obama made a calculated decision to not include mandates in his proposal. The fact that he once supported single payer coupled with the fact that he is now attacking Hillary for supporting something closer to single payer, shows the decision is a political calculation. Mandates with heavy subsidies should theorhetically work, but he seems to me to be attacking the very presence of a mandate.

I voted for him but frankly, I expect better.