Krugman's Right About Mandate v. Public Option

[Joanne98]

Paul Krugman's new column puts his finger on my greatest concern about a health care bill that includes the "individual mandate" but does not include a public option (link after the jump--for some reason I can never get links to work for the intro):

Remember, to make reform work we have to have an individual mandate. And everything I see says that there will be a major backlash against the idea of forcing people to buy insurance from the existing companies. That backlash was part of what got Obama the nomination! Having the public option offers a defense against that backlash.

Krugman continues with one reason this is a problem. I have another, if you'll jump with us.

Captain Future's diary :: :: Here's whatKrugman says next:

What worries me is not so much that the backlash would stop reform from passing, as that it would store up trouble for the not-too-distant future. Imagine that reform passes, but that premiums shoot up (or even keep rising at the rates of the past decade.) Then you could all too easily have many people blaming Obama et al for forcing them into this increasingly unaffordable system. A trigger might fix this — but the funny thing about such triggers is that they almost never get pulled.

That's one major problem, but it seems to me there's another more immediate one: the sense of fundamental fairness. Because an individual mandate without a public option makes this bill pretty much what the Rabid Right opposition says it is: government intrusion.

Already the cost of an individual mandate has hit the wires. I don't know if thisAP story will hold up, but supposedly the Baucus plan calls for fines up to $3800.

It looks to me that without the public option this is the first time the federal government would force citizens to pay out money to a profit-making private enterprise, or even the supposed nonprofits like Blue Cross that spend millions on lobbying and executive bonuses.

Continued>>>
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/9/9/779044/-Krugmans-Right-About-Mandate-v.-Public-Option

[Hello_Kitty]

1. Krugman should have thought of that when he was beating Obama over the head with mandates

As he did during the entire primary season. It's amazing that he's finally considering that a bill might come out that contains his precious mandate with no public option to make the private insurance even remotely competitive. Duh, Paul. Those of us who opposed implementing a mandate without first gutting the profit motive and waste of private insurers could see this shit coming from a mile away. What took you, Mr. Nobel Prize winner, so long to figure it out?

This parallels his cluelessness on globalization. He's a big cheerleader of outsourcing, while acknowledging that there need to be appropriate regulations, environmental safeguards, worker protections, and a solid social safety net. The thing he missed was that the aforementioned needed to be put in place BEFORE we started shipping jobs overseas.