Tens of Thousands Must Die So That Upper-Class Tax Cuts May Live
I’m glad Krugman has chosen to clarify the stakes:
So there’s no real question that lack of insurance is responsible for thousands, and probably tens of thousands, of excess deaths of Americans each year. But that’s not a fact Mr. Romney wants to admit, because he and his running mate want to repeal Obamacare and slash funding for Medicaid — actions that would take insurance away from some 45 million nonelderly Americans, causing thousands of people to suffer premature death. And their longer-term plans to convert Medicare into Vouchercare would deprive many seniors of adequate coverage, too, leading to still more unnecessary mortality.
Oh, about the voucher thing: In his debate with Vice President Biden, Mr. Ryan was actually the first one to mention vouchers, attempting to rule the term out of bounds. Indeed, it’s apparently the party line on the right that anyone using the word “voucher” to describe a health policy in which you’re given a fixed sum to apply to health insurance is a liar, not to mention a big meanie.
Among the lying liars, then, is the guy who, in 2009, described the Ryan plan as a matter of “converting Medicare into a defined contribution sort of voucher system.” Oh, wait — that was Paul Ryan himself.
And what if the vouchers — for that’s what they are — turned out not to be large enough to pay for adequate insurance? Then those who couldn’t afford to top up the vouchers sufficiently — a group that would include many, and probably most, older Americans — would be left with inadequate insurance, insurance that exposed them to severe financial hardship if they got sick, sometimes left them unable to afford crucial care, and yes, sometimes led to their early death.
So let’s be brutally honest here. The Romney-Ryan position on health care is that many millions of Americans must be denied health insurance, and millions more deprived of the security Medicare now provides, in order to save money. At the same time, of course, Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan are proposing trillions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy. So a literal description of their plan is that they want to expose many Americans to financial insecurity, and let some of them die, so that a handful of already wealthy people can have a higher after-tax income.
And I’m sorry, but the same logic applies to people who opposed the PPACA from the left because they would prefer that the uninsured continue to be held as hostages. This seems based on a bizarre functionalist assumption about the American political system — that if things get bad enough injustices just have to be corrected. As the fact that Romney/Ryan could well win (and their ideological comrades will almost certainly control at least one legislative veto point for the next decade at least) should make clear, Congress doesn’t “have” to do anything, particularly if the status quo is working out fine for the most privileged.
It can always get worse. People need to tattoo that on their wrists so they can remember.
Like a 666 tattoo! They’ll remember what it means whenever they see it.
it amazes me that people who don’t have insurance, have tatoo’s,cell-phones,$200 sneakers,jewelry yet no health or life insurance.
life is priorities & choices.
I believe they also drive caddilacs and eat t-bone steaks!
Perhaps it’s time for R2P? Anything to stop another Hitler, Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot. Talking of whom, have you seen that Norodom Sihanouk has just died – I’m not sure about RIP given his sucking up to the Khmer Rouge, but he was in good company. Washington/London’a finest moment – actually probably not.
That’s a great article by Krugman. Too bad Obama didn’t mention any of that in his debate. I can’t believe the Democrats have figured out how to point out that Republicans want Americans to die yet. Yeah, they’ll get a lot of criticism for being mean. Just be unrelenting about it and eventually the story will shift to, “okay, but is there any truth to these claims”. At which point you’ve already won.
Silly mpowell. In the liberal MSM, Republicans talking absurdly about “death panels” merits something between “unquestioned airing” and “Is There Something to This?: A Special Investigation,” whereas Democrats pointing out that the uninsured have a pretty shitty deal that Republicans would make even worse is “The Lie of the Year.”
I think if the Dems just doubled down on the rhetoric they would pretty quickly win the issue because it’s a simple sound bite and it’s also pretty obviously true once you dig into it. Politifact took a lot of heat for their ‘award’ on that one. Though maybe not in time for this particular election since it is getting so close. Should have started at the conventions.
Anyhow, that’s basically how the Republicans have shifted the conversation over time.
I can see it now. Announcer overvoiced:
“The Republican Party has a Modest Proposal to deal with healthcare for the poor.”
This is something you want pundits saying, not your incumbent president saying.
I guess this goes under the principle that candidates for president have to maintain a standard of decorum. Maybe I just haven’t been following politics long enough. I’m not big on standards of decorum and I don’t know how swing voters would respond, but I don’t know if this decorum standard has really been tested.
If Obama just said, “Mitt Romney wants seniors to recieve vouchers instead of medicare and those vouchers will not cover the full cost of care. Many seniors will not be able to afford insurance and as a result, some of them will suffer death prematurely. I don’t think we should focus on tax cuts at the expense of the health of our senior citizens.” You can make that statement without sounding overly dramatic.
Biden said that. The response: They’re not vouchers! Why? Because Ryan said so! Well, he said so this most recent time even though he said they WERE vouchers before.
No, we’re totally not making this Republican candidacy seem plausible by making sure Democrats and Republicans always seem to be doing the exact same thing.
It’s not a voucher! A voucher’s a check you get in the mailbox. Our plan would be to have something whose value erodes so much, we can mail you it in cash
Or stamps, at least until we privatize the Postal Service.
Well, that’s a big part of why Biden was more successful in his debate. It’s very difficult for a Democrat to ‘win’ debates in this media environment. Biden did about as well as you can. He called out Ryan for his disastrous policy preferences. The media enabled Ryan’s bullshit, but Biden still scored a point. Why Obama didn’t take this approach, I will never fully understand. He should have been able to hang Romney on the basis of policy positions he has already staked out very clearly and instead Obama hardly even bothered.
No, it goes under the principle that anything the President says causes people to retreat to their partisan corners and dig in.
Before Obama spoke about the Trayvon Martin killing, National Review ran a story titled “Al Sharpton Was Right.” After…well, you remember after.
Actually, I think it is something I want a sitting president saying, much like some of Teddy & Franklin Roosevelt’s famous lines.
I think these kinds of standards of decorum are going to change in the next couple of decades. They’re an artifact of the post-WWII consensus era, and don’t really hold up well in an era of partisan polarization. I also think that in the next few decades, political candidates will start openly cursing as part of their speeches.
For people used to the freewheeling debate on the Internet, politics at the presidential level often looks bland. There is an untapped market out there for a presidential candidate who will call a spade a f****** shovel.
I don’t know why this fairly obvious point hasn’t been hammered home regularly. Republican policies kill people.
I think it is because it turns out that swing voters won’t believe this, and get turned off by people who point this out.
Swing voters are morons.
Yes. I think it’s as simple as this, really.
And there are approximately 12 of them in the known universe. Obviously the most important demographic ever. Also the fact that they mostly just swing between voting and not voting, not between parties.
Confused is right. Remember the focus group that would not believe the Ryan Budget would support voucherizing Medicare?
Or maybe voters don’t believe it because nobody will say it
It’s been studied. Basically, you get undecided voters into a room and it turns out that they don’t believe it when they are told what the GOP’s policies are, or that the GOP will implement them if given the choice. The phrase I recall is ‘cartoonishly evil’, so nobody believes it’ll actually happen.
I remember reading this a while back but I don’t remember anything that said they immediately reacted to vote the GOP way when confronted with the reality. Isn’t it possible (probable, I think) that if Obama, then high profile Dems started saying this, repeatedly, that it would be understood — being understood would be tantamount to widespread voting against the ‘sociapath as government’ the GOP represents.
Sure, they’ll reject it the first time they hear that argument. But the problem is that’s the first time they’re hearing that argument.
this
The phrase I recall is ‘cartoonishly evil’
At some point we basically just need to admit to ourselves that children’s cartoons are in fact the most realistic and honest depiction of the motivations of our ruling class.
I -wish-.
Cartoon supervillains are usually minimally competent and are men of VISION. Cobra Commander managed to build extensive infrastructure all over the world in near-total secrecy. Megatron managed to lead an army of evil backstabbers well enough to conquer an entire planet. Shere Khan was an excellent businessman and a for-real industrialist, as was Flintheart Glomgold. Dr. Drakken was an excellent scientist and engineer. Fire Lord Ozai was a cunning tactician with a vision of worldwide empire.
Any one of them are a cut above our current ruling class, who don’t even rise to level of genuine villainy. They’re small, and petty, and concerned only with their slice of the pie. Even their GREED is pathetic.
Cartoon supervillains are usually minimally competent and are men of VISION.
Even I laugh at Ryan.
During the Bush presidency, DC Comics had a storyline where Lex Luthor became president. Honestly Luthor would be a more effective president than any Republican nominee I’ve seen since, oh, let’s say Dole just to be polite (Luthor would probably be less overtly evil than even Dole, but we’ll say Dole anyway).
Cobra Commander once ran a chain of burger franchises that were so successful they spanned the entire country. Admittedly it was all part of a complex scheme to replace the fake rockets that made up their logos with real missiles to do something that was never really made clear at the time. But he created more jobs than Mitt Romney ever did with it, that’s for damn sure.
McSweeney’s diary of a COBRA recruit was one of the funniest things ever on the internet.
Seems ironic that you would say this in support of a corporatist husk of health care reform in order to keep the uninsured from being held as hostages.
To me, the justification for the PPACA so far has been “Something, anything had to be done, so put up with this crap”.
“To me, the justification for the PPACA so far has been “Something, anything had to be done, so put up with this crap”.”
And this is wrong how, exactly?
Isn’t it the same thing as what Scott is accusing the PPACA’s opponents on the left of doing?
No. It’s rather obviously the exact opposite.
Better concern trolls, please.
Care to explain what’s different?
I must be misunderstanding.
Scott (according to you): “The status quo is so bad, any attainable improvements must be made to it to alleviate suffering.”
LEftists (according to Scott); Single payer is superior to everything else, so no solution short of single payer will be accepted.
These are polar opposite assessments of the situation.
Nice strawman. While I suppose some leftist critics said that it was single payer or nothing, most of the criticism was that single payer wasn’t even used as a bargaining chip to get better programs for those that need them. Now maybe that still wouldn’t have resulted in anything better, but we don’t know because it wasn’t tried.
“Nice strawman. While I suppose some leftist critics said that it was single payer or nothing…”
You didn’t even make it two sentences without killing your own point, and that’s without even factoring in the whole “according to Scott” bit. This has to be some sort of record.
most of the criticism was that single payer wasn’t even used as a bargaining chip to get better programs for those that need them.
While different, this criticism is also incredibly stupid. I really wish I could play poker with people who think that it’s brilliant strategy to go all-in after turning over your unsuited 2-7. In the real world, empty bluffs don’t actually provide leverage, and associating the PPACA with SOCIALIZED MEDICINE is all downside and no upside.
. . . most of the criticism was that single payer wasn’t even used as a bargaining chip to get better programs for those that need them. Now maybe that still wouldn’t have resulted in anything better, but we don’t know because it wasn’t tried.
Nonsense. Fundamental misunderstanding of current Washington politics. It’s a miracle, fucking magic, that anything was passed at all. The idea that something better wasn’t even tried is just naive.
I live in a district that has been Dem for a long, long time and will probably go the other way because there is a green party candidate who will suck votes away from the Dem. She spouts this crap constantly because she’s an idealistic fool and would make an awful representative — only slightly better than the wealthy ignoramus who will probably slip into the seat — even if she managed to win. It’s super frustrating to watch play out.
Scott, surely you’ve noticed that Obamacare somehow became associated with socialism anyway, right?
How would this work, exactly? “I’ll tell you what, guys; if you don’t get serious about crafting a good progessive bill, we’re going to pass single-payer?” Why wouldn’t the answer just be, “You and what Congress?”
The thing is, however valid that criticism may have been about the process, it’s not relevant now. The process ended. There was a bill. It passed. It survived legal challenge. So the issue now is, keep this, flawed in so many ways as it is, or toss it out to return to the status quo ante, except with a right-wing invigorated by such a major victory over incremental improvement of any kind?
I was very critical of the ACA during almost all of the process, but I find myself wanting to revise and extend those remarks now. :) Mostly, I think I underestimated just how deeply bad and how deeply entrenched the Democrats’ right wing is, and I’m less and less convinced that much could have been done to compel them to vote for anything much better. This is where any generalized criticism has to nail itself down. I don’t have any clue what could have been done to get Landrieu or Nelson or Lincoln to behave better, and defenders of the process who said that wishing without a plan for those specific people have a solid point.
Maybe it could have been better. Maybe not. But right now we’re not debating the possibility of improving it – we’re debating whether it should be abolished. That’s the relevant concern now.
How would this work, exactly? “I’ll tell you what, guys; if you don’t get serious about crafting a good progessive bill, we’re going to pass single-payer?” Why wouldn’t the answer just be, “You and what Congress?”
Sadly, there seem to be a lot of people who think that Republican congressional leaders and well-compensated lobbyists are incapable of counting votes.
Allow me to summarize Scott’s position on political rhetoric: It’s powerless to shape policy or public opinion, and for god’s sake don’t say anything too liberal sounding or Republicans might call you names.
Eggplant: the health care reforms Bill Clinton advocated for polled well on their own, but “Bill Clinton’s health care bill” did not. Likewise with “Obamacare.”
Maybe there’s a lesson to be learned here.
Republicans might call you names.
It’s not really Republicans you have to worry about. It’s conservative Democrats in the House and Senate you have to worry about.
How big is the risk? I have no idea. But since there are no possible benefits whatsoever, it’s dumb to do it.
The justification for the PPACA is that some secondary elements of it are really good and, when it comes to the exchanges and cost controls, sometimes real reform starts with half-assed compromise that gets improved incrementally after-the-fact. The problem with the PPACA is that Obama and many other proponents seem to really believe, just like their belief regarding the stimulus, that the PPACA is just right and that it isn’t a half-assed compromise that needs to be improved on at all.
No one believing that, of course, but don’t let me get between you and the walrus by any means.
You gotta admit that “My signature accomplishment (which barely survived a Supreme Court challenge and is broadly unpopular) is a half-assed compromise that desperately needs significant (destined to be even more negatively received) improvement” is a winning re-election slogan, though.
I say he should roll with this slogan.
If it isn’t immediately successful maybe he could bring the magical Oval Office desk to the next debate and, with the power of the Bully Pulpit, sway the nation.
Obama is the first politician in history to put the best light on his achievements, of course. LBJ would given a speech after the passage of the ACA which would have stared “I can’t believe I had to sign this piece of shit.”
Egads you’re an obtuse bunch.
If Obama believed that the PPACA was inadequate he might campaign by Saying how the PPACA was a great start, but there’s still a lot of work to do. Believing, indisputably accurately, that the PPACA is a half-assed compromise doesn’t require calling it one, but it does require talking about how you’ll make it better in the future.
Talk about adding a public option. Talk about further improving required medical loss ratios. Talk about mandatory electronic record keeping and mandatory electronic prescription writing. Talk about mandating a universal standard form for doctors submitting claims to insurance companies.
You don’t need to talk up the flaws of the PPACA to talk about how you’d like to improve it.
Sheesh.
Because if the American electoral system is anything, it is definitely the leading forum for mature political discourse on complex policy matters.
Someone is certainly dense, however. I will definitely give you that.
Because if the American electoral system is anything, it is definitely the leading forum for mature political discourse on complex policy matters.
No that’s p obviously the lgm comments section.
Wait I got “mature discussion” confused with “tiresome knee-jerk non-sequitor sarcasm”
my
badd
If Obama believed that the PPACA was inadequate he might campaign by Saying how the PPACA was a great start, but there’s still a lot of work to do
That would indeed make sense if he were in an election campaign against people who thought health care reform was a good idea, but that ACA was badly designed.
That argument doesn’t work so well against people who want to get rid of the statute and return to the status quo ante.
~~~Dispatch from the future~~~
Barack Obama, tomorrow night:
Mitt Romney, seconds later:
If that’s the best elocution Obama can muster on ANY topic, up to and including how much he loves his family, he’s doomed (debate-wise) anyway.
If health care is indeed on the agenda for the debate, he absolutely, 100% should talk about what’s next. The ACA is already passed. It’s the law. Defending it on the merits is indeed both laudable and necessary, but Obama has a potential four more years ahead of him and then there will be other Democratic Presidents and Congresses after that. so what’s next?
It is part of his responsibility to lay out a legislative he’d like to work with Congress to get passed. Either that, or to say up-front that he plans to be purely an administrator and let Congress deal with its own agenda.
He’s running against a candidate who says he’ll scrap the bill. Getting bogged down in an argument about what its imperfections are is a winner for “repeal and replace,” not for “hey, let me get it right next time.”
Nobody ever won a war fighting defensively.
Obama can walk and chew gum at the same time. “The ACA is better than what we had before, and I’ll argue anyone who says otherwise into the ground, but America doesn’t settle for good enough; we demand the best. Here’s my awesome plan to get there.”
That doesn’t seem like a lot to ask for. I mean, aren’t Presidents supposed to outline policy visions?
Nobody ever won a war fighting defensively.
With certain notable exceptions, this is true.
If Obama believed that the PPACA was inadequate he might campaign by Saying how the PPACA was a great start, but there’s still a lot of work to do.
And that would help him win re-election how, exactly? Since we do still let low-information voters and other assorted idiots cast ballots in this country, I mean …
I don’t think that its necessarily such a bad approach if done within the context of framing the debate as continued progress v regression to the Bush years. When watching these debates, I’m baffled that neither Obama nor Biden attempted to explain that Ronmeny/Ryan economic policies mirror Bush’s economic policies, which led to the country to the recession in the first place.
Obama:
Biden:
Thank you.
Conspicuously absent from both quotes is the word “bush.” They should be repeating that idiot’s name over and over again while explaining that Romney/Ryan are promising a return of his economic policies.
Yes, because the audience for presidential debates is people who don’t remember who was president in 2001 and 2003.
Why is it that the most politically naive people are always the most convinced of their superiority? I guess it’s the old “doesn’t know enough to know what he doesn’t know” thing.
And, of course, talking about how you’d like to improve your signature achievement doesn’t make your opponent’s denunciations of it more credible at all.
Romney: Obamacare is terrible! It has all these problems.
Obama: Well, there are a few things that could have been better…
Romney: A-HA!
Obama: Like, for instance, we could…
Romney: YOU HAD YOUR CHANCE, AND EVEN YOU ADMIT YOU FAILED.
I’d vote for that.
Indeed, I just did!
You act like “barely surviving the Supreme Court” has anything to do with “what the law is” or with “what the legislation actually says.”
I was making a point about the public perception of the law in response to R Johnston’s bemusement with Obama’s seeming attitude that it’s the ultimate in reform.
Is there anyone on the left that thinks the half-assed compromise might make things worse in the future, and that maybe the gains in current uninsured (which provides no guarantee of improved outcomes) is not worth the political problems the PPACA creates down the road with the multiple sell-outs and carve-outs to industry insiders?
There are, yes.
But it was still probably worth doing, because the specter of those problems isn’t really strong in the minds of a lot of people to have justified doing nothing.
I’m not saying you’re wrong. Maybe the political problems the ACA creates will make things worse in the future. But that’s an awful, awful big maybe, and the alternative was to do nothing. LITERALLY to do nothing.
If you think we are going to go cold turkey on private health insurance, move to a state provided program and cram massive costdowns on medical providers (read: extremely wealthy doctors) 10 years down the road, you are high as a kite.
So no, I don’t see any of the ‘give-aways’ to industry-insiders creating problems down the road that didn’t already exist.
This. I’m really trying to think why many people seem to think that single-payer was remotely viable. Besides the procedural difficulties in getting a single-payer bill passed Congress; they seem to imagine opposition to single-payer magically going away.
Is there anyone on the left that thinks the half-assed compromise might make things worse in the future
There are. Their arguments are terrible, but they exist. So what?
Oh, there are definitely things that are going to get worse in the future under an unchanged PPACA: the loss of DiSH funds will lead to ER closures. The Kaiser Family Foundation has gone over this quite a bit. The argument isn’t terrible; it’s merely addressed by “that problem can be fixed”. That’s a good rejoinder if the problem is acknowledged and fixed. It’s no rejoinder at all if no one addresses the problem.
I remember when insurance not covering illness caused by hospitals was going to create huge cost problems in healthcare too.
Good ol’ Mr. Jackson, always putting the non in the sequitur! In fact, nosocomial infections (like vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus) are a big cost driver, but what’s that got to do with DiSH funding?
That healthcare providers are always proclaiming their will be catastrophic doom if you take away their wasteful corporate subsidies.
Yes, healthcare for the homeless and undocumented (who will not be getting health insurance under PPACA but rather rely in institutions that receive DiSH funding) just don’t count.
Good to have that clarified.
Which is not what it’s about [insert walrus comment here].
We were talking about flaws in PPACA, at least when we started, but by all means, continue the orthogonal-to-the-point commentary, Mr. Jackson.
the multiple sell-outs and carve-outs to industry insiders?
Fortunately, these things could never have happened under the status quo ante!
Certainly it causes issues with health industry being granted a big role in the operations, but it also is a step in the right direction.
Now that we’ve established that nationally mandated healthcare is legal and doable, we’re one step closer to a single payer. Of course, we’re also one step closer to being a country run by health insurance companies (if we’re not already). The next move depends on who we vote for.
HA!
HA!
Yea, voting libertarian will help reign in corporate excesses.
Just fell out of my chair and am currently ROTFLMAO!
Whatever, Mr. Cynic. Medicaid didn’t just expand itself. SCHIP didn’t invent, and then expand, itself. Democrats did that, and Republicans opposed it.
The problem with the PPACA is that Obama and many other proponents seem to really believe, just like their belief regarding the stimulus, that the PPACA is just right and that it isn’t a half-assed compromise that needs to be improved on at all.
Just out of curiosity, what is your evidence here? I’m sure you can find some rhetoric, but “politician presents signature policy achievement in best possible light, exaggerates somewhat” is a kind of dog bites man thing, and hardly a window into said politicians soul.
Repeal and replace!
Ya, from this thread I’ve learned that there are people who think they’re on the Left here who are in favor of “repeal and replace”.
This is a bad sign.
Seems ironic
Even I know this isn’t ironic. Resigned =/= ironic even in my god-awful usage.
Bradp got his PhD from Non-Sequitur University in 2 years!
Anyway, “getting the best deal you can get, recognizing that American political institutions are heavily tilted in favor of the status quo” is, in fact, pretty much the opposite of functionalist wishful thinking. Your apparent belief that anything “corporatist” — which means anything that could actually pass — is not worth passing, conversely, is the epitome of functionalist wishful thinking.
Except that Brad is the resident glibertarian, so it’s really just (bad) concern trolling of the highest order.
it’s really just (bad) concern trolling of the highest order.
Concern trolling of the highest order was this thread. Brad isn’t coming close.
Mal, I’m very concerned that your linking to that thread from this thread will validate those on right and left who think that the whole health care reform effort was a thinly veiled attempt by the socialist kenyan to indulge his fetish for nurses in Mao jackets.
You’re degrading the discourse, man!
My actual belief is the corporatist solutions like this one undermine our democratic institutions and checks, that this is a step in the wrong direction when it comes to the relationship between the consuming public and the connected and empowered suppliers.
That right there is some Grade-A
authentic frontier gibberishcorporate bullshit speak.corporatist solutions like this one undermine our democratic institutions and checks
You believe that adding veto points to our political process would improve outcomes?
You have to believe at least three absurd impossibilities before lunch every day to be a libertarian.
Massive regulation of corporations is a step in the wrong direction when it comes to the relationship between the public and corporations?
Only a libertarian would think that.
I really feel that “think” is too strong a word here.
Where “this crap” is “allowing people to have the same insurance that Brad P has, and would never, ever drop.”
Alan Grayson:
“If you get sick, America, the Republican health care plan is this: Die quickly,”
He’s running again, you know, and he’s favored to win. If he does, it’ll be nice to have him back.
Best news I have read today!
I’ve been noticing for a while the complete lack of interest from these people in repeal. The same voices who wanted to “kill the bill” in 2010 were completely silent about, or actively opposed to, the possibility of seeing it overturned by the Supreme Court, and they’ve been completely silent about any legislative effort to do so as well.
Did they come to their senses? Or were their denunciations dishonest from the beginning?
Relevant: Check out #InsurancePoll on twitter. Also, check out the latest blog post by Amanda Palmer on this. Lots of stories about the cost of healthcare in the US and elsewhere, and lots of learning going on about how messed up the US actually is by comparison to other places.