As I've blogged before, I'm interested in what this election will do to Paul Krugman's career. Before Dubya took office, he was a really good economics columnist with a cult following. His fame and fortune have been built on his opposition to Our Fearless Leader; I doubt that most of his slavish followers would read him so devotedly if he did not lend the imprimatur of science to their ferocious hatred of George W. Bush.
After the election, of course, this all goes away. Even before then, however, the cracks are appearing. His campaign against Barack Obama has alienated a lot of people who used to applaud him, or at least refrain from voicing doubt about his more dubious forays into political commentary. Now all the sudden, the tactics that have been approved when deployed against George W. Bush are not okay. Mark Kleiman is only the latest example of a trend I've been noticing for a while:
Yesterday's Paul Krugman column quotes a study by Jonathan Gruber of MIT, which Krugman portrays as a critique of Barack Obama's health care proposal by comparison with Hillary Clinton's.
Mr. Gruber finds that a plan without mandates, broadly resembling the Obama plan, would cover 23 million of those currently uninsured, at a taxpayer cost of $102 billion per year. An otherwise identical plan with mandates would cover 45 million of the uninsured — essentially everyone — at a taxpayer cost of $124 billion.Since the Clinton plan contains not even an outline of how the mandate is to be enforced, I was puzzled about how Gruber managed to do his estimate.
RBCer Harold Pollack, a credentialed expert on health policy, having taken the drastic step of reading the actual study, gives us the answer: Gruber's imagined Obama-like plan with a mandate achieves the feat of virtually universal coverage by ... assumption.
Gruber:
In particular I assume that 95% of those who would not voluntarily choose to insure are forced to insure through the mandate.[emphasis added]
So the "finding" comes out of precisely nowhere. Of course if the mandate succeeds, it will increase coverage, with most of the cost coming from the people paying those mandatory premiums rather than the [other] taxpayers. But the claim that it will actually succeed is based on nothing but an assumption. And yet no reasonable reader of Krugman's column would understand that.
Welcome to the club. Would that we could get a coalition to banish silliness like this from all political discourse, not merely the kinds we don't like. And yes, I'm sure I don't do a very good job of criticizing people I agree with either.
Wait until Ol' Kruggie gets mad enough at a prominent Democrat to start insinuating that he is a criminal in the pages of the NYT, and then, when called on it, issues a semi-correction on his blog, with a fraction of the readership.
In particular I assume that 95% of those who would not voluntarily choose to insure are forced to insure through the mandate.
Because people who won't by insurance for the sake of their own health and financial security will certainly buy it if a law which they may never have heard of is passed.
Mark Kleiman is a total political hack, who doesn't even try to be anything else. Obviously, he's going to cheer for Krugman when Krugman attacks Republicans, and complain when Krugman attacks Kleiman's Democrat du jour. In other news, birds fly, water is wet and vomit is disgusting.
birds fly, water is wet
Ah, so Kleiman is a weather vane -- which I think is Megan's point.
"First, assume a can opener."
y81: "birds fly"
Not all of us.
Surprised you have not figured it out before now. Most people, with perhaps the honorable exception of yourself, who get paid to express opinions are hacks in the tank one way or another.
In the Nov./Dec. 2007 issue of Health Affairs, Vol. 26, No. 6, p. 1612, Glied, Hartz, and Giorgi survey the use of mandates in Hawaii, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. Hawaii uses employer mandates, with a small fine for noncompliance. About 90% of their population is insured. The Netherlands and Switzerland impose individual mandates together with subsidies for those who don't receive insurance from their employers. People in this category who don't purchase their own insurance are fined the cost of the insurance plus a 30% penalty. As might be expected, insurance coverage in both countries is virtually universal.
Mark Klieman could have found this article if he'd looked. And yes, he is a political hack.
Meh. He lost a lot more readers when the times online started blocking their opinion page. Of course now it's free again, but I wonder how many of the readers have permanently found other columnists to follow instead.
Using terms like "slavish followers" and "ferocious hatred" makes this post less believable for me.
Oh, Megan, be fair. It's been a while since you did a good job at ANYTHING.
Stan,
The Netherlands and Switzerland impose individual mandates together with subsidies for those who don't receive insurance from their employers. People in this category who don't purchase their own insurance are fined the cost of the insurance plus a 30% penalty.
What does that mean, "the cost of the insurance plus a 30% penalty?"
If I get caught after being without insurance for, say, two years, do I have to pay a fine equal to 2-years-worth of insurance premiums, plus 30% of that total? Or what?
NutellaonTouché wrote: Oh, Megan, be fair. It's been a while since you did a good job at ANYTHING.
Case in point: She's terrible at flagging commenters who mostly show up to sneer at the hostess. Good thing for you that you're on the lucky end of that failing, eh?
Mixner, my own experience of Dutch bureaucracy is that the Dutch are incredibly efficient and that you wouldn't be able to avoid buying insurance for two years. Based on the article, I think their version of the IRS inspects your income tax form every year to see if you have a policy. If you don't, they give you one, charge you its cost minus whatever subsidy you're entitled to, and then multiply this by 1.3 and add the result to your tax bill. In Switzerland the cantons are responsible for inforcing the mandate, and I don't know what system they use. The article didn't mention Singapore, which also has an individual mandate. I'll leave it to your imagination to guess how they inforce it.
No Megan, you said Krugman's career would go off the rails two weeks ago. It hasn't.
Stan,
You didn't really answer my question. What do you mean by "cost of the insurance?"
If the enforcement mechanism is the tax system, this presumably means that people in the Netherlands who fail to purchase health insurance are subject to not just fines, but imprisonment and garnishing of wages. Good luck selling that in America. Enforcement is perhaps the biggest problem with an individual mandate, which is why Hillary evades the issue at every turn.
A separate problem with your argument is your assumption that, even supposing that an individual mandate is politically viable, it would work as well U.S. as you say it does in Hawaii or the Netherlands. This is essentially the same assumption that Gruber is making--that there would be virtually universal compliance--and Megan is right to criticize it.
Stan,
You didn't really answer my question. What do you mean by "cost of the insurance?"
If the enforcement mechanism is the tax system, this presumably means that people in the Netherlands who fail to purchase health insurance are subject to not just fines, but imprisonment and garnishing of wages. Good luck selling that in America. Enforcement is perhaps the biggest problem with an individual mandate, which is why Hillary evades the issue at every turn.
A separate problem with your argument is your assumption that, even supposing that an individual mandate is politically viable, it would work as well U.S. as you say it does in Hawaii or the Netherlands. This is essentially the same assumption that Gruber is making--that there would be virtually universal compliance--and Megan is right to criticize it.
I do not know why that link doesn't work.
Here.
Mixner, the article I cited wasn't very explicit. My understanding is that if the minimum insurance you have to buy costs 2000 euros per year and if you haven't bought it, the Dutch government provides you with this plan and adds 2600 euros to your tax bill. If you don't pay it, they treat you as an income tax evader.
You're right about Hillary Clinton evading the issue of enforcement.
I don't think you're right about the public's attitude to this issue. This remains to be seen.
I don't think you're right about the public's attitude to this issue.
Third party liability auto insurance is already mandatory, is much cheaper than health insurance, and is widely understood to be an obligation arising from the choice to operate a motor vehicle. And yet compliance with auto insurance mandates isn't remotely close to universal. I think the insurance institute estimates non-compliance at around 15%. This does not exactly inspire confidence that a mandate to purchase health insurance will be a raging success. Health insurance is much more expensive than auto insurance, and is not part of any quid pro quo obligation arising from a freely-chosen action by those subject to the mandate.
If Krugman falls from grace, there will be a huge hole in the arena of dodgy furtive bomb throwing cowardly glaze-eyed ratlike economist poseurs. We'll miss him sourly.
On the other hand health insurance directly benefits the person insured; if you are judgement proof the only purpose of liability insurance is to protect a third party.
So I'm really not sure that altruistic quid pro quo would get higher participation even if it is cheaper.
On the other hand health insurance directly benefits the person insured
Obviously, so does liability insurance. Insurance against liability for someone else's medical and car repair bills is obviously a benefit to the person insured.
The problem with Krugman is that he develops a personal dislike for people (Bush, Obama) and then cherry-picks all the data that backs up his negative attitude towards that person, while ignoring all the things that might contradict that. Neil Cavuto nailed him on this a couple years ago and Krugman had no answer other than to whimper and sputter out some nonsense.
The judgement proof already get free healthcare by simply not paying hospital bills and relying on getting charity write-offs. It's extremely unlikely that they'll suddenly actually pay penalties.
I love how liberals don't understand that they have to get their technocrats and clerks from the same pool of people that are creating the "market failure". Or, well, the bottom half to bottom quartile of that pool! Yet things will work much better using people who couldn't get into a decent state school and who can't be fired. Of course they still believe that if only Stalin had known, he would have stopped the famine in Ukraine, and that the Rosenbergs were innocent (as well as heroes for getting the bomb for Stalin, but they were still innocent, err...).
Nutella - you're not supposed to sniff the gas, you're supposed to put it in your car. Now step away from the pump so that the nice men can get you some help.
Krugman has devoted readers, not slavish followers. The difference being that a devoted reader can disagree with the writer. I'm also a devoted reader of Andrew Sullivan but I skip those posts where he ventilates his anti-Clinton hysteria.
If Obama wins, I think one of three things will likely happen:
1) The Obama people will do everything to make nice with him. In addition, there aren't that many prominent economists out there and that means some of his liberal friends in economic circles would end up working for an Obama administration somewhere.
2) The Republicans try to race-bait him and thus back up Krugman's thesis about the Republican use of racial fears for electoral reasons, thus giving him a chance to warm to Obama
3) The majority of policies Obama follows are ones that Krugman will support, thus making him look silly if he goes on about the 5% of things they disagree about for months on end.
I back Obama, but losing Krugman as a voice would be a real loss.
2) The Republicans try to race-bait him and thus back up Krugman's thesis about the Republican use of racial fears for electoral reasons, thus giving him a chance to warm to Obama
Well, the Clinton's race-baiting doesn't seemed to have soured Krugman on Hillary...
But if your point is that when forced to choose between an (R) and a (D), Krugman will remember which side butters his bread, I fully agree with you.
If Obama wins, I think one of three things will likely happen:
Eh, I'm pretty sure I can write Krugman's next lede for him:
"Previously, I criticized Obama's [insert name of plan], which at the time implied [insert cockamamie nonsense] based on the limited information he had provided on the campaign trail. Now that he has presented a more detailed explanation in his latest proposal before Congress, we can revisit that analysis and see that [insert anything ranging from general agreement with specific constructive criticisms, to sycophantic praise]."
Isn't this anti-Obama campaign just part of Krugman's grubby little schemings for a big job in a Hillary Clinton administration? There's that old story about how he thought he was going to be the first Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Bill Clinton, and got really, REALLY pissed when it went to a relative economics nobody like Laura Tyson. I guess he's not taking any chances this time!
Wow, Hawaii gets a 90% compliance rate with it's plan while the US population as a whole(using the inflated 47 million) has an 84.5% compliance rate with the government doing almost nothing.
How much effort are we expending to get the next 5.5% on the insurance rolls?
Yikes!! Now this was an insult!!
I imagine Krugman will go back to being a respected economist who writes for the nytimes and enjoys a largish readership.
But what will it do to yours? Sure, I imagine we'll have the opportunity to watch you trip over every latest neuroeconomics-gametheory-utilitytheory-decisionmaking-meme du jour, and I'm sure I'll be able to continue my Mcardle v. automated teller Turing test, and I'm sure that we'll be able to watch you take up the good fight against scientists in peer-reviewed journals who report death counts from Iraq but whose death counts you don't agree with and . . . actually it won't be any different.
or, as a commenter stated on a another blog:
"Oh God...the spectacle of Meagan McArdle and Jonah Goldberg treating each other's arguments as serious discourse"
I like Krugman. A lot. Unlike every other dip in print media opinion-making, he's a self-designated liberal. He's right, a lot. My paper is in the fourth largest media market in tennessee- all half a million of us- and the right-side of the editorial board likes to send in snippets about the crass unconstitutionality of the IRS, the EPA, the dept. of education, and any kind of social services agency.
The fact that they print Paul Krugman at all is a wonderful saving grace.
Neil Cavuto called him out on taking a dislike to people? That gormless freak over at FOX?
Mcardle, consider this: you're being defended by a guy who thinks Neil Cavuto is both reliable and cool.
> My understanding is that if the minimum insurance you have to buy costs 2000 euros per year and if you haven't bought it, the Dutch government provides you with this plan and adds 2600 euros to your tax bill. If you don't pay it, they treat you as an income tax evader.
I suspect that the group of Americans who don't buy health insurance has significant overlap with the group that doesn't file tax returns.
Many Americans don't file tax returns. Some aren't legally required to file and many others just don't.
Also, many Americans file just to get refunds or the earned income tax credit. If filing exposes them to costs that exceed those benefits, how many of them are likely to continue filing?
In other words, tying mandatory healthcare spending to the income tax system is unlikely to work in the US because of the way Americans behave and the US tax system works. It doesn't matter if the Dutch behave differently or the Dutch system works differently.
Feel free to argue that you can fix healthcare, the tax system, AND Americans, but please provide better evidence than "we need the last two to make the first one work".
As our hostess as written a couple of times, if you think that govt can do a better job with healthcare, why not demonstrate that with the existing govt healthcare spending? If you can't do a better job with about half of the covered people, why should we believe that you'd do a better job with everyone?
dodgy furtive bomb throwing cowardly glaze-eyed ratlike economist poseurs.
If Krugman, who won the Clark medal and is conceded to be one of the greatest academic economists of his generation, is a "poseur", then what is Megan, who has taken perhaps two or three econ courses in an MBA program? By the evidence of this blog she can't even do a supply/demand curve correctly and makes elementary econ errors regularly.