Krugman's Obama thing
By my count, Krugman's column Monday marked the 7th strike on Obama in a two month period. Some of theem have just featured a couple sentences chiding Obama, while others have been largely devoted to criticizing him.
A quick review:
Nov 30 - Obama's health care plan inferior to Edwards and Clinton plans because it lacks mandate
Dec 7 - Obama's health care plan inferior to Edwards and Clinton plans because it lacks mandate
Dec 17 - a Democratic presidents needs to fight big business (Edwards), not sit down at the table to compromise with it (Obama)
Dec 24 - Obama wrong to criticize pro-Edwards 527s as "special interests" with "too much influence in Washington"
Jan 4 - column on China, with this tidbit: "But among at least some of Barack Obama’s supporters there seems to be a belief that if their candidate is elected, the world’s problems will melt away in the face of his multicultural charisma."
Jan 7 - column on economic woes, with a tidbit suggesting Obama is too sunny in outlook to address it adequately
Jan 14 - Edwards, and later Clinton, have good plans to address a potential recession; Obama's plan is late and isn't as good
Krugman has also criticized Obama on his blog, such as on social security back in early November.
I'm not one of those Krugman-is-God people, but I do tend to take what he writes seriously (with semi-exceptions for trade issues and others). I don't know much about healthcare, but I'm inclined to believe he's at least generally right on those. The Dec 17 column was powerful, though I could still be convinced of essentially the opposite -- that if you look at the record, Obama is plenty progressive, and he's just stealthy (see Matthew Yglesias' argument here, and more discussion both ways here).
I thought the Jan 4 and Jan 7 columns were sort of cheap shots. The Dec 24 and Jan 14 columns, though, were pretty convincing. These were Obama doing bad things, and for no good reason.
I may well end up voting for Obama, but it would be despite Edwards' better positions on economic issues. As The Nation wrote of Edwards in their we-aren't-endorsing-anyone editorial, "His policy proposals are not always perfect, but they are uncommonly detailed and crafted in conjunction with progressive organizations."
1 Comments:
So, admittedly, I don't know that much about the presidential campaigns/candidates right now, and also not too much about the knitty-gritty of the economics of financing incremental health care reforms. I do know something about healthcare and the bigger picture.
I agree that Obama's healthcare plan is definitely not optimal. But I just think it's important to point out, neither are Clinton's or Edward's, at all.
Mandates are not true universal health care (at least in the way they're proposed here, perhaps they are in Switzerland as Krugman mentions in Dec 7). I'm not saying Krugman is claiming they are, but I don't like the angle he's coming at this. So he's probably right that if we're doing mandates, Obama's plan and rhetoric are problematic. However, mandates are not the only option and the lens he's using is not one that's really looking toward a true universal single-payer healthcare system. A single-payer universal system would not be an opt-in system as mandates would be. Universal systems are far better for health outcomes, and also better in terms of saving $$ on bureaucracy. Part of the reason S-CHIP is currently underutilized by people that are eligible is that it is opt-in.
A pretty cool progressive (radical for a doctor) doctor who knows more than I do about the candidates' plans is supporting Edwards and thinks his plan is better. http://www.losanjalis.com/?p=475 I've heard that from a few other healthcare advocates. Also, as losanjalis points out, Obama and Clinton take a lot of money from HMOs in a way that Edwards doesn't.
And on the question in the Dec 7 column as to whether Obama is really serious about universal health care - I mean, who knows. But I do know, in terms of his "track record," he did play a significant role in expanding IL SCHIP when he was in the IL state senate.
Thanks for posting this analysis/summary, and making me to look a little more into the details of the Obama/Clinton/Edwards differences in healthcare ideas. Do you know of any more good sites or articles to read about their policies or compare?
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