I really wish I completely understood what it is with many well-educated and supposedly intelligent people who are liberals, such as Paul Krugman. In this recent article, Mister Krugman again demonstrates his inability to properly use his brain. He gives the article the title “California Death Spiral“, which would certainly be appropriate if he were writing about the high-spending and high-taxing California State government which is almost bankrupt. But no, he is not at all referring to that. Instead he is referring to the recently announced increase in some health insurance premiums charged by an insurance company in California.
As expected from Mister Krugman, his opinion piece castigates insurance companies, implying that they are “villains” and “greedy”. His answer? At the very least, everybody should be “required” to purchase health insurance, and federal subsidies should be provided for the poor who can not afford to pay the full premiums. Don’t you just love the word he uses – “require“? Hey, Mister Krugman, how about using the phrase ‘”forced to buy, under penalty of law“? But oh no. Not when talking about liberal politics of the government which are favored by Mister Krugman. Oh, and of course “we” need much tighter and better regulation of all health insurance companies in order to keep those “greedy” companies under control. Mister Krugman does make it clear that he prefers the so-called “public option” – a health insurance program managed and controlled by the government.
Mister Krugman ends by saying that our “health care system is unraveling” and that “inaction isn’t an option”. Oh really? Why isn’t it an option? Let’s get real. There has never been a health care “system” in the United States. Instead there exists a health and medical care sector. Furthermore, what’s with this word “unraveling”? Oh, I guess by that he means that medical care is constantly getting more expensive. Well, what can really be done to stop that? Not much ! People just need to learn to spend less on non-essentials, spend their money more wisely, and save more. Next, they need to accept the bare fact that in order for them to benefit from all of the past advances in medical care, and those which will continue into the future, then they need to pay for it. The government can’t pay for a damn thing since the only money that it has is that which comes from the people (taxpayers) and from borrowing money which eventually has to be repaid by the people (taxpayers). As for the poor, we already have Medicaid and SCHIP; Medicare exists for most retirees. But those government-run programs are running up huge deficits. Yep, those deficits show you just how well the government knows how to handle our medical care sector.
For more information on Paul Krugman’s “opinions” about medical care, see this previous blog post of mine.