Paul Krugman on single-payer health care reform

[mpc91]

A single payer plan cannot be cheaper, and for someone who calls himself an "economist" to call for this is clearly being duplicitous. Costs are reduced as a result of competition. When individuals shop around services increase, or costs decrease, or both. But when there is only one payer who sets costs politically, costs rise and services decrease. This is what has caused our current mess. Insurance mandates, medicare and medicaid have made health care expensive, not economic liberty.

[Meade556]

@mpc91 Ah right since all that you fear has happened with our mostly private system, we must have single payer, except we don't

[mpc91]

@Meade556 - We don't have a mostly private system. He have a tightly regulated system of cronyism and state-enforced mandates, and one in which 45% of the funds spent are spent by government.

[Meade556]

@mpc91 Yeah we do, you purchase health insurance, assuming you can afford it and are eligible from the private sector. As for Medicaid, things would be a whole lot worse without it, which is why it was enacted in the first place

[Meade556]

@mpc91 By that I mean Britain is cheaper and having lived there it is more effective and the hospital was clean, although not as clean as French hospitals.

[JBNV123]

By the way if we are going to throw around Nobel prize winner's names, why don't you all check out Milton Friedman and his ideas on healthcare?

[mojorhythm]

@JBNV123 Milton Friedman lost all credibility after what the Chicago Boys did to Chile in their sadistic Mengelistic economic experiment.

[aaasssfffdddiii]

@mojorhythm Really, is that why they call it the Chile Miracle?

[mojorhythm]

@aaasssfffdddiii It was definitely a miracle for the people that mattered: the wealthy business owners, stockjobbers, speculators, foreign investors and government apparatchiks. It doesn't matter how much the majority of the working class population suffered under neoliberal reforms, their concerns are irrelevant. Calling it the Chile Miracle makes as much sense as calling the Ryan Plan the "Path to Prosperity."

Orwell rolls in his grave!

[aaasssfffdddiii]

@mojorhythm That is such a baseless claim. Of course, you didn't provide any evidence to prove your false point.

If you knew anything, you would know economic growth benefits all classes. If Friedman's ideas hadn't been implemented in Chile, they would have been destroyed through economic contraction and hyperinflation (see Zimbabwe).

You have been brainwashed by Naomi Klein's Leftist propaganda film "the Shock Doctrine", which has been thouroughly debunked...

[mojorhythm]

@aaasssfffdddiii w w w . h u p p i . c o m / kangaroo/L-chichile.htm

[aaasssfffdddiii]

@mojorhythm Hey, that page is simply wrong.

Yes, ending hyperinflation caused a severe recession in the short run, but the market reform worked like magic:

"Chile had a strong economic recession in 1982-1983... most of the recovery and subsequent growth took place after Pinochet left office,[10] when market-oriented economic policies were additionally strengthened."

Due to Market Reforms, Chile went from a third world nation to a relatively wealthy nation...

[mojorhythm]

@aaasssfffdddiii YES! I am not arguing with that! But guess where all that new wealth went?

Q.E.D.

[aaasssfffdddiii]

@mojorhythm Again, it has been proven over and over again that economic growth ALWAYS benefits all classes. Growth helps lower classes the most as they get access to newer technologies and higher incomes.

Chilean growth (caused by Friedman's policies) cut the poverty rate in half. Infant mortality fell to the lowest in Latin America and Life Expectancy rose substantially... It helped ALL CLASSES!!!

[mojorhythm]

@aaasssfffdddiii Yup. The poverty rate came down after some of the neoliberal reforms were rolled back.

"It wasn’t until the late 1980s, by which time the hard-line free-market policies had been considerably softened, that Chile finally moved definitively ahead" - Krugman

[aaasssfffdddiii]

@mojorhythm Wait a minute?

If Paul Krugman said it, it must be true... (sarcasm)

Like most things Krugman says, that quote is flatly untrue. Free market policies were STRENGTHENED in 1985 and again in 1990. It was this strengthening that led to the growth.

Krugman has been comletely discredited as a serious economist, because he says flatly false things like that...

[mojorhythm]

@aaasssfffdddiii

Let's see....who is more credible? A Nobel-prize winning economist who writes for one of the largest newspapers in the world, or some internet noob stranger?

[mojorhythm]

"Growth helps lower classes the most"

Depends. Post WWII growth certainly helped the lower classes quite a bit. Then along came Carter and started dismantling regulations and cutting taxes for the wealthy. Reagan continued this with zeal, and Clinton to some extent. Want to know how the population fared?

p o l i t i f a c t.com/truth-o-meter/statements­/2011/feb/03/steve-moore/wall-­street-journals-steve-moore-cl­aims-low-income/

[aaasssfffdddiii]

@mojorhythm Don't even pretend like Carter was some big fan of free market policies!

The dismal economy of the 1970s is all on socialists like you buddy....

It was Reaganomics that finally cured the economy of the Carter Malaise....

Politifact isn't exactly an unbiased source....

Even so, the report you linked said:

"Incomes rose in the bottom, middle, and top portions of the income distribution as Mr. Moore stated"

Even your biased source proves my point...

[mojorhythm]

@aaasssfffdddiii LOLOLOL!!!!

"Don't even pretend like Carter was some big fan of free market policies!" You

"During the second half of 1980.....the Carter Administration remained fiscally conservative during both growth and recession periods, vetoing numerous spending increases while enacting deregulation in the energy and transportation sectors and sharply reducing the top capital gains tax rate." Salon

mobile dot salon dot com/politics/war_room/2011/02/­08/lind_reaganism_carter/index­.html

[mojorhythm]

You know your in deep shit then you have to attack PolitiFact as a source.  It really is easy to charge the other side with bias instead of addressing the arguments themselves.

[mojorhythm]

@aaasssfffdddiii You said supply-side economics helps the lower classes the most. That quote you mentioned only stated that all incomes rose. It doesn't say that the lower class average income rose the most.

Oops!

[mojorhythm]

@aaasssfffdddiii

"it's not an example of free market; it's an example of a success of combining markets with appropriate regulation." Joseph Stiglitz on the Chilean 'miracle'

w w w dot pbs dot org / wgbh/commandingheights/shared/­minitext/int_josephstiglitz.ht­ml#4

[aaasssfffdddiii]

@mojorhythm If It's Krugman, I pick the noob.

Same goes for Stiglitz.

Speaking of Politifact, they had this to say about Chile:

"We spoke with three experts on Latin American economics and politics who work with centrist-to-liberal think tanks... and they agreed that there is a broad ideological consensus on Beck's two key points: Namely, Chile has improved its economic position in recent years and that free-market policies can take some of the credit."

[mojorhythm]

@aaasssfffdddiii SOME. "Some" is the key word my free-market friend. Laissez-faire policies got INFLATION down. Even John Maynard Keynes agreed that spending cuts, privatization and tax cuts gets inflation down. Are you familiar with the following equation? -** Y=(a-MPCT+B-1000r+G)/(1-MPC) **- this proves it. The question is: after inflation was down, did total, absolute laissez-faire capitalism lift everyone out of poverty and super-charge the economy to new unreached heights?

[aaasssfffdddiii]

@mojorhythm Ya, actually it did. The Chilean economy is one of the freest in the world today. They have a small government, low taxes, and a privatized SS system. Those are the reasons that the economy did so well. The so called "moderation" of free market policies never really took place. The economy started booming in the mid 1980s under Pinochet. His successor kept a cast majority of Pinochet's economic policies in place, while also bringing about more stability.

[mojorhythm]

@aaasssfffdddiii

You say: "The so called "moderation" of free market policies never really took place."

Stiglitz says: "Chile did not follow many key elements of the Washington Consensus during its most successful years....It imposed capital controls. It only privatized part of its copper mines...Government and foundations lay behind many of its successful development projects (such as its fisheries) ...Chile put considerable emphasis on social policies."

[aaasssfffdddiii]

@mojorhythm Lemme make this point. Stiglitz, just like Krugman, is a LIAR!!!

Pinochet made major privatization, slashed government, slashed tax rates, and stopped inflation.

This moderation involved more stability. If you look at economic freedom indexes, Chile is at the top. Plus, Chile increased in freedom fro 1985 to 1990 and then again from 1990 to 1995....

[mojorhythm]

@aaasssfffdddiii You say: "Stiglitz, just like Krugman, is a LIAR!!!"

I say: to think that one of the most frequently cited Nobel-prize winning economists in the world would just MAKE SHIT UP about Chile's economy to advance some godless socialist agenda doesn't pass the straight face test. You are clearly on a slight angle to reality; contorting the facts to align with your ideology rather than changing your ideology with the facts.

[aaasssfffdddiii]

@mojorhythm I never said anything about a "Godless Socialist Agenda". What "facts" are supposed to change my ideaology?

But, you're committing a fallacy here. Milton Friedman, who also won a Nobel Prize and is far more cited than Stiglitz, always said the exact opposite about Chile. Does the fact that Nobel Prize winner agrees with me prove my point?

No. On this case, Stiglitz is clearly wrong. Chile is an example of free market reforms bringing about growth.

[mojorhythm]

@aaasssfffdddiii The testimonial power of Stiglitz vs Friedman is a close call. The testimonial power of Stiglitz vs some Youtube keyboard warrior is a completely different issue. You know this.

[aaasssfffdddiii]

@mojorhythm First, Stiglitz vs Friedman is hardly a close call. Friedman is, arguably one of the 2 most important economists of the 20th century. The same cannot be said of Stiglitz.

However, you are acting like I am debating Stiglitz. Like you, I am also arguing with a "Youtube Keyboard Warrior" (you). So, this is not about me vs Stiglitz. This is about one "Youtune Keyboard Warrior" who agrees with Friedman arguing with another "Youtube Keyboard Warrior" who agrees with Stiglitz.

[kevinwaynesongs]

@aaasssfffdddiii Chile has guaranteed universal health care for all and an individual mandate.

[JBNV123]

Everyone, please look into the Swiss system! Single payer is not the only way to universal health care. Single payer will force govt values on us and will not be as efficient as a free market system. by the way we don;t currently have a free market, big insurance companies are given many advantages which raises cost, why don't we remove those advantages first, make a true free market system before we go single payer which has been shown in most cases not to save cost.

[jcomd]

UK's NHS (National Health Service) is now the most expensive and largest employer in the country (not of doctors, just bureaucrats). Waiting lists are the norm. What does this so called "economist" base his answer on, but a lie? Fortunately, he exposes the elites' thinking in public unlike those in the "education establishment" who brainwash gullible students.

[steig814]

he is probably basing it off of the fact that the English system is less expensive per capita than America's, just like every other universal healthcare system in the world, or the WHO reports that rate the quality of care in the United States near the bottom of the industrialized world. George Akerloff, another nobel prize winning "economist" proved why private health insurance markets are inherently inefficient in the seventies.

[johnnorvaisas]

The Declaration of Independence guarantees us "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" - NOT taxpayer-furnished, mandatory, health insurance. And the U. S. Constitution provides NO basis, no matter how far the stretch, for forcing its citizens to pay for government-funded and government-run healthcare as a replacement of what we already have.

[AUgrad00]

Welcome to socialism 101 brought to you buy Obama.

[axe863]

Paul Krugman created New Trade Theory. New trade theory is extremely inferior to current advanced models.

[Th3Minx]

How is New Trade Theory inferior to current advanced models?

[drskinnypuppy]

Hold on! Is this the same Taiwanese system where people pay co-pays so low that they end up going to the hospital so often they only see doctors between 2 to 5 minutes? The same Taiwanese system where the Government can't even finance it without borrowing money from banks? I think Paul Krugman should read a book before shiting out his mouth.

[bbulger1024]

You have no idea what you're talking about. Next time provide the source of your misinformation before shitting out of YOUR mouth!

[kfishy]

My family comes from Taiwan and what you said is completely false. The vast majority of the island's population are satisfied with the system, and with regards to cost Taiwan spends only 6% of its GDP compared to 16% of the US, and to solve whatever problems it may have Taiwan only needs to raise its spending to 8% or so, still vastly cheaper than the US.

[drskinnypuppy]

The reason why the U.S. spends so much on health care is because of Government intervention.

[BurningOrchids]

Right, the government is heavily involved in education and healthcare and where do we see the highest prices? Education and Healthcare.

It's a supply and demand issue, but liberal scum like Paul Krugman are so full of themselves and delusional on their Marxist theories that they don't understand that.

[thesparitan]

he's scum because he is liberal i thought in a country as free as ours a man as accomplished as him would be able to have a opinion that is back up by facts and he is trying to help people like you

[thesparitan]

no true actually not true at all

there's no paper im aware of that would say that and be credible at the same time because thats impossible

[Gerkinstock]

Actually, it is because of trial lawyers. Unfortunately, trial lawyers and unions own the Democratic Party.

[thesparitan]

where did you get that and there are 20 other countries that have single payer or government ran healthcare you can look at ok

[bpartoens]

You mention the Taiwan system. But, in Taiwan do the politicians spend millions on running campaigns to be elected resulting in the need for "donations" from lobbyists? Most of elected officials have sold their votes to keep corporations and sectors of business alive that do not work in the best interest of the citizens who elected them. When health insurance CEO's get $1.1 billion golden parachutes after resigning due to a backdating stock scandal, the money has to come from somewhere-denials.