Krugman: The public option as a signal

[ProSense]

August 17, 2009, 11:25 am

The public option as a signal

Look, it is possible to have universal care without a public option; Switzerland does. But there are some good reasons for the prominence of the public option in our debate.

One is substantive: to have a workable system without the public option, you need to have effective regulation of the insurers. Given the realities of our money-dominated politics, you really have to worry whether that can be done — which is a reason to have a more or less automatic mechanism for disciplining the industry.

The second is what the option debate says about Obama.

If progressives had real trust in Obama’s commitment to doing the right thing, the administration would have broad leeway to do deals. But the president doesn’t command that kind of trust.

Partly it’s a matter of style — as many people have noted, he has been weirdly reluctant to make the moral case for universal care, weirdly unable to show passion on the issue, weirdly diffident even about the blatant lies from the right. Partly it’s a spillover from his other policies: by appointing an economic team that’s Rubin redux, by taking such a kindly attitude to the banks, he has squandered a lot of progressive enthusiasm.

Add in the dealmaking as part of the health care process itself, and progressives can be forgiven for having the impression that Obama (a) takes them for granted (b) is way too easily rolled by the other side.

So progressives have their backs up over one provision in health care reform that’s easy to monitor. The public option has become not so much a symbol as a signal, a test of whether Obama is really the progressive activists thought they were backing.

And the bizarre thing is that the administration doesn’t seem to get that.

[Cha]

1. Yeah, I don't see things like

Paul Krugman does on this.

[Kalyke]

2. I do.

I don't see Obama really cracking the proverbial whip over the Blue Cross Dems' heads on the public option - nor on the morality of providing universal coverage of some sort.

[Cha]

3. Pres Obama has his own style that just

might be better than all of his critics put together..we're going to see.

[depakid]

8. What works so brilliantly with foreign policy won't get the job done on the domestic front

That's just the reality of the way things work these days.

[Hippo_Tron]

4. I think Krugman is right about this

[GarbagemanLB]

5. Good article, and this is why so many of us are pissed off. It is time to put up or shut up, Obama.

I went along with the banks, the watered down stimulus, and so on. It is now time to take a stand and do what is right, not what is politically expedient.


I am not holding my breath, though.

[robcon]

6. "a test of whether Obama is really the progressive activists thought they were backing. "

My answer: no, he a middle-of-the-roader, not a progressive.

[proud patriot]

7. Interesting perspective

will have to chew on that a bit

[frazzled]

9. What Krugman said in his Times column this morning

But a Swiss-style system of universal coverage would be a vast improvement on what we have now. And we already know that such systems work.

So we can do this. At this point, all that stands in the way of universal health care in America are the greed of the medical-industrial complex, the lies of the right-wing propaganda machine, and the gullibility of voters who believe those lies.

So, if I've got him right, his argument in the beginning is the same: we don't actually need a public plan (though it would be better). The Swiss do it without and it would be "a vast improvement on what we have now."

The difference is, in the Times he is blaming the insurance companies and right wing for standing between us and universal health care. In his blog, he is blaming Obama's untrustworthiness with the progressives for standing between us and universal health care plan. Which is it?

The bottom line, at least, is that Krugman thinks a Swiss style plan sans a public option is not the end of things, and would be a vast improvement over what we have now.

[Uzybone]

10. so he says the Public Option is not really that important in itself

what is more important is what it says about Obama as a progressive.

Lord help us. And this is one of the smarter guys.