Krugman: There are No Victims of ObamaCare
I’m not kidding. He really said it. In the NYT this morning. How callous can you get?
Maybe he should read this morning’s WSJ. Here is Stephen Blackwood, the president of Ralston College, describing his mother, a cancer victim whose insurance was cancelled because of ObamaCare:
The repeated and prolonged phone waits were Sisyphean, the competence and customer service abysmal. When finally she found a plan that looked like it would cover her Sandostatin and other cancer treatments, she called the insurer, Humana, to confirm that it would do so. The enrollment agent said that after she met her deductible, all treatments and medications — including those for her cancer — would be covered at 100%. Because, however, the enrollment agents did not — unbelievable though this may seem — have access to the “coverage formularies” for the plans they were selling, they said the only way to find out in detail what was in the plan was to buy the plan. (Does that remind you of anyone?)
With no other options, she bought the plan and was approved on Nov. 22. Because by January the plan was still not showing up on her online Humana account, however, she repeatedly called to confirm that it was active. The agents told her not to worry, she was definitely covered.
Then on Feb. 12, just before going into (yet another) surgery, she was informed by Humana that it would not, in fact, cover her Sandostatin, or other cancer-related medications. The cost of the Sandostatin alone, since Jan. 1, was $14,000, and the company was refusing to pay.
The news was dumbfounding. This is a woman who had an affordable health plan that covered her condition. Our lawmakers weren’t happy with that because…they wanted plans that were affordable and covered her condition. So they gave her a new one. It doesn’t cover her condition and it’s completely unaffordable.
Krugman is basically a hater. There is no evidence that he cares about ordinary people.
His writings are driven by hate, not love.
His writings are driven by a refusal to give any credit to his opposing side.
I bet he might feel different if this happened to his mother.
Probably he would write a sharp critique for Obamacare. He has no rules.
Amazing that we got both editorials on the same day. Let’s hope everyone reads both. Taken together they say it all.
“…at least moderately well-off young men in very good health who can no longer buy cheap, minimalist plans.”
So just because they won’t play well in tear jerker ads doesn’t mean that there aren’t losers in ObamaCare. Why should young men be punished for being in good health? He makes little sense.
Having anyone losing out on Obamacare is unacceptable, regardless if they are young men, or women or the elderly. No one should be losing out on the “Affordable” Care Act.
Perhaps Krugman could have read the WSJ article before posting his own.
“The most likely answer is that the true losers from Obamacare generally aren’t very sympathetic.”
Well that still doesn’t make it okay…
Inefficiency is everywhere. It unexpectedly takes three months to get Humana covered. The customer service sucks.
Can we believe in Krugman? Recently he has dedicated himself to destroy the field of Economics and fill the pages of his op-ed with a political rant. There is nothing that he has said recently that can be supported with economics, a subject in which he is supposed to be knowledgeable. It seems that two unworthy Nobel Laureates (Krugman in Economics, Obama in Peace) are colluding to trick the American population. Krugman will continue to write his nonsense in the New York Times and Obama will continue to promise a lot and will never act. The only comforting fact is that Obama’s term will end, but Krugman’s…
Obama can end his term and start writing op-eds in the New York Times, so don’t claim victory yet. A better idea is to stop reading the newspaper.
This is what happens when we use negative ads. Every party claims that the other party is lying. I don’t care if Obamacare has helped some random person in California and I don’t care if the same reform left someone without insurance in New York. There are always winners and losers, some that are better off some that will worse off. What I am interested in knowing is that if in general, America a better place? Or that if this reform cost millions and only few are benefited? Don’t give a personal name to the issue.
Well Paco, I agree to not name names. But the truth is this reform is very costly and there are only a select amount of people who will benefit from Obamacare. So unless you are older or poor, you are out of luck.
I have yet to see Krugman ever admit an opponent was correct on anything. The closest I have ever seen Krugman admitting he was wrong is in claiming he was more right than he thought. It comes from the “never admit any mistake” form of debate.
If you read the last year of comments by Gruber, Sibleius, Ez Klein, Jon Cohn, Deb Wasserman, Kevin Drum, Richard Kirsch, and all the ACA cheerleaders, what you find is this:
They had no idea that decent individual policies existed.
I do not think this was malicious on their part. All they saw was recissions, loss leader pricing, and John Grisham-like claim processing.
They thought they were doing Americans a favor by cancelling older plans.
The individual market was frankly a funny place before 2013. There were horror stories, and there were also little pockets of workable policies like the one cited in the very sad WSJ oped by Mr Blackwood.
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-cancer-medicine-20140224,0,4157578.story#axzz2uLUFevdj
According to Chaz, the governor of Virginia is to blame because Obama lied about people letting to keep their coverage.
Chaz here — What the hell are you talking about?