Krugman: Did Warren Pass the Medicare Test? I Think So

[crazytown]

Did Warren Pass the Medicare Test? I Think So
Her plan is serious, even if it probably won’t happen

Last week I worried that Elizabeth Warren had painted herself into a corner by endorsing the Sanders Medicare-for-all plan. It was becoming obvious that she couldn’t stay vague about the details, especially how to pay for it; and some studies, even by center-left think tanks, suggested that any plan along these lines would require large tax hikes on the middle class. So what would she come up with?

Well, the Warren plan is now out. And I’d say that she passed the test. Experts will argue for months whether she’s being too optimistic — whether her cost estimates are too low and her revenue estimates too high, whether we can really do this without middle-class tax hikes. You might say that time will tell, but it probably won’t: Even if Warren becomes president, and Dems take the Senate too, it’s very unlikely that Medicare for all will happen any time soon.

Nonetheless, Warren needed to show that she was working the problem. And she did. She brought in real experts like Donald Berwick, who ran Medicare during the Obama years, and Betsey Stevenson, former chief economist at the Labor Department. And they have produced a serious plan. As I said, experts will argue with the numbers, but this is the real thing — not some left-leaning version of voodoo economics.[

(snip) Am I enthusiastically endorsing this plan? No. I still think that a public-option-type plan, which lets people buy into Medicare, would have a better chance of actually becoming reality — and may well be where a President Warren actually ends up if she gets to the White House. And the plan’s optimism on costs and revenues could be wrong.

But this is a serious plan that reflects hard thinking. In particular, it’s nothing like the snake oil that passes for policy analysis on the right, whether it’s the continual insistence that tax cuts pay for themselves or Paul Ryan budgets that assumed that discretionary spending could be cut to Calvin Coolidge levels.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/01/opinion/did-warren-pass-the-medicare-test-i-think-so.html

[blm]

1. Krugman's right in that congress, as it exists today, is unlikely to pass

Med4All. We need to increase the numbers in congress at the same time and in 2022.

But, glad that he recognizes her plan as realistic and genuine in its form, even though her critics want people to believe otherwise.

[crazytown]

4. and in 2022

A one two punch may not be realistic, but it seems that is what Sen Warren has in mind: sustained outside pressure, culminating in the midterms.

Francis Perkins became the first woman in history to serve in the cabinet. Yeah. And what did she push for when she got there? Big structural change. She used the same model that she and her friends had used after the Triangle Fire. She worked the political system relentlessly from the inside, while a sustained movement applied pressure from the outside.

[blm]

6. Exactly. And we do it again in 2024.

Time we do the heavy lifting over the next 5years and stop with the kicking the can down the road again. Make FDR proud of us.

[crazytown]

9. "FDR proud of us"

Swallows. Yes - the 'Great Republic' I mourn too often.

[tblue37]

2. K&R & thanks. nt

[Hoyt]

3. "A public-option-type plan, which lets people buy into Medicare, would have better chance . . . . ."

[crazytown]

5. No question at all Hoyt,

and I'm not sure the Public Option has much of a chance either.

[wellst0nev0ter]

40. The middle-roaders were singing a different tune in 2010

When we had a chance to include a public option to Obamacare. But nope, that would be too much for the private insurers' profits.

I wonder what changed since then?

Let's stop with these baby-step games and finally form a health care system that makes sense.

[blm]

8. In this congress, yes. That's reality. We'll increase our numbers

In this congress and the next. No one said there is no heavy lifting involved.

I’m not a lazy Democrat and know there is a lot of work down the road. Just as there was in every great structural change made in this country.

[crazytown]

10. I haven't forgotten the treachery of Lieberman et al.

I see to remember Warren saying she would be prepared campaign against Democrats who were blocking the popular will.

[highplainsdem]

7. As I said when I posted about Krugman's comments a couple off days ago

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287331136


this was a very generous pat on the head by Krugman for Warren doing her homework.

He likes her. He's being kind.

But he admits her proposal won't get through Congress, and he's not sure her numbers add up.

[crazytown]

11. The point I think he is making is the sums add up:

he is not vouching for the assumptions, nor the politics.

[blm]

12. Yeah, but some here prefer to exercise their spin agenda.

Why stick to just the facts and actual words written when you can take it all out for a spin? Loads of fun if you like the dizziness.

[crazytown]

16. Not just spin on DU

“She’s making it up” - Joe Biden.

[highplainsdem]

13. So he's giving her a pat on the head for homework. She even tweeted after she released the details

that she'd done her homework.

Sigh.

If we were electing "student who does the most detailed homework"...

[crazytown]

15. "She brought in real experts

this is a serious plan that reflects hard thinking"

[highplainsdem]

17. You can do all the homework in the world on plans that have zero chance of passing, and it's still a

waste of time.

FWIW, I'd bet Warren had most of these numbers months ago but didn't trot them out then because she knew they'd be criticized and she thought she could keep dodging the question of how she'd pay for MFA. That hope fell apart during the last debate.

Now the funding proposal is out and IMO it's an anchor, or maybe an albatross, as someone at the NYT called it. I considered calling it an albatross when I wrote this OP

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287331084

but I think calling it a very large anchor better reflects what it's likely to do to her campaign, and I think she'll pull Sanders down with her as people get more into details of how MFA would have to be funded.

[crazytown]

18. "I'd bet Warren had most of these numbers months ago"

If you want to accuse Elizabeth Warren of dishonesty, that's you business.

[highplainsdem]

20. Do you really believe that Warren, with her attention to plans, HADN'T looked into possible

funding for MFA several months ago when she was talking about MFA at least as much as any other policy?

That would have been TOTALLY out of character for her. I don't for a second believe she'd have provided funding details for other proposals but suddenly become either unconcerned or uninformed about how to fund MFA. (Believing that would be an insult to her.)

I'm not saying she'd settled on which funding proposal she'd trot out. I'm guessing she looked at a lot of them and wasn't particularly happy with any of the numbers.

The last debate finally forced her to make some decisions and make her funding ideas public.

[blm]

21. Yes, she does. Every chance she gets.

Posting disingenuously on every negative nitpick she can exaggerate while ignoring every positive.

I guess that’s how some people want to use GD Primaries forum.

[crazytown]

23. There's enough FUD going about to suggest

there ia some genuine fear of Warren's proposals amongst competing campaigns, and perhaps on the GOP side as well.

[blm]

24. Some even using GDP to post RW op eds from RW lie machine.

[crazytown]

25. I know,

and is being defended as sound Had enough of that in 2016.

[highplainsdem]

26. That's both false and a personal attack.

[Cha]

36. No.. I think "she's" trying to get to the

facts. EW was dodging the question.. now it's getting out there because many people have been asking about it.. not just "she".

[beastie boy]

14. I will take Krugman's word for it.

In fact, I also think she passed the Medicare test.

But has she passed the electability test? I think she just lowered her grade on that one. And there will be no Medicare test before the electability test.

[Gothmog]

19. The math for Warren's health-care plan adds up if you accept its ludicrous premise

The assumptions on which the Warren plan is based are really amusing

Link to tweet

The bad news is that Warren’s assumptions are crazier than keeping a pet rhinoceros, after which, who cares that her calculator works? This is to actual policymaking as the plastic noodles in a ramen-bar window is to lunch.

To wit: Warren says she can deliver a generous Medicare-for-all plan with only $20.5 trillion in additional federal spending. That’s a quarter to a third less than any serious estimate of the plan from outside her campaign. How will she get there? Why, by slashing administrative costs and then mandating that everything else cost less. Warren is not exactly the first progressive reformer to have this same idea, and if she pushes forward with it, she will be but the next in a long line to discover that she can’t make it work, politically or economically. As Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner dryly noted, Warren could just as well have written that Mexico was going to pay for her big, beautiful plan.....

The best you can say for all of this is that none of it will happen. If Warren makes it to the White House, and tries to pass a plan, the Congressional Budget Office will eventually attach more reasonable numbers, with more defensible assumptions, sparking an even more spectacular political blowback than the one that greeted Friday’s announcement. Outside of the progressive Twitterati, there isn’t necessarily an enormous constituency for spending $20.5 trillion to herd every American into a national health insurance program; there would be even less support for spending what Warren’s plan would actually cost
.
And even if she somehow pushed her program through, there’s a good chance that courts would strike it down, because so many of the revenue-raisers may be unconstitutional. Between the problems with her wealth taxes (Article I, Section 9), her plan to divert employer premiums to the government (ex post facto taxation of health benefits) and her requirement that state and local governments toss $3 trillion into the kitty (anti-commandeering doctrine), Warren would be a couple of adverse court decisions away from a $15 trillion hole in her $20 trillion plan.

Stripped of the Warren plan’s math-like veneer and the unreasonable reasoning, this is all rather embarrassing — or to steal a phrase, more of a slogan than a plan. It’s certainly not one of the highlights of Warren’s campaign.

[blm]

22. Posting RW op ed from one of Hugh Hewitt's favorite RW guests?

Wow. I never would have thought that was possible. But, that’s how some of you want to use GD Primaries this election cycle.

[highplainsdem]

27. Even Krugman, who's called himself a huge fan of Warren's, admits her math is questionable.

And he doesn't think she could get MFA passed.

[blm]

37. Krugman Likes the plan, and THIS congress won't pass it.

We can work to increase our numbers in congress in 2022 and 2024.

You know that but choose to spin what he said against the plan, itself.

Because you just can’t help yourself. Your constant targeting of Warren is obvious to everyone.

[highplainsdem]

38. Another personal attack. You owe me an apology. And I haven't spun what Krugman said.

Krugman makes it clear he isn't endorsing her plan -- he prefers the public option -- and her numbers could be wrong.

He basically gives her an A for effort, a pat on the head.

[Bradshaw3]

28. It's become routine for some Biden supporters

National Review, etc. Whatever they can use to trash Warren is ok.

[BlueMTexpat]

32. They really

do out themselves, don't they?

[Bradshaw3]

34. It doesn't help their candidate

And if that's what they feel they have to do, well it doesn't bode well for the GE.

[dpibel]

29. I thought we were supposed to believe Krugman

Just a week ago, Paul Krugman's opinion was the centerpiece of your doomsaying:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1287&pid=325428

Whatever happened?

[BlueMTexpat]

33. You've noticed that

too.

[Bradshaw3]

35. Just like the polls

Positive polls for Biden - good; good poll news for Warren - bad. Has an Animal Farm quality to it.

[highplainsdem]

39. Krugman admits Warren's numbers are questionable and that MFA won't pass. But he

likes Warren so he's very kind in his analysis. However:

Experts will argue for months whether she’s being too optimistic — whether her cost estimates are too low and her revenue estimates too high, whether we can really do this without middle-class tax hikes. You might say that time will tell, but it probably won’t: Even if Warren becomes president, and Dems take the Senate too, it’s very unlikely that Medicare for all will happen any time soon.

-snip-

So what has Warren achieved here? Realistically, her health care plan is more aspirational than her other plans. Enhanced financial regulation and universal child care are things she might well be able to accomplish if she not only wins, but wins big, next year. Medicare for All, not so much. And may I say, it would serve the public well if these topics — plus climate change! — got more attention in future debates, and health care a bit less.

Warren’s task was, instead, to counter criticism that she was being evasive on a big issue. I think she has met that challenge.

Basically, he gives her an A for effort in her homework exercise, and suggests she talk less about health care since she isn't going to be able to get MFA.

[andym]

30. Warren has performed a political miracle for Medicare for All

a plan/roadmap that on paper would save middle-class and upper class people a lot of money (premiums would be gone) without raising taxes on them-- but on business and the very wealthy. The increased business taxes are offset by not having to pay for private insurance for their workers.

Whether it could be passed is quite another thing. The numbers are a serious attempt, but as Krugman mentions, there will be a lot of skepticism. Government has been demonized by the Right and liberals themselves are skeptical of such a big plan. But that's what Warren would bring as President-- she would push the political consensus to the left, and why I support her.

The biggest win for a single payer plan would be the ability to negotiate costs downwards-- drugs, medical devices and possibly health care professional salaries.

[crazytown]

31. "(saving) middle-class and upper class people a lot of money"

while presenting the package as moral social reform is a winner, if Elizabeth can maintain that framing.

[Martin Eden]

41. I think there SHOULD BE middle class tax hikes

... with a net savings compared to what we're currently paying. A substantial sum is currently taken out of every paycheck for the portion I pay for my employer based health insurance.

Just hike my taxes slightly less than that and I come out ahead. What's wrong with that?

Deficits are important, and debt starves funds for so much that is needed.

[crazytown]

42. I am in favor of the tax system becoming more progressive:

The middle class is now paying a higher average % tax than 1952-1980, while the top 1% (and particularly the top .1%) is paying a lower average % tax than the bottom 99% - think Warren Buffett & his secretary.

[Martin Eden]

43. I'm in favor of a more progressive tax as well.

Billionaires should pay a 90% rate, and we need to stop corporate welfare -- especially when jobs are offshored.

But we have to bring deficits under control. Interest payment on the debt is flushing valuable funds down the drain.

Deficit spending is necessary during a recession, and we need to make up for that when the economy is stronger.

[crazytown]

44. "We have to bring deficits under control"

I do agree. The story of the last 50 years is when Democrats get the deficit under control, the GOP blows it on tax cut bribes and payoffs - however the economy is doing.

Warren's funding package is political of course, but if the cost can be met as part of restoring Eisenhower era progressivity, I won't complain.