Krugman: Health reform “looks good”

Paul Krugman on the health reform bill:

So what’s the reality of the proposed reform? Compared with the Platonic ideal of reform, Obamacare comes up short. If the votes were there, I would much prefer to see Medicare for all.

For a real piece of passable legislation, however, it looks very good. It wouldn’t transform our health care system; in fact, Americans whose jobs come with health coverage would see little effect. But it would make a huge difference to the less fortunate among us, even as it would do more to control costs than anything we’ve done before.

This is a reasonable, responsible plan. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Read the whole thing, as they say.

Arlen Specter is getting you that health care bill

Kevin Drum quotes Paul Krugman:

I haven’t seen anyone point this out; but it occurs to me that we all owe thanks to the Club for Growth. If they hadn’t targeted Arlen Specter, he wouldn’t have switched parties, the Democrats wouldn’t have 60 seats, and the world might look very different.

Heh.

Health care bill passes the Senate

I find that health reform is something about which I don’t have much, if anything, original to say. That’s probably a damaging admission for any Aspiring Pundit, but it’s true. That said, I’m heartened to see that the Senate passed its version of the health reform bill last night. And while I suspect the bill is far from perfect, I also believe it goes a long way toward the goal of ensuring wider access to health care than currently exists.

A conservative friend Tweeted last night that “Dems have no clue what populist hell they’ve just unleashed in this nation,” as though we didn’t just live through the Summer of Death Panel Obamahitler Screaming. And Atrios might be right that the compromises involved in getting the bill to 60 votes will make it so noxious to voters that Democrats will take a major hit.

But I suspect that Paul Krugman is right. He blogs about President Obama:

But on health care, I don’t see how he could have gotten much more. How could he have made Joe Lieberman less, um, Liebermanish? And I have to say that much as I disagree with Ben Nelson about many things, he has seemed refreshingly honest, at least in the final stages, about what he will and won’t accept. Meanwhile the fact is that Republicans have formed a solid bloc of opposition to Obama’s ability to do, well, anything.

Some of my commenters have argued that even with this bill Democrats may well lose seats next year — possibly even more than they would have without it. Definitely on the first point; on the second, I don’t think people realize just how damaging it would be if Obama didn’t get any major reforms passed. But in any case, that misses the point. The reason to pass reform, even inadequate reform, now isn’t to gain seats next year; it is to pass reform, which will do vast good, during the window that’s available. If it doesn’t pass now, it will probably be many nears before the next chance.

Right. We vote people in to do certain things, but often they don’t do things because doing things might make it harder for them to retain power. But what’s the point of helping them retain power if they won’t use it to do those certain things? The Democrats will likely lose seats in 2010 — that was probably going to happen anyway, given the history of midterm elections. As somebody who cares more about health reform than the electoral prospects of Democrats, I’m willing to sacrifice some of the latter to get a bit of the former. Otherwise, what’s politics for?

Pass the health care reform bill

Paul Krugman is wise today. In fact, I have nothing to add:

At its core, the bill would do two things. First, it would prohibit discrimination by insurance companies on the basis of medical condition or history: Americans could no longer be denied health insurance because of a pre-existing condition, or have their insurance canceled when they get sick. Second, the bill would provide substantial financial aid to those who don’t get insurance through their employers, as well as tax breaks for small employers that do provide insurance.

All of this would be paid for in large part with the first serious effort ever to rein in rising health care costs.

The result would be a huge increase in the availability and affordability of health insurance, with more than 30 million Americans gaining coverage, and premiums for lower-income and lower-middle-income Americans falling dramatically. That’s an immense change from where we were just a few years ago: remember, not long ago the Bush administration and its allies in Congress successfully blocked even a modest expansion of health care for children.

The party of spite

I think Krugman gets this right:

But more important, the episode illustrated an essential truth about the state of American politics: at this point, the guiding principle of one of our nation’s two great political parties is spite pure and simple. If Republicans think something might be good for the president, they’re against it — whether or not it’s good for America.

I try — more often than I succeed — to give the benefit of the doubt to my ideological rivals. They want what’s good for America; they just have a different way of getting there. Their glee over Chicago losing the Olympics was dispiriting, though. It’s hard to see it in terms other than spite.

Arlen Specter: “Why I Support The Stimulus”

The senior senator from Pennsylvania does the op-ed thing for the Washington Post, defending both his support for the stimulus package and the cuts that he and other “centrist” senators have made:

The unemployment figures announced Friday, the latest earnings reports and the continuing crisis in banking make it clear that failure to act will leave the United States facing a far deeper crisis in three or six months. By then the cost of action will be much greater — or it may be too late.

“In politics,” John Kennedy used to say, “nobody gets everything, nobody gets nothing and everybody gets something.” My colleagues and I have tried to balance the concerns of both left and right with the need to act quickly for the sake of our country. The moderates’ compromise, which faces a cloture vote today, is the only bill with a reasonable chance of passage in the Senate.

Read Paul Krugman today for why that’s still not enough.

Don’t investigate the Bush Administration war crimes

Maybe I need to trade in my liberal card. Because while I desperately agree with Paul Krugman, Brian Beutler, Not Atrios, Matt Yglesias and a whole bunch of other people that some Bush Administration actions the last eight years were unconstitutional and unlawful — torture and warrantless wiretapping chief among them — I part ways with them here: I think the Obama Administration should have no part in investigating its predecessors.

Why? Because it’s probably the quickest way to steer Obama’s presidency straight onto the rocks.

I’m surprised to find myself so nakedly cynical about this topic, but here goes: More than anger at the Bush Administration, most Americans are simply tired of it and ready for him to go. (As Kevin Drum notes, that’s part of the reason Obama’s ascension has been greeted with something of an outsized expression of joy.) What they want from the Obama Administration is not to relive the worst parts of the last eight years, but to get started on the hard work of stabilizing the economy and getting the troops out of Iraq. Presidential administrations are not great at walking and chewing gum at the same time; an investigation into the excesses of the Bush Administration will suck the energy out of every other effort Obama needs to succeed if he — and the country — are to be successful.

And there’s simply no way to pull it off, anyway, without seeming like an exercise in the extreme partisanship Obama has tried to tamp down. Which, incidentally, is one key to him having the support he needs to get stuff done.

If Congress wants to appoint a special prosecutor, let ‘em. If the Obama Administration wants to throw open the archives and let the public get a more definitive account of what was done in their names, let ‘em. Hell, if Spain wants to send a warning that certain Bush officials should steer clear of European vacations, lest they be arrested, let ‘em. But if Obama takes the advice of his liberal allies and goes on the investigative warpath, they’ll be wondering in a few years why other progressive aims weren’t achieved.