The guy is fast becoming an asset, as a prime example of the True Believing, Kool-Aid besotted Progressives currently more or less in charge of the country.

It is good to have him around, as there are still many people who refuse to believe just how far removed from Reality people like Krugman actually are. Let him rave. People are catching on.

When individuals such as Mr. Krugman make these kinds of statements…I often wonder whether they are truly that ignorant of what really goes on in our health care industry or whether they are simply trying to mislead the American public into believing that socialized health care is a better option.

Either way, the hard cold reality is that PPACA (i.e. Obamacare) has major flaws, which will be displayed for the all the world to see soon enough. It will NOT generate an effective health care system. It WILL contribute to an even greater increase in costs. It WILL cause the quality of care to decrease. Even in terms of “good socialized health care programs”, we wouldn’t be able to compete. It is truly that horrendous.

We have to get the truth out there to the public day after day after day.

That paragraph about how the risk factors have changed but our responses haven’t is worth money. Congrats!

I heartily endorse your words.

Patients are most certainly consumers. They absolutely do balance medical care expenses against food, gasoline, and entertainment. And for most of them, most of the time, medical care isn’t even on the first page of priorities.

For patients with chronic disease or who are facing life-threatening episodes, they still have to deal with costs and availability, with how much they like one physician or dislike another. Medical care is infused with relationships and preferences, just like any other personal service.

Perhaps the most telling thing about those television series featuring heroic physicians is how completely absurd they are. When I was in medical school, those of us with street experience (ex-EMTs and paramedics are common in med school) used to gather and laugh every week at ER. It regularly lived up to the old phrase “so bad it’s not even wrong.” Paul Krugman’s invocation of these pathetic dramas is telling.

Excellent medical care is quiet, personal, thoughtful, and informed not just by knowledge of disease but by knowledge of the people being served and their preferences and wishes. Socialized medicine has never once achieved this pinnacle except by sheer infrequent accident. The reason is simple: no matter how much you wish it were so, or how strong your vision is of heroic government bureaucrats providing constant access to heroic television-style doctors, it’s just a vision. And the reality is inevitably gray, soulless, and doomed to deliver mediocrity for an astonishing price.

Have you trademarked that? If I could borrow it one morning when I write an entry, I’d be appreciative.

I’m fortunate enough to work for a company that offers high deductible plans with a companion HSA. I am most definitely a consumer.

With my HSA I was able to get Lasik last year. I was finally able to afford it because the free market brought the price down from $2000/eye to $1200/eye.

I have a minor allergy that is more annoying than harmful and made an appointment to see an allergist. The test to determine ti what I was allergic was $750. I told the doctor that I’d live with the minor irritation and that his test wasn’t worth my $750.

I exercised my free choice in both of the above situations.

Yes Paul, we are in fact consumers.

First, Paul Krugman is an unabashed tax and spend liberal so anything he says has to be taken with a grain of salt. Actually, the more the speaks or writes (since in every interview I have seen with him, he less speaks than blubbers), the greater ammunition for our side. If this is his view, for example that “patients are not consumers,” then they are not in any conceivable way engaged in commerce and thus Congress has no Constitutional authority to regulate health care. Thanks, Paul, for the argument…
Secondly, the fact that both he and Obama have won Nobel Prizes simply sullies that institution. They should stick to the hard sciences and leave peace and economics out of it.

My favorite Paul Krugman Health Care moment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EPd2i4Jshs

Knew it. This photo makes Krugman look like the illegitimate son of James Bond supervillian Ernst Stavro Blofeld:

http://withfriendship.com/images/i/42197/ernst-stavro-blofeld-was.jpg

he just chooses to ignore facts he doesn’t agree with, proving that “economist” is not a profession but a belief system.

“There is some irony in your mistake and in his …”

No, it wasn’t a mistake. Krugman knows full well that socialized medicine is a disaster. He just doesn’t want you to know it.

Arriving at the ER with chest pain isn’t the time to start competitive bidding for your immediate care. In this, Krugman is right. That’s when the life or death rapid decisions must be made.

But Krugman reveals his absolutely shallow understanding of markets and competition. He lacks the experience and creativity to see that competition happens when a person chooses an insurance plan and health care network, not when on the ER gurney. Liberals always get this wrong because it’s a great scare tactic and because they don’t understand markets.

Choose an HMO plan if you want to save money. Perhaps the HMO doctor is somehow less prepared to handle your ER arrival with chest pain, but perhaps not, since there’s a huge overlap between caregivers and various plans. You are no worse under an HMO than under Medicare, after all.

Krugman also exposes his lack of understanding of insurance economics. Please, any Red State actuaries out there jump in. I will bet the first actuary with solid numbers a nice bottle of wine that the actuarial cost of massage therapy coverage is higher than the actuarial cost of treating heart attacks. Here’s my analysis: one way to avoid moral hazard is to insure against INFREQUENT/UNLIKELY risks that have UNPLEASANT consequences when they occur. Nobody chooses to have a heart attack (infrequent/unlikely and unpleasant).

But massage therapy for my stressful job? Pleasant and as frequent as possible, please. (My King County–Seattle–librarian friend has 50 massages per year in her county health plan…how many should she consume? Even assuming a discounted insurance rate of $40/massage, that benefit would cost $2000/year. No way her actuarial cost of health insurance for heart attack approaches $2000.)

But Obamacare builds in just these kinds of special-interest costs without allowing consumers to shop for a more appropriate level of mandate. Krugman has little idea of which he speaks.