« The Chills of Global Cooling (on global warming alarmists) | Main | GOP Weapon Against Healthcare Reform - "A simple word" »
July 13, 2009
Ezra Klein vs. Ezra Klein on Obamacare
Topics: Political News and commentariesVia Just One Minute, Mickey Kaus has fun pitting Ezra Klein against Ezra Klein in a health care debate.
There's much more. - read it all...Ezra Klein is concerned--or rather, he's "gripped" by an "unsettling thought":
[H]ealth-care reform isn't simply suffering because the public is overly opposed to some of its revenue raisers. It's suffering because the public is insufficiently supportive of its core. ... [snip]
[I]t's not obvious what health-care reform will do for the average American. I could give you a long answer about delivery system reforms and so forth because it's my job to know these things. But it would have to be a long answer .... [snip]
Higher taxes aren't buying them obvious benefits. Instead, they seem to be paying the health-care bills of poorer Americans. ... [snip]
I agree with my distinguished colleague (and welcome him to the concern troll community). He's woken to the realization that Obama is running into political difficulty because he's selling the middle class a pain sandwich--more taxes in exchange for more health care cuts. It would have been smarter to sell universal health care as offering Medicare-like security for all. (It's not too late! And it fits on a bumper sticker.)If support for the overall effort were more robust, the polling on the tax exclusion would matter less. People are willing to pay for things they want to buy. But though they might abstractly favor health-care reform, it doesn't seem directly related to their lives. [E.A.]
Posted by Richard at July 13, 2009 9:08 AM
Articles Related to Political News and commentaries:
- Ezra Klein vs. Ezra Klein on Obamacare - Jul 13, 2009
