Democrats Shoot Themselves in the Foot

Paul Krugman's latest op-ed in the NY Times points out that some Democrats seem determined to sink Obama's health care reform despite its popularity.

You need to read the whole article to appreciate how the party of "change" appears headed to not delivering any change whatsoever. But here is the key bit:

Thus Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska initially declared that the public option — which, remember, has overwhelming popular support — was a “deal-breaker.” Why? Because he didn’t think private insurers could compete: “At the end of the day, the public plan wins the day.” Um, isn’t the purpose of health care reform to protect American citizens, not insurance companies?

Mr. Nelson softened his stand after reform advocates began a public campaign targeting him for his position on the public option.

And Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota offers a perfectly circular argument: we can’t have the public option, because if we do, health care reform won’t get the votes of senators like him. “In a 60-vote environment,” he says (implicitly rejecting the idea, embraced by President Obama, of bypassing the filibuster if necessary), “you’ve got to attract some Republicans as well as holding virtually all the Democrats together, and that, I don’t believe, is possible with a pure public option.”

Honestly, I don’t know what these Democrats are trying to achieve. Yes, some of the balking senators receive large campaign contributions from the medical-industrial complex — but who in politics doesn’t? If I had to guess, I’d say that what’s really going on is that relatively conservative Democrats still cling to the old dream of becoming kingmakers, of recreating the bipartisan center that used to run America.

But this fantasy can’t be allowed to stand in the way of giving America the health care reform it needs. This time, the alleged center must not hold.

Normally I wouldn't believe that politicians would sink this low (or be this stupid), but with Iran's "grand" Ayatollah in mind with his switcheroo election "results" I'm willing to admit that these players seem determined to bring the whole thing down for the sake of their political fantasy.

In his regular NY Times blog Krugman adds more detail and a new insight into why some Democrats are blocking health care reform:

Great catch by Digby, who quotes Sen. Blanche Lincoln about how terrible it would be if a government-run insurance plan undermined free-market competition, then links to this:

The Justice Department considers an industry to be “highly concentrated” if one company has 42 percent of the market. In Arkansas — Senator Lincoln should take note — Blue Cross Blue Shield has 75 percent of the market. If you take government self-insurance plans out of the equation, it’s higher. The state ranks as the ninth most concentrated in the country. Is it any wonder that insurance premiums have risen five times as fast as wages?

The truth is that the notion of beneficial competition in the insurance industry is all wrong in the first place: insurers mainly compete by engaging in “risk selection” — that is, the most successful companies are those that do the best job of denying coverage to those who need it most. But in any case, Arkansas is in effect a one-insurer monopoly state, with no competition at all — unless a public plan is created.

In fact, I may have a new hypothesis about the political economy of the health care fight. One thing that’s obvious, if you look at the balking Democrats I chided in today’s column, is that almost all of them come from states with small population. These are also, by and large, states in which one or at most two private insurers dominate the market.

So here’s a suggestion: while the opponents of a private plan say that they’re trying to defend market competition, what they’re actually doing is defending lucrative local monopolies.

Go to the Krugman website to get the embedded links.