An Obama Success

From a post by Paul Krugman on his NY Times blog:

The new Medicare Trustees Report is out. Comparing Table IIIA-2 in this year’s report and last year’s report, we get this:

In other words, the Medicare actuaries believe that the cost-saving provisions in the Obama health reform will make a huge difference to the long-run budget outlook. Yes, it’s just a projection, and debatable like all projections. And it’s still not enough. But anyone who both claims to be worried about the long-run deficit and was opposed to health reform has some explaining to do. All the facts we have suggest that health reform was the biggest move toward fiscal responsibility in a long, long time.

This is excellent news for the US. Obama's health care plan stops the structural growth of federal dollars down the rat hole of ever-higher medical expenses. That saves federal budget dollars for other priorities.

Of course the Republicans will shout "Huzzah for the President! He has staunched the rising debt!" and everybody will pound each other on the back to celebrate this success... right? Oh, wait a second. The Republicans won't do that. They will come out with some poisonous comment about "death panels" and how Obama has killed off the last vestige of freedom in the US with his "socialized medicine". They will assure everyone that queues with grow and those with urgent medical need will be left to die in emergency rooms. In short... politics as usual.