Paul Krugman is the latest lefty to push the line that California’s version of Obamacare, Covered California, is working so well that it redeems the rest of the program. This is a repeated refrain among Democrats because it was always meant to be the talking point: California is the flagship for Obamacare, and was targeted as such months ago by Organizing for Action to show the full potential of the program.
As is customary in such articles, Krugman leaves out the number of Californians losing their health insurance because of Obamacare (over one million, and rising). He also leaves out the latest news–that the California insurance authorities have rejected President Barack Obama’s “fix” allowing people losing their insurance to keep it. He cites numbers of enrollees without indicating the proportion joining Medicaid.
There are some success stories in California–and some high-profile failures–and they are worth writing about. But from the start, Covered California has been shrouded in false (“flim-flam,” to use a favorite Krugman expression) claims about its success, including the traffic to its website. Krugman won’t be the last to try this zombie argument. It keeps coming back, lifeless though it may be.
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