Contra Krugman Ep. 76: With Special Guest Oren Cass
This is a special episode in two ways. First, we cover not one, but two, Krugman columns.
But wait, there’s more. We also have special guest Oren Cass, of the Manhattan Institute, join in the fun.
A breakdown of the highlights:
2:15 I shower Oren with love.
6:05 I start with my petty pushbacks against Krugman’s throwaway lines. I point out that Krugman inserted an “all” into the CNN coverage that he copied and pasted in a way that made Spicer look worse, and also that Krugman has repeatedly blamed “paid trolls” for leaving comments on his blog.
8:35 I ask Oren about the claim that ObamaCare gave 20 million Americans health insurance.
9:35 Tom asks Oren about the claim that tens of thousands will die annually if ObamaCare is repealed. [Note the crucial part of his response–the estimates of ObamaCare lives saved are actually based on earlier studies about private health insurance, which is *not* what increased under ObamaCare. He also pointed out that mortality went up last year–the first time that has happened in decades.]
12:15 I rephrase Oren’s point about Massachusetts vs. ObamaCare to make sure people get it.
12:35 I make a point about the mortality calculations; Oren points out that my data ended too early–it’s even worse for ObamaCare than I thought. Also he reminded us that insurance expansion didn’t really happen until 2014, so that’s the right time to start looking for the impact of ObamaCare on (age-adjusted) mortality.
16:25 Oren makes the GREAT point about using the states that did, and did not, do Medicaid expansion to set up a decent control group. It comes out bad for ObamaCare and the claims that it is saving lives.
16:40 Oren agrees with Tom that there is an internal consistency to ObamaCare.
19:05 Oren argues that if we want to help a small group of people who have serious pre-existing conditions, then let’s just deal with that separately. I go into my grocery store analogy.
21:50 Tom transitions to a summary of “The Uses of Outrage” column.
26:20 I accuse the “anti-fascists” of projection. It’s Krugman who is politicizing life–he criticizes a guy for golfing with Trump.
28:20 Oren pushes back on Krugman’s claim that Trump is self-evidently a would-be autocrat. Oren speculates that the anti-Trump people have waited their whole lives for the chance to fight against autocracy, and now they’ve convinced themselves that this is it.
29:30 I point out that Krugman says we’ve had a “white nationalist takeover” of our government, and yet the hot topic now is Kellyanne Conway kneeling on the couch during a photo op with black college presidents. Sort of a weird PR move for white nationalists.
34:15 Oren closes on a nice note: Krugman illustrates that the Left is trying to say that being anti-Trump is the only acceptable position, and that in order to be anti-Trump you need to sign up for all of the Left’s policies. E.g. the women against Trump march didn’t want pro-life women. It makes us doubt that they actually believe Trump is an autocrat who threatens democracy itself.
Vox Day’s three laws of the “Progressive” left:
Now “always” is perhaps too strong of a word, but lately Krugman has been going out of his way to tick all three boxes.
Interesting news about the age-adjusted mortality trend over time, is there a chart for that?
I followed through to the Massachusetts study ( HHRG-113-IF02-20140507-SD006.pdf containing extracts from Annals of Internal Medicine, Volume 160 • Number 9, page 589 ) and there’s a chart:
Unadjusted mortality rates for adults aged 20 to 64 years in Massachusetts versus control group (2001–2010).
NOTE: “unadjusted”… and also Massachusetts started off better than the control group in the first place, so there’s at least some additional factors at work.