Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Paul Krugman Collides With The Truth (Healthcare.gov Edition)

By, Chris Rossini

As an update to a previous post, I'm proud to announce that Truth and Paul Krugman have crashed into one another. It's in regards to Healthcare.gov, but hey, when worlds collide, it's only right to recognize it.

So let's look at the timeline (my emphasis):
Oct. 1 - "The glitches will get fixed."

Oct. 14th - "Obviously they messed up the programming big time, which is kind of a shock. But this will get fixed..."

Nov. 6 - "If the bugs in healthcare.gov get fixed..."
AND NOW .... Drumroll please!
Nov. 20 - "But the future of the reform depends not on policy per se but on whether the IT issues can be fixed well enough soon enough, a subject on which I have zero expertise."
There we go...Krugman has no clue. He had no business saying that anything would work. It took almost 2 months, but he got there.

Now that we have Healthcare.gov out of the way, let's build on this admission of ignorance. Let's move on to Economics....


Follow @ChrisRossini on Twitter

7 comments:

  1. Since the topic will be economics, perhaps we should start with the economics of the small, i.e. that of the firm. Now, if one is to understand economics in the large, i.e. macroeconomics (or, collectinomics?), as Krugman suggests that he does, it stands to reason that one must understand the rudiments of the economics of the firm. This means understanding the finances of the firm.

    So, can Paul Krugman, "Professor of Economics and International Affairs", read and understand a balance sheet? Does he understand the difference, say, between gross margins and EBITDA? Could the expert of "New Trade Theory" and author of Microeconomics calculate a cash flow statement?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Absolutely fantastic. And I am a Konnoisseur of Krugman Kritiques.

    ReplyDelete
  3. "But the future of the reform depends not on policy per se but on whether the IT issues can be fixed"

    Krugman goes from one error (thinking the website fix would be easy) to an even greater one. Healthcare.gov is not by any means the big problem with Obummercare. He must be the biggest waste of brain power on planet earth to think that. If enough young and healthy people who can be exploited don't sign up then the whole scheme will bleed money like a hemophiliac. If the average person ends up paying more and getting less health insurance, which is entirely likely, then the whole mess blows up. When that happens I hope Krugman is in the center of the blast zone.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Devoted NYT readers should not despair, however, since history demonstrates that when Krugman and the truth collide, the latter never survives.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Of course, he has zero expertise on economics, too.

    ReplyDelete
  6. If he were an economist who had any idea about anything, he would be explaining how ill-conceived Obamacare is to begin with. But he will probably just lie about his past positions in the future just like he lied about calling for a housing bubble to fix the economy.

    ReplyDelete