Monday, April 23, 2018

What Paul Krugman Understood About Health Economics When He Went on TV Calling for More Central Planning in Healthcare


He told mourners during a eulogy for Uwe Reinhardt:
Around 2005 I was one of the many U.S. progressives with a public platform who decided that it was time to make another push at health reform, the push that eventually led to the Affordable Care Act. But I had a problem: I didn’t know anything about the subject. I wasn’t a real health economist, even though I was obliged to play one on TV.
Some would say his lack of knowledge goes well beyond health economics. He has, for example, demonstrated a total lack of understanding concerning Austrian school business cycle theory (See:  The Strange Mind of Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman) and often has displayed confusion about labor theory.

But, hey, he is skilled at promoting agendas that call for expansion of government contra Adam Smith.

-Robert Wenzel  

1 comment:

  1. It's revealing how statist economists believe that there are different fields in economics, such as "health economics," "labor economics" or "development economics." It's as if they believe that there are different economic laws that apply in these areas. One doesn't have to be a "health economics" expert to understand praxeology, preferences, choice, allocation of scarce resources, etc., and how these concepts show that a centrally planned health care system will be sub-optimal in satisfying consumer preferences.

    (One minor quibble Robert: after reading Rothbard's devastating take-down of Adam Smith because of his role in Britain's customs taxation unit, I'm not sure one can put Smith definitively on the side of calling for smaller government.)

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