US Politics | AMERICAblog News: Why health insurance isn't ...

Paul Krugman spends his precious Times inches on the Supreme Court ACA-broccoli debate. Along the way he has a nice tight explanation about why the two aren't comparable.

He writes (my emphasis):

Let?s start with the already famous exchange in which Justice Antonin Scalia compared the purchase of health insurance to the purchase of broccoli, with the implication that if the government can compel you to do the former, it can also compel you to do the latter. That comparison horrified health care experts all across America because health insurance is nothing like broccoli.

Why? When people choose not to buy broccoli, they don?t make broccoli unavailable to those who want it. But when people don?t buy health insurance until they get sick ? which is what happens in the absence of a mandate ? the resulting worsening of the risk pool makes insurance more expensive, and often unaffordable, for those who remain. As a result, unregulated health insurance basically doesn?t work, and never has.

That's pretty straight-forward. As to how to fix the problem, Krugman clearly sees the options:

There are at least two ways to address this reality ? which is, by the way, very much an issue involving interstate commerce, and hence a valid federal concern. One is to tax everyone ? healthy and sick alike ? and use the money raised to provide health coverage. That?s what Medicare and Medicaid do. The other is to require that everyone buy insurance, while aiding those for whom this is a financial hardship.

Krugman doesn't have a SCOTUS ACA prognosis, but he does say that:

it?s hard not to feel a sense of foreboding ? and to worry that the nation?s already badly damaged faith in the Supreme Court?s ability to stand above politics is about to take another severe hit.

Yes, Professor. We all have that foreboding. We've been forebode before.

GP

(To follow on Twitter or to send links: @Gaius_Publius)

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