Professional Documents
Culture Documents
PAUL KRUGMAN
The Inconceivable
Success of Obamacare
For my sins, I recently attended
FreedomFest, the libertarian conclave in Las Vegas, and debated Stephen Moore from the Heritage Foundation. It went pretty much as you
might expect: evidence, evidence,
evidence versus Reagan, Reagan,
Reagan. But in a way, the most interesting thing was the audience reaction when I described the Affordable
Care Act as a major success story so
far: boos and hisses.
Whats amazing about this is that
the good news about Obamacare
isnt really debatable. Its a simple
fact that there has been a stunningly
rapid drop in the number of uninsured Americans, and the evidence
is coming from multiple independent
sources. Its also a simple fact that
outlays on Medicaid and exchange
subsidies are coming in well below
projections.
You can argue that this is all temporary, that insurance premiums
will eventually skyrocket, even
though they havent yet, or that the
laws predicted death spiral will
come back from the, er, dead. But
Obamacare is, by any measure, doing better than even its supporters
expected.
Of course, this wasnt supposed to
happen and, therefore, given the
epistemology of the modern American right, it didnt. Failure was inevitable, success inconceivable so
failure must have happened.
An officer with the Texas Department of Public Safety patrols the border between the United States and Mexico near Mission, Texas.
BACKSTORY
statistics.
Much of the momentum behind
the new security initiatives is often attributed to the large, temporary influx of undocumented immigrants who began arriving on
the border from Central America in 2014. The migration, which
largely consisted of unaccompanied children fleeing violence in
their home countries, was strongly
criticized by state Republican lawmakers during the recent election
campaign.
Though that immigration wave
has subsided, Republicans have
attempted to crack down on socalled sanctuary cities municipalities that have chosen not to
enforce immigration laws and
end the states policy of providing
in-state college tuition rates for undocumented immigrants.
ONLINE: COMMENTS
Comments have been edited for clarity
and length. For Paul Krugmans latest
thoughts and to join the debate online,
visit his blog at krugman.blogs.
nytimes.com.
PAUL KRUGMAN
A Necessary Perspective
No Shaving Grace
Serious matters are afoot, but I
dont know if theres anything more
I can say about them right now. So,
on to a subject where I think I can
make a useful intervention: Peter
Dormans query about why so many
economists wear beards (read his
blog post here: bit.ly/1CZdywR).
Actually, other economists, in addition to Mr. Dorman, have asked
the same question and found that
bearded Nobelists are not quite
as prevalent as one might have
thought.
Mostly its about the impression
conveyed by myself and Joseph Stiglitz, although Simon Wren-Lewis
has an even more impressive dis-
R. LAW, TEXAS
play.
But to the extent that there is a pattern here, it basically comes down to
the whiz-kid culture of economics,
in which careers can take off very
quickly and ones appearance
may not have kept up with ones professional reputation.
In my case, I grew my beard when
I was 26, and it was definitely a defensive move. There I was, writing
what I hoped were groundbreaking
papers everything everyone
has said about international trade
is wrong! and looking like an
undergraduate. (Seriously when
I went to see a colleague once, some
of the students waiting to see him
complained that I was cutting ahead
of the line.) So I was looking for a bit
of hairy gravitas.
And by the time I no longer needed
that gravitas, the beard had become
part of my persona.
Paul Krugman
joined The New
York Times in 1999
as a columnist on
the Op-Ed page
and continues
as a professor of
economics and
international
affairs at Princeton
University. He was awarded the
Nobel in economic science in 2008.
Mr. Krugman is the author or editor
of 21 books and more than 200
papers in professional journals and
edited volumes. His latest book is
End This Depression Now!