Obama has recently been responding to criticisms of his health care plan's lack of a mandate by turning around and criticizing Edwards and Clinton for having a mandate. Paul Krugman has just come out and boxed Obama's ears for using right wing talking points as a political club against his opponents, suggesting that Obama's rhetoric is undermining the argument for change.
Krugman starts out by suggesting that Obama is trying to pretend a campaign weakness is a strength:
From the beginning, advocates of universal health care were troubled by the incompleteness of Barack Obama’s plan, which unlike those of his Democratic rivals wouldn’t cover everyone. But they were willing to cut Mr. Obama slack on the issue, assuming that in the end he would do the right thing.
Now, however, Mr. Obama is claiming that his plan’s weakness is actually a strength.
Then Krugman points out the specific weakness of the Obama health plan:
...under the Obama plan, as it now stands, healthy people could choose not to buy insurance — then sign up for it if they developed health problems later. Insurance companies couldn’t turn them away, because Mr. Obama’s plan, like those of his rivals, requires that insurers offer the same policy to everyone.
As a result, people who did the right thing and bought insurance when they were healthy would end up subsidizing those who didn’t sign up for insurance until or unless they needed medical care.
Finally, Krugman slams Obama for playing politics with an issue so vital to so many people.
Mr. Obama, then, is wrong on policy. Worse yet, the words he uses to defend his position make him sound like Rudy Giuliani inveighing against "socialized medicine": he doesn’t want the government to "force" people to have insurance, to "penalize" people who don’t participate.
Access to affordable health care is a huge issue to me. My family spends 25% of our monthly income on keeping our family insured and paying out of pocket medical expenses. I don't want any Democratic candidate using arguments that will undermine the case for dramatic and immediate change once a Democrat is sworn in as president in January 2009.