Amy Goodman over at Democracy Now had Paul Krugman on for a lengthy interview today.
The intro to the interview found here on the Democracy Now web site looks like this:
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is author of the new book, "The Conscience of a Liberal." Krugman teaches economics and international affairs at Princeton University and was recently named Columnist of the Year by Editor and Publisher magazine. He joins us the firehouse studio to talk about the Bush administration 's opposition to child health insurance, and why universal health care has long been considered politically impossible despite the overwhelming support of a majority of Americans. Krugman also responds to Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan on the administration’s tax cuts and threats to social security.
Goodman starts the interview with a quote from his recent article about S-CHIP:
Paul Krugman writes in The New York Times, "Two weeks ago, the Democratic response to President Bush"s weekly radio address was delivered by a 12-year-old, Graeme Frost. Graeme, who along with his sister received severe brain injuries in a 2004 car crash and continues to need physical therapy, is a beneficiary of the State Children"s Health Insurance Program [- known as S-CHIP.] Mr. Bush has vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have expanded that program to cover millions of children who would otherwise have been uninsured. What followed should serve as a teaching moment."
Those are the words of New York Times columnist Paul Krugman in a recent Op-Ed. Krugman was named Columnist of the Year by Editor and Publisher magazine. He teaches economics and international affairs at Princeton University. His new book, just published, is "The Conscience of a Liberal." He joins us today in our firehouse studio.
Krugman who appears in the New York Times on Mondays and Fridays is one of the best voices out there explaining the broader context of universal health care and S-CHIP.
Jim in Chicago posted this well written diary "Krugman: Gore drives right wingers insane" on Sunday. It was Recommended here by over 100 kogs probably more because of it's Al Gore Content but I want to draw attention to Krugman as an important figure in the movement to bring real information back into the news and real democracy back to the U.S. government.
For over a year the Times had Krugman's column's hidden behind a pay per view firewall but as of a couple of weeks ago the column's are again free to read at the New York Times .
The video of today's interview at democracynow.org is available to watch now here and here are some quotes from the transcript:
PAUL KRUGMAN: OK. S-CHIP is a program to pay for health insurance for -- essentially for the working poor or near poor, for people who are above the line for Medicaid in most states but can’t actually afford health insurance, which is largely becoming unavailable, except for the upper middle class and above. And it’s an enormously popular program, very successful. Children are the only group for whom the rate of not having health insurance has actually declined in the last decade, and it’s because of S-CHIP.
Bush doesn’t want -- actually wants to underfund the program, so it would actually have to reduce the number of people covered. Most people, even in the Republican -- you know, substantial numbers of Republicans, as well as virtually all Democrats, want an expansion of the program.
PAUL KRUGMAN: Yeah. I mean, I think we already have the progressive movement. That’s a big change of the past ten years. I think we’re just different. This is one of the things that makes me optimistic. But healthcare, healthcare is the huge hole in our system. It’s the -- you know, there are many other things, but if you wanted one single thing which is a tremendous hole in our safety net, it is the absence of universal healthcare. And it’s unique. No other advanced country has large numbers of uninsured people. And our system is wildly inefficient.
Also, here is a snippet from Krugman's blog now on line
October 17, 2007, 10:44 am
Wish I’d said that
Ezra Klein on the McCain health care plan, which — like all the other health care plans being proposed on the Republican side — basically says that the problem is that people have too much insurance, so they get too much Lhealth care:
It’s like if I tried to make food cheaper by encouraging you to diet.
I’m not exaggerating. Here’s what Mitt Romney said about what ails American health care, in his slide show:
The tax code creates an incentive for overinsurance and over-use of the health care system
-Individuals don’t get the value they would otherwise prefer
-Leads to excessive, unnecessary health care spending
you can read it here.
As Krugman has been making the rounds promoting his new book "The Conscience of a Liberal." he has been called upon to defend 12 year old Graeme Frost who was drawn into the S-CHIP controversy when he appeared in a commercial asking President Bush to examine his conscience and reconsider his veto of the bill. Krugman was on with Olbermann last night and again took up the cause covered here by Cooks and Liars.
I'll try to hang around from conversation though I'm busy at work today