David Stockman spotted a website that dug down into the Web’s memory hole to retrieve these gems from Nobel Prize-winning Keynesian economist, Prof. Paul Krugman of Princeton.
2006
American health care is desperately in need of reform. But what form should change take? Are there any useful examples we can turn to for guidance?
Well, I know about a health care system that has been highly successful in containing costs, yet provides excellent care. And the story of this system’s success provides a helpful corrective to anti-government ideology. For the government doesn’t just pay the bills in this system — it runs the hospitals and clinics.
No, I’m not talking about some faraway country. The system in question is our very own Veterans Health Administration, whose success story is one of the best-kept secrets in the American policy debate.
2011
What Mr. Romney and everyone else should know is that the [Veterans Health Administration] is a huge policy success story, which offers important lessons for future health reform. …
And yes, this is “socialized medicine” — although some private systems, like Kaiser Permanente, share many of the V.H.A.’s virtues. But it works — and suggests what it will take to solve the troubles of U.S. health care more broadly.
This argument has been fairly popular in liberal circles for years. Phillip Longman has written extensively about how great the VA healthcare system is and why it should serve as a model for broader healthcare reform.
Krugman is the nation’s #1 Keynesian apologist. He writes a column for The New York Times. He is the Democrats’ #1 economist. He speaks for them.
Whatever he says, take the other side. You won’t lose.
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My younger brother was shot through the spinal cord by a sniper in Ramadi, Iraq in late Feb 2007. The bullet entered the right side of his neck at C3, exited the spinal column at C5, and left a fist-sized exit wound in his left shoulder blade. Because the bullet severed his spinal cord, he is now a quadripalegic for the rest of his life.
He spent then entire month of March 2007 at Walter Reed. This was during the Washington Post story on the conditions there. I visited him there 3 times, and every time I went, the org chart, meetings we were supposed to attend, or something else changed as the hospital tried to address the problems uncovered by the Post. I remember seeing a group of Congressmen roaming the halls and recognizing Henry Waxman. Hillary and W were there in between my 3 trips so I missed seeing them.
After he left Walter Reed, my brother went to 1 of 4 VA polytrauma centers in the country for long-term recovery. It was in Florida – Jacksonville or Tampa. The quality of care, people, SUCKED. For example, they were not turning my brother often enough, and he developed bed sores on his lower back/buttocks area. My sister-in-law would arrive at the polytrauma center late morning to around lunchtime and my brother’s blood pressure medication that was supposed to be administered in the morning would still be sitting on the counter. The bullet that severed the spinal cord also nicked the left vertebral artery, causing a permanent weakening of the arterial wall. If that artery ever ruptures, my brother will stroke out and die. So maintaining low blood pressure is vital. Last, my brother and his wife from their room could directly view the nurses’ station and observe the nurses being late making rounds because they’d be watching American Idol on the TV at their nurses’ station. Not kidding.
So my brother got the heck out of that VA polytrauma center and accomplished his rehabilitation at Swedish Craig Hospital in Denver. The difference in the quality of care was like night and day. Craig Hospital got the bedsores cleared up within a week. They taught my brother how to breathe on his own without a ventilator, which will prolong his life significantly. They taught he and my wife how to conduct a “program” for regular bowel movements. They provided psychological counseling.
So from observing all this I concluded well in advance of ObamaCare that the gov’t has no business in healthcare. The first thing we can do to help veterans is to stop making more of them and focus on caring for the ones we already have. If you really care about veterans, stop with the salutes at parades, awards shows, etc. and just bring them home. Find a charity like The Wounded Warrior Project, Homes For Our Troops, or Disabled Veterans of America and give of your time.
Finally, suck it, Krugman. You’re the Baghdad Bob of Washington D.C. Loser.
Works fine for me in IE 11.
Thanks Buckeye Libertarian…please thank your brother from all of us for his service :)….well done article !!
Krugman….another buffoon proving that the Nobel committee awards its prizes to people unworthy of ANY prize.
The Nobel Prize has become a joke since Obama “won” one.
What sound good is not always to be had not because it shouldn't but because it can't. When you have others that always want to enslave others and always think their opinions are all that matter, it becomes obvious that there will be problems. Just remember that freedom is not free.
Ah, yes. The wonderful world socialized medicine that morons here claim Europe and Canada have. PLEASE! Stupid is as stupid does.
Sorry to hear about your brother. I wish he hadn't signed up to be cannon fodder for the Imperial City. Now the poor guy will pay for it for the rest of his life. I can't imagine what he has to deal with every day. Sigh.
Buckeye Libertarian Please thank your brother on behalf of the Republic. I will pray for him every day.
Nobel Prize became a joke when the Godfather of Terrorism, Yasr Arafat was awarded the prize.
When I was a patient in a civilian hospital located next to the VA, a nurse made a bonehead mistake in my care. Another nurse told her "Hey, you are not working at the VA." I do love nurses.
The problem at the VA is to be found in the management and the union-run system. Shinseki should have tried to clear up the systemic problems, but he may not have been given the authority.
This guy is the poster boy for the elitist's educated idiots who actually know nothing at all ? Just propaganda to keep them in some form of power or influence over you and me ? He should not be allowed to breathe much less speak an utterance.
Once an idiot, always an idiot.
The VA shows just how well that Government health care works, which is to say that it doesn't, and that is just as good as Ovomitcare will work. It is already a disaster and it will get nothing but worse as time goes by.
Thanks Mike. What happened to my brother somehow enabled me to remove the scales from my eyes and see the world as it truly is. I realized at some point after 2007 that our troops are cannon fodder as I tried to "justify" my brother's injury and derive something positive from the grief and anguish. The important thing for us on the outside to realize is that these young kids are largely ignorant of the fact that they are being used as cannon fodder. Others are, according to my brother, so dumb that they'd never get it anyway even if you try to correct their ignorance. So we should not judge them. We should instead focus on the ones who sent them to fight in the first place and bring the fight to them.
Didn't you notice that Obama and Al gore were awarded the Nobel prize. That dropped it's value by -100 points.
The high ranking military want to see Snowden burned at the stake because their common sense has been removed by the military training. He did what he should have and he did it the way he did because he was left no choice. Had he stayed here he would have not been heard from again. I know someone who says things like they will not do that because it is against the constitution, are you kidding me can we be so stupid. We are supposedly represented by those who name their own pay name their own retirement and make laws for everyone other than themselves. What constitution?
Krugmann has to be in the top 1-2% of the morons on this planet.
>>> I PRAISE THE VETERANS CLINICS AND HOSPITALS FOR THE GENUINE CARE , CONCERN AND TREATMENT I HAVE RECEIVED FOR MORE THAN 24 YEARS . EVERY DOCTOR , NURSE , TECHNICIAN , OFFICE WORKER , PATIENT ADVOCATE AND FLOOR SWEEPER HAS BEEN COURTEOUS AND RENDERED GREAT SERVICE . <<<
Obama claimed full confidence in Shinseki, and Shinseki himself declared he intended to enact meaningful reform that would drastically improve care at VA-Healthcare facilities, through the use of mass firings… Hours later Obama "reluctantly accepted Shinseki's resignation?"
Impose a system of Accountability by firing people who screw-up? We can't have that… Blasphemy!
Proof that the Nobel Prize Committee has one difference from the Roman Catholic Council of Cardinals – only one can anoint an infallible leader.
Every penny that is diverted from care to our veterans (including Solyndra, windmills, travel to Mars, wasted Federal dollars) is a national shame. We elected these people to office and they are now ruling us just like dictators do.
DC enslaves the population of this country to its will and always thinks their opinions are all that matter. No one in any of the countries the military is engaged in are a threat to my freedom. Only DC can threaten the freedoms of Americans.
There are three main reasons for the neglect of our war veterans by the Administration of Mullah B. Hussein Obama, our Marxist Muslim President from Kenya:
1) Elderly veterans in dire need of medical care mostly come from the Vietnam war which they lost thanks to communist sympathizers in the Democrat majority Congress;
2) Very few such elderly veterans are Obama voters, because they recognize the Marxist tendencies and accomplishments of our present government; and
3) Unionized government employees in the Veteran Administration have no incentive for any kind of efficient operation; their union goons are only concerned with more money, more unionized employees, more sick leaves, more vacation days, more family leaves, more union dues-paying members, and more money in their pension plans.
American people are totally unaware of the government employee union rules which strictly forbid any supervisor to issue any kind of deadlines for the union members' "work".
Some useful work is still done in an efficient and effective manner due to the few responsible employees of that miserable Obama's Veterans Department. I foresee the Obama's "solution" for this tragic state of affairs – roll the veterans’ health care plans into the future government single payer system.
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