What has happened to Paul Krugman?

His latest sneering output in today's Times is yet another re-hashing of the same point he has been making throughout the election campaign: Barack Obama is a jerk with no substance. 

I don't really feel the need to defend Obama here - I'm sure that most readers have run through the counter-arguments in their minds just as many times as Krugman has repeated them (I still read his column regularly, hoping that he might.... somehow.... offer something new). 

But what I do feel the need to respond to is the constant nonsense that comes out of the Clinton campaign about "universal healthcare". For some reason, those supporting Clinton seem to think that they have the right to use this term when describing their candidate's positions. 

They should stop, and now. Universal Healthcare describes a system whereby anyone can get any care they need, any time, without any impediments. There is really only one way to do this: single payer. Not a mandate, not lower costs, not 'medicare for all', not a decade-long war with drug companies - but a National Health Service. The reason I know this is because I have a life on both sides of the Atlantic, and, in short, I get all my treatment and drugs in London, and quite frankly can't be bothered with insurance in the U.S. If something went dreadfully wrong, then I have travel insurance which would pay for transport back to a nice clean NHS hospital in London. But I realize that I'm in the minority with this privilege. 

Can we please just admit that both of the candidate's healthcare plans suck? Based on the mandate in Massachusetts, and I'm remembering some figures very roughly here - but only 30% of the uninsured got covered under the new plan. Of that 30%, 80% were eligible for medicaid anyway, and now face copayments under the new plan. Deduct that 80% of the newly insured, and you have a situation whereby about 8% of people who could have got healthcare, but didn't, are now getting it under the new plan. The rest are all worse off since they face either co-payments or just a fine. 

Obama's plan is equally pathetic: it is just, at the end of the day, a piecemeal reform of a system which is fundamentally broken. Fundamentally, meaning that only a complete replacement of the current mess which is our healthcare system will suffice to sort out the problem. 

The only reason - and I really mean, the only reason - I support Obama's healthcare plan over Clinton's, is that I foresee his as leaving room to maneuver. Here's my worry: Clinton's plan gets passed, and we still have 20 or 30 million people uninsured. Then we try and legislate further to help those people, and the GOP turn around and say, "Ah-ha! But you already have *universal* healthcare! What can this next plan be if it isn't just Socialism??" And thus, healthcare improvements are dead. 

My point is merely this: if you are confident enough to label something "universal healthcare", then you'd better be pretty damned sure that it does what it says - otherwise you are going to face hell in trying to institute any further reforms. 

What Clinton is proposing is not universal healthcare. It's not even universal coverage. It's a plan designed to increase coverage - nothing more. 

Will Krugman please wake up and realize that, given his devotion to the Clintons, it is pretty rich to call the rest of us "cult-like". I support Obama. I agree with him on many issues. But I like to think that I have the originality to disagree with him too. It would be nice to see the same qualities in the commentators of such a prestigious newspaper.