(Tom Toles via GoComics.com)
.
Good news from Professor Krugman:
… At a time like this, you really want a controlled experiment. What would happen if we unveiled a program that looked like Obamacare, in a place that looked like America, but with competent project management that produced a working website?
Well, your wish is granted. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you California.
Now, California isn’t the only place where Obamacare is looking pretty good. A number of states that are running their own online health exchanges instead of relying on HealthCare.gov are doing well. Kentucky’s Kynect is a huge success; so is Access Health CT in Connecticut. New York is doing O.K. And we shouldn’t forget that Massachusetts has had an Obamacare-like program since 2006, put into effect by a guy named Mitt Romney.
California is, however, an especially useful test case. First of all, it’s huge: if a system can work for 38 million people, it can work for America as a whole. Also, it’s hard to argue that California has had any special advantages other than that of having a government that actually wants to help the uninsured. When Massachusetts put Romneycare into effect, it already had a relatively low number of uninsured residents. California, however, came into health reform with 22 percent of its nonelderly population uninsured, compared with a national average of 18 percent.
Finally, the California authorities have been especially forthcoming with data tracking the progress of enrollment. And the numbers are increasingly encouraging.
For one thing, enrollment is surging. At this point, more than 10,000 applications are being completed per day, putting the state well on track to meet its overall targets for 2014 coverage. Just imagine, by the way, how different press coverage would be right now if Obama officials had produced a comparable success, and around 100,000 people a day were signing up nationwide.
Equally important is the information on who is enrolling. To work as planned, health reform has to produce a balanced risk pool — that is, it must sign up young, healthy Americans as well as their older, less healthy compatriots. And so far, so good: in October, 22.5 percent of California enrollees were between the ages of 18 and 34, slightly above that group’s share of the population.
What we have in California, then, is a proof of concept. Yes, Obamacare is workable — in fact, done right, it works just fine…
***********
What’s on the agenda for the start of another week?
magurakurin
and the national website will get fixed, and the numbers will be similar. As has been said by many, many times, it’s a website. Of course they will get it straightened out. It isn’t as if they have to get cold fusion to work in order to get it going smoothly. I stand by my prediction that by August of next year you won’t here the term Obamacare anywhere and Republicans will be doing all they can to highlight the (imaginary) ways that they helped support the Affordable Care Act.
amk
It would be the same crap but only with some other gop talking point.
raven
We’ve had good mostly weather for our annual thanksgiving week at the beach but it looks bad this year. I froze may ass off wading out over my chest to surf cast in 58 degree air temp and 28mph winds. The boats are not running because of high seas so it looks like Friday before I can get out. 1st world problems.
raven
Sunset last night.
Patricia Kayden
@magurakurin: I don’t think Republicans will ever support the ACA even if it begins working, which I’m confident it will. Even now you hear them sniping against Medicaid and Social Security. They’re against anything to help regular (non-wealthy) people.
Anya
Great news! But California is working, not because of the competent project managers but because they put a huge effort to inform the population of Obamacare, while the red states are doing the exact opposite. I don’t understand why is everyone ignoring the fact that the population that’s relying on healthcare.gov does not know anything about Obamacare, except, that it will kill grandma and enslave the rest? The media is complicit in that misinformation and bad publicity, including some liberal media figures.
There’s been a lot of chicken litteling from the left on Obamacare, that contributed to the bad publicity, (Josh Marshall and Ezra Klein being the worst offenders).
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Nice. Very nice. Too bad about the surf and seas tho. Tuff problems to have.
Schlemizel
@Anya:
That last parenthetical should be enshrined in stone and displayed at the Capitol steps!
OzarkHillbilly
Meanwhile, back in south-central Asia, an American ally seeks a return to the 11th century. Not even the GOP wants to go that far back.
WereBear
We are expendable. To keep the wheels turning in the world they need a fraction of the bodies once required.
Now, the irony is, they don’t seem to get that we are consumerist society, and the current Republican policies are to destroy the bulk of the population as a consumerist force. But they are taking this radical reconstruction in stride by devising ways to take more and more from people, just for allowing them to exist.
It’s profitable to steal from the poor… if you have enough of them.
Ramalama
@raven: Holy shitbird, that’s one gorgeous view.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Anya: We get pretty much the same story on local news here, dropped coverage, etc. The difference is that we eliminated any republican control of anything in state government.
Kay
@magurakurin:
Republicans don’t support Medicare now. They tried to privatize the whole program in 2002. Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan as his running mate when Ryan promoted a plan to turn Medicare into a ridiculously under-funded voucher program for everyone younger than 55. Three quarters of the pundits were cheering Ryan on.
They’re still fighting Medicare. Pence in Indiana said we should overturn the PPACA because the cost predictions of Medicare calculated in 1965 were wrong.
Republicans have been running a campaign to “wean people off’ (Michele Bachmann) Medicare and Medicaid that started as soon as the programs went in. They still get 50% in national elections. Hell, Bob Dole voted against Medicare, and he’s now portrayed as a moderate. He was their nominee and he wouldn’t back down, he claimed he was right about that until the end of his career.
Former President Bush vetoed childrens’ health care, twice.
We will be defending the PPACA every election cycle, forever, just as we have to defend Medicare and Medicaid every election cycle, forever.
Kay
SCHIP and the expansion of SCHIP is a HUGE success. We’ve steadily chipped away at the numbers of uninsured children over 15 years. Millions of kids are getting regular health care when they didn’t before. They’re growing up with access to health care.
It’s never mentioned. In fact, Republicans run on the “failure” of Medicaid.
This inconsistency has never, ever hurt Republicans politically, and it won’t hurt them with Obamacare. I deal with young parents who rely on SCHIP all the time. They have no earthly idea where it came from, or who supports it, or that it’s vulnerable and (relatively) recent and, yet, Democrats have been running on childrens’ health care for at least 20 years.
Waspuppet
“A mixed bag” is the most credit they’d ever give it. Otherwise Republicans would call them names, and that must never, ever happen.
Even though it always does anyway. But they keep dreaming of the day it won’t.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Just hurry up and die. If you plebes weren’t sucking up so much health care they wouldn’t have to wait a week to see their doctor about that ingrown toenail.
Baud
@Kay:
That’s because too many Democrats refuse to appreciate what Democrats have accomplished. I saw this a lot when I was at GOS.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: ya pays your money ya takes your chances!
I’ll try my luck on the bay when it warms up a little and then just enjoy what this place is. The sweet lady and the dogs make it fine.
Kay
@Baud:
I’m a little curious about “the SCHIP kids”, as they grow up. Here, they’re the children of uninsured working class people. But unlike their parents, they have had access to what is (essentially) a single-payer health care system for their entire childhoods. If they were informed about the Story of SCHIP, would that influence how they vote? I don’t know. Paul Ryan got survivor benefits from SS and look at him.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay:
More than that, when Ryan went into details, what he came up with was replacing it with PPACA-like exchanges. And replacing the employer-based system with PPACA-like exchanges, since his big cost-control lever was removing the tax breaks associated with employer-subsidized health plans. And he included a disingenuous “if you like your plan you can keep it” promise, which would have been broken not just for people on the individual market for essentially everyone with employer-based insurance. It was all of the most hated features of Obamacare, but designed to hit almost everybody.
Baud
@Kay:
Rural America is part of civilization because of Democratic programs. You see how much they appreciate it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Children, historically, have been the grease that lubricates the wheels of commerce. Imagine for a second how our economy would be booming if only we got rid of all those child labor laws? How much could we save on education if the little brats were working in mills as Dog intended they should? Hell, 90% of them will never use any of that education anyway.
Public schools. Another failed government program.
WereBear
It’s part of how Republicanism has devolved into a pretend-belief system. Paul Ryan is a SELF-MADE-MAN, dammit, despite being born into a well-off family, getting government benefits, and marrying money.
The funniest thing about him is that he passes on the Right as a “thinker.” He thinks about nothing because it would conflict with what he says. And he loves what he says!
WereBear
A right winger can’t appreciate anything because that would imply something helped them. A parasite on the Left since we’ve had a left.
Don’t expect them to change because that’s another thing they won’t do.
Kay
@Baud:
I don’t know, this is a variant of the “messaging” thing. If we just had better messaging! If Paul Ryan can be chosen for a national ticket after his public assault on Medicare (which he did) this far out from Medicare’s inception then we have NEVER had effective messaging. I don’t know if I believe in the effective messaging theory, just because one would think that sometime in the last 50 years a good marketing person would have stumbled into the Democratic Party, even if we are actively hiring terrible people. Again, Bob Dole is pre-Kos.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud:
FTFY, and no we don’t. We want to go back to the glory days of the 14th century when plague was the answer to all of life’s little problems.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
THAT assault we can’t blame on Republicans.
Democrats inexplicably decided to join Republicans in the chorus of “failed and failing public schools”, because Democrats decided to listen to idiot pundit theorists, people who didn’t attend public schools and wouldn’t be caught dead in one.
The attack on public schools is bipartisan. Read a speech by Jeb Bush and then compare to Arne Duncan. Remove the term “government schools” and the two speeches are all but identical. Paul Krugman’s employer, the NYTimes, is the absolute worst offender. The Washington Post is better on public schools, and the Washington Post has a HUGE for-profit education arm. Democrats should stop listening to Bill Keller and Tom Friedman on public education. It’s a mistake.
Betty Cracker
@raven: My cousin in Ft. Walton was bragging about catching redfish off piers the other day. He’s a notorious liar, though.
C.V. Danes
I never understood why the administration has not done more to use this message to counter the wingnut meme that the ACA is not working. It is indeed working, and working quite well, for the states that embraced the ACA and implemented their own exchanges.
Where it is failing miserably is in the states that have chosen to block it, and in the fed’s attempts to make something work for the people in those states.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
Hell, POLITICO is better on public schools than the NYTimes. They have an actual reporter rather than a collection of free market Bloomberg-worshiping editorial theorists. USA Today is better on straight reporting on public education than the NYTimes or NPR.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
This, more than anything, demonstrates what a waste the past 12 years have been.
WereBear
Where? How? The only mass-media spot on television that would allow such a message to go out would be the crazed leftists, in the evening, on MSNBC.
Newspapers are dying, and lunatics write the Yahoo news headlines to get clicks, not to disseminate information.
This got started in 1964. Oh, so universities, think tanks, television, newspapers, and common sense are all against us? We will remake them in our own image.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
Well, for my ownself, I will. I’ll just blame Dems at the same time. I am sick to death of all the people jumping onto the charter schools bandwagon as tho the solution to our PS mess is to abandon half/three quarters of our children in failing schools. It is another example of “as long as the cream rises to the top, it’s all OK” thinking. Certain governmental functions should not be subject to privatization, plain and simply because not all things improve when a profit margin is introduced.
Original Lee
@Kay: Rumor has it that Bloomberg personally has bought a significant share in the NYTimes as his retirement hobby. Wonder what will happen to news coverage starting in February?
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly: Oh and I forgot to mention that most charter schools are doing no better, sometimes even worse, than regular public schools.
debbie
@Kay:
http://www.10tv.com/content/stories/apexchange/2013/11/25/oh–closed-charter-schools.html
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
It’s worse than that. They’re not just abandoning children in “failing schools”. They’re abandoning public schools, period. It doesn’t matter if a public school is a success. The schools are denigrated and defunded anyway, and then “choice” becomes its own goal. It’s groupthink, in the worst way, because there is NO opposition. There’s Milton Friedman and then the slightly modified Milton Friedman that Arne Duncan dogmatically follows. It’s moved so far to the Right that conservatives must think they died and went to heaven. Twenty years ago they could not have dreamed that we’d be promoting and funding huge national for-profit outfits for K-12 schools. Now 80% of Michigan charters are for-profits.
Baud
@Kay:
I’m not talking about messaging. I’m talking about the attitude many Democrats seem to have towards their own party.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
Definitely. So much is so wrong about this debate starting with the terms on which we argue about it.
Kay
@debbie:
Arne Duncan is actively promoting this model. They have the second-worst test scores in Ohio. The worst test scores are the 100% online schools. The kids themselves say the schools are a joke.
The juvenile judge in this county will not allow kids who come thru his court to go to these schools, yet the NYTimes and Arne Duncan are promoting this and every other stupid fad and gimmick the ed reformers come up with, including this latest scheme, where they set up a bargain basement “blended learning” program and sell it to the parents of the most vulnerable kids while billing the state for a “school”.
It’s a complete disconnect between reality and punditry, and sadly, Duncan is listening to the pundit fantasy. At some point I imagine the many, many news reports from the states like this one will trickle into DC and NY, and get the attention of the round-table crowd, but I’m not holding my breath,
Elizabelle
@Kay:
Why don’t you write an op ed for the NYTimes?
And link to your columns here. I think even the Grey Lady would realize there is substance behind your words.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
This. The only reason I’m aware of this issue is Kay. They’ve done a good job keeping it out of the public consciousness.
Kay
@debbie:
The only thing I can find on Education Innovations International LLC is out of Dublin, Ireland. While it would not surprise me if international investors were joining the “let’s rip off Ohio schoolchildren!” craze, I sincerely hope Dayton, Ohio is not outsourcing K-12 school management to Dublin, Ireland.
This stuff is incredibly disheartening.
Kay
@Baud:
There’s actually a really lively opposition on the internet. It’s funny that it doesn’t get more political attention since the second biggest issue that NYC voters cited in deBlasio’s win was public education. The NYTimes loves Bloomberg on education, but NYC public school parents? Not so much.
I think it’s “siloed” because all of the writers and activists are education people (although there are some public school parents) and it doesn’t migrate out into the “general” political internet. It does get attention on state-specific blogs, like Plunderbund in Ohio and Ecletrablog in Michigan.
Also, the Dem candidate for gov in Michigan is running on an unapologetically pro-public schools platform. I was really happy to see that, because I haven’t seen that in a state race, only mayoral races.
debbie
@Kay:
Actually, it’s Dublin, Ohio. A part of Columbus for the newly rich and newly conservative. They’ve got a very strong school system for their kids, which makes this so interesting.
Kay
@debbie:
Thanks. It doesn’t matter if the public schools are strong. The objection seems to be to the “public” part of public schools. Do you think existing public schools are better in Ohio as a result of the last decade of “market reforms”? The test scores aren’t “better” if that’s the measure and public schools are certainly not “stronger” so why are doing this? The original justification was “urban schools” but public schools in Cleveland and Columbus test the same as charter schools. So why are we doing this, again? It seems like we’re deliberately and carefully weakening even strong public school systems. What’s the plan? Make them ALL suck and then declare “equity”?
SFAW
@Kay:
I’ve said before, possibly here, that it’s been a Rethug goal to destroy quality public education for awhile. As has been shown in (I think) more than a couple of studies, “low information” states tend to vote for Rethugs, certainly in Presidential elections, but (again, I think) in state and local. Keeping the electorate stupid ensures Rethugs running things “all the way down.” The only question is whether the tide can be reversed. (I almost said “has reached a tipping point, but I think Gladwell is a waste of ink, to put it nicely.)
Kay
@SFAW:
It’s as complicated as health care. There are a lot of myths, and some of them are based on sentimental notions or peoples memories or a perceived higher value of private over public.
There’s a persistent myth that Catholic schools do better with poor urban populations but they really don’t, not in Cleveland or Columbus or Milwaukee, anyway. You may want your kid in a Catholic school for other reasons (safety, for example) but they don’t do better academically in urban areas in Ohio and Wisconsin. The private school voucher programs in urban areas in Ohio and Wisconsin (they’re 20 years old now, these “experiments”) are really a failure if the objective was better academic performance. Of course, schools are a lot more than academics, but ed reformers insist this is about “great schools!” NOT privatizing schools. It isn’t.
SFAW
@Kay:
I think they (for the moment, not sure who “they” are) are trying to make it that way, but I don’t think it is. Until the voucher BS got started, there was the public education system, there were private schools (some religious, some prep-type), and they were more-or-less separated. Then, Japan’s manufacturing quality and prowess exploded, people got scared, said the schools are failing, and some genius decided for-profits and charters, paid for with public funds, would be the way to go. Plus it would increase “competition,” thus making the public schools more market driven (or some such), as well as driven to improve, and unicorns for everyone.
Add to that the “government is the problem” meme pushed by the Rethugs for 30-plus years, along with the paranoia (and general stupidity) of the 27 percent (“the Gummint gonna send Stormtroopers to prevent us from larnin’ ’bout Jaysus riding his Spot, pet dinosaur”), and it’s a good recipe for getting at least part of the way to the goal of destroying public ed.
OK, I realize I’m broad-brushing more than I should. But I still think it’s reasonably accurate. Of course, as I have found out far too often, I been wrong before.
SFAW
@Kay:
Re: complicated health care:
I suspect that, even with single-payer, healthcare would be more complicated than public education. (In case it wasn’t clear, I generally disagree with you re: education being as complicated as health care, primarily because I see health care as being exceedingly complicated, and education not nearly so – although there are issues to be addressed.)
And, in general, I think part of the reason for the complexity in education is that most people don’t really know what works best. In most cases, “best” is not even well-defined. And because the feedback period can be decades, rather than days, weeks, or months, it’s difficult to test theories. (Yeah, I realize a lot of these comments are self-evident or mom-and-apple-pie type statements.) And because of that, it means persons with large megaphones (e.g., Michelle Rhee) get more play than they should.
JustRuss
I’m pretty sure it would look like less whining about the website and more anecdotal stories featuring middle class people whose rates increased under the ACA. The media has it’s agenda, and “Obamacare is working” is not it.
rikyrah
Have always believed if California, New York, the eastern seabord down to Virginia and the Midwest get Obamacare right..it will show the way.
If I was running the DNC, I’d be camped out in Kentucky, getting video upon video of ‘ good hardworking (poor) White people’ who now have health insurance because of Obamacare…and I’d be running those videos like gangbusters in all those GOP controlled states.
Jim Bob here works at the local car wash…now, for the first time in his life has health insurance.
Sarah is a waitress…..she has health insurance…
John is 60 and for the first time in his life…has health insurance…
make sure that what they earn is in the ads.
And make it damn sure that those White Working Class folks in GOP controlled states understand that THEY DON’T have the bridge to healthcare BECAUSE OF THE GOP.
[ I say use White working class folks, because the non-White working class knows EXACTLY who is to blame for them not having the bridge to healthcare.]
SFAW
@rikyrah:
That, plus showing non-whites getting something/anything plays into the GOP meme that “they’re all moochers wantin’ free stuff from the Gummint” (that from the same people who want the Gummint to keep its filthy hands off their Medicare).
Mnemosyne
@SFAW:
Add in the fact that not everyone has the same learning style or is going to be at the same level as their classmates (I was way above-average with reading but average at best at math when I was a kid), and education gets pretty complicated.