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Krugman: Health Wonks and Bernie Bros
Health Wonks and Bernie Bros
So Charles Gaba, whose excellent site ACA Signups has been a huge secret resource for those of us covering health reform, is getting the Bernie Bro treatment. Never mind his long service to the cause of covering the uninsured (and his declaration that he’ll support either candidate in the general): his carefully laid-out explanation of his support for Hillary Clinton’s incremental approach means that he’s a corrupt tool of the oligarchy.
Oh well. Meanwhile, the Sanders skepticism of the wonks continues: Paul Starr lays out the case. As far as I can tell, every serious progressive policy expert on either health care or financial reform who has weighed in on the primary seems to lean Hillary. This could be because being in the trenches of the health care fight gives you an acute sense of the possible, and because having paid close attention to the financial crisis makes you a shadow-banking, not too big to fail guy. Or it could be because they are, one and all, corrupt corporate lackeys. I report, you decide.
Just to be clear, Sanders himself is not at fault here. And if Hillary is the nominee, I expect him to do what she herself did in 2008, and will surely do if he wins an upset: make it clear that whatever their differences, and whatever the primary loser’s personal frustration, there’s no comparison with the reactionary extremism of all the GOP candidates.
But it’s disappointing to see so much intolerance over what are basically differences in strategy, not goals.
So Charles Gaba, whose excellent site ACA Signups has been a huge secret resource for those of us covering health reform, is getting the Bernie Bro treatment. Never mind his long service to the cause of covering the uninsured (and his declaration that he’ll support either candidate in the general): his carefully laid-out explanation of his support for Hillary Clinton’s incremental approach means that he’s a corrupt tool of the oligarchy.
Oh well. Meanwhile, the Sanders skepticism of the wonks continues: Paul Starr lays out the case. As far as I can tell, every serious progressive policy expert on either health care or financial reform who has weighed in on the primary seems to lean Hillary. This could be because being in the trenches of the health care fight gives you an acute sense of the possible, and because having paid close attention to the financial crisis makes you a shadow-banking, not too big to fail guy. Or it could be because they are, one and all, corrupt corporate lackeys. I report, you decide.
Just to be clear, Sanders himself is not at fault here. And if Hillary is the nominee, I expect him to do what she herself did in 2008, and will surely do if he wins an upset: make it clear that whatever their differences, and whatever the primary loser’s personal frustration, there’s no comparison with the reactionary extremism of all the GOP candidates.
But it’s disappointing to see so much intolerance over what are basically differences in strategy, not goals.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/01/27/health-wonks-and-bernie-bros
18 replies
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