Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from> around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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Paul Krugman: Republicans Really Hate Healthcare
They’ve gone beyond cynicism to pathology.
Of all the political issues that divide us, health care is the one with the greatest impact on ordinary Americans’ lives. If Democrats hadn’t managed to pass the Affordable Care Act, around 20 million fewer Americans would have health insurance than currently do. If Republican-controlled states hadn’t refused to expand Medicaid and generally done as little as possible to support the act, national progress might have tracked progress in, say, California – so another 7 or 8 million people might have coverage.
You obviously know where I stand on this political divide. But I’m starting to believe that I misjudged Republican motives. [..]
The point is that it’s no longer possible to see any of this as part of a clever political strategy, even a nefariously cynical one. It has entered the realm of pathology instead. It’s now clear that Republicans just have a deep, unreasoning hatred of the idea that government policy may help some people get health care.
Why? The truth is that I don’t fully get it. Maybe it’s anger at the thought of anyone getting something they didn’t earn themselves, unless it’s an inheritance from daddy. Maybe it’s a sense that a lot of gratuitous suffering is or should be part of the human condition, or God’s plan, or something. I try to understand how others think, but in this case I really do find it hard.
Whatever the reason, however, the fact is that whatever they may claim, today’s Republicans hate the idea of poor and working-class Americans getting the health care they need.
Catherine Rampell: The op-ed that got Stephen Moore his Fed nomination is based on two major falsehoods
President Trump reportedly chose Stephen Moore for one of the vacancies at the Federal Reserve Board after reading a Wall Street Journal op-ed Moore wrote attacking the Fed. The piece, co-authored with Louis Woodhill, made two central claims: (1) we’re experiencing deflation, and (2) the way to address it is to follow a rule adopted by Paul Volcker in the 1980s.
Slight problem though: Both of those claims are flat-out false. There is no deflation, and Volcker never created the imaginary “rule” Moore is now attributing to him. I know, because I asked Volcker — as Moore once suggested I do. [..]
So I figured, why not ask Volcker? I sent an inquiry through his book publicist, who passed it along to Volcker’s assistant. The assistant replied: “I showed this to Mr. Volcker and he says that he does not remember ever establishing a commodity-price rule.”
There you have it. Trump has nominated to the world’s most powerful central bank a guy who has trouble telling whether prices are going up or down, and struggles to remember how the most famous Fed chair in history successfully stamped out inflation. But hey, Republican senators still seem keen on him because “the establishment” keeps pointing out how inept he is.
Karen Tumulty: Trump just handed Pelosi the best birthday gift she could ask for
Apparently, President Trump didn’t learn much from the first time he did it, because he is once again leading his party over a cliff on health care.
The day after the Justice Department launched a surprise attack on the Affordable Care Act, seeking to overturn the entire law, the president breezily declared Tuesday on Capitol Hill: “The Republican Party will soon be known as the party of health care. You watch.”
So here we are again. After years of promising to “repeal and replace Obamacare,” Republicans learned in 2017 that coming up with an alternative to the law was harder than it looked. Or as Trump infamously put it: “Nobody knew health care could be so complicated.”
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