In order to be an equal opportunity pain in the ass to power, I thought I would share this blub from FactCheck.org:
The Obama campaign released a new ad Feb. 14 in Wisconsin called "Debate," quoting Bill Clinton’s first Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, as saying Obama’s plan covers “more people” than Clinton's. We find the ad misleading and, in one respect, false.
It’s true that Reich expressed the opinion on his blog back on Dec. 3 that Obama's plan covers "more people" than Clinton's. That was in an item criticizing Clinton for “stooping . . . low” to attack Obama for wanting to bolster Social Security’s finances and for not including a mandate in his health-care plan:
Reich, Dec. 3, 2007: I’ve compared the two plans in detail. Both of them are big advances over what we have now. But in my view Obama’s would insure more people, not fewer, than HRC’s. That’s because Obama’s puts more money up front and contains sufficient subsidies to insure everyone who’s likely to need help – including all children and young adults up to 25 years old.
More recently, however, Reich has not been so emphatic. In a Jan. 13 item he found the plans of Obama and Clinton to be “the same” in almost every important respect. While on Dec. 3 he said he thought Obama's plan would cover more people because it "puts more money up front," by Jan. 13 he said that all Democratic plans "spend nearly an identical amount of money." On the question of whether Clinton or Obama's position on mandates is best, he said, “Who's correct? It's hard to know.” He urged the Democratic candidates to “stop squabbling over healthcare mandates.”
Reich did not, however, state in any of his blog items that the Obama plan "does more to cut costs" or that it saves $2,500 for the typical family. Those are claims made by the Obama campaign, not by Reich as the ad falsely claims. And we're skeptical of the claims that both Clinton and Obama make about the lavish savings their plans would produce, for reasons we get to later in this article.
Reich is a professor of public policy and has been in a running feud with another liberal professor, Paul Krugman, a Princeton economist who writes a column for the New York Times and who has been attacking Obama and his healthcare plan in that space and on his own blog. Reich’s most recent word on the subject, in fact, is headlined “Krugman Still Has it Wrong on Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s Health Care Plans,” which simply refers readers back to his Jan. 13 posting which says it’s “hard to know” which is best.
We note here that both Reich and Krugman are best known for their liberal commentary and neither is a specialist in healthcare economics. Also, Reich states in his Jan. 13 article that “Only around 3% of the population” would be left without health insurance in the absence of mandated coverage for adults. He doesn’t say where he got this figure. We find that hard to reconcile with the hard fact that millions of Americans are currently eligible for cheap health insurance and still don’t sign up for it. As mentioned earlier, for example, about three-quarters of the 9 million uninsured children in the U.S. are eligible for SCHIP or Medicaid, and Gruber estimates that about 7 million adults don’t take advantage of the health insurance their employers offer now. We therefore give more weight to the estimates of Sheils and Gruber than to Reich's.
The Obama campaign released a new ad Feb. 14 in Wisconsin called "Debate," quoting Bill Clinton’s first Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, as saying Obama’s plan covers “more people” than Clinton's. We find the ad misleading and, in one respect, false.
It’s true that Reich expressed the opinion on his blog back on Dec. 3 that Obama's plan covers "more people" than Clinton's. That was in an item criticizing Clinton for “stooping . . . low” to attack Obama for wanting to bolster Social Security’s finances and for not including a mandate in his health-care plan:
Reich, Dec. 3, 2007: I’ve compared the two plans in detail. Both of them are big advances over what we have now. But in my view Obama’s would insure more people, not fewer, than HRC’s. That’s because Obama’s puts more money up front and contains sufficient subsidies to insure everyone who’s likely to need help – including all children and young adults up to 25 years old.
More recently, however, Reich has not been so emphatic. In a Jan. 13 item he found the plans of Obama and Clinton to be “the same” in almost every important respect. While on Dec. 3 he said he thought Obama's plan would cover more people because it "puts more money up front," by Jan. 13 he said that all Democratic plans "spend nearly an identical amount of money." On the question of whether Clinton or Obama's position on mandates is best, he said, “Who's correct? It's hard to know.” He urged the Democratic candidates to “stop squabbling over healthcare mandates.”
Reich did not, however, state in any of his blog items that the Obama plan "does more to cut costs" or that it saves $2,500 for the typical family. Those are claims made by the Obama campaign, not by Reich as the ad falsely claims. And we're skeptical of the claims that both Clinton and Obama make about the lavish savings their plans would produce, for reasons we get to later in this article.
Reich is a professor of public policy and has been in a running feud with another liberal professor, Paul Krugman, a Princeton economist who writes a column for the New York Times and who has been attacking Obama and his healthcare plan in that space and on his own blog. Reich’s most recent word on the subject, in fact, is headlined “Krugman Still Has it Wrong on Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s Health Care Plans,” which simply refers readers back to his Jan. 13 posting which says it’s “hard to know” which is best.
We note here that both Reich and Krugman are best known for their liberal commentary and neither is a specialist in healthcare economics. Also, Reich states in his Jan. 13 article that “Only around 3% of the population” would be left without health insurance in the absence of mandated coverage for adults. He doesn’t say where he got this figure. We find that hard to reconcile with the hard fact that millions of Americans are currently eligible for cheap health insurance and still don’t sign up for it. As mentioned earlier, for example, about three-quarters of the 9 million uninsured children in the U.S. are eligible for SCHIP or Medicaid, and Gruber estimates that about 7 million adults don’t take advantage of the health insurance their employers offer now. We therefore give more weight to the estimates of Sheils and Gruber than to Reich's.
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