Paul Krugman - An Embarassment To The Nobel Prize

To earn a bowl bid, a mediocre team only needs to win half of its games. If only Paul Krugman were right so often.

What I’m about to show you is in my opinion an embarrassment to the economics profession and I wish more of my colleagues would express their strong disapproval.
Take a look at the blue line in the chart below. It shows the annual rate of change in U.S. health care spending. Now here is what Paul Krugman wrote in his New York Times column the other day:

… the facts are striking. Since 2010, when the [the Affordable Care Act] was passed, real health spending per capita — that is, total spending adjusted for overall inflation and population growth — has risen less than a third as rapidly as its long-term average. Real spending per Medicare recipient hasn’t risen at all; real spending per Medicaid beneficiary has actually fallen slightly.

He then goes on to consider a number of possible causes for this slowdown, but appears to give the lion’s share of the credit to ObamaCare. In fact his column is titled, “ObamaCare’s Secret Success.”
All of which is pointless speculation, because as the chart clearly shows, nothing happened to the rate of increase in health care spending in 2010 ― the year ObamaCare was passed.
Yes, the growth rate of health care spending that year was well below the historical average. But it was just as much below it in 2009, the year before the act was passed! Health care spending growth in 2010 was exactly the same as it was in 2009. It remained exactly the same in 2011. And again in 2012. Looking only at the numbers, we would have to conclude that nothing that happened in 2010 had any impact whatsoever on health care spending. Nothing Congress did; nothing the president did; nothing that anyone did that year seems to have mattered.

Taken from Joe Antos, Testimony before the Senate Committee on the Budget.

Here is something else Krugman failed to inform readers about: as the chart clearly shows, the  slowdown in the rate of health care inflation has been steady and stretches over almost the entire decade before the Affordable Care Act became law. Whatever the cause, it started early on George Bush’s watch ― not under Barrack Obama.
Moreover, ObamaCare doesn’t really begin until this coming January. All the changes up to now have been cost increasing ― providing risk pool insurance to the uninsurable, forcing private plans to cover more benefits, and adding such extras to Medicare as free “wellness exams.”
- See more at: http://healthblog.ncpa.org/krugman-wrong-again-about-obamacare/#sthash.IvLN3ECs.dpuf

What I’m about to show you is in my opinion an embarrassment to the economics profession and I wish more of my colleagues would express their strong disapproval.

Take a look at the blue line in the chart below. It shows the annual rate of change in U.S. health care spending. Now here is what Paul Krugman wrote in his New York Times column the other day:

… the facts are striking. Since 2010, when the [the Affordable Care Act] was passed, real health spending per capita — that is, total spending adjusted for overall inflation and population growth — has risen less than a third as rapidly as its long-term average. Real spending per Medicare recipient hasn’t risen at all; real spending per Medicaid beneficiary has actually fallen slightly.

He then goes on to consider a number of possible causes for this slowdown, but appears to give the lion’s share of the credit to ObamaCare. In fact his column is titled, “ObamaCare’s Secret Success.”

All of which is pointless speculation, because as the chart clearly shows, nothing happened to the rate of increase in health care spending in 2010 ― the year ObamaCare was passed.

Yes, the growth rate of health care spending that year was well below the historical average. But it was just as much below it in 2009, the year before the act was passed! Health care spending growth in 2010 was exactly the same as it was in 2009. It remained exactly the same in 2011. And again in 2012. Looking only at the numbers, we would have to conclude that nothing that happened in 2010 had any impact whatsoever on health care spending. Nothing Congress did; nothing the president did; nothing that anyone did that year seems to have mattered.

HA

Taken from Joe Antos, Testimony before the Senate Committee on the Budget.

Here is something else Krugman failed to inform readers about: as the chart clearly shows, the  slowdown in the rate of health care inflation has been steady and stretches over almost the entire decade before the Affordable Care Act became law. Whatever the cause, it started early on George Bush’s watch ― not under Barrack Obama.

Moreover, ObamaCare doesn’t really begin until this coming January. All the changes up to now have been cost increasing ― providing risk pool insurance to the uninsurable, forcing private plans to cover more benefits, and adding such extras to Medicare as free “wellness exams.”

- See more at: http://healthblog.ncpa.org/krugman-wrong-again-about-obamacare/#sthash.IvLN3ECs.dpuf

What I’m about to show you is in my opinion an embarrassment to the economics profession and I wish more of my colleagues would express their strong disapproval.
Take a look at the blue line in the chart below. It shows the annual rate of change in U.S. health care spending. Now here is what Paul Krugman wrote in his New York Times column the other day:

… the facts are striking. Since 2010, when the [the Affordable Care Act] was passed, real health spending per capita — that is, total spending adjusted for overall inflation and population growth — has risen less than a third as rapidly as its long-term average. Real spending per Medicare recipient hasn’t risen at all; real spending per Medicaid beneficiary has actually fallen slightly.

He then goes on to consider a number of possible causes for this slowdown, but appears to give the lion’s share of the credit to ObamaCare. In fact his column is titled, “ObamaCare’s Secret Success.”
All of which is pointless speculation, because as the chart clearly shows, nothing happened to the rate of increase in health care spending in 2010 ― the year ObamaCare was passed.
Yes, the growth rate of health care spending that year was well below the historical average. But it was just as much below it in 2009, the year before the act was passed! Health care spending growth in 2010 was exactly the same as it was in 2009. It remained exactly the same in 2011. And again in 2012. Looking only at the numbers, we would have to conclude that nothing that happened in 2010 had any impact whatsoever on health care spending. Nothing Congress did; nothing the president did; nothing that anyone did that year seems to have mattered.

Taken from Joe Antos, Testimony before the Senate Committee on the Budget.

Here is something else Krugman failed to inform readers about: as the chart clearly shows, the  slowdown in the rate of health care inflation has been steady and stretches over almost the entire decade before the Affordable Care Act became law. Whatever the cause, it started early on George Bush’s watch ― not under Barrack Obama.
Moreover, ObamaCare doesn’t really begin until this coming January. All the changes up to now have been cost increasing ― providing risk pool insurance to the uninsurable, forcing private plans to cover more benefits, and adding such extras to Medicare as free “wellness exams.”
- See more at: http://healthblog.ncpa.org/krugman-wrong-again-about-obamacare/#sthash.IvLN3ECs.dpuf

What I’m about to show you is in my opinion an embarrassment to the economics profession and I wish more of my colleagues would express their strong disapproval.
Take a look at the blue line in the chart below. It shows the annual rate of change in U.S. health care spending. Now here is what Paul Krugman wrote in his New York Times column the other day:

… the facts are striking. Since 2010, when the [the Affordable Care Act] was passed, real health spending per capita — that is, total spending adjusted for overall inflation and population growth — has risen less than a third as rapidly as its long-term average. Real spending per Medicare recipient hasn’t risen at all; real spending per Medicaid beneficiary has actually fallen slightly.

He then goes on to consider a number of possible causes for this slowdown, but appears to give the lion’s share of the credit to ObamaCare. In fact his column is titled, “ObamaCare’s Secret Success.”
All of which is pointless speculation, because as the chart clearly shows, nothing happened to the rate of increase in health care spending in 2010 ― the year ObamaCare was passed.
Yes, the growth rate of health care spending that year was well below the historical average. But it was just as much below it in 2009, the year before the act was passed! Health care spending growth in 2010 was exactly the same as it was in 2009. It remained exactly the same in 2011. And again in 2012. Looking only at the numbers, we would have to conclude that nothing that happened in 2010 had any impact whatsoever on health care spending. Nothing Congress did; nothing the president did; nothing that anyone did that year seems to have mattered.

Taken from Joe Antos, Testimony before the Senate Committee on the Budget.

Here is something else Krugman failed to inform readers about: as the chart clearly shows, the  slowdown in the rate of health care inflation has been steady and stretches over almost the entire decade before the Affordable Care Act became law. Whatever the cause, it started early on George Bush’s watch ― not under Barrack Obama.
Moreover, ObamaCare doesn’t really begin until this coming January. All the changes up to now have been cost increasing ― providing risk pool insurance to the uninsurable, forcing private plans to cover more benefits, and adding such extras to Medicare as free “wellness exams.”
- See more at: http://healthblog.ncpa.org/krugman-wrong-again-about-obamacare/#sthash.IvLN3ECs.dpuf