How Dishonest Is Paul Krugman? This Dishonest!
Paul Krugman has a piece titled Death by Typo: The Latest Frivolous Attack on Obamacare. It’s typical Krugman: lazy and dishonest. I decided to pick it apart anyway, as a way to review the Halbig issues in a (hopefully) straightforward and clear fashion, so that you don’t start falling for these sorts of arguments.
Krugman’s key distortion comes early in the piece:
But if you look at the specific language authorizing those subsidies, it could be taken — by an incredibly hostile reader — to say that they’re available only to Americans using state-run exchanges, not to those using the federal exchanges.
Naturally, he doesn’t tell you what that specific language is that could be twisted and misinterpreted so badly. But never fear: I will tell you.
The provision for subsidies says they are available when a health plan is purchased on an exchange “established by the state under section 1311.” There is no corresponding language stating that subsidies are available on an exchange established by the federal government. To make it even more clear, a “state” is defined in the law as “each of the 50 States and the District of Columbia” — not the federal government.
Krugman says it takes “an incredibly hostile reader” to reach the following conclusion: when the law says subsidies are available only to those who buy a plan on an exchange “established by the state,” that means subsidies are available only to those who buy a plan on an exchange established by a state.
Non-partisans might say: gee, I don’t think it’s a terribly hostile reading to, you know, read what’s there. (Side note: Krugman’s use of the phrase “state-run exchanges” shows he doesn’t understand the basic argument. It doesn’t matter who “runs” the exchanges. Under the law, what matters is who “established” them.)
Krugman claims that this interpretation would violate the “three-legged stool” of ObamaCare: 1) guaranteed issue, 2) the individual mandate, and 3) subsidies. Why would the drafters have removed one of the legs of the stool? The answer is: they didn’t think they were. Everyone assumed at the time that all the states would set up an exchange. And why make the states do it rather than the feds? To get the critical 60th vote of Ben Nelson, who claimed to be concerned about the law taking freedom from the states.
As for this being part of a political compromise, don’t take my word for it. Listen to ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber:
Through a political compromise, it was decided that states should play a critical role in running these health insurance exchanges. . . . And that is really the ultimate threat, is, will people understand that, gee, if your governor doesn’t set up an exchange, you’re losing hundreds of millions of dollars of tax credits to be delivered to your citizens.
This was one of two “speak-os” in which Gruber accidentally told the truth about the law before the Halbig controversy blew up. In the other, Gruber told one audience in 2012: “if you’re a state and you don’t set up an exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits.”
Krugman does not mention Gruber’s comments when he says:
[E]verything else in the act makes it clear that this was not the drafters’ intention, and in any case you can ask them directly, and they’ll tell you that this was nothing but sloppy language.
Sure, they say that now. Prepare for a shock: the people who drafted the law (and made a bad assumption about the states setting up exchanges) now give a self-serving account of their contemporaneous intent! You don’t say!
Gruber had compared his original “speak-o” to the “typo” made by Congress: “Congress made a mistake drafting the law and I made a mistake talking about it. . . . My subsequent statement was just a speak-o—you know, like a typo.” It turns out that this comparison was remarkably apt. Like Gruber, Congress said what it meant. Like Gruber, Congress said it more than once (the phrase “established by the state” appears again and again in the law). And, like Gruber, it appears that Congress’s statement is coming back to haunt them.
So, like Gruber, Congress is now lying about it. And Paul Krugman is here to help spread the lie.
But don’t be fooled. No matter how many Paul Krugmans and Michael Hiltziks and Brian Beutlers tell you, with Serious Furrowed Brow, that there is Absolutely No Reasonable Way to Interpret the Language This Way, the fact remains that the plaintiffs in these cases are simply reading the law as written.
For conservatives to win, all they need to do is resist the leftist call to substitute “intentionalism” for textualism. As I noted this weekend, “intentionalism” as a theory for reading legal texts is dead. This here blog tried to explain this for years, but Halbig has made it clear in a way I never could. Using “intentionalism” to read laws allows leftists can twist the clearest language into anything they want it to say.
Say it with me: Only textualism preserves the rule of law.
Take that, Krugman!
Thanks to F.H.K.
Ding.
Patterico (9c670f) — 11/10/2014 @ 7:44 amI saw that and was going to email it to you – Krugman has just been on a snit since the election
EPWJ (0e7ed5) — 11/10/2014 @ 7:52 amInterestingly enough, at this moment three of the six “NYT Picks” comments for this screed — i.e., the comments that some editorial assistant chooses to be highlighted by the newspaper — are comments telling Krugman that he’s way off-base and that the language was deliberately inserted. Either the young, underpaid editorial assistant hates ObamaCare, or even he or she realizes what a stupid argument Krugman is trying to advance.
JVW (60ca93) — 11/10/2014 @ 8:18 amAs I recall, the guy who drafted this wording himself says “the state” meant the 50.
Fred Beloit (e503e2) — 11/10/2014 @ 8:20 amby an incredibly hostile reader
AZ Bob (34bb80) — 11/10/2014 @ 8:22 am“”Gruber, also instrumental in creating Romneycare—which he famously told this website was effectively the same program as Obamacare—made a statement that indicates Congress intended health insurance subsidies only for state-run exchanges, not for those individuals who signed up through healthcare.gov, the federal website that manages exchanges for 36 states.
“I think what’s important to remember politically about this, is if you’re a state and you don’t set up an exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits,” he said.”
Fred Beloit (e503e2) — 11/10/2014 @ 8:24 amBy the way, don’t forget to cruise by Amazon to purchase “Krugman and Reich, the Clownishness off Bearded Economists” In Three most sportive volumes, by Fred Beloit, 2013, Published by Badmen Books
Fred Beloit (e503e2) — 11/10/2014 @ 8:30 amWithout a doubt, Krugman’s wife, a ghastly red haze denizen, writes the column. If a biography of the man is ever written, one question on the table will be why he permitted her after 2000 to trash his reputation. The topical commentary he produced prior to 2001 was not notably sectarian and if he engaged in personal attacks the targets were other economists (e.g. S.H. Hanke and Lester Thurow, who could not be bothered to reply).
He’s semi-retired now in his capacity as an academic economist. His teaching duties at the CUNY Graduate Center are quite spare. He’s published (per GoogleScholar) about four articles in scholarly venues in the last seven years. Two of them were literature discussions (and it’s a reasonable wager that he was able to place one of them because he’s Paul Krugman; a rank and file economist would have been told to try elsewhere); one of them was a brief theoretical analysis that hasn’t panned out (it was explicitly predictive); one other article was a piece of theoretical macroeconomics of which the primary author was a man on the staff of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Four articles in seven years (one of them a ‘my greatest hits’ review) is adequate for a rank and file professor, not for a man who has been ensconced at research universities his whole career (and private research universities with cachet to boot). You could remark that his scholarly productively certainly exceeds Bradford deLong’s (deLong largely quit publishing research twenty years ago) and that of John Kenneth Galbreath (who published very little scholarly work in a public career spanning six decades).
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 11/10/2014 @ 8:30 amOops /s
Fred Beloit (e503e2) — 11/10/2014 @ 8:31 amKrugman and Reich, the Clownishness off Bearded Economists
Robert Reich is a lawyer (and was for some years on the faculty of the Harvard Law School, IIRC). He held some position of consequence at the Federal Trade Commission ca. 1979 (R.M. Kaus said he was a gas to work for) and established a name for himself ca. 1983 producing a series of topical books on industrial development, &c. He actually has no formal training as an economist nor much of a history actually working in business concerns. What Thomas Sowell said: the Anointed confuse intelligence with expertise and confuse articulateness with intelligence.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 11/10/2014 @ 8:35 amAnd also, the federal exchange is established under Section 1321, not section 1311.
This is more than a typo.
On the other hand, there might be some similarity to his parents’ property deed.
Sammy Finkelman (ea9037) — 11/10/2014 @ 8:50 amKrugman states that the problem might be resolved by states…
That’s news to me. And they already have at least one sort of link. I suppose this comes from some lawyer.
Sammy Finkelman (ea9037) — 11/10/2014 @ 8:51 amKrugman is a delusional twit. Maybe he’s always been a delusional twit, though I’m told some of his early work is solid. I think the key to understanding his is understanding that the vast majority (there are exceptions) of the Liberal Intellectual Left are deeply unimportant people. They are minor intellectual lights, the majority of them in fields of slight importance to the real world. Even economists are (demonstrably) more useful for explaining what the economy has done then they ever have been (or ever will be, please God!) for steering it.
The important people in a society are the ones that make things and do things, not the ones that talk about it. That has always been true. And the Intellectuals just HATE THAT. THEY should be important. THEY should be respected and catered to.
And they are only to whatever extent they can sell the myth of Top Men and the Benevolent State. And when that falls down, they have to admit to themselves that they are small men in small jobs of small importance.
C. S. P. Schofield (848299) — 11/10/2014 @ 8:55 amOf course Gruber only said that in 2012, at which point he might have liked the idea. He didn’t say that in 2010 or 2011 that anybdy knows.
People in the IRS did think policies bought on the federal exchange would not be eligible for subsidies until they were overruled.
The truth is, noboy imagined the creation of healthcare.gov.
If you read the text of the law carefully, what it imagined was the federal government writing the software – separately for each state – and then offering to turn over the keys and responsibility for operating the exchange to the state in question – not operating it itself.
Sammy Finkelman (ea9037) — 11/10/2014 @ 8:56 amI can’t stand Krugman. Even his portrait looks like a dumb face.
Dejectedhead (a094a6) — 11/10/2014 @ 9:16 amLet’s be clear that accusing Congress of making “a mistake in drafting the law” and now “lying about it” presents a false narrative of events which conflates the authorship of the legislation with the exclusively democrat majorities in Congress that voted for it without ever reading the onerous the bill.
Nancy Pelosi famously acknowledged that Democrats had to pass the bill before the people could find out what was in it. Otherwise the public’s outcry would have prevented passage.
ropelight (929cbc) — 11/10/2014 @ 9:26 amthe Liberal Intellectual Left are deeply unimportant people. They are minor intellectual lights, the majority of them in fields of slight importance to the real world.
Think tanks employ publicists as well as researchers, and these people (e.g. Matthew Yglesias) are deeply unimportant. When you’re talking about social researchers who do produce work which can inform public policy, you’re not talking right. Krugman, before he made such an ass out of himself, was a theoretician, so his work would have some layers of intermediation. He was, however, a seminal thinker in economics, and economics (along with statistics, chemistry and components of geology) makes the most consequential discipline you find in an arts and sciences faculty.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 11/10/2014 @ 9:35 amThey’re not “now” lying about it, they lied about “it” (the ACA in general, not the arm-twisting built into subsidies for state exchanges only) all along. Seen today’s Hot Air piece with Gruber quoted admitting they intentionally gamed the CBO and the ‘stupid’ voters?
Anyway, I still keep hoping that Roberts made his 11th-hour switch to rule the penalty a ‘tax’ (while also finding that the coersion involved in the Medicaid expansion was unconstitutional) out of an attempt to signal a way to destroy the whole bill. Congress has taxing authority but aren’t there additional restrictions on how taxes can be used and must be applied that wouldn’t apply to ‘fines’ or ‘penalties’? For example a poll tax is completely unconstitutional… Can’t a business that isn’t forced into the mandate while other businesses which got waivers claim disparate impact in taxation? Once all waivers are deemed unconstitutional and everybody unions included want it repealed…it’s dead.
rtrski (2e2489) — 11/10/2014 @ 9:39 am……Mightant this be gotten around by making the ACA truly interstate and portable ? If I, in a federal healthcare plan as 35 States have, could sign up for the State plan in another state, it would meet the criteria of 1211 and allow me ( I live on the border ) to access care in the larger but foreign city nearby. I realize this wouldn’t do many folks any good, but it would certainly be good for small states.
Dave D. (fa5a46) — 11/10/2014 @ 9:45 amIt seems you posted too early to pick up the latest Gruber OOPS! A new video surfaced in which Gruber can be seen and heard saying:
“Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. . . Call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever. But basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass.”
Gruber added that he wished “we could make it all transparent,” but said the bill would not have passed if not for the administration’s art of deception on key features of the law.
“This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes,” Gruber said. “If you had a law that made explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed.”
Gruber made clear that deliberately lying to the American people was a necessary measure in the passage of Obamacare.
“There’s things that I wish could change,” Gruber said. “But I’d rather have this law than not.”
It’s over headlining at Wash. Free Beacon.
Basta (1485d6) — 11/10/2014 @ 9:53 amIt’s not exactly on the topic here, but it does show what a deceitful, smug POS this guy is. He’ll say anything.
Art Deco;
(Love the handle, AND the style, BTW)
I would maintain that no economist who is not actually out there in the economy, creating wealth and spreading it around, is important in the broad sense. A local shop owner is more important, at least in his area.
My Father was a Professor (of History) and maintained all my adult life that he was a societal luxury, and he knew it. Academics outside of the hard sciences and the engineering disciplines don’t really affect much.
Society works because of people who make things, bring things to market, build roads and similar public use items, and so forth. Academics, the Intellectual Life, and so on are the froth on the surface. And like the froth, they are often a sign that the water is contaminated.
C. S. P. Schofield (848299) — 11/10/2014 @ 10:10 amThe references to “Romneycare” annoy me because they usually have little or nothing to do with what actually happened in Massachusetts. Many years ago AEI came up with a proposal to deal with “Free Riders” in the health care economy by requiring a catastrophic care insurance policy for all adults. This was eventually dropped but the concept was carried into what was Romney’s plan in Massachusetts. There was no employer mandate and it was only for catastrophic care. The Mass legislature which is about 85% Democrat, added an employer mandate and Romney vetoed the bill. The Democrats passed it over his veto and his successor, Deval Patrick has distorted the program beyond recognition
But the bipartisan bliss didn’t last very long. Just prior to the ceremony, Romney’s aides had announced that the Governor would be vetoing several key provisions of the bill, including its employer mandate that forced all companies in the state, employing more than 10 people, to provide health coverage for their workers or pay a $295-per-person fine. Romney vetoed several other provisions of the law, including one that extended dental benefits to Medicaid patients, and another that gave certain “special status aliens” the ability to receive Medicaid benefits.
Democrats maintained their smiles on-stage, but back-stage, they fumed. Forcing employers to provide health coverage to their workers was a key component of their agenda. “I’m not happy about what he did,” House Speaker Sal DiMasi told the Boston Globe. Romney, on the other hand, considered the employer mandate to be “unnecessary and probably counterproductive.”
There was more.
The Democrats controlled 85 percent of the legislature. After the bill-signing ceremony was over, they went back to the State House and overrode each of Romney’s eight vetoes.
And more.
it was Democrats and progressive activists who ended up implementing the Massachusetts health law, especially after Romney left office in January 2007. They took the law in a much different direction than Romney would have liked. And while Democrats have sought to credit (or blame) Romney for the passage of Obamacare, it is more accurate to say that the federal Affordable Care Act is modeled after the Democratically implemented version of the Massachusetts law, as opposed to the one that Romney had sought.
Read the rest. It is all myth or lie, depending on your level of cynicism.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 11/10/2014 @ 10:37 amIs Paul Krugman a serious influence on matters of national importance beyond an area within sight of Central Park?
askeptic (efcf22) — 11/10/2014 @ 11:01 amWell Art, I only know what I read on the internet:
Fred Beloit (e503e2) — 11/10/2014 @ 11:03 amFrom Wiki:
“Robert Bernard Reich (/ˈraɪʃ/;[1] born June 24, 1946) is an American political economist, professor, author, and political commentator. He served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and was Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997.”
If there INTENT was that subsidies would cover the federal exchange participants, well, there is a simple remedy to the problem. Simply have congress vote on an amendment to the law that specifies that clearly. Problem solved!
Wait, what? Congress will not pass such an amendment? The fact that this congress will not currently pass such an amendment seems to say all there is to say about it – they don’t want it. I don’t care what the past congress voted on four years ago. Half those guys aren’t even in office any more – their dead hand no longer controls the current congress. Enforce the law as currently written. If the people don’t like it, they can petition congress to change their minds, right?
Tennhauser (8c487b) — 11/10/2014 @ 11:43 amThe esteemed Dr Krugman wrote:
Well, perhaps so, but it doesn’t really matter, does it? If the drafters were sloppy, but their sloppiness was what was passed into law, their sloppiness, and not their intentions, becomes the law.
Apparently, when the lovely Nancy Pelosi said that we had to pass the law to find out what was in it, she was right . . . and now it’s Dr Krugman who is finding out what is in it.
The Dana who can read (f6a568) — 11/10/2014 @ 12:12 pmAre Gruber’s statements concerning the purposefulness of how the exchange language was written admissible as some kind of evidence before the Supreme Court? Or at the SCOTUS arena there is no discussion about new facts or discovery, just lawyerly arguing back and forth?
It seems to me that if 5 judges can’t agree with the obvious, there really must be some blackmail or something going on.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 11/10/2014 @ 12:22 pmSchofield,
While your father was right, intellectuals may be a ‘luxury’ in the sense that they offer little in terms of Maslow’s hierarchy, they are also responsible for the rapid growth of the west. Most of the major developments engineers are employing today, were in fact discovered by scientists decades ago, when their discoveries did not benefit society. If you are advocating for a return to agrarian society, perhaps this criticism is valid.
Most of our current freedoms were outlined and defended by ‘useless’ academics and philosophers nearly 500 years ago. Without them, our society might look like the utopian middle-east. Also, the idea that economics isn’t a hard science is so misinformed it’s laughable. Nash, options, leverage, game theory? Just because they don’t break when you kick them, doesn’t mean they aren’t important. Our entire economy nearly collapsed due to exploitation by intellectuals, and it was brought back from the brink by other intellectuals, working off of entirely theoretical knowledge. Those people were all ‘useless’ until we had a real crisis. All the hammer swinging joes who ‘make stuff’ did was bleat in terror as the entire western world nearly collapsed because of group psychology, not steel production.
I find the string of anti-intellectual rhetoric predominant in segments of this country to be disturbing. While the merits of Krugman’s arguments are certainly worth debating, and I think the OP is correct in this case, they don’t seem to stand up, lumping the left in with ‘intellectualism’ seems like a poor choice, since that lumps the ‘right’ in with those on the sidelines. The important conservatives in this world know their economics. They also know their history, and the danger of rousing an anti-intellectual rabble.
Brian (dabd65) — 11/10/2014 @ 1:01 pmDon’t forget the reason the Pelosi/Reid Congress was so sure every state would enact an exchange was because Obamacare would hold Medicaid money hostage- that is, if a state failed to enact an exchange, the federal government would withhold money as punishment. But that was struck down by the courts, and many states wisely opted out. But for that, there would be little need FOR a federal exchange.
XBradTC (ffe63c) — 11/10/2014 @ 1:55 pmBrian,
Scientists and engineers have a very real value. Genuine scholars (like my Father) CAN have a real value. The fashionably Intellectual? They are mostly wastes of space and air.
Anti-Intellectualism is easy to denounce, but think of what Intellectualism has foisted on us over that last century or so. Progresive Education. Socialism. Communism. The kind of Environmentalism that is all about emoting and the hell with the numbers. “Organic” this and “Natural” that. (Anything thatis or was alive is organic. Botulism is natural.)
The scholar and historian Paul Johnson wrote a book called THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN, that I highly reccomend. His thesis is that much of what we consider the modern world has its origins in the period 1815-1830. I think he makes a good case for it. One ofthe trends he marks is the beginning of modern Intellectualism; literate persons with slight to nonexistant technical knowledge feeling that their educational superiority suits them to tell the rest of us what to do.
C. S. P. Schofield (d8af9d) — 11/10/2014 @ 2:36 pmThe real giveaway that he’s being a partisan hack is the part where he forgets to mention that the solution to drafting issues is to… pass an amended law.
scrubone (c3104f) — 11/10/2014 @ 2:38 pmRespected bloghost – as ropelight #16 has pointed out, we *need* more precision in these discussions …
“Gruber had compared his original “speak-o” to the “typo” made by Congress: “Congress made a mistake drafting the law and I made a mistake talking about it. . . . My subsequent statement was just a speak-o—you know, like a typo.” It turns out that this comparison was remarkably apt. Like Gruber, Congress said what it meant. Like Gruber, Congress said it more than once (the phrase “established by the state” appears again and again in the law). And, like Gruber, it appears that Congress’s statement is coming back to haunt them.”
This *needs* to be
“Gruber had compared his original “speak-o” to the “typo” made by the Democrats in control of Congress: “Congress made a mistake drafting the law and I made a mistake talking about it. . . . My subsequent statement was just a speak-o—you know, like a typo.” It turns out that this comparison was remarkably apt. Like Gruber, the Democrats in control of Congress said what it meant. Like Gruber, the Democrats in control of Congress said it more than once (the phrase “established by the state” appears again and again in the law). And, like Gruber, it appears that the Democrats in control of Congress’s statement is coming back to haunt them.”
It’s clunky – but whole lot more informative and accurate … and shines the clear light of day on those who should have been responsible – yet passed Obamacare anyway …
Alastor (e7cb73) — 11/10/2014 @ 3:02 pmit’s very confusing
it’s way better in the long run for the fascists and their evil fascist schemes to force each state to establish an exchange
so I really don’t understand why they don’t embrace the text of their own law
do they just not want to admit the Obama Administration disregarded the law and just did whatever the hell they wanted to do?
there’s a lot of socialist democrat congresswhores in office now who had nothing to do with passing this crappy law
and yet so far at least they stand as one on this matter
it’s kinda creepy
happyfeet (831175) — 11/10/2014 @ 5:21 pm#32, Alastor: The dereliction of what was then the majority in Congress was evident when the Speaker said we had to pass the law to find out what was in it. Nothing more is needed.
The only thing I regret about the photo of Mussolini as he experienced what his tyranny amounted to was that his mistress was dealt the same fate. Clearly, when we have to wait four or five years to determine what was really intended, there is the danger of collateral damage. But she was surely an innocent victim. Not so the leadership of the Democratic Party, irrespective of their sex.
bobathome (5ccbd8) — 11/10/2014 @ 5:38 pmFerret with a Cat… http://dealbreaker.com/uploads/2010/04/Paul-Krugman-with-Cat1.jpg
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 11/10/2014 @ 6:12 pmSchofield,
While communism may have had roots in intellectual thought, it’s implementation in Russia was a populist, anti-intellectual movement. Similar in China. The artists and authors were the first to be killed, because the communists knew the danger an intellectual elite poses to authoritarian governments. Also, neither remain communist, both are wildly corrupt capitalist oligarchies.
We have a government that ignores what the best scientists have to say on the environment, and a nation of lazy minds, I agree with you there. But they aren’t intellectuals. They are simply consumers.
I’m also not sure how socialism factors into this? I take it you oppose social security, and worker protection. Free market for all, eh? What about education? Isn’t our half assed education system what got us here? Socialism isn’t a state, it’s a relative measure – as in Sweden is more socialist than the U.S., the U.S. is more socialist than China.
And there has been a lot of academic research into economic effects of things like wealth inequality. Piketty, for example. Hard research, ignored when it doesn’t fit the desired outcome. Confirmation bias, much?
Discussions that lose focus on what we want to achieve as a society, and instead debate policy like its religious seem distinctly anti-intellectual to me.
Brian (dabd65) — 11/11/2014 @ 6:04 am> “intentionalism” as a theory for reading legal texts is dead.
mysterian (f109e3) — 11/11/2014 @ 7:04 amit is good you put on the curly quotes otherwise I’d think you are ignorant of basics of information theory.
i don’t get how Mr Krugman ever got considered for a Nobel much less won one.
wait, what am i thinking? these are the same people who gave one to Pres Barak just for talking a semi-decent game he didn’t even believe in.
seeRpea (d2c6e3) — 11/11/2014 @ 5:56 pm“We have a government that ignores what the best scientists have to say on the environment, and a nation of lazy minds, I agree with you there.”
Hahahahahaha
JD (285732) — 11/11/2014 @ 6:23 pmsnorfle, read Europa Central, or Anne Applebaum’s Iron Curtain, to see how it applied in the East Bloc,
narciso (ee1f88) — 11/11/2014 @ 6:31 pm