The Kroog Versus Baucuscare

Paul Krugman dissects the Baucus Plan and ponders where the health-care reform fight goes from here, and the question of "Is any reform better than no reform?" The answer is clearly no in the Kroog's opinion (emphasis mine):

So something along the general lines of the Baucus plan might be acceptable. But details matter. And the bad news is that the plan, as it stands, is inadequate or badly conceived in three major ways.

First, it bungles the so-called “employer mandate.” Most reform plans include a provision requiring that large employers either provide their workers with health coverage or pay into a fund that would help workers who don’t get insurance through their job buy coverage on their own. Mr. Baucus, however, gets too clever, trying to tie each employer’s fees to the subsidies its own employees end up getting.

That’s a terrible idea. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out, it would make companies reluctant to hire workers from lower-income families — and it would also create a bureaucratic nightmare. This provision has to go and be replaced with a simple pay-or-play rule.

Second, the plan is too stingy when it comes to financial aid. Lower-middle-class families, in particular, would end up paying much more in premiums than they do under the Massachusetts plan, suggesting that for many people insurance would not, in fact, be affordable. Fixing this means spending more than Mr. Baucus proposes.

Third, the plan doesn’t create real competition in the insurance market. The right way to create competition is to offer a public option, a government-run insurance plan individuals can buy into as an alternative to private insurance. The Baucus plan instead proposes a fake alternative, nonprofit insurance cooperatives — and it places so many restrictions on these cooperatives that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, they “seem unlikely to establish a significant market presence in many areas of the country.”

The insurance industry, of course, loves the Baucus plan. Need we say more?

So this plan has to change. What matters now is the direction in which it changes.

It would be disastrous if health care goes the way of the economic stimulus plan, earlier this year. As you may recall, that plan — which was clearly too weak even as originally proposed — was made even weaker to win the support of three Republican senators. If the same thing happens to health reform, progressives should and will walk away.

That of course is the worst-case scenario for progressives, Democrats, and Americans in general. The Baucus plan is pure garbage, an example of the worst parts of the various proposals floated by both Democrats and Republicans, combined into one giant multi-trillion dollar hand job for the health insurance industry. It's unacceptable as is to both sides, as progressive Democrats see right through the plan, and Republicans want no plan whatsoever. It will have to change. Krugman's question -- which direction the change will go -- is the central argument right now.

One will lead to a better bill, acceptable to progressives and good for the country. The other will lead to a disaster of a bill that will either never pass, or if it does, will be repealed when Republicans are thrust back into power vowing to rid the country of the horrible legislation.

The choice seems obvious to me. But there are too many Democrats who seem to think that there's another way: making a bill so weak that Republicans will vote for it too, giving both sides political cover.

Unfortunately, political cover doesn't pay the health care bills.