Nerd Fights In The Land Of Epistemic Closure

Readers know I've had my problems with Ezra Klein from time to time on his analysis of everything from Dudebro Defector to Obamacare.  He's a good guy for the most part, but he thinks he's the second coming of Nate Silver or something, and it doesn't always work out that way for him and his Wonkblog crew at Washington Post.

Still, his skills are light-years beyond that of tired hacks like the WSJ's James Taranto or Daily Caller's Mickey Kaus, so when they decided to pick a fight with Ezra, hilarity ensued.  Taranto:

On Tuesday Klein himself proclaimed "The Death of ObamaCare's Death Spiral." He helpfully numbered his points, which go to 11 (lumbar puncture must be a mandated preventive procedure under ObamaCare). "The risk of a 'death spiral' is over," Klein proclaimed in point 4, citing the same Kaiser study. 

In his response, Kaus pointed out that in point 7 Klein had acknowledged Kaus's earlier point. Klein quotes a tweet from Kaiser's Larry Levitt: "The health mix of ACA enrollment is much more important than the age mix. Klein then elaborates: "So far, we're using age as a stand-in for health. But if all the young people signing up are sick, then the models break down." One might add that they don't all have to be sick. Nearly half of healthy young people are prone to a normal yet expensive medical condition, namely pregnancy.

That's Taranto's argument.  Obamacare will break down because all the ladies are gonna get knocked up and flood the system with expensive pre-natal and birthing procedures. Perhaps Obamacare should have something like, oh, I don't know, a contraception mandate to make birth control readily available to women so that doesn't happen.  Oh wait!  It does!  And conservatives are trying to do everything they can to destroy that mandate so that people covered under Obamacare plans don't have access to affordable birth control, thus causing the situation Taranto is concerned about!

There's an easy, built in solution to Taranto's concern, and he refuses to admit that the solution is already there.  But Ezra Klein is the hack?  Ho boy.

Although Wonkblog didn't respond to Kaus's argument, Levitt did, tweeting "that the 'shock absorbers' built into Obamacare--'risk corridors,' etc.--mean that the 'risk of a death spiral is overstated.' " Kaus conceded the point but noted that "those shock absorbers expire in three years," so that "insurers will start to raise rates in only two years if the risk pools are looking bad." To which Levitt replied that "I assume that enrollment will ramp up over the next 3 years." 

Which, Kaus answers, begs the question: "If you assume success then the risk of a death spiral is over!" We would add that it wouldn't surprise us if defenders try to keep ObamaCare on life support in the coming months and years by shifting the definitions of "success" and "death spiral." Never underestimate the power of equivocation.

Says the WSJ columnist.  This is comedy at its best here.  All indications are that more people will sign up, significantly more.  It's an assumption, yes...but a pretty safe one.  One, it's a government program, two, the mandates, three, increased Medicare eligibility, four, the "Woodwork effect".

Taranto goes on in the same vein for some time, but he ends with this:

But the advent of ObamaCare, with its corporatist means to a socialist end, has turned the Wonkbloggers into complete sellouts. Klein, Kliff and the whole klique are now acting like corporate shills too.

Well, you'd know, James.  You'd know.