Stop the Presses! Paul Krugman Says Healthcare Bill Worth Passing

Obama greets workers at Nestle plant

From Krugman, who has a lot of sway over progressives:

There’s enormous disappointment among progressives about the emerging health care bill — and rightly so. That said, even as it stands it would take a big step toward greater security for Americans and greater social justice; it would also save many lives over the decade ahead. That’s why progressive health policy wonks — the people who have campaigned for health reform for years — are almost all in favor of voting for the thing.

The argument about the evil of the individual mandate is, as Jon Cohn says, all wrong. It was wrong during the primaries, when Obama unfortunately used it to demagogue his rivals — helping set the stage for problems now. And it’s still wrong. Read more at Paul Krugman's blog

Krugman also says liberals need to get the imaginary Obama out of their head. But I disagree with Krugman's conclusion that he won't be transformative. Hello. Not even a year in. You sort of have to not be tied to an ideology to see that. Obama has a ways to go before we judge:

But what’s happening, I think, goes beyond health care; what we’re seeing is disillusionment with Obama among some of the people who were his most enthusiastic supporters. A lot of people seem shocked to find that he’s not the transformative figure of their imaginations. Can I say I told you so? If you paid attention to what he said, not how he said it, it was obvious from the beginning — and I’m talking about 2007 — that he was going to be much less aggressive about change than one could have hoped.