Paul Krugman, "When Government Succeeds": A Triumph of Imagination Over Intelligence

"Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence."

- H.L. Mencken

Paul Krugman must sure as heck love the Obama administration.

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "When Government Succeeds," Paul Krugman crows over the successes of the Obama administration, among them Obamacare:

"Then there’s health reform. As usual, much of the national dialogue over the Affordable Care Act is being dominated by fake scandals drummed up by the enemies of reform. But if you look at the actual results so far, they’re remarkably good. The number of Americans without health insurance has dropped sharply, with around 10 million of the previously uninsured now covered; the program’s costs remain below expectations, with average premium rises for next year well below historical rates of increase; and a new Gallup survey finds that the newly insured are very satisfied with their coverage. By any normal standards, this is a dramatic example of policy success, verging on policy triumph."

Obamacare is "a  dramatic example of policy success, verging on policy triumph"? Maybe, if you decide to ignore a couple of things:

• Let's ignore the farcical launch of HealthCare.gov.

• Let's also ignore, "If you like your health care plan or health care provider, you can keep them."

• Let's also ignore Friday's New York Times article entitled "Cost of Coverage Under Affordable Care Act to Increase in 2015" by Robert Pear, Reed Abelson and Agustin Armendariz.

• Let's also ignore reduced enrollment goals for 2015.

• Let's also ignore the possible "enrollment" of persons who haven't paid their premiums.

• Let's also ignore the shoddy drafting of the Affordable Care Act, acknowledged by Krugman a week ago, which could well result in the ultimate unravelling of the law.

• Let's also ignore the law's 42 changes, including delayed implementation of the employer mandate.

• But most important, let's ignore MIT Professor Gruber's take on Obamacare:

"This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. Okay, so it’s written to do that. In terms of risk rated subsidies, if you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in – you made explicit healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed… Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really really critical for the thing to pass… Look, I wish Mark was right that we could make it all transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not."

Obamacare is a "triumph"? Krugman is obviously head over heels in love.