Paul Krugman, "The Obama Boom": The Worst Opening Stock Market Week in US History

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In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Obama Boom," Paul Krugman acknowledges that President Obama is not responsible for gains in US private-sector employment since 2010:

"Does President Obama deserve credit for these gains? No. In general, presidents and their policies matter much less for the economy’s performance than most people imagine. Times of crisis are an exception, and the Obama stimulus plan enacted in 2009 made a big positive difference. But that stimulus faded out fast after 2010, and has very little to do with the economy’s current situation."

On the other hand, in a patent reference to Obamacare, Krugman would have us know:

"But for those who don’t know much about either history or the world outside America, the Obama economy offers a powerful lesson in the here and now. From a conservative point of view, Mr. Obama did everything wrong, afflicting the comfortable (slightly) and comforting the afflicted (a lot), and nothing bad happened. We can, it turns out, make our society better after all."

Obamacare is the boon to society that Krugman would have us believe? Not everyone agrees. In a blog for The Hill entitled "ObamaCare's predictable collapse," Rick Manning writes:

"ObamaCare co-ops were supposed to provide lower cost health insurance alternatives because they weren't driven by the profit motive. Now, just a couple of years after the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was implemented, 12 out of 23 co-ops have failed, costing taxpayers $1.2 billion in defaulted loan repayments. The failure rate even outstrips the Labor Department's 2011 projections of 36 percent, and as The Carpenters used to sing, 'We've Only Just Begun.'

. . . .

That ol' promise that healthcare costs would go down by $2,500 for an average family took another hit of reality as a Wall Street Journal analysis of 2016 rates showed that premiums for individual health plans are going up, with double-digit increases more typical than not.

. . . .

Besides skyrocketing healthcare costs, less healthcare service available, anticipated health insurance company abandonment of the system, patients being thrown off coverage and losing their doctors, and the failure of the co-op system, ObamaCare is doing just fine."

Oops.

But beyond Obamacare, how can anyone refer to an "Obama Boom" without alluding to the worst US opening stock market week in history, which has many wondering if another recession is on the way? I suppose that if you've been awarded a Nobel Prize in economics, you can get away with looking the other way and writing this hogwash.

Thomas Friedman, "Obamacare’s Other Surprise": Surprise, surprise, surprise . . .

Although he is unwilling to go on record as to whether the Affordable Care Act is or is not going to prove a "train wreck," Thomas Friedman, in his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Obamacare’s Other Surprise" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/opinion/sunday/friedman-obamacares-other-surprise.html), gushes:

"But there is one area where the law already appears to be surprising on the upside. And that is the number of health care information start-ups it’s spurring. This is a big deal.

The combination of Obamacare regulations, incentives in the recovery act for doctors and hospitals to shift to electronic records and the releasing of mountains of data held by the Department of Health and Human Services is creating a new marketplace and platform for innovation — a health care Silicon Valley — that has the potential to create better outcomes at lower costs by changing how health data are stored, shared and mined. It’s a new industry."

A whole new industry moving information out of "manila folders in doctors' offices" and into "electronic files"? Is this a key byproduct of Obamacare, or is this simply part of the medical industry's transition into the 21st Century?

Don't get me wrong. Data mining? I'm all for it. In fact, it could and should be used to combat aggressively health care fraud, which costs the US some $80 billion annually (see: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/white_collar/health-care-fraud).

Computerized programs, adapted to standardized treatment for specific medical conditions, would have little difficulty pointing to anomalies. The system could be up and running in months.

In addition, penalties for health care fraud could be stiffened, causing those with thoughts of bilking the system to reconsider the consequences of their actions.

It could even help make the Affordable Care Act . . . affordable.

Meanwhile, however, as reported by The Hill (http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/300881-labor-unions-break-ranks-on-health-law#ixzz2TvBNAzaD):

"Labor unions are breaking with President Obama on ObamaCare.

Months after the president’s reelection, a variety of unions are publicly balking at how the administration plans to implement the landmark law. They warn that unless there are changes, the results could be catastrophic."

And according to the results of a recent Associated Press-GfK poll (see: http://news.yahoo.com/poll-trust-government-obama-approval-slip-164950163--politics.html):

"With more and more components of the 2010 'Obamacare' health law taking effect, 41 percent of Americans approve of the president's handling of health care. That's the lowest level during his time in office."

These are not happy times for the president.