KRUGMAN ON HEALTH CARE: "Missing the turn"

Paul Krugman knocked it out of the park in his NY Times column "All the President's Zombies" of August 23, 2009 summarizing the current status of the 'public option' for health care: "It's hard to avoid the sense that a crucial opportunity is being missed, that we're at what should be a turning point but we're missing the turn."

Why? Because despite its manifest failure to "deliver what it promised," the "zombie doctrine of Reaganism" -- mindless, misplaced faith in faith in free markets and disdain for government intervention -- is alive and well in Washington. "Why won't these zombie ideas die?" asks Krugman. "...there's a lot of money behind them, 'It is difficult to get a man to understand something,' said Upton Sinclair, 'when his salary' -- or, I would add, his campaign contributions -- 'depend on his not understanding it.' In particular, vast amounts of insurance industry money have been flowing to obstructionist Democrats like [Senator] Nelson and Senator Max Baucus, whose Gang of Six negotiations have been a crucial roadblock to legislation."

My own favorite quote on this point comes from Mark Twain: "Tell me whar a man gits his corn pone en I'll tell you what his 'pinions is."

As long as money buys 'pinions in Washington, Americans will be held captive to the moneyed special interests. If you want reform, any kind of reform, start with public funding of national political campaigns to the exclusion of all other funding. Any other alternative to campaign finance reform is like cutting the White House lawn with nail clippers.