The Coming Health Care Apocalypse

Over on Substack,* Nobel laureate Paul Krugman takes a hard look at the impact of the Big Bad Budget Bill that's taking shape in the Senate this week on health insurance. The impact will be worse than grim.

After a quick review of what Obamacare did and didn't accomplish, Krugman writes:

[I]t led to a large decline in the number of Americans without health insurance. It also led to a large reduction in anxiety among Americans with preexisting conditions, who no longer had to fear being denied coverage or being trapped in jobs with health benefits for fear of losing coverage.

Essentially all these gains are about to be wiped out.

Apocalyptic sounds about right. Here's a graphic representation of the impact:

If we look at the Medicaid-eligible population (i.e., mostly those who are too young for Medicare), it looks like this:

Krugman's conclusion: 

Basically, we’re talking about undoing all the progress America has made in expanding health insurance. And as I said, many independent analysts believe it could be substantially worse.

Remember, this isn’t happening to save money: If Republicans cared about the deficit, they could forego those tax cuts. It isn’t happening by popular demand: the Big Beautiful Bill is extremely unpopular already, and will become even more unpopular once people see its effects.

So why is this happening? Krugman's take on the situation is hard to resist:

It’s happening because our government has been taken over by fanatics who believe that, one way or another, they can escape the electoral consequences of making millions of Americans’ lives much, much worse. 

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* You can follow Krugman for free on Substack or, for a small monthly fee, you can get extended commentary. Either way, it's a good deal.