On occasion, I wonder if the editorial page of The New York Times believes that its audience is comprised of the demographic that the rest of the paper touts to advertisers. With respect to healthcare issues, the Op/Ed page is in stark contrast to its healthcare team of Reed Abelson, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Robert Pear and Jackie Calmes.

Compare the following:

• HELP Is on the Way, an opinion piece published today by Paul Krugman, the economist and Nobel Laureate. The crux of his assertion is that the Senate HELP Committee was unfairly derided in mid-June when it released it first draft proposal; all the Senate HELP Committee had to do was finish drafting the bill, and, magically, the cost of the bill was reduced to $597B. I quote:  “The budget office says that all this would cost $597 billion over the next decade. But that doesn’t include the cost of insuring the poor and near-poor, whom HELP suggests covering via an expansion of Medicaid (which is outside the committee’s jurisdiction). Add in the cost of this expansion, and we’re probably looking at between $1 trillion and $1.3 trillion.” Oh, right, $600B for health reform that does not cover the cost of insuring the poor and the near-poor, which I thought was the point for people like Krugman. Not to worry, “much of the expense can be offset with straightforward cost-saving measures, like ending Medicare overpayments to private health insurers and reining in spending on medical procedures with no demonstrated health benefits”. I am curious whether the “serious health economists” he references think his prescription is just a little too easy; I am sure what serious healthcare executives think.
• In contrast, the recurring feature “The Work-Up” reflects a more serious view of the issues before the country. For example, read Jackie Colmes’ article Revisions to Health Bill Are Unveiled by Democrats, which more clearly and accurately describes the Congressional Budget Office’s Analysis of the HELP Bill, or her article Obama and Congress Clash on How to Pay for Health Care. Another example is Reed Abelson’s article Insured, but Bankrupted by Health Crises, which we have posted about before.

I am well aware of the historic difference between reporting and editorials, and I hope that the difference between the two is easily distinguishable in this blog. Even so, healthcare reform is too important for Nobel Prize winning economists to use those credentials to make glib policy arguments. Americans, and particularly the uninsured, deserve better.