Actual state residents would struggle to recognize Paul Krugman’s California

What is it about California that inspires such insistently cheerful happy talk from New York Times columnist/Princeton professor Paul Krugman?

This spring he claimed that California was in the middle of a roaring comeback. Has he ever been here? Read coverage of our Legislature? Read the Census Bureau’s declaration that the Golden State has the worst effective poverty rate of any state?

His blathering led to a harshly funny response from a professor who actually does know California because he lives here, Victor Davis Hanson, writing for National Review Online.

Now Krugman is at it again, suggesting Covered California is doing so well that it’s a confirmation of the glory that is Obamacare. And once again his blathering has inspired lots of sharp responses, this time including from other East Coast folks.

D.C.-based health-policy blogger Robert Laszewski, for example, notes that the Golden State is on track to have far fewer people covered by insurance than it did before Covered California began accepting applications.

“So, let’s summarize:

“–California has 5.3 million uninsured eligible to buy in the exchange with half estimated to be subsidy eligible.

“–California is cancelling another 1 million people of which Covered California has estimated hundreds of thousands will qualify for a subsidy they can only get if they go to Covered California. At least 80% need to act by December 23 to avoid losing their coverage.

“–The state is spending $250 million in federal money to get people signed up––dramatically more than any other state.

“–The Covered California goal is to sign-up 500,000 to 700,000 subsidy eligible people by March 31.

“Why should we be so impressed with Covered California because they have signed-up 80,000 people so far? Or, even that their goal is to sign-up 500,000 to 700,000 of the state’s 6.3 million people––half subsidy eligible––who are uninsured or having their insurance canceled?”

Two very good questions.

And here’s a funny point: California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, can’t think things are going well with the Obamacare rollout in her home state or she wouldn’t have endorsed this bill.

Obamacare and the Orwellian gap between promises and reality

Krugman declaring success for a state health insurance exchange that will lead to fewer Californians having health coverage isn’t the only example of the amazing rhetorical baloney-fest surrounding the Affordable Care Act.

We were told if you like your policy, you can keep it. Then we’re told if the president likes your policy, you can keep it, and if it was canceled, that’s because it was “crappy.”

We were told that it would sharply cut health-care costs for the average family of four. Now as reality demolishes this promise, the MSM rarely even bring it up.

We were told there wouldn’t be de facto “death panels” deciding what medical procedures would be denied to the very sick. Now even the MSM treats this as a given.

I could go on and on in this vein. But the larger point that needs to be made is this is Orwellian manipulation of the American public. The most profound policy change in the United States in decades was imposed by the narrowest of margins only after a sophisticated concert of lies.

And as for the people who compare this with George W. Bush/Iraq/weapons of mass destruction, the ACA Deceptathon is even worse. Bush 43 was a disaster in many ways, but at least he had foreign and U.S. intelligence agencies backing him up on WMDs.

Obama had his own administration telling him in 2010 that “if you like your policy, you can keep it” was just not true. But he kept peddling the lie until the cancellation notices made it impossible to keep asserting.