War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength

and....

Medicare Saves Money

I'm just going to cut to the chase on this one. Professor Krugman notes that Medicare "spending per beneficiary" has risen 400% from 1969 to 2009 adjusted for inflation. He counters this with the "inflation adjusted premiums" on private insurance which has increased 700% over the same time period.

• Notice he conflates "spending per beneficiary" with "private insurance premiums." Apples to apples would be spending per beneficiary of a patient with Medicare compared to a patient with private insurance. That's not what he's comparing and it is, at best, deceptive.

• He fails to mention that any costs for patients that will not be covered by Medicare are passed along to other patients. Not that this should ever be a problem because states are complicit with health care providers to defraud the federal government (that is, us) to keep the money flowing.

• Most importantly, private health insurance premiums are paid for by the individual and the firm he works for, whereas Medicare spending per beneficiary is a wealth transfer scheme, paid for by other people with money taken by the federal government under pain of imprisonment.

Professor Krugman is a disingenuous snake.