NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof told readers that: "health care reform may be defeated this year in part because so many Americans believe the government can’t do anything right and fear that a doctor will come to resemble an I.R.S." Kristof probably wasn't paying attention, but there were a series of protests at ton hall meetings across the country against President Obama's health care plan. These protests, many of which were not very large, received considerable coverage from the media. The protests focused on issues like "death panels," the prospect that Medicare will not be as good as it is currently if President Obama's plan passed, and the possibility that people who are not in the country legally will receive health care under the plan. Very few people who spoke at these protests raised issues about whether the government is capable of providing health care. Basically, Kristof has zero evidence for his claim that the opposition to health care reform has anything to do with questions about the competence of government. This seems to be his invention. [Addendum: In response to some comments below, my statement was overly strong. Clearly some people oppose the Obama plan because they think the government cannot do anything. However, I would argue that this has not been the core of the opposition and certainly not what has been expressed at the townhalls or by Sarah Palin's death panel rant, or Michael Steele, the Republican Party Chairman in his pledge to protect Medicare. There is a worldview of liberals supporting big government versus conservatives who support markets that intellectuals like to use to frame public debate. I would argue that this framing has little relevance to the health care debate or most political debates.]
--Dean Baker
