Paul Krugman phones in a column bad enough to unwind the tightest cocoon: Yes, Medicare Is Sustainable In Its Current Form [mockery in bold]

I keep seeing people say that Medicare in its current form is not sustainable, as if that were an established fact. It’s anything but. [According to the people who run Medicare, in it’s current form it runs out of money around 2024.]

What is Medicare? [Class? Anyone?] It’s single-payer coverage for the elderly. Other countries have single-payer systems that are much cheaper than ours — and also much cheaper than private insurance in America. So there’s nothing about the form that makes Medicare unsustainable, unless you think that health care itself is unsustainable. [That is ridiculous. Krugman knows there are many other reasons, including the correct one, to argue that the current form of medicare is unsustainable yet believe ‘health care itself is sustainable”. Non-sequitor with a strawmen twist? Random babbleage? Anyway, the current form of Medicare is unsustainable because the system is structurally flawed. It over-promises, under-performs, and is under-funded.]

What is true is that the U.S. Medicare is expensive compared with, say, Canadian Medicare (yes, that’s what they call their system) [Wow, they call their medical care system MediCare. What are the odds?] the French [where DSK is considered a libertine, not a rapist strike gratuitous frog joke] health care system (which is complicated, but largely single-payer in its essentials) [but if you call Obama a European it’s a slur]; that’s because Medicare American-style is very open-ended, reluctant to say no to paying for medically dubious procedures [which is that very expensive last year of life you citizen class also insist on having], and also fails to make use of its pricing power over drugs and other items [nice drug company ya got there. Contributed to any PACs lately?].

So Medicare will have to start saying no [to you]; it will have to provide incentives to move away from fee for service [and I use the word incentive in the same way Obama uses the phrase spending cuts in the tax code], and so on and so forth [ah, the cutting exposition of the true intellectual]. But such changes would not mean a fundamental change in the way Medicare works. [That is just silly. Adding rationing does not change Medicare in it’s current form? The lack of rationing is it’s defining characteristic.]

Of course, what the people who say things like “Medicare is unsustainable” usually mean [Did you think it meant what they said it meant? Silly prole. Let me guide you] is that it must be privatized [let me get a cite for all of the Medicare privatization bills….], converted into a voucher system [Ryan, that earnest young man, tried to get Obama to commit to not telling this lie, but yeah, we really, really need voucher for 2012], whatever [yo]. The thing is, none of those changes would make the system more efficient — on the contrary. [OK professor, we’re waiting for the punch line, please tell us how Ryan’s plan would make things less efficient. I understand you have a Nobel, I hope I can follow the argument. Oh. By assertion. Tremendous. Your authority of course makes that statement true.]

So this business about Medicare in its present form being unsustainable sounds wise but is actually a stupid slogan. [You’re a poopy-head]. The solution to the future of Medicare is Medicare [now that’s a slogan!] — smarter [see the vast literature on government learning to work smarter here at …], less open-ended [for you!], but recognizably the same program [well, maybe recognizable by you after we deny your cataracts surgery, if you squint and wish for hope and change!].

[Can you see the intellectualoids bobbing their heads over The Bible The New York Times at Krugman’s devastating take-down of those silly teabaggers?]