- Paul Krugman on Republican lies and misrepresentations about health care;
- Short items about a drop in US religiosity; Trump lying about falling gas prices; David French on how Trump keeps pardoning criminals, as long as they’re loyal to him.
Yet again… this isn’t about demonizing Republicans per se, as about identifying a trend present in many people (who just happen to be Republicans).
Paul Krugman, 13 Nov 2025: The Republican Brain Doesn’t Want To Understand Health Care, subtitled “For 15 years we have heard the same lies and misrepresentations”
There are almost 150 million dwelling units in America. Most homes are covered by insurance, and most home insurance covers losses due to fire. Yet in a normal year there are fewer than 400,000 home fires. Even if we allow for the fact that some homeowners don’t have insurance and some policies don’t cover fire damage, the vast majority of homeowners are paying for fire coverage that they will never use.
Clearly, this is a massive waste of money, a huge giveaway to the insurance industry.
OK, presumably almost no one believes that. While it’s unlikely that your house will burn down, losing your house to fire would be a crushing financial blow if you are uninsured. So we all pay premiums to protect ourselves against disaster. All Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans require home insurance.
Health insurance operates on the same principle. Without health insurance, you are at risk of a catastrophic financial blow if you get sick and require hospitalization. Moreover, even if you don’t require hospitalization, you are more likely to avoid getting regular check-ups and preventative care, thereby making it more likely that you will indeed suffer a health crisis and, possibly, death.
Yet the shutdown drama made it clear, once again, that Republicans, from Donald Trump on down, refuse to understand this basic point.
…
But the fact that Republicans have been misrepresenting how health insurance works since Obamacare was first proposed in 2009 is a testament to their cruelty and intentional ignorance.
And he patiently goes on to explain how insurance works, and how Obamacare was meant to work, and how Republicans after 15 years have never come up with a better scheme. And a line that echoes my repeated observation:
Republicans have lost the ability to think about policies that solve actual problems. Now it’s all a display of fealty to Dear Leader.
\\\
Short Items.
- JMG, 13 Nov 2025, from Gallup Polling: Gallup Survey: US Sees Huge Drop In “Religiosity”
- JMG, 13 Nov 2025, from CNN: Trump: “Costs Are Way Down, Gasoline Is Now $2.50” — — Lying again. CNN has the history of Trump’s false claims about gas prices.
- NY Times, David French, 13 Nov 2025: One of the Founders’ Worst Fears Has Been Realized [gift link] — — How Trump keeps issuing pardons, commutations, or clemency, to criminals who are “either allies of Trump and his associates or used connections to Trump or his family (or helped enrich Trump) to get relief from justice.”
