Krugman on Education, Health Care

A few days ago, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman drew an equivalence between government provision of education and medical care for children:

We offer free education, and don’t worry about middle‐​class families getting benefits they don’t need, because that’s the only way to ensure that every child gets an education — and giving every child a fair chance is the American way. And we should guarantee health care to every child, for the same reason.

His argument would have more force if government actually ensured that every child gets an education. 


I once attended a dinner discussion with a bunch of health care big‐​wigs. One highly educated woman — she is both an M.D. and a J.D. — began the dinner by declaring, “We need to make health care a right in this country, just as we make education a right.”


Later in the dinner, she complained that her organization’s materials must be written at an 8th‐​grade level to be understood by their target audience. 


I interrupted to ask how she reconciled those two statements: if we really have created a right to education, why the poor reading comprehension? And if we create a parallel right to health care, how many people’s medical care will be stuck at an 8th‐​grade level? Her answer was non‐​responsive.


It would be nice if Krugman and others would at least acknowledge that tradeoff.