Paul Krugman calls Romney's health plan a "sick joke"

I often disagree with Paul Krugman, and last week was no exception when he called Romney's health plan a "sick joke,"  Krugman was being far too kind to Romney.

Not only does Romney's plan not work for those with preexisting conditions, as Krugman points out, it doesn't even work for people such as myself who are healthy and have been continuously covered since the day they were born. Those with group insurance and those on Medicare have no idea how bad things are for people like me with access to neither. Under current law - that is to say, Obamacare - the problems will be fixed a little over a year from now.

Romney talks about banning exclusions of preexisting conditions for those who have been continuously covered, but would let insurance companies simply refuse to offer insurance policies to those people (one company refused to offer my healthy daughter a policy because they claimed she had acne). You'll never hear that in Romney's stump speech, but one proof that Romney opposes "guaranteed issue" is a reference on mittromney.com to "high risk pools." Second, Romney remains silent regarding insurance companies charging higher premiums for those with preexisting conditions, a reprehensible practice that, under Obamacare, becomes illegal on January 1st, 2014. Finally, by not ensuring virtually everyone is covered, Romney does nothing to address the high rate of medical bankruptcies, and does nothing to solve a nasty problem called "adverse selection."

Krugman correctly points out that Romney's plan does nothing for the uninsured or those who have had gaps in their coverage. But Romney's plan won't even work for people like me who are healthy and have been continuously covered.