All of this involves future projections of spending, none of it is real. Remember Obama and the Democrats took money out of future Medicare spending and reallocated it to Obamacare in order to make the Obamacare numbers work. This accounting trick doesn’t mean the spending won’t occur, it just means it isn’t built into the projections.
What the author doesn’t say is Krugman, Obama, and the progressive intellectuals don’t believe these projections because the projections don’t model their real plan. Within five years their plan is for all US healthcare to be on the British and Canadian single payer model. Once the government is completely in contral of the health care system they believe they can control costs by limiting services to selected groups (elderly for example), steering research dollars, reducing compensation for physicians, and closing unnecessary facilities. From a revenue perspective they’ll be able to fund the system through premiums. If there isn’t enough money, they’ll just raise premiums on affluent individuals. The HHS bureaucrats will be able to do this without a vote of Congress.
If the Republicans win both houses of Congress in 2014, even if they try to accomplish something (doubtful with Boehner and McConnell as leaders), the Democrats and the press will spend the next two years blaming the Republican Congress for every ill in the country. Obama will certainly use his veto to obstruct anything that might restrict him. In 2016, the Republicans will be on the defensive in the election because they’ll have a record of doing nothing. Also, the construct of the Senate races in 2016 mean the GOP will have more vulnerable Senate seats in play than the Dems. If the Republicans run Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, or Chris Christie for President in 2016, with the same weak campaign strategy they’ve employed in 2008, 2012, and 2014, we will have a President Clinton or Warren elected with Democrat majorities in both houses of Congress. Under that scenario, a single payer system will be passed and signed into law to “fix” the healthcare system. Krugman fully understands this is the plan.