When Republicans defend junk health insurance plans that leave Americans bankrupt during an illness or variable-rate energy plans in Texas that result in $16,000 bills during severe weather, they use words like “options” and “choice.” But liberal economist Paul Krugman, this week in his New York Times column, argues that Americans shouldn’t be encouraged to choose options that can leave them in financial ruins.
Krugman comments, “Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor of Texas, is clearly what my father would have called a piece of work…. He suggested that Texans who found themselves with $17,000 electricity bills after the February freeze had only themselves to blame, because they didn’t ‘read the fine print.’ Funny, isn’t it, how politicians who denounce liberal elitists sneer when ordinary Americans get into trouble? But something else struck me about Patrick’s take on supersize power bills: How did we become a country where families can face ruin unless they carefully study something as mundane, as normally routine, as their electricity contract?”
The Times columnist goes on to lament that unregulated electricity in Texas “isn’t a unique example” of an option that can prove disastrous. Continue reading.