Megan notes that when Obama is Krugman's target instead of Bush

more people start to wince and complain.

Harold Pollack, a credentialed expert on health policy, having taken the drastic step of reading the actual study, gives us the answer: Gruber's imagined Obama-like plan with a mandate achieves the feat of virtually universal coverage by ... assumption.

Gruber:

In particular I assume that 95% of those who would not voluntarily choose to insure are forced to insure through the mandate.

[emphasis added]

So the "finding" comes out of precisely nowhere. Of course if the mandate succeeds, it will increase coverage, with most of the cost coming from the people paying those mandatory premiums rather than the [other] taxpayers. But the claim that it will actually succeed is based on nothing but an assumption. And yet no reasonable reader of Krugman's column would understand that.

Welcome to the club. Would that we could get a coalition to banish silliness like this from all political discourse, not merely the kinds we don't like. And yes, I'm sure I don't do a very good job of criticizing people I agree with either.