KRUGMAN: Jimmy Kimmel has 'done more homework on health than any Republican senator'
The Nobel winning economist and New York Times columnist tweeted Thursday that late-night talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel knows more about the current healthcare debate than GOP lawmakers.
"Think about what it means that Jimmy Kimmel has evidently done more homework on health than any Republican senator over the past 8 years," Krugman said.
Kimmel has been waging a war against Republicans for months over their attempts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act and is now battling one of the latest bill's authors, Sen. Bill Cassidy.
The host pointed out that the bill undermines protections for people with pre-existing conditions, which most health policy experts agree with. Cassidy, on the other hand, has denied this despite the analysis.
Krugman has not been shy about his distaste for the new bill, which has become known as the Graham-Cassidy bill behind two of its authors, Cassidy and Sen. Lindsey Graham. The economist has taken issue with the rush to pass the bill before the Congressional Budget Office has the chance to score the bill.
"Graham-Cassidy is bum's rush to stampede Rs before CBO can do its job," Krugman tweeted Wednesday. "But independent analyses are devastating."
In addition to specific issues about the bill, Krugman did say that the broader goals of the Graham-Cassidy bill align with long-term efforts on healthcare by the GOP.
"Everything Graham-Cassidy are doing - snatching health care from millions with false claims and cooked numbers - is standard R practice," Krugman said. "And has been for a long time - the old 'use raw dollars to pretend you're not cutting' thing goes back to Gingrich/Medicare in the 90s."
Here are a few of Krugman's tweets on the bill: