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Here’s Paul Krugman asking Canadians in the crowd whether they dislike their health care system (which is run by the government). He’s clearly expecting them to say no, thereby strengthening his view that publicly run health care systems are generally popular. To his surprise, they aren’t all that enthusiastic.

What does this prove? Not that much, to be honest. After all, there are only seven Canadians in the audience, so it’s quite possible that they are in the minority. Still, Krugman was presumably willing to take the opposite answer as supporting his view, so it seems a bit dishonest to just act as if the actual answer was meaningless. As David Henderson writes:

But here’s what is most striking to me about the 30-second segment: what Krugman says when he finds evidence that contradicts his priors. Krugman says, “Bad move on my part.” In other words, the conclusion he draws is that he made a strategic debating error in calling on the audience to evaluate the Canadian health care system. Now, he could have said that you can’t tell much about the Canadian system by asking 7 people to evaluate it. But, of course, he was quite willing to use that evidence had it gone his way: otherwise, why ask the question? Not quite to the standard of his hero, John Maynard Keynes, of the “When the facts change, I change my mind” quote.

This post is more about the debating style than the merits of private vs public health care systems, of which it says very little. My suspicion is that if Obama does get a health package through, people will find themselves rather disappointed with its costs and ineffective mega-bureaucracy. After all, as a European, I would not wish to see an EU-run health care system anytime soon …

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