We previously discussed the statements of Jonathan Gruber, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist who played a major role the ACA, or “Obamacare,” where he repeatedly endorsed the theory at the heart of the recent decisions in Halbig and King by challengers to the ACA: to wit, that the federal funding provision was a quid pro quo device to reward states with their own exchanges and to punish those that force the creation of federal exchanges. That issue will now be decided by the United States Supreme Court. Gruber caused a considerable controversy when, after he had denounced the theory as “nutty” during the arguments in Halbig and King, he was shown later to have embraced that same interpretation. Having been paid almost $400,000 as an architect of the ACA, Gruber has become a major liability in the litigation. Now Gruber is back in the news with an equally startling admission that the Obama Administration (and Gruber) succeeded in passing the ACA only by engineering a “lack of transparency” on the details and relying on “the stupidity of the American voter.”
Gruber’s remarks were made on a panel given roughly a year ago on Oct. 17, 2013. Notably, this was at the height of the tension over the ACA. While I have long supported national health care, I was critical of the sloppy drafting of the ACA, the federalism conflicts contained in the individual mandate provision, and the unsupportable claims made by the White House in selling the Act. The last concern was the subject of Gruber’s comments. Gruber told the crowd that the “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage.” He also said that “basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.”
Gruber also later states that New York Sen. Chuck Schumer (D.) is someone who “as far as I can tell, doesn’t understand economics” while calling a staffer for Sen. Olympia Snowe (R., Maine) an “idiot.” The later reference appears to be a reference to aide William Pewen.
The specific comments on the bill are transcribed as follows:
“This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. Okay, so it’s written to do that. In terms of risk rated subsidies, if you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in – you made explicit healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed… Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really really critical for the thing to pass… Look, I wish Mark was right that we could make it all transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not.”
I was concerned that these lines were taken out of context so I watched the video below:
What is fascinating is that Gruber is open about what has long been hidden in this Administration: the lack of transparency as a tactical political vehicle. The ACA was pushed through by a muscle vote on a handful of votes while the Administration made claims that he later had to admit were misleading at best, such as the President’s repeated assurance that citizens could keep your current insurance policy if you liked it.
Gruber also admits that the Administration crafted the law to avoid it being supported by a tax despite Chief Justice John Roberts’ later decision that it was a tax. Gruber says that, while he would have preferred to be honest and open, such considerations had to be set aside in the interests of passing the law — even by less than honest means.
In a truly ironic twist, the University of Pennsylvania tried to pull back the admission on the lack of transparency by pulling the video:
It was too late. The video was out.
In fairness to Gruber, he was doing what an academic is supposed to do in honestly assessing what he believed occurred in the historic passage of the ACA. While he later sought to deny the earlier comments that he made on the state exchanges (in a less than candid moment), there is thus far no comment from him on this latest video. As in the earlier admissions, there has been little relative coverage by the mainstream media of the comments. Once again, the lack of media attention is surprising given the importance of Gruber to the ACA and the Administration.
UPDATE: Gruber went on MSNBC to say that his comments were “inappropriate” while the host insisted that his comments were misunderstood as “nuanced” observations.
So…leejcaroll
Are you applying this same context matters philosophy to the Rush Limbaugh law suit. Where the DNC took a few second sound bite from a rather long segment, put it into political advertisements and claimed that Rush is supporting rape and then tried to coerce his advertisers to pull their ads in an effort to drive him off of the air and to economically harm him and his advertisers?????
If context matters, then you should be DEFENDING Rush Limbaugh.
Right?
On my page it is not showing the video so I do not know if it is the original 1 1/2 hours or the 53 second clip that Squeeky and the right are touting which is taken out of context. He said what he said but context matters
We folks from the outside are waiting to see if the Republican Party holds true to its promise to the American voters in this past election. They are going to repeal ObamaCare as soon as new guys are sworn in. You folks can then go back to Blue Cross Blue Shield. Then you can also stop trying to force any human to not smoke tobacco. I know that Boehner and his crew all do. The medical care approach and the smoking habits will keep the population down and not let the seniors get too old. This is a plan which we promoted on another planet and it worked fairly well. My take on this is that the new Republicons take office in January, pass a bill by the end of the month and then wait for the President to veto it. Then pass a vote to over ride the veto. this should all be done by June. If not then you folks who voted for these new guys need to inquire as to why it is so slow. Maybe they are liars and really like Obamacare. Maybe they have a kid with a pre existing condition who needs Obomacare in order to get any insurance coverage and hence survive.
If some clunk got cancer from smoking up on Remulak we would not wait for him to have his battle with cancer but would pull the plug so to speak.
@ Tom
It doesn’t seem as if Gruber is expressing any concerns about the ACA/Obamacare. He is proud of the deceptions, the convoluted language and that they managed to ‘pull one over’ on the stupid American voter.
Gotta break a whole lot of eggs to make THIS omelet and then force feed it to the American public.
So, Gruber “in fairness” is doing what an academic is supposed to do by NOW being honest about his earlier investment in dishonesty to get his personal opinions on healthcare imbedded in each and every American citizen’s life? Wow…just wow. What we have here are several generations of progressives that have been coached in the self righteousness of their natural entitlement to override other American’s individual right to self management. That entitlement is based on their belief in self as smarter, extending to therefore better able to control the lives of everyone else. Lies, misrepresentations, Orwellian language mechanisms are just seen as Marketing 101 steps/means to the glorious progressive ends. This thinking is at the bottom of the IRS conduct, Benghazi actions/inactions, “smidgeons of corruption”, the ACA, Fast & Furious, EPA false emails, DOJ media targeting AND are supported by the same thinking in the top echelons and lower levels of what is suppose to be the “watch dog” media. It is done with hubris, pride even…and is unconscionable. It’s going to be a long slow process back. But, those that are willing voted and those that are willing are reporting. Those that are willing are speaking out, like the good Professor Turley. Integrity of the Democratic Republic that is America depends on it.
While it is always refreshing when truth manages to rise up from this
administration, the revelations were well known by those of us
paying attention at the time. We were called “haters” and conspiracy
theorists when in fact all we wanted was reform that got care to
the needy without upending the health care system for everyone else, without giving the federal government control, and without
costing $3 trillion. (Once the illegals are added on, it will cost
$3 trillion and we saw that coming also.) What I find stunning is the
number of people who didn’t know they were being lied to at the time. It’s frightening what havoc a willfully blind and incompetent media can cause. Political correctness is a WMD.
I’m not a fan of Obamacare. And I’m glad Jonathan Gruber spoke out against it. It does concern me, however, that he took nearly $400,000 to help design/implement Obamacare, without expressing his concerns THEN.
I won’t try to put forward my objections to Obamacare now, but Gruber expressed many of my own feelings about the ill-conceived Obamacare Act.
Just wish he’d spoken out earlier.
While I don’t endorse use of the tactics which gruber says were used to get the ACA passed, I’m wondering when was the last time we had actual transparency during the process of enacting legislation of any significance. Legislation is frequently written by lobbyists who get language inserted, sometimes at the 11th hour, often without debate. Just as one example, the enactment of the Patriot Act was equally deplorable from a standpoint of transparency.
I’m not holding my breath for Scalia to ignore Gruber in the written opinions that will be issued after the latest ACA case is argued. Scalia should ignore Gruber’s statements using Scalia’s own method of statutory construction but likely will not do so. Scalia is one bright dude, but his intellectual honesty is inversely proportional to his ego.
(There is a good article on the use of textualism to interpret the relevant language of the ACA over at Scotusblog. )
Until partisans stop saying, “but Bush” and acknowledge the failings of the current President, as Turley to his credit does, the country will always be at risk.
Why stop at Bush? Why not but Nixon? but Roosevelt, but Jackson?
We need to sop defending our parties and personalities to the death and start defending the Constitution and truth to the death. What better day to start than Veteran’s Day?
I don’t see any of our lefty friends commenting.
Speak up guys, this is your chance to blame Bush.
Amazing how silent they are when the facts are indefensible.
This is the most transparent the current administration has ever been on an issue.
I would stay focused on the post.
Kevin is a pawn defense.
Kevin – would you link to your claim on the Medicare Part D?
I really doubt if the SC will consider his testimony although it would be fun to see. It puts the court at odds with the crafters off the bill. Most transparent government evah!!!!
@Nick Spinelli, thanks. The Chicago Way? Very similar to this is how Chicago’s ACLU/American Library Association fills American libraries with child porn.
Lol…what is most hypocritical is the author of this article ignoring the analogous “lack of transparency” in the GOP passage of the Medicare Part D law in 2003–particularly the fact that it would have a huge gap in coverage for consumers–and the fact the CMS Administrator was essentially fired for being proven to have given knowingly false cost estimates to Congress.
safelibraries, The MSM went all in on Obama. They remain in his back pocket.
Thanks for posting this. I’ve see it elsewhere but wanted your take on this. The lack of transparency and abject derision for voters is the Chicago way.
And where is the main stream media on this?