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.
http://youtu.be/6d21jDvpi_U
p.s.
I purposefully left out the V.A. as an example to model a National Health Care system on. The passing of Thomas Young on Monday should remind us all the cost of war and the mistreatment he suffered at the hands of a militarized health care system that has been long mismanaged…
Annie,
In all seriousness, I’m all for a Universal coverage plan modeled on the medicare system managed like our current Social Security system (although it too, needs revisions). We all pay in throughout the year on paycheck deductions into a specified Health Care system/group that manages payouts based on deductions allowed by the health care provider. Anything not meeting deductions is considered out of pocket expense and yes, there would be upper limits. The provider is paid an annual salary that is managed through the same Health Care management system/Administration. Basically saying, health care providers would become sub-contractors of the Federal Government serving the Nation’s welfare and well being thus eliminating the need to ‘pad’ charges into the system as some practitioners have been caught doing. The same theory could be applied to home health care workers/family as they could be subsidised for their time and costs would be covered by the network plan (resulting in more quality of home health care and no need to ‘pad’ bills. Anyway, it’s just an idea…
“It is a revenge the devil sometimes takes upon the virtuous, that he entraps them by the force of the very passion they have suppressed and think themselves superior to.”
George Santayana
Annie
“HRH 676 Expanded Medicare for All”
= = =
Are you a Socialist or something… 😕
rafflaw talking ill of Palin and Fox news over this story? really?
“Fanaticism consists of redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.”
George Santayana
Oops… meant loyalists.
Wierd… I typed lobbyists and didn’t think twice about it…
Freudian of me to do THAT…
Darren Smith @ 4:26
“And the acceptance and advocacy of this notion by supporters of current and future administrations is one reason abuses will further continue.”
= = =
It’s what Lobbyists do best…
“It’s never when my Team does it.”
(plug nose and look forward)
One reason why the American voters are stupid?
I just went to CNN.com and put Grubers name in the search box after not seeing any articles on the front page about this story.
Search turned up nothing about this story. Last article about him was in July.
That is how American media operates today. Bury the truth especially the truth that is damaging to its partisan political side.
“the press is our chief ideological weapon” – Nikita Krushchev
I want to point out to all the leftists on here.
When one of your leaders says that the Democratic party was counting on the stupidity of the American voters, they were NOT talking about the Republican voters because they knew that they would be opposed to Obamacare anyways.
No, what they needed was the Democrat/Obama voters to shout down the opposition to Obamacare…..and that means YOU. You are the “stupid voters” they were counting on. You should be insulted but most of you will probably keep drinking the koolaid anyways.
Oh and for the record righty, most of the Republican voters are stupid also. In fact most American voters period are uninformed idiots blindly voting by party.
anon, for people who ridiculed Sarah Palin all this time, it will trigger a nervous break down for them to admit that she was right and they were wrong. So, I would not expect them to admit that they were so wrong. It will be much easier for them to be contemptuous of foxnews (and ignore the reality), or the voters who voted in the midterms.
And for those inclined to want to watch the above mentioned proceedings…
(4 a.m. EST on Wednesday and 9 a.m. EST on Thursday.)
Live United Nations Treaty Body Webcast
http://www.treatybodywebcast.org/
Max-1
“Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2014, hearing before the Human Rights Committee of the UN in Geneva. I hope a law blog somewhere covers the details this Administration is accused of…”
= = =
more…
The U.N. Puts America on the Hot Seat for Torture
https://www.aclu.org/blog/human-rights-national-security/un-puts-america-hot-seat-torture
Full report:
American Civil Liberties Union Shadow Report to the 3rd-5th Periodic Reports of the United States, Submitted to the 53rd Session of the UN Committee Against Torture
https://www.aclu.org/capital-punishment-criminal-law-reform-human-rights-immigrants-rights-national-security-prisoners-ri
anon,
@ Obama on mandated ins.
In my best Obama Wan Kenobi voice:
“This is not the Obama you are looking for…”
(wave hand, up-down motion, front of monitor)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/opinion/health-care-reform-beyond-obamacare.html?_r=0
WE need death panels. By Steven Rattner
Steven Rattner, a contributing opinion writer, was a counselor to the Treasury secretary in the Obama administration.
Darren Smith
Thanks… I’ve been on the run today and by the time I even got to check out postings of JT’s, I saw there were 240+ posts to this thread and I had a few minutes on a break and just had to mention Ms. Pelosi’s statement about the level of transparency needed for the American public because, after all she supported Mr. Obama and believes in his transparency program to pull the wool over the American citizen’s eyes…
Sarah Palin was right. Why dont you admit it instead of using the typical leftwing deflect defense. No honesty, no integrity at all.