How desperate are Barack Obama and ObamaCare fans to minimize the damage wreaked by jonathan gruber?
Let me answer the question by posting a New York Times idiotorial on the subject from today\’s paper…in rust, with my comments in blue:
Jonathan Gruber, a health economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a strong supporter of health care reform. But his careless comments at academic forums last year, caught on videotapes that surfaced recently, can only harm the reform cause. Mr. Gruber said in one comment that the Affordable Care Act relied on a “lack of transparency” and the “stupidity of the American voter” to gain passage. He said in another comment that the “Cadillac tax” on expensive employer-provided health insurance passed only because voters were “too stupid to understand it.” “A health economist”? Not a major architect of ObamaCare? Nothing more than “Careless comments”? How about “revealing” and “scandalous”? Don\’t like those descriptions? Okay, let\’s move on.
Both comments are doubly offensive. First, they insult ordinary Americans. And they’re largely wrong. “Largely wrong”? That\’s it? That\’s your rationale for trying to get by the gruber scandal? I can\’t wait to see how you try to flesh this one out.
There was no lack of transparency. Stop right there. We have our first outright lie. jonathan gruber is on videos – several of them (so far) – specifically telling us he intentionally structured the economic model to be deceptive. And you are going to pretend there was no lack of transparency? Well, at least we know how transparent the Times editorial board is. Two Senate committees and three House committees held extensive public hearings on versions of the bills and debated them for days on the floor. Republicans sat in on all the committee meetings and were well aware of what was in the bills. Not even a nice try. gruber\’s comments about lack of transparency did not relate to the hearings, they related to how the bill was presented to the general public – which the Times editorial board of course knows full well. That\’s two outright lies in one paragraph (with the lies of omission coming up).
Mr. Gruber said that if the law had made explicit that healthy people would have to subsidize benefits for sick people it would not have passed. But everyone involved and the insurance industry itself understood that the bills would create risk pools of healthy and sick people to spread out the costs. It is true that Democrats did not make clear how many people would have to pay more for insurance, or how much more, but few politicians trumpet the downsides of their bills. Yes, democrats hid the truth about ObamaCare costs and who would pay those costs, because they wanted it to pass. However – lie of omission here – you left out the fact that Republicans continually told the truth about both…and were mercilessly attacked for doing so by, among others, the New York Times.
Mr. Gruber said further that the law was written in a “tortured way” to make sure that the Congressional Budget Office did not refer to the penalties for not buying insurance as “taxes.” The budget used the congressional language, and, in truth, the penalties were designed to push people into buying insurance. Hey hey hey. An honest paragraph. How lonely it must feel.
Mr. Gruber also alleged congressional duplicity in its approval of the “Cadillac tax,” an excise tax on high-cost insurance policies provided by employers. Mr. Gruber said Congress took advantage of the fact that voters were “too stupid to understand” that workers would ultimately pay part of this tax when it was passed along by the insurance companies. This was clearly understood by economists and labor unions. Do you guys ever read what you write? I ask that because, if you do, I can\’t imagine how you could write it. The point wasn\’t whether “economists and labor unions” understood how this worked, it was whether the general public did — which you, of course, knew but declined to mention (another lie of omission). Can\’t have any of your readers exposed to a hint of reality, can we?
Republicans are crowing over Mr. Gruber\’s remarks because he has been portrayed as a major architect of the health reform law. In truth, his role was limited. He had a big contract with the White House to use his econometric model to calculate the financial and coverage effects of proposed measures. And he was one of 13 experts who advised the Senate Finance Committee. His comments should not be taken as evidence that the reform law was hatched in secrecy and foisted on the public by trickery. Such a “limited role” that gruber\’s name was all over the President\’s and Speaker Pelosi\’s web sites – and both of them are on video giving him vast credit for ObamaCare. But I do thank you for showing us, again, just how far you are willing to stray from logic , common sense and, of course, truth, to protect your lord and savior Barack Obama\’s signature
disast…er, legislation.
That\’s how desperate they are.
Pretty pathetic, wouldn\’t you say?
