Obamacare architect openly talks about how Democrats lied to voters about what was in the Obamacare bill

Jonathan Gruber: This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure that CBO did not score the mandate as taxes.  Score the mandate as taxes and the bill dies.  OK, so it was written to do that.  . . .
Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage.  Call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever. But basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass.
And you know it is a second best argument.  Look, I wish Mark was right we could make it all transparent, but I would rather have this law than not. . . .

Certainly there is voter ignorance, but Gruber's admission that they purposely hid information from voters is maddening.  Sometime voters are wrong, though Gruber seems to think that is the common state of things, but in this case I believe that voters were smarter than this economist.  But the open lying about what was in the bill is amazing.

For more on Jonathan Gruber see these posts.

UPDATE: Jon Gruber now says that he just misspoke when he made the above comments.

"The comments in the video were made at an academic conference," Gruber said on "Ronan Farrow Daily." "I was speaking off the cuff. I basically spoke inappropriately. I regret having made those comments." . . .  

On Tuesday, Gruber said he only meant that much of ObamaCare's financing was done through the tax code, calling that more "politically palatable" than other means.
"That was the only point I was making," he said. . . . .

People can watch the above video themselves and judge whether Gruber simply wasn't speaking clearly. 

Obamacare: Jonathan Gruber blatantly lying about whether federally run health insurance exchanges get a subsidy

It is rare for a prominent academic to so blatantly lie repeatedly for purely political purposes.  Unfortunately, for MIT's Jonathan Gruber there are videos to prove it.  Here is a video of Gruber in January 2012 where he makes it completely clear that only state run insurance exchanges get federal subsidies (see discussion starting at 31:55 in video):

JONATHAN GRUBER: What’s important to remember politically about this is if you're a state and you don’t set up an exchange, that means your citizens don't get their tax credits—but your citizens still pay the taxes that support this bill. So you’re essentially saying [to] your citizens you’re going to pay all the taxes to help all the other states in the country. I hope that that's a blatant enough political reality that states will get their act together and realize there are billions of dollars at stake here in setting up these exchanges. But, you know, once again the politics can get ugly around this.

It is crystal clear that the subsidy was limited to only state run insurance exchanges to force states to set up their own exchanges.

Well, that was then and this is now.  This past week on MSNBC Gruber can be seen claiming that there was never any intention to limit federal subsidies to state run exchanges and that the exclusion of the subsidy was just a result of an unintentional "typo" (video available here, transcript from Grabien).

MATTHEWS: "Why would Democrats put in a poison pill that says, 'oh, if you don't have a state exchange you can't give subsidies and you can't have the individual mandate so the bill is dead.' Why do that? Where is the logic?" 

GRUBER: "Someone wrote today a clever thing. When we fight about the Constitution we wonder what the framers really mean. We don't have to wonder. We know what the framers meant. We can ask them. We can go to the people who wrote it and say did you ever intend this as a poison pill or is it a typo every single one says it's a typo? And every single one of them will say this is just a typo. So there is no mystery here. There is no wondering about original intent in writing the law. This is just a typo. And if the courts pass it and it makes it to the Supreme Court, we are talking about 7 million Americans who would become uninsured because of this typo, if they really interpret it this way. It's just crazy."

Gruber is racking up a long list of whoopers:  promises that Obamacare would "for sure" lower health insurance costs, hiding that he was being paid $400,000 from the Obama administration to help work on and promote Obamacare while pretending to be a purely independent analyst, and possibly changing his positions on health care issues after he started working for the Obama administration.

Forget Jonathan Gruber's promises that Obamacare would "for sure" lower health insurance costs

Remember Jonathan Gruber's crucial analysis that played such a central role in getting Obamacare passed?  Remember his promise that passage would greatly reduce health insurance costs?  He promised" "we know for sure the bill will do is that it will lower the cost of buying non-group health insurance."  Remember that this is the same guy who got paid about $400,000 from the Obama administration and failed to mention it in all the media that he did pushing Obamacare?  Well, as best as I can tell from Gruber's statements is that for some states that already have a lot of mandates, the cost of health insurance will pretty much stay the same, but in other states the cost will go up, often by a lot.  Of course, none of this includes the impact from the ban on pre-existing conditions exclusion.


Avik Roy of the Manhattan Institute has the story here:

As states began the process of considering whether or not to set up the insurance exchanges mandated by the new health law, several retained Gruber as a consultant. In at least three cases—Wisconsin in August 2011, Minnesotain November 2011, and Colorado in January 2012—Gruber reported that premiums in the individual market would increase, not decrease, as a result of Obamacare.
In Wisconsin, Gruber reported that people purchasing insurance for themselves on the individual market would see, on average, premium increases of 30 percent by 2016, relative to what would have happened in the absence of Obamacare. In Minnesota, the law would increase premiums by 29 percent over the same period. Colorado was the least worst off, with premiums under the law rising by only 19 percent. . . .
"It is important to recognize some limitations in our modeling of prices. In particular, given publicly available data we cannot incorporate the effects of the ban on pre-existing conditions exclusions. . . . ."

Roy's piece is worth reading.

"Come clean" Lawrence O'Donnell

Lawrence O'Donnell on his MSNBC show introduced Jon Gruber this way the other night.

Lawrence O'Donnell, MSNBC host: "Alright, come on. Come clean. You were in the room with President Obama discussing healthcare reform and you did in fact work with the Romney administration in Massachusetts. Come on Professor, you've got to tell us the truth."

Jonathan Gruber, MIT professor: "The truth is that the Affordable Care Act is essentially based on what we accomplished in Massachusetts. It's the same basic structure applied nationally. John McDonough, one of the other advisers,who work in both Massachusetts and advised the White House said 'it's the Massachusetts with three more zeros.' And that's basically a good description of what the federal bill did." . . .

Is it true that Gruber work with the Romney administration on Romney care? Well, Gruber helped advise both Romney and Democratic state legislators. Is it true that he met with Obama to discuss what happened in Massachusetts? Yes, but Gruber was a lot more involved than O'Donnell indicates and he was involved in such a way that might affect how accurately he portrays events. Namely, that Gruber was paid almost $400,000 by the Obama administration to help them push Obamacare. Even worse, Gruber has already been attacked for making public statements without making this deep involvement with the Obama administration clear. What is of greater concern now is that the Obama administration is targeting Romney and they may be using Gruber coming forward right now to achieve that goal.

Democrats might be using Gruber to try to weaken Romney's chances of getting the Republican nomination.

MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, one of the leading academic defenders of health care reform, is taking heat for failing to disclose consistently that he was under contract with the Department of Health and Human Services while he was touting the Democrats' health proposals in the media.

Gruber, according to federal government documents, is under a $297,600 contract until next month to provide "technical assistance" in evaluating health care reform proposals. He was under a $95,000 HHS contract before that. . . .

Gruber claims that the money didn't influence his policy recommendations, but he misses the point. He should have revealed that he was getting $392,600 from the Obama administration and then let the viewers of the shows that he was on make the call. Here is what Kate Pickert wrote on a blog for Time Magazine:

Still, if I had known Gruber had such a contract, I would have disclosed this fact to readers when I quoted him. (For the record, I would have still quoted him and I was aware that he was one policy expert among many who advised Congress. Quoting him in an Oct. 13, 2009 story I identified him as "a respected MIT economist who has advised lawmakers on health reform.") But the attribution should have gone further. I'm of the belief that readers should have as much information about sources as possible within the confines of journalistic writing. . . .

A blog at the Washington Post has this:

I wasn't aware of that, and if I had been, I would've made sure it was disclosed when I quoted Gruber. On the other hand, the implication that Gruber is somehow a paid shill for this bill belies a fairly long and consistent record in support of health reform, and in particular, this type of health reform. . . .

What surprises me is how sympathetic these discussions are towards Gruber. I can't find any correction or note on this in the newspaper or main website for the Washington Post. Here is a critique of Gruber's piece. So how much of the media is mentioning the amount of money that Gruber received? A Google News Search at 2:30 AM the day after the story on Gruber broke got 10 hits searching on ""Jonathan Gruber" $296,600 OR $400,000 OR $392,600." Five of those ten were to the leftwing blog (FireDogLake).



Personally, I don't think that the $392,600 altered Gruber's views, though I would be willing to bet that Gruber supports campaign finance regulations because he claims that even much, much smaller amounts can corrupt politicians. However, the amount of money that he was given is also pretty amazing for an academic doing consulting for the government. A Google News Search on "Jonathan Gruber" for 2008 and 2009 found 240 hits, most very prominent places.

In defending himself, Gruber told Politico: “I have been completely consistent with my academic track record.” Did Gruber alter his position on health care regulations over time? Say since 2007? It appears that the answer is "yes." Merrill Goozner, a health care policy blogger and NYU professor, notes:

Hmmm. What about this March 2007 paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research, which he co-authored. It looked at the effect of higher out-of-pocket co-pays for retired public employees in California. Gruber found that they led to higher hospitalization rates as old folks with chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease cut back on physician visits and necessary drugs.

These offset effects are concentrated in patients for whom medical care is presumably efficacious: those with a chronic disease. . . Our findings suggest that health insurance should be tied to underlying health status, with chronically ill patients facing lower cost-sharing.

What will happen after the excise tax hits high-cost insurance plans, according to Gruber today? 80 percent of employers will ratchet down plan benefits to keep their costs under the tax cap. The only way they can do that is by raising co-pays and deductibles and eliminating benefits. The extra money employers save will be returned to workers as higher wages, which they can choose to either use to pay for health care or pay other bills. And as his own research points out, many will choose to cut back on necessary care, and some will wind up in the hospital.

“There’s literally no evidence out there that people are going to suffer,” he told the Washington Post earlier this week. He should re-read his own paper.

RomneyCare and ObamaCare

Jeff Jacoby has this zinger among many for Romney:

In most important respects, including the individual mandate, RomneyCare became the model for ObamaCare. MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, who helped design the Massachusetts law, told The Wall Street Journal in April that “if any one person in the world deserves credit for where we are now [with passage of the new federal law], it’s Mitt Romney. He designed the structure of the federal bill.’’ . . .

Academic fails to acknowledge that he was being paid by the Obama administration while he was pushing for their policies in the media

Will he be attacked in much of the media for this? Will the Washington Post run a story on Gruber given that they published an op-ed piece by him without stating that he was being paid by the Obama administration?

MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, one of the leading academic defenders of health care reform, is taking heat for failing to disclose consistently that he was under contract with the Department of Health and Human Services while he was touting the Democrats' health proposals in the media.

Gruber, according to federal government documents, is under a $297,600 contract until next month to provide "technical assistance" in evaluating health care reform proposals. He was under a $95,000 HHS contract before that. . . .

Gruber claims that the money didn't influence his policy recommendations, but he misses the point. He should have revealed that he was getting $392,600 from the Obama administration and then let the viewers of the shows that he was on make the call. Here is what Kate Pickert wrote on a blog for Time Magazine:

Still, if I had known Gruber had such a contract, I would have disclosed this fact to readers when I quoted him. (For the record, I would have still quoted him and I was aware that he was one policy expert among many who advised Congress. Quoting him in an Oct. 13, 2009 story I identified him as "a respected MIT economist who has advised lawmakers on health reform.") But the attribution should have gone further. I'm of the belief that readers should have as much information about sources as possible within the confines of journalistic writing. . . .

A blog at the Washington Post has this:

I wasn't aware of that, and if I had been, I would've made sure it was disclosed when I quoted Gruber. On the other hand, the implication that Gruber is somehow a paid shill for this bill belies a fairly long and consistent record in support of health reform, and in particular, this type of health reform. . . .

What surprises me is how sympathetic these discussions are towards Gruber. I can't find any correction or note on this in the newspaper or main website for the Washington Post. Here is a critique of Gruber's piece. So how much of the media is mentioning the amount of money that Gruber received? A Google News Search at 2:30 AM the day after the story on Gruber broke got 10 hits searching on ""Jonathan Gruber" $296,600 OR $400,000 OR $392,600." Five of those ten were to the leftwing blog (FireDogLake).



Personally, I don't think that the $392,600 altered Gruber's views, though I would be willing to bet that Gruber supports campaign finance regulations because he claims that even much, much smaller amounts can corrupt politicians. However, the amount of money that he was given is also pretty amazing for an academic doing consulting for the government. A Google News Search on "Jonathan Gruber" for 2008 and 2009 found 240 hits, most very prominent places.

UPDATE: In defending himself, Gruber told Politico: “I have been completely consistent with my academic track record.” Did Gruber alter his position on health care regulations over time? Say since 2007? It appears that the answer is "yes." Merrill Goozner, a health care policy blogger and NYU professor, notes:

Hmmm. What about this March 2007 paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research, which he co-authored. It looked at the effect of higher out-of-pocket co-pays for retired public employees in California. Gruber found that they led to higher hospitalization rates as old folks with chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease cut back on physician visits and necessary drugs.

These offset effects are concentrated in patients for whom medical care is presumably efficacious: those with a chronic disease. . . Our findings suggest that health insurance should be tied to underlying health status, with chronically ill patients facing lower cost-sharing.

What will happen after the excise tax hits high-cost insurance plans, according to Gruber today? 80 percent of employers will ratchet down plan benefits to keep their costs under the tax cap. The only way they can do that is by raising co-pays and deductibles and eliminating benefits. The extra money employers save will be returned to workers as higher wages, which they can choose to either use to pay for health care or pay other bills. And as his own research points out, many will choose to cut back on necessary care, and some will wind up in the hospital.

“There’s literally no evidence out there that people are going to suffer,” he told the Washington Post earlier this week. He should re-read his own paper.