Krauthammer on Gruber and perhaps the end of obamacare

[jem]

By Charles Krauthammer Opinion writer November 13

It’s not exactly the Ems Dispatch (the diplomatic cable Bismarck doctored to provoke the 1870 Franco-Prussian War). But what the just-resurfaced Gruber Confession lacks in world-historical consequence, it makes up for in world-class cynicism. This October 2013 video shows MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber, a principal architect of Obamacare, admitting that, in order to get it passed, the law was made deliberately obscure and deceptive. It constitutes the ultimate vindication of the charge that Obamacare was sold on a pack of lies.

“Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” said Gruber. “Basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass.” This was no open-mic gaffe. It was a clear, indeed enthusiastic, admission to an academic conference of the mendacity underlying Obamacare.

Charles Krauthammer writes a weekly political column that runs on Fridays. View Archive

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First, Gruber said, the bill’s authors manipulated the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which issues gold-standard cost estimates of any legislative proposal: “This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes.” Why? Because “if CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies.” And yet, the president himself openly insisted that the individual mandate — what you must pay the government if you fail to buy health insurance — was not a tax.

Worse was the pretense that Obamacare wouldn’t cost anyone anything. On the contrary, it’s a win-win, insisted President Obama, promising that the “typical family” would save $2,500 on premiums every year.

Skeptics like me pointed out the obvious: You can’t subsidize 30 million uninsured without someone paying something. Indeed, Gruber admits, Obamacare was a huge transfer of wealth — which had to be hidden from the American people, because “if you had a law which . . . made explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed.”


Remember: The whole premise of Obamacare was that it would help the needy, but if you were not in need, if you liked what you had, you would be left alone. Which is why Obama kept repeating — PolitiFact counted 31 times — that “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...4595bc-6b6b-11e4-9fb4-a622dae742a2_story.html

 

[loyek590]

By Charles Krauthammer Opinion writer November 13

It’s not exactly the Ems Dispatch (the diplomatic cable Bismarck doctored to provoke the 1870 Franco-Prussian War). But what the just-resurfaced Gruber Confession lacks in world-historical consequence, it makes up for in world-class cynicism. This October 2013 video shows MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber, a principal architect of Obamacare, admitting that, in order to get it passed, the law was made deliberately obscure and deceptive. It constitutes the ultimate vindication of the charge that Obamacare was sold on a pack of lies.

“Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” said Gruber. “Basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass.” This was no open-mic gaffe. It was a clear, indeed enthusiastic, admission to an academic conference of the mendacity underlying Obamacare.

Charles Krauthammer writes a weekly political column that runs on Fridays. View Archive

• RSS

First, Gruber said, the bill’s authors manipulated the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which issues gold-standard cost estimates of any legislative proposal: “This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes.” Why? Because “if CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies.” And yet, the president himself openly insisted that the individual mandate — what you must pay the government if you fail to buy health insurance — was not a tax.

Worse was the pretense that Obamacare wouldn’t cost anyone anything. On the contrary, it’s a win-win, insisted President Obama, promising that the “typical family” would save $2,500 on premiums every year.

Skeptics like me pointed out the obvious: You can’t subsidize 30 million uninsured without someone paying something. Indeed, Gruber admits, Obamacare was a huge transfer of wealth — which had to be hidden from the American people, because “if you had a law which . . . made explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed.”


Remember: The whole premise of Obamacare was that it would help the needy, but if you were not in need, if you liked what you had, you would be left alone. Which is why Obama kept repeating — PolitiFact counted 31 times — that “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...4595bc-6b6b-11e4-9fb4-a622dae742a2_story.html

??? the supreme court declared the mandate a tax, and it is still alive

 

[Tsing Tao]

This is rather hilarious. "The King of Denial"..

------
What a difference a few years makes...

Here is "President" Obama this week at the G-20 Summit distancing himself as far as possible from Jon Gruber...

2014: President Obama on Jon Gruber
"some adviser who never worked on our staff expressed an opinion that I completely disagree with"

And here is Senator Obama speaking at a 2006 Brookings Institution meeting, cozying up to Gruber and other academics...

2006: Senator Obama On Jon Gruber
"the brightest minds from academia and policy circles, many of them I have stolen ideas from liberally, people ranging from Robert Gordon to Jon Gruber"

Ahaha....what a fucking clown.

 

[Ricter]

Did he have a hand in the design of Romneycare?

 

[dbphoenix]

Wendell Potter

Stupid Is as Stupid Does

When I saw the news coverage of White House health care adviser Jonathan Gruber's remarks, in which he essentially called Americans stupid, I thought of the old saying, "With friends like that, who needs enemies?"

My next thought was, who's being stupid here?

Gruber is an MIT health economist who worked on health care reform with both Mitt Romney, when he was governor of Massachusetts, and the Obama administration. In fact, he's one of the reasons Obamacare looks so much like Romneycare, which Massachusetts lawmakers enacted in 2006.

During remarks he made at the Health Economists Conference at the University of Pennsylvania last year, Gruber claimed that the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats had no choice but to keep the public in the dark, and even mislead folks, about certain aspects of the reform bill as it was being written.

"The lack of transparency is a huge political advantage," Gruber said. "And basically call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever but basically that was really, really critical to getting this thing to pass... "

The White House hired Gruber in 2009 to help figure out the economic consequences of various health care proposals. Considering how inept the Democrats have been from the beginning in explaining how the reform law would benefit all of us -- and why it was structured the way it was -- I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if we found out Gruber had also been hired to provide PR advice on how to sell the law to the public.

The Democrats' strategy seems to have been to say as little as possible both about why reform was needed and how the final law would protect us from insurance industry abuses. Which, fortunately, it does. The problem is that most Americans have forgotten that it does -- if they ever knew about it in the first place.

The reason I decided to advocate for reform after I quit my industry job in 2008 was because of those abuses. When he was running for president, Obama often cited those abuses, but after he became president, he and those around him seemed to forget the importance of constantly reminding the public why reform was necessary.

I got so frustrated at what appeared to be the absence of a communications strategy that I even went so far as to call the White House in the summer of 2009 to offer some unsolicited ideas. I was thanked for my interest but essentially told, "don't worry, we've got this figured out."

A few weeks later, I thought maybe that was true. In an address to a joint session of Congress on September 9, 2009, Obama did indeed remind the public about why reform was needed. He made a pretty compelling case. Here's how he laid it out:

"... But the problem that plagues the health care system is not just a problem for the uninsured. Those who do have insurance have never had less security and stability than they do today. More and more Americans worry that if you move, lose your job, or change your job, you'll lose your health insurance too. More and more Americans pay their premiums, only to discover that their insurance company has dropped their coverage when they get sick, or won't pay the full cost of care. It happens every day.

"What this plan will do is make the insurance you have work better for you," he said. "Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it the most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or in a lifetime ... "​

He also cited a few other provisions of the plan that would provide Americans with "more security and more stability."

I was encouraged because I thought the White House and Congressional reform advocates had once again realized what Americans needed to hear. I thought sure they would develop a communications strategy around those very points.

I thought wrong. The White House and Congressional Democrats let their opponents define the law. And those opponents did a superb job of developing and implementing a communications strategy to turn the public against what they decided to call "Obamacare." That campaign has been so successful it has almost completely obscured the fact that the law actually benefits each and every one of us.

I can only guess that Obama's team was persuaded that a lack of transparency, even about the good the law does, would be better than going to the trouble of trying to explain it.

Now that, in my opinion, is what's really stupid.

 

[jem]

notice the author left out the good it does.
in which case his definition of good must be forced into more expensive plans which have fewer doctors participating.

Wendell Potter

Stupid Is as Stupid Does

When I saw the news coverage of White House health care adviser Jonathan Gruber's remarks, in which he essentially called Americans stupid, I thought of the old saying, "With friends like that, who needs enemies?"

My next thought was, who's being stupid here?

Gruber is an MIT health economist who worked on health care reform with both Mitt Romney, when he was governor of Massachusetts, and the Obama administration. In fact, he's one of the reasons Obamacare looks so much like Romneycare, which Massachusetts lawmakers enacted in 2006.

During remarks he made at the Health Economists Conference at the University of Pennsylvania last year, Gruber claimed that the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats had no choice but to keep the public in the dark, and even mislead folks, about certain aspects of the reform bill as it was being written.

"The lack of transparency is a huge political advantage," Gruber said. "And basically call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever but basically that was really, really critical to getting this thing to pass... "

The White House hired Gruber in 2009 to help figure out the economic consequences of various health care proposals. Considering how inept the Democrats have been from the beginning in explaining how the reform law would benefit all of us -- and why it was structured the way it was -- I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if we found out Gruber had also been hired to provide PR advice on how to sell the law to the public.

The Democrats' strategy seems to have been to say as little as possible both about why reform was needed and how the final law would protect us from insurance industry abuses. Which, fortunately, it does. The problem is that most Americans have forgotten that it does -- if they ever knew about it in the first place.

The reason I decided to advocate for reform after I quit my industry job in 2008 was because of those abuses. When he was running for president, Obama often cited those abuses, but after he became president, he and those around him seemed to forget the importance of constantly reminding the public why reform was necessary.

I got so frustrated at what appeared to be the absence of a communications strategy that I even went so far as to call the White House in the summer of 2009 to offer some unsolicited ideas. I was thanked for my interest but essentially told, "don't worry, we've got this figured out."

A few weeks later, I thought maybe that was true. In an address to a joint session of Congress on September 9, 2009, Obama did indeed remind the public about why reform was needed. He made a pretty compelling case. Here's how he laid it out:

"... But the problem that plagues the health care system is not just a problem for the uninsured. Those who do have insurance have never had less security and stability than they do today. More and more Americans worry that if you move, lose your job, or change your job, you'll lose your health insurance too. More and more Americans pay their premiums, only to discover that their insurance company has dropped their coverage when they get sick, or won't pay the full cost of care. It happens every day.

"What this plan will do is make the insurance you have work better for you," he said. "Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it the most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or in a lifetime ... "​

He also cited a few other provisions of the plan that would provide Americans with "more security and more stability."

I was encouraged because I thought the White House and Congressional reform advocates had once again realized what Americans needed to hear. I thought sure they would develop a communications strategy around those very points.

I thought wrong. The White House and Congressional Democrats let their opponents define the law. And those opponents did a superb job of developing and implementing a communications strategy to turn the public against what they decided to call "Obamacare." That campaign has been so successful it has almost completely obscured the fact that the law actually benefits each and every one of us.

I can only guess that Obama's team was persuaded that a lack of transparency, even about the good the law does, would be better than going to the trouble of trying to explain it.

Now that, in my opinion, is what's really stupid.

 

[loyek590]

show m

Wendell Potter

Stupid Is as Stupid Does

When I saw the news coverage of White House health care adviser Jonathan Gruber's remarks, in which he essentially called Americans stupid, I thought of the old saying, "With friends like that, who needs enemies?"

My next thought was, who's being stupid here?

Gruber is an MIT health economist who worked on health care reform with both Mitt Romney, when he was governor of Massachusetts, and the Obama administration. In fact, he's one of the reasons Obamacare looks so much like Romneycare, which Massachusetts lawmakers enacted in 2006.

During remarks he made at the Health Economists Conference at the University of Pennsylvania last year, Gruber claimed that the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats had no choice but to keep the public in the dark, and even mislead folks, about certain aspects of the reform bill as it was being written.

"The lack of transparency is a huge political advantage," Gruber said. "And basically call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever but basically that was really, really critical to getting this thing to pass... "

The White House hired Gruber in 2009 to help figure out the economic consequences of various health care proposals. Considering how inept the Democrats have been from the beginning in explaining how the reform law would benefit all of us -- and why it was structured the way it was -- I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if we found out Gruber had also been hired to provide PR advice on how to sell the law to the public.

The Democrats' strategy seems to have been to say as little as possible both about why reform was needed and how the final law would protect us from insurance industry abuses. Which, fortunately, it does. The problem is that most Americans have forgotten that it does -- if they ever knew about it in the first place.

The reason I decided to advocate for reform after I quit my industry job in 2008 was because of those abuses. When he was running for president, Obama often cited those abuses, but after he became president, he and those around him seemed to forget the importance of constantly reminding the public why reform was necessary.

I got so frustrated at what appeared to be the absence of a communications strategy that I even went so far as to call the White House in the summer of 2009 to offer some unsolicited ideas. I was thanked for my interest but essentially told, "don't worry, we've got this figured out."

A few weeks later, I thought maybe that was true. In an address to a joint session of Congress on September 9, 2009, Obama did indeed remind the public about why reform was needed. He made a pretty compelling case. Here's how he laid it out:

"... But the problem that plagues the health care system is not just a problem for the uninsured. Those who do have insurance have never had less security and stability than they do today. More and more Americans worry that if you move, lose your job, or change your job, you'll lose your health insurance too. More and more Americans pay their premiums, only to discover that their insurance company has dropped their coverage when they get sick, or won't pay the full cost of care. It happens every day.

"What this plan will do is make the insurance you have work better for you," he said. "Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it the most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or in a lifetime ... "​

He also cited a few other provisions of the plan that would provide Americans with "more security and more stability."

I was encouraged because I thought the White House and Congressional reform advocates had once again realized what Americans needed to hear. I thought sure they would develop a communications strategy around those very points.

I thought wrong. The White House and Congressional Democrats let their opponents define the law. And those opponents did a superb job of developing and implementing a communications strategy to turn the public against what they decided to call "Obamacare." That campaign has been so successful it has almost completely obscured the fact that the law actually benefits each and every one of us.

I can only guess that Obama's team was persuaded that a lack of transparency, even about the good the law does, would be better than going to the trouble of trying to explain it.

Now that, in my opinion, is what's really stupid.

show me one, just one incident in the whole history of health insurance where any company dropped coverage on a client who got sick. Just another democrat lie. If any insurance company ever did that, the insurance commissioner would shut them down so fast they wouldn't know what hit them. Why do you democrats just lie and lie and lie?

And if you lose your job, you will get a msg from the health insurance company asking if you want to continue coverage. Yes, it may now be too expensive, but you don't lose it just because you lose your job. Just another democrat lie.

Obamacare is here to stay, and in twenty years it will be wildly popular. And it will go on the list of other wildly popular programs like Social Security and Medicare. And the new Simpson Bowles will declare it one of the greatest economic problems facing the United States, and if it is not reformed it will go broke.

 

[dbphoenix]

show m

show me one, just one incident in the whole history of health insurance where any company dropped coverage on a client who got sick.

You're kidding, right?

And if you lose your job, you will get a msg from the health insurance company asking if you want to continue coverage. Yes, it may now be too expensive, but you don't lose it just because you lose your job.

But it runs for only a limited period of time. And when that time runs out, you have nothing.

Instead of just reciting talking points, do a little research.

 

[AAAintheBeltway]

Like other democrat programs, it is popular with people who are getting their health insurance payed for by others.

Anyone who is paying full freight knows they are getting shafted and that obamacare is one of the worst pieces of legislation to ever come down the pike.

 

[AAAintheBeltway]

You're kidding, right?



But it runs for only a limited period of time. And when that time runs out, you have nothing.

Instead of just reciting talking points, do a little research.

No , you don't "have nothing." You go out and get a policy like other self-employed people do or you find a job with health care or you go on medicaid.

There were problems, like preexisting conditions, but they coudl have been dealt with specifically.

Obamacare perpetuated two of the biggest problems. One, the issue of health insurance being tied to employment. There is no rational reason the two should be linked. Instead of reforming it, obamacare made it worse with various employer mandates. Employers responded by cutting back hours or avoiding hiring extra employees.

Two, the state by state regulatory patchwork. An obvious reform was to allow insurers to market to nationwide risk pools, instead of state by state as happens now. Again, obamacare reinforced a bad policy and added its own complications.