This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes. If [Congressional Budget Office] 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 that 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. And it’s the second-best argument. Look, I wish Mark was right that we could make it all transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not.He wants his old lack of transparency back. He revealed what he liked so much about it. Now, why can't he have it back? Well, Professor Gruber, it just doesn't work that way. Once you've let us see that you mean to deceive us, we won't get fooled again. Oh... unless you're right, and we really are stupid.
November 11, 2014
MIT prof Jonathan Gruber is sorry he was transparent about the lack of transparency in getting Obamacare passed.
He wants us to know that he was speaking at an academic conference and "off the cuff," when he said:
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I love the near total indifference to this by the MSM. Its like we all know how stupid voters are and we all chuckle at Gruber making this faux pau. Can't we all chuckle at how Texas is outlawing abortion in a similar fashion? Isn't that too good in the long run?
Bastard.
It's always nice when they accidentally reveal themselves like this.
“The comments in the video were made at an academic conference,” Gruber said. “I was speaking off the cuff ...”
As if that doesn't make it more likely that he really and truly meant every word he said.
Gruber is also on record saying that limiting subsidies to only those states which set up their own exchanges was purposeful. It was a stick intended to force states to do what he wanted. Jonathan Gruber has a big mouth.
How did George W put it?
--Fool me once ....
--Fool me twice ....
BTW, Gruber was paid $400,000 in consulting fees for his work on the ACA.
I would think it would be open season on reviewing this asshole's academic work. If you lie and deceive over something as big as Obamacare, his othe work must be rife with all sorts of stuff used to justify his conclusions.
"Gruber was paid $400,000 in consulting fees for his work on the ACA."
Would it be stupid of us to sue him to get our money back?
That's a really on position for Gruber to take. The basis of health insurance, as long as it has existed, has been precisely that health people pay in and sick people get money. But traditional insurance did so at actuarially fair rates, which means, in the last analysis, rates that healthy people in substantial numbers will pay voluntarily to avoid the risk of being unable to care for major medical expenses. That is, commercial insurance is led as if by an invisible hand to create a scheme of redistribution that people will take part in voluntarily.
What the Affordable Care Act does is to make health insurance affordable for the expensively sick by making it unaffordable for the healthy. And since the healthy won't go for that deal for long, it makes their signing up compulsory, with a scheme of penalties. It destroyed a system of workable voluntary income redistribution to create one of unworkable coercive income redistribution.
Can't we all chuckle at how Texas is outlawing abortion in a similar fashion? Isn't that too good in the long run?
Texas is taking the wrong approach. They should embrace the left-wing approach, instead.
Don't try to ban abortion. Simply tax anyone who has one, to recover the taxes lost over the projected lifetime of the aborted fetus.
Who can object to that? After all, both ObamaCare advocates and their supporters in the Supreme Court are on record as saying that it is acceptable to use taxes to discourage socially undesirable behavior and avoid harm to society.
Oh, sure, some might say that this sort of logic focuses exclusively on the upside of the legislation, and not the downside. Fortunately for the anti-abortion movement, the courts do not require legislatures to acknowledge the likely downsides of policies when applying the so-called "rational basis" test.
I recall Obama promising to be the most transparent administration in history.
Cracking eggs, lying, deception - all common core in the leftwing machine.
Hilariously, the collective left are whining about context here. The context is perfectly clear. Gruber is a deceptive cog in the machinery.
400,000 paycheck - tax payer money I suppose.
I believe that Gruber has just admitted to fraud and as an outside contractor, not only are his fees subject to claw-back, but he should be prosecuted.
Somebody needs to get this guy a tune up.
Revenant: "Texas is taking the wrong approach. They should embrace the left-wing approach, instead.
Don't try to ban abortion. Simply tax anyone who has one, to recover the taxes lost over the projected lifetime of the aborted fetus."
Actually, a couple of the approaches Texas took was to require abortion clinics to meet the same standards as any other surgical facility in the state as well as requiring doctors who performed abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital.
He also seems to indicate there were others involve in a plan to conduct fraud. This is known as a conspiracy to defraud the US Government. Very serious crime.
BTW, I think we all know which "stupid Americans" needed to hear the lies in order to believe that ACA was going to be fan-tab-u-lous for America.
We have several of them on these very boards.
And they still believe.
Oh yes, they still believe.
I'm sure the DOJ will get right on this.
Ronan Farrow still has a television show?
An ethical college would fire him for damaging their reputation.
whswhs @7:47 Perfect explanation.
Oh... unless you're right, and we really are stupid.
He is and we are.
The only sin Gruber has committed is to speak explicity of what everyone already knew implicitly. Naturally he'll be savaged -- you can't say out loud that the Emperor has no clothes.
Does anyone seriously think that the way forward from the ACA mess will be toward greater individual liberty and grassroots solutions? Ah ha ha ha. No, the only solution ever attempted to disasters in central planning is still more central planning and tighter control. Hayek made that marvelously clear in his cartoon history of fascism. We're on the road to serfdom.
Only when things completely fall apart do people reconsider the wisdom of collectivist solutions. Collectivism is like alcoholism: you rarely learn from someone else's experience, and you have to really hit bottom before you learn anything at all. Americans have not hit bottom. Things will have to get much worse.
Why does he think that it matters that he was speaking at "an academic conference," do you suppose? Is the implication that he thought he was among friends, or among other smart people like himself as opposed to those morons who disagree with him and don't go to academic conferences, or what? Is it some kind of reference to the academically-prevalent idea that there's no absolute truth, so that people in academia feel free to say all sorts of things without being held accountable for whether or not they're telling the truth? Or what? I'm not seeing how academia fits as part of some kind of defense.
Nor do I actually see a defense anywhere else in what he said -- no "I didn't mean it" or "it wasn't true" or "I don't really think voters are stupid" or even "I'm sorry for hoodwinking the American people with such contempt and and at such an enormous cost," which of course would be too much to ask. There's no there there.
He must truly think we're stupid. Or then again, I believe he made the "apology" on MSNBC, and if that was the audience he had in mind, he could be forgiven for figuring that they were none too bright.
Actually, a couple of the approaches Texas took was to require abortion clinics to meet the same standards as any other surgical facility in the state as well as requiring doctors who performed abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital.
The problem with that approach is that doctors don't think it is necessary. That leaves room for courts to find that Texas is doing it solely to burden abortion clinics -- which, of course, is in fact the sole reason they're doing it.
Would it be stupid of us to sue him to get our money back?
I would condemn him to submit to being covered only through the ACA for all his health care.
Revenant, it's pretty hard after the Gosnell case to argue (at least successfully) that the only possible reason a government might see a need for closer regulation of abortion clinics is to burden the right of abortion.
Trey Goudy just made a great point on TV. He said, remember this the next time somebody tries to sell a big, comprehensive bill. The next big comprehensive bill they want to stuff down the python is the Senate's immigration bill.
Now he's a "little bit" pregnant and "properly" remorseful, but no clinic can help him now.
I really like Revenant's comment.
but....but...context!
is the battle cry I've heard from lefties today.
they lied before, they are lying now, they will lie tomorrow, and the apologists will continue making apologies.
The folks at MIT must be so proud!
"It destroyed a system of workable voluntary income redistribution to create one of unworkable coercive income redistribution."
The seeds of a workable system exist if the Democrats would get out of the way. The Republicans tried HMOs and people didn't like it. The Republicans tried managed care and people didn't like it.
The Democrats know better. They will write a bill that is filled with perverse incentives, doesn't make economic sense and provides poor care.
Then they will use coercion via the IRS to force everyone to agree. What's not to like ?
The ACA is intended as a stalking horse to destroy the existing system and fuck everything up so badly that the public will ask for single payer. If single payer worked, the Soviet Union would have won the Cold War.
Britain uses coercion to make the NHS work. It only works for the poor but that is OK because the middle class and rich have private insurance. If you are poor and old and sick, you are in deep shit.
The retired in Britain who can afford it, move to France and sign up for the French system that actually works pretty well. The biggest problem the French system has now, aside from the crappy job market in France, is British retirees signing up for the system into which they have never paid a dime.
There are web sites that teach you how to sign up for the system
We need to make Obamacare voluntary so, if you are devoted to Obama, and you don't mind high premiums and poor care, you can still sign up. Leave employer health plans alone as no one will trust any attempt at reform for a decade.
The poor can have Medicaid and the uninsurable should have better risk pools that are subsidized. There is no need to blow up a pretty good system to help 10% of the population.
The problem with that approach is that doctors don't think it is necessary
So what, I have a friend who doesn't think it's necessary to holster a sidearm with the safety on ("this is my safety" - index finger)
That's about the dumbest appeal to authority Iv'e seen you make.
How many smoots deep is the hole he keeps digging?
He is arrogant. He just asked MSNBC for forgiveness that he as a trained professional paid liar slipped up and told the truth; but if we will accept he is a human who makes mistakes, he pledges to always and 100% of the time totally lie from here on out.
Mr MIT from Boston actually just admitted the Dem Congresspersons that voted for an unread bill were the stupid ones, and the Tea Party uprising that he distains as uneducated, racist, right wingers was 100% right when it understood the bill from the gitgo and rebelled.
Well, enough of us really are stupid--or, ot least, really were stupid, at least twice--and probably will be again when it counts most.
Social Security, Medicare, and the Civil Rights Act all passed with some Republican support......The only major government initiative that was negotiated without any Republican backing was Wilson's plan for us to join the League of Nations.......This will be detrimental to Gruber's career. Look how Holder fell from grace after he engineered the pardon of Eric Holder. I doubt if Hillary will appoint him to any higher position than VA Secretary.
Ooops, another speak-o from a deceitful arrogant democrat party member. They just can't seem to keep their lies straight.
a great Kinseyan gaffe: he accidentally told the truth.
The problem with that approach is that doctors don't think it is necessary.
It would have spared the women of Philadelphia the clinic of Kermit Gosnell.
"Now, why can't he have it back?"
Megan McCardle put it quite succinctly:
“After you have convinced people that you fervently believe your cause to be more important than telling the truth, you’ve lost the power to convince them of anything else.”
Gruber doesn't matter. He's just another lying liberal. No surprise. The importance of his comments (and there have been several) is that they expose the extraordinary dishonesty of the news media and its willingness to be a propaganda lapdog for the Democrats in a manner so blatant that no one can deny.
Eventually, the corruption will be recognized and changes will be forced. Probably when enough good people heap abuse and social ostracism on every asshole who works for the news media.
Got a letter telling me about the improved benefits that would take effect January first in my health coverage. None of which a couple in their early 60s would use. Hot Damon and thank you Obamacare mandates.
The second page included our 40% repeat 40% premium increase.
"There is no need to blow up a pretty good system to help 10% of the population."
There was no need. But the deed's done.
Progressive lies work.
"There is no need to blow up a pretty good system to help 10% of the population."
It's about control. It really is.
CWJ said...
"Got a letter telling me about the improved benefits ..."
Did you get the letter before or after the election?
A novice mistake for him to go on tv and try to spin his way out of trouble. Just makes it worse. Evidently he doesn't appreciate the wisdom of just putting the shovel down. A not uncommon problem that afflicts the professorial personality more than others.
Embrace the "left-wing" approach: lie, cheat, and steal?
How does exploiting a selective principle (e.g. pro-choice) strategy to degrade human life help to overcome a progressive perception that human life is a commodity, that can be liquidated/aborted when it becomes a burden?
The left's war on women is about taxable activity. The right's war to secure human rights, throughout a human being's evolution, is not.
On the other hand, perhaps a monetary penalty will cause women to reconsider their "choice" in lieu of the natural feedback that was (i.e. death or injury) mitigated through clinical abortions.
Whats funny to me was all of the "goodies" were front loaded to kick in before the 2012 presidential election and the individual mandate and other unpleasant things would follow but remain because the dems got past 2012. Seems like people are still eating dog turds and being promised that the goodies will kick in, eventually, any time now.
"The problem with that approach is that doctors don't think it is necessary.
It would have spared the women of Philadelphia the clinic of Kermit Gosnell"
Asking abortion doctors to have privileges in some hospital is pretty basic when you are treating people, let zone doing surgery on them. When a uterus us perforated during an abortion, and that happens, what do you do ?
We had one of these home delivery people in our community when I was still in practice. Some of them are midwives but this one was an MD of some sort. If his patient in labor did not progress or if she had fetal distress (How would he know with no fetal monitor ?), he would send her to the emergency room for an obstetrician to take care of.
The patient would arrive angry because she had failed to deliver the child and they were almost always uninsured so the OB would be taking care of an angry woman for free. It was a lawsuit magnet. The OBs started refusing emergency room call.
The abortion thing is similar. It is just basic quality control. It isn't an attempt to ban abortion because a lot of doctors do them. They just don't want to do nothing else.
Its pretty simple : he's only sorry he got caught.
He went on Ronan Farrow's show to try to explain himself? That is funny. And revealing. Also not revealing in that few shows have a smaller audience than Ronan Farrow's.
The question Althouse, is not whether your readers are that stupid....
-– you made explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money — it would not have passed…
He's describing the basic principle of all insurance. I have as much faith as anyone in the stupidity of the American voter, but I think most of them already know that.
RecChief,
May I ask: have you ever seen a revolver? Or a Glock (or any of the competing polymer-framed, DAO, striker-fired competing products)?
No safeties anywhere in sight.
This is the most dishonest administration that i can remember. The weird thing is, they don't seem to care.
Can Gruber sue everyone for quoting him out of context; quoting what he said in an academic context in a non-academic context?
Academic Conference = Cathedral Insider Business. Yahoos from the Bazaar: Keep out !
Funny, how some of us WEREN'T deceived, yet were called crazy and Racist for being against 'anything" Obama tried to pass. WE KNEW they were lying, it's all in the math, yet we were told we should go along to get along.
Academia, the mainstream media, the insurers and the Democrats are all guilty co-conspirators. The knew they had to sell a pack of lies, the worked out a the set of lies and purposely and maliciously sold it. In the process, they viciously attacked those telling the truth about the ACA. Which they continue to do today. Meets my definition of evil.
By the way, death panels are coming. Of course they will be called something else by the Obama regime. Hey sickie, you're too costly, time for you to go. Unless, of course, you are politically connected.
Ezekiel Emmanuel, MD, and White House advisor has determined that 75 years is the lifespan we will be allotted by our masters in WDC. This will save the Feds enough $$$ to make their new system financially stable.
Watch as Medicare inevitably begins to steer beneficiaries away from life-extending interventions as they pass this arbitrary age limit.
Glenn Reynolds belief, also backed by Google, that we will live much longer lives appears to be in tension with this "die early" ethos.
It will be interesting to watch these opposing views play out in the culture wars. It will expose the Dems as the collectivist drones they have become, and allow the Repubs to fully seize the high ground of defending life and the natural rights of individuals.
"Drago said...
BTW, I think we all know which "stupid Americans" needed to hear the lies in order to believe that ACA was going to be fan-tab-u-lous for America.
We have several of them on these very boards."
Notice none of them have shown up in the thread. Not hard to understand why.
Jonathan Gruber reminded me of someone, not Woody Allen. Wargames (1983). Malvin. (Apologies - auto play.)
"He's describing the basic principle of all insurance."
I'm more pissed about the lie that people's premiums would go down, on average, $2500.
Kirk Parker said...
RecChief,
May I ask: have you ever seen a revolver?
hahaha yes. The firearm in question was a Beretta 92FS. Which has a safety.
And totally misses the point of my comment. Here, try this one: "Except drunk drivers think setting an alcohol limit is totally unnecessary" or, "Except chicken processors think regular disinfection of the processing floor is unnecessary"
We can do this all day.
Pretty clear the whole ACA passage was a con job. The proponents were just so certain it would pay off politically in the long term that it was worth any lie or trick to get it on the books.
Sort of stupid on their part though, as not only is there a good chance it will never become popular, but this ran the risk of being stymied by the courts. Also, it meant ensuring that the GOP would never cooperate with these people on anything else--even if individual congressmen wanted to, they had to answer to voters who were rightly infuriated by this charade. Even if this were some great law, passing it this way, on a bed of lies and parliamentary tricks, will make the opposition more and more angry about it.
The long term prospects probably include it being dismantled piece by piece, until what remains is unrecognizable. But what this did to our political system will last much longer.
"The basis of health insurance, as long as it has existed, has been precisely that health people pay in and sick people get money."
Well, the basis of most insurance is the buying and selling of the risk of very unlikely yet very costly events.
But what's called "health insurance" has been compared to an auto insurance policy that covers entirely predictable costs such as wiper blades and oil changes: it's part insurance and part pre-payment. Plus the most important part (and what ultimately forces all with any assets into the system): negotiated discounts from unconscionably high "list prices" that no one but the uninsured are ever asked to pay).
Perhaps ACA would have been workable (even with the cross-subsidies) if it hadn't included such a heavy load of mandated coverages. But then it wouldn't have been as attractive politically, would it?
Since government in a democracy is inherently political, it's hardly surprising that a government-mandated insurance plan would be more attuned to political risk than to actuarial risk.
And it's not just young subsidizing old, it's also men paying the same as women, even though at most ages women's actuarial costs are higher. Which might at least be consistent if this principle were carried over to auto and life insurance, and Social Security retirement payments/taxes. But that wouldn't be good politics, would it?
(I've seen "Every election is a sort of advance auction of stolen goods" attributed to both Ambrose Bierce and H.L. Mencken; either seems plausible.)
"Well, the basis of most insurance is the buying and selling of the risk of very unlikely yet very costly events."
Yes. ObamaCare is not insurance.
One party's adherents, alas, are indeed mostly just that stupid, Prof. Althouse. A majority of Americans who voted were just that stupid in 2012, and the country will pay a price for that over many more decades.
Not stupid. Just bombed out of their minds. It is dissociation of risk that is the opiate of the masses, and elites. Obama just pushed what the buyers demanded. A return to childhood innocence and bliss.... through consumption of a potent, hallucinogenic drug.
"Notice none of them have shown up in the thread. Not hard to understand why."
Bitchtits hasn't gotten his talking point marching orders from his lefty websites yet.
Inga is probably still sleeping off another bender.
urious George said...
"Drago said...
BTW, I think we all know which "stupid Americans" needed to hear the lies in order to believe that ACA was going to be fan-tab-u-lous for America.
We have several of them on these very boards."
Notice none of them have shown up in the thread. Not hard to understand why.
It isn't from embarassment I assure you. They are incapable of admitting they're wrong.
They are, however, surfing like mad to find a narrative that will cover this.
We'll hear from the usual suspects sometime this afternoon.
wendybar said...
Funny, how some of us WEREN'T deceived, yet were called crazy and Racist for being against 'anything" Obama tried to pass. WE KNEW they were lying, it's all in the math, yet we were told we should go along to get along.
We were also told that "we need to pass the bill to know what's in it", the sure sign of a con job. Just as millions of us were so easily able to see that Obama was an empty suit in 2008 when all the cool kids (and the wanna bees) and over educated were telling us that he was not only up to the job of being president, he was the best person to ever run for the job. For people with more degrees than a thermometer and fancy Ivy League credentials, they sure were (are) stupid.
Off the cuff was when he spoke his mind.
The truth is Americans, to the high and mighty elite, are stupid, are easy to manipulate, believe in whoever screams the loudest. Who else but the stupid would vote for a man who has no accomplishments but has the politically correct skin color?
Ron Fournier isn't happy, calling it what it is:"Obamacare's Foundation of Lies".
And now, ladies and gentleman, there is a second tape confirming Jonathon Gruber's hatred of Americans and voters.
I think this will get better and better.
A majority of Americans who voted were just that stupid in 2012
A majority of Americans who voted were just that stupid in 2008.
There. Fixed it for you.
Best regards.
now there is a 3rd video of Gruber saying in effect that the American public is stupid.
Another person getting in trouble for saying something that was true.
I knew it would get better. Democrat popularity even lower than before the election.
elkh1 wrote:
"The truth is Americans, to the high and mighty elite, are stupid, are easy to manipulate, believe in whoever screams the loudest. Who else but the stupid would vote for a man who has no accomplishments but has the politically correct skin color?"
Very true, which explains the make up of our political class. Joe Biden is a prominent politician, who shouldn't be allowed out of the house with money in his pocket, Nancy Pelosi, who should have been laughed out of political life for the egregiously stupid, "...pass it to see what's in it," John Kerry, Harry Reid, Middle-Name-Hussein, and a cast of thousands.
"The fault lies not in the stars... but in ourselves," comes to mind.
"Once you've let us see that you mean to deceive us, we won't get fooled again. Oh... unless you're right, and we really are stupid."
Althouse, many of us knew from day one that this bunch of lying weasels were a bunch of lying weasels. We do not need this liar's confirmation to know that he is a liar. His lips were moving, of course he was emitting lies. Have you still not figured out that Leftists Always Lie?
Why are citizen journalists always finding this stuff? The clip was found by some guy who spent the time wading through the video of this conference. (I know why I am just asking a rhetorical question) Is there no one left in the MSM with any professional pride that is tired of being scooped by part time hobbyists? Its safe for them to dump obama now and do their jobs, but they just can't do it.
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