Althouse: Q: "If there are fewer elderly people, particularly poor elderly people, wouldn't that save a ton of money too?... And do you understand the dangerous implications of going down this path?"

December 9, 2014

Q: "If there are fewer elderly people, particularly poor elderly people, wouldn't that save a ton of money too?... And do you understand the dangerous implications of going down this path?"

A: I have no philosophy of abortion. I have no philosophy of end-of-life care.... My job as an economist is to deliver the empirical facts so that you all can make the necessary decisions."

73 comments:

MadisonMan said...: What a dreadful man.

I was only doing my job.; 12/9/14, 4:40 PM
richard mcenroe said...: Jonathan Gruber, Zeke Emanuel... all we need is to find out Albert Speer designed the 2008 inauguration columns...; 12/9/14, 4:41 PM
Jaq said...: Notice the ironclad assumption that welfare is a permanent lifestyle, and not a hand up for the down and out.; 12/9/14, 4:41 PM
richard mcenroe said...: This is becoming more and more the third script for Iron Sky...; 12/9/14, 4:41 PM
Deb said...: He's sorry he said those words. He's sorry they were made public. Doesn't mean he didn't and doesn't believe every one of them.

Dreadful man indeed.; 12/9/14, 4:42 PM
Jaq said...: Imagine the tax revenue if all of those aborted children had attended decent schools with teachers who cared about educating them and got decent jobs!; 12/9/14, 4:43 PM
Clayton Hennesey said...: How irresistible might those inexplicable retirement city fires become as the definitive entitlement reforms of a generation.

"Oh, finish your sandwich first, Jim. After all, they all had rich, full lives, didn't they? Pie?"; 12/9/14, 4:44 PM
sinz52 said...: On this one, I happen to agree with him.

The economics and the mathematics are indisputable, even if the morality stinks.

And I don't believe that one should fail to note uncomfortable truths, just because they make you uncomfortable.

We would be a richer country if we didn't have to carry a lot of unproductive people, such as the elderly who no longer work and are filing huge Medicare claims. That's an indisputable fact.

We CHOOSE not to go that way based on our moral qualms.

There are many such things we CHOOSE not do despite potential benefits. We don't perform medical experiments on adult human beings without their consent, for example. Not because such experimentation wouldn't be useful (it might be), but simply because it's immoral.; 12/9/14, 4:51 PM
Paul said...: Shades of Adolph Eichmann and Josef Mengele.

Yes he would have made a real good Nazi soldier. And in fact, he is the perfect socialist.

No humanity, all calculation.; 12/9/14, 4:51 PM
Dave Schumann said...: So the answers to the questions are "yes" and "no" respectively.; 12/9/14, 4:53 PM
Anonymous said...: I imagine if this were a Republican administration and a Republican scandal, you'd have several Republicans that would be angry and asking tough questions.

And these Republicans would be featured on the nightly news, day in and day out.

What's wrong with the Democrat party that they all walk in lock step?; 12/9/14, 4:56 PM
alan markus said...: Since entitlement programs seem to be Democrat inspired, how about running the numbers to see how much money could be saved by having less Democrats.; 12/9/14, 5:09 PM
Original Mike said...: I watched most of the hearing. Gruber's basic theme was he didn't believe the things he said.; 12/9/14, 5:10 PM
Big Mike said...: What's wrong with the Democrat party that they all walk in lock step?

I've been wondering that myself. Apparently independent thought has been purged from what's left of the Democrat party. Now it's groupthink all the way down.; 12/9/14, 5:11 PM
n.n said...: I wonder if Gruber characterizes himself as a whistleblower. Not only did he expose the condescension of the so-called "best and brightest" towards the folks, but also their population control interest through premeditated abortion and rationing medical care. It seemed self-evident when Obamacare was revealed to be merely a redistributive monetary scheme, but it helps when an insider presents it in stark relief.; 12/9/14, 5:12 PM
Drago said...: Original Mike: "I watched most of the hearing. Gruber's basic theme was he didn't believe the things he said."

That's ok.

The lefties believe what Gruber said before was true and the lefties believe what Gruber said today is true.

All at the same time.; 12/9/14, 5:13 PM
Original Mike said...: He blamed the misunderstanding on the fact that he was expounding on political matters that he was unqualified to address. "I'm an economist, not a politician."; 12/9/14, 5:13 PM
Original Mike said...: He feigned ignorance when asked about his claim in the first video that the bill was constructed to deceive the OMB scoring exercise.; 12/9/14, 5:16 PM
The Godfather said...: Killing unborn children -- or born children -- in poor families may save the welfare state money, but that assumes there's a welfare state. It also assumes that poor children are fungible, that it doesn't matter whether the poor child that's aborted/killed is a potential Andrew Carnegie or Louis Pasteur or Abraham Lincoln. Or even whether the aborted/killed child would have been your great grandmother.; 12/9/14, 5:17 PM
averagejoe said...: "We would be a richer country if we didn't have to carry a lot of unproductive people, such as the elderly who no longer work and are filing huge Medicare claims. That's an indisputable fact."

What this sentiment excludes is the work that those unproductive old people did in their productive younger days to make this a richer country.; 12/9/14, 5:17 PM
Skeptical Voter said...: Gruber is a utilitarian. Which also means he's a "tool". In his case the tool is a dipstick.; 12/9/14, 5:23 PM
Ellen said...: The $6,000,000 tool.; 12/9/14, 5:28 PM
garage mahal said...: How many people will die from Republican governors refusal to expand Medicaid? #deathpanels; 12/9/14, 5:30 PM
Hagar said...: Not only do the Democrats deny that they have ever met Professor Gruber, but if I understand this right, he now says he does not know any of them and he is not the "architect of Obamacare," he just devised some minor computer simulations.

Is he not setting himself up for some civil suits for fraud?
Collecting 6 million dollars in fees for "not very much"?; 12/9/14, 5:32 PM
Deirdre Mundy said...: Garage-- well, since apparently the states that DID expand medicaid didn't expand the physician networks that accept it...

No one, really. Though, how many new Medicaid members will die when they have to wait 2 weeks to see a PCP for that fever/neck/backache thing?; 12/9/14, 5:34 PM
richard mcenroe said...: If we took Senators out and hanged them after two or three terms, wouldn't that save money on pensions and gold-plated medical plans too?; 12/9/14, 5:34 PM
richard mcenroe said...: "What this sentiment excludes is the work that those unproductive old people did in their productive younger days to make this a richer country."

"I know, Ma, but what have you done for me LATELY?"; 12/9/14, 5:36 PM
DKWalser said...: I listened to the first few minutes of Gruber's prepared statement. It contained at least one significant falsehood: He claimed that he never believed that the ACA denied tax credits to residents of the states that had failed to establish their own exchanges and that his comments in the videos that indicate otherwise were taken out of context. (He said that the proper context was that the credits would be available because either the state or federal government would establish an exchange.) This is demonstrably false because in one of the videos Gruber says Congress was saying to the states: You don't have to establish an exchange, but if you don't, your residents will still have to pay the tax to fund Obamacare, but they won't receive the tax credits.

If the "context" for Gruber's comments were that those using a federal exchange were eligible for tax credits, how could the residents of a state that did not establish an exchange be denied credits? They would not and the states would have had no incentive to establish their own exchanges. Every state would have opted to use the federal exchange, leaving it up to the feds to pay for the development and maintenance of these complex vehicles. (The ACA provides some money to the states for development of an exchange, but the federal subsidy of state exchanges are limited in duration and in amount. The state burden of the creating and maintain is significant and there's no reason for them to do so if the feds would incur those costs and the state's residents would receive the same benefits.)

This is important because the falsehood is part of Gruber's prepared testimony to the Committee, so it cannot be a mere slip of the tongue. His willingness to lie about this point in sworn testimony tells us a lot about his character and about the importance his masters place on this particular point of contention. I hope members of the Committee pressed him on this question and that the Supreme Court was paying attention.; 12/9/14, 5:39 PM
Paul said...: "What's wrong with the Democrat party that they all walk in lock step?"

They are socialist. Just as the NAZI party was socialist.

All it takes is to let their 'progressive' beliefs go to their logical conclusion and you end up with the National Socialist Party (NAZI.)

Simple as that.; 12/9/14, 5:40 PM
garage mahal said...: We know 80,000 people were kicked off Medicaid and advised to sign up for subsidies on the ACA website. I wonder how many were able. Most can't afford it. Walker is a staunch pro lifer so I'm sure he knows what he's doing.; 12/9/14, 5:43 PM
n.n said...: Just wait and watch as religion (i.e. moral philosophy) creeps in and rears its ugly head. Not to mention [false] articles of faith: choice! and extraordinary leaps of rationalization.

I wonder if Americans are ready to have that conversation. You know, the one about faith, religion, and the universe, as they pertain to individual dignity and intrinsic value.; 12/9/14, 5:44 PM
Original Mike said...: What I thought Gruber said was that the context of his state/federal exchange video comment was that he was unsure at the time that the Feds would have any exchange at all; i.e. if a state didn't set up an exchange then the residents of that state would have no exchange at all. This is the first I've heard this argument and don't know if it is consistent with the history of the bill.; 12/9/14, 5:47 PM
n.n said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/9/14, 5:50 PM
n.n said...: One positive outcome, is that the multi-trillion dollar welfare economy will come under closer scrutiny. This may actually help people, rather than subsidize redistributors. It will also aid people to distinguish between needs and wants, between necessities and luxuries. The former which has suffered under semantic creep and induced market distortions that harm most Americans.; 12/9/14, 5:53 PM
Bob Boyd said...: We need to stop letting these people get away with the self flattery of calling themselves progressives.

Central planning is progress?
Lying and propaganda as official policy is progress?
The illusion of representative democracy replacing the real thing is progress?
The surveillance state is progress?
A two tier society of credentialed elites ruling the masses is progress?
The rule of law replaced by the rule of powerful individuals is progress?

Let's start calling them Gruberists.
Its an ugly word for an ugly philosophy.; 12/9/14, 5:59 PM
Michael K said...: Years ago, I wrote a proposal to study the frail elderly and their health care, based on the premise that they are not enthusiast about expensive care and spending a modest amount of money getting their present status stabilized would reduce costs. There was pretty good data supporting this but, of course, I could not get everybody to agree because "everyone knows" that the elderly cost more to care for.

The doctors were enthusiastic but the administration of the university medical center killed the proposal. If anyone is interested, It is here

Had it happened, it might have been a major step in the care of elderly in assisted living but it never happened. It's easier for people like Gruber and Emmanuel to kill them.; 12/9/14, 6:05 PM
MathMom said...: He is sorry, but not in the way we want him to be.

He is sorry that he got caught, sorry that he's on the hot seat in front of Congress, sorry that he's being publicly humiliated, sorry that his income is about to take a serious nosedive, and sorry that he doesn't look good in orange.; 12/9/14, 6:08 PM
garage mahal said...: Hospital stays are getting safer, new report says.

"The reasons for the changes are not fully understood, but they occurred at a time of "concerted attention by hospitals throughout the country," the report says. Those efforts were spurred in part by safety initiatives and payment incentives called for in the Affordable Care Act, officials say."

Wow! 50,000 lives. Thanks Obama.; 12/9/14, 6:13 PM
pm317 said...: This Obama crowd is nasty and disgusting,(not talking about just Gruber, think Dunham and her ilk, all the young media journolisters and bloggers, the Sharptons and his ilk, on and on).; 12/9/14, 6:23 PM
DKWalser said...: What I thought Gruber said was that the context of his state/federal exchange video comment was that he was unsure at the time that the Feds would have any exchange at all; i.e. if a state didn't set up an exchange then the residents of that state would have no exchange at all. This is the first I've heard this argument and don't know if it is consistent with the history of the bill.

If this were Gruber's argument, he'd have to explain why the law provides for the federal government to create an exchange for the states that fail to do so. The law refers to both types of exchanges (federal and state) in several places where, for example, it provides certain requirements are to apply to both types of exchanges. In other places, provisions only mention one type of exchange -- such as the section that provides for tax credits for consumers purchasing insurance from a state's exchange.

As for the legislative history, there isn't a lot of it. However, the chair of the Senate Finance Committee explained at a hearing that the purpose of limiting tax credits to state-sponsored exchanges was to serve as an incentive for the states to create exchanges. (Senator Baccus was discussing a predecessor bill that he sponsored which served as a model for the final bill.)

It's clear that the limitation of credits to state-sponsored exchanges was intentional. Gruber knew it and he explained the rationale in the months after ACA was passed. Unfortunately for him, some of his explanations were caught on video and now he has to lie under oath about it.; 12/9/14, 6:31 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: What happened to the old and sick in the days before the welfare state?
In Larks Rise to Candleford (the books, not the execrable BBC series) Flora Thompson described in detail what happened to people too old to work in rural England in the 1880s.
Their kids took care of them. If there weren't kids, their care fell on their parish. In practice this meant the workhouse. Terrible way to end your life. Half-starved in prison-like conditions, and they would put the husband and wife in separate workhouses. Heartbreaking, really.
Thompson mentioned an old widow who got by with a cow and a beehive donated by the village, and one couple who had managed to save enough during their working lives to scrape by on the interest. Everyone else was either cared for by their children or ended up in the poorhouse.; 12/9/14, 6:39 PM
cubanbob said...: garage mahal said...
How many people will die from Republican governors refusal to expand Medicaid? #deathpanels

12/9/14, 5:30 PM"

If we changed the retirement benefits of public sector employees to only the amount they would have received as private sector employees collecting Social Security and Medicare at the respective ages they would qualify if they were in the private sector think of all the money that would be saved. If public sector unions were banned think of all the tax money that could be saved. If only citizens of the US in full possession of their civil rights were allowed to collect Medicaid and other unearned entitlements think of all the money that could be saved. The deadbeat core base of the Democratic Party is unsustainable in their cost.; 12/9/14, 6:52 PM
Birkel said...: sinz, above: We would be a richer country if we didn't have to carry a lot of unproductive people...

Obama, earlier: We must import 20 million Mexican and Central American workers.

Me: Scratches head, wondering where the cold, calculating utilitarianism went.

Anybody care to explain how Gruber's comments RE: ObamaCare can be square with Obama's comments RE: illegal immigration?

Bueller?; 12/9/14, 6:57 PM
Michael K said...: "Still, the report found hospitals harmed patients 3.9 million times in 2013 and that nearly 10% of patients were hurt in some way. "That rate is still too high," the report says."

Thanks garage. The hospitals are avoiding sick people and it works great !; 12/9/14, 6:59 PM
Hagar said...: Just listened to CBS News and this jumped out at me from Nancy Cordes, that the criticism of the ACA by Republicans now was terribly unfair, because at the time it was voted on they knew exactly how it was being financed.

But was not that why they all voted against it?; 12/9/14, 7:00 PM
JackWayne said...: Garage, you are the consummate liar. Nothing you say is worth a damn.; 12/9/14, 7:14 PM
Jupiter said...: It's a pretty funny paper. He points out that people who are aborted are 35% less likely to die as infants.; 12/9/14, 7:20 PM
khesanh0802 said...: @ Garage. I hate to spoil your day but the linked article debunks the 50,000 lives saved. Spurious use of statistics! Surprise! Surprise!; 12/9/14, 7:27 PM
glenn said...: Cue the rail cars.; 12/9/14, 7:29 PM
Revenant said...: The right-wing reaction to Gruber's statement reminds me of the left-wing reaction to skepticism about the Rolling Stone rape report.

Both groups confuse "acknowledgement of facts" with "enmity to our cause", whenever the facts are unhelpful to the cause in question.; 12/9/14, 7:37 PM
garage mahal said...: The hospitals are avoiding sick people and it works great !

What?; 12/9/14, 7:58 PM
Hagar said...: And I presume that by that line of reasoning, the Democrats in Congress should not be blamed, because they had no idea what was in the bill?; 12/9/14, 8:06 PM
Paul said...: "Anybody care to explain how Gruber's comments RE: ObamaCare can be square with Obama's comments RE: illegal immigration?"

Sure. The Nazis imported lots of immigrants to help their cause.

They were called SLAVE LABOR.

No doubt they hope to make Mexicans slaves via welfare like they did the blacks.; 12/9/14, 8:24 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: Revenant wrote:"Both groups confuse "acknowledgement of facts" with "enmity to our cause", whenever the facts are unhelpful to the cause in question."

I suspect, Revenant, that you do not understand the dangerous implications of 'going down this path'.; 12/9/14, 8:31 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: "I was just following orders."; 12/9/14, 8:41 PM
Revenant said...: I suspect, Revenant, that you do not understand the dangerous implications of 'going down this path'.

There are no dangerous implications to understanding economics, apart from a risk of boring people at parties.

There are, however, dangerous implications to assuming that "acknowledging a cost savings from an action" is the same as "endorsing the action'. The primary danger there is that it increases the amount of ignorance and emotional hysteria in a national political environment that's chock-full of both.; 12/9/14, 8:45 PM
Fritz said...: "Once de rockets goes up, who cares where ze come down! Dats not my Department" says Werner Von Braun.; 12/9/14, 8:56 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: Revenant, the question was asked by a GOP rep named Massie. "If there are fewer elderly people, particularly poor elderly people, wouldn't that save a ton of money too? ... And do you understand the dangerous implications of going down this path?"
"this path" did not refer to understanding economics. If it did Massie would have said "fewer elderly people, particularly poor elderly people, wouldn't that save a ton of money too? ... And do you understand the dangerous implications of understanding economics?"
You might look up the phrase "lebenswertes leben".; 12/9/14, 9:02 PM
traditionalguy said...: The most influential Economc School that ever wrote evil ideas down has reemerged big time today. It is behind every politically decreed mass death in the last 165 years. And its disciples are meeting in Peru as we speak crafting evil plans for reducing human life on the planet by 80% or more.

Gruber uses its only tool which is predictions of a sure thing catastrophe from a shortage of food, shelter, clothing and especially the energy needed to produce and transport it.

Peak oil was a sure thing 5 years ago. Peak food production was a sure thing 40 years ago. Global weather heating was a sure thing 30 years ago. The need to starve 3 million Irish to death was a sure thing 165 years ago...all according to the eminent English catastrophe theorist Thomas Malthus.

It is the Satanic Beast's great lie supporting his Eugenics, Communism, World Government Elites, Racism and Colonial wars.; 12/9/14, 9:09 PM
chillblaine said...: "How many people will die from Republican governors refusal to expand Medicaid?"

Medicaid recipients actually do worse than people without any insurance at all.

I wouldn't wish Medicaid on my worst enemy.; 12/9/14, 9:15 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: I am with Traditional Guy. We know what happens when socialist governments apply economics to human existence. In the 1930s the Soviets exported food and starved people to death because guys like Gruber showed Stalin a positive balance sheet would result. It was good for the State.
Gruber has a wife and children. If he looked at them as purely economic entities we'd call him a monster. If he looks at your wife and kids as purely economic entities, what do we call him? Hero? Civil servant?; 12/9/14, 9:23 PM
Achilles said...: garage mahal said...

"How many people will die from Republican governors refusal to expand Medicaid? #deathpanels"

Not nearly as many as will die because Obamacare will produce a massively inefficient health care system.; 12/9/14, 9:32 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: garage mahal said...

"How many people will die from Republican governors refusal to expand Medicaid? #deathpanels"
What does he think will happen when the state is in charge of rationing health care? A scarce good will become a free good? #Understanding Economics; 12/9/14, 9:40 PM
Original Mike said...: "How many people will die from Republican governors refusal to expand Medicaid? #deathpanels"

Let's ask Cynthia Lummis.; 12/9/14, 9:41 PM
Achilles said...: Progressives continue to support eugenics.

Shocker. Really.

They need all those old people that tend to vote republican to die sooner so their imported voters will make more of a difference.; 12/9/14, 9:43 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: I've read published, personal letters by German soldiers in WW2. When they described the horrors that they had inflicted on innocent men, women, and children, they would occasionally mention that they had had to conquer their 'sentimentality' to do so. Always that one word, 'sentimentality'.; 12/9/14, 9:59 PM
n.n said...: Abortion doesn't require a philosophy. It doesn't require faith. It is self-evident that human life begins with conception. It ends with a natural, accidental, or premeditated death. The only question that needs to be answered is: when and by whose choice does human life acquire and retain value?; 12/9/14, 10:29 PM
David said...: Garage: "hospital stays getting safer"

Even Garage can not bring himself to defend this moral dung pile named Gruber.; 12/9/14, 10:48 PM
David said...: garage mahal said...
The hospitals are avoiding sick people and it works great !

What?

Ask Michelle. Enabling U. of Chicago Hospital to avoid poor sick people was part of her job.

(And by the way Garage it's well known that some hospital pump their outcome numbers by declining to be involved in the riskiest cases. This tactic will probably increase as the bureaucracy "ranks" hospital based on mechanical outcome tests, which is already beginning.; 12/9/14, 10:53 PM
Michael K said...: Blogger garage mahal said...
"The hospitals are avoiding sick people and it works great !

What?"

I don't expect you to understand, garage. I've been in medicine since 1966. Private hospitals used to have these people who came around trying to sell patients extra services. Then, in 1986, something called "DRGs" came and suddenly, those same people were telling the same patients they had to go home. Now !

It's called "Sicker and quicker."

I don't expect you to understand.

You might some day.; 12/9/14, 11:20 PM
Michael K said...: To help you understand, garage

WHEN MY cellphone rang, I expected the emergency-room doctor with an update on my father’s condition. Diagnosed with pneumonia and an apparent infection, my dad was in a holding area while waiting for a hospital bed to clear.

“I need your plan for discharge,’’ announced a hospital official whose name I had to extract.

Does that help ?; 12/9/14, 11:24 PM
Michael K said...: Then they die at home, garage; 12/9/14, 11:25 PM
Achilles said...: Michael K said...
"Then they die at home, garage."

But at least it was free!; 12/10/14, 1:03 AM