Sunday, June 21, 2015

EXPOSED MIT Economist Had Bigger Role in Obamacare Than Previously Publicly Known: He ID'd 'Obamacare 'Losers'

Jonathan Gruber, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist whose comments about the health-care law touched off a political furor, worked more closely than previously known with the White House and top federal officials to shape the law, previously unreleased emails show, reports WSJ.

WSJ goes on:

The emails provided by the House Oversight Committee to The Wall Street Journal cover messages Mr. Gruber sent from January 2009 through March 2010. Committee staffers said they worked with MIT to obtain the 20,000 pages of emails.

They depict frequent consultations between Mr. Gruber and top Obama administration staffers and advisers in the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services on the Affordable Care Act. They show he informed HHS about interviews with reporters and discussions with lawmakers, and that he consulted with HHS about how to publicly describe his role.

The administration has sought to distance itself from the MIT economist in the wake of his controversial statements in a 2013 video where he said the health law passed because of the “huge political advantage” of the legislation’s lacking transparency. He also referred to the “stupidity of the American voter.”...
The White House has described Mr. Gruber as having a limited role in crafting the law. President Barack Obama in 2014 said Mr. Gruber was “some adviser who never worked on our staff.”... 
The emails show Mr. Gruber was in touch with key advisers such as Peter Orszag, who was director of the Office of Management and Budget, an arm of the White House that oversaw federal programs.

He was also in contact with Joshua Furman, an economic adviser to the president, and Ezekiel Emanuel, who was then a special adviser for health policy at OMB.

One email indicates Mr. Gruber was invited to meet with Mr. Obama. In a July 2009 email, he wrote that Mr. Orszag had “invited me to meet with the head honcho to talk about cost control.”...
He also in April 2009 supplied HHS with information outlining “winners and losers” if employers responded to the law by moving workers into the exchanges.

In a May 2009 email, he said there would be 3.6 million “losers” who were forced into individual coverage after the health care overhaul. “As you might suspect, this group is largely young and healthy,” he wrote...

In a Sept. 23, 2009 email, Mr. Gruber emailed Ms. Lambrew saying “pharma is going to be a huge winner from this bill—maybe $15 billion/year in incremental revenue. Any way to go after them harder for financing?

3 comments:

  1. Son of Climate-gate.
    Let's hope the bastards never figure out the danger of emails.

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  2. Mr Grubber was sadly all too correct.....
    You can hoodwink the American voters. Not only that, the voters can accidentally find out that an entire policy was engineered to fool them, and still not understand that they were fooled. Furthermore, a great many will not have learned anything from the admitted deception, and will fall for the same trick bait again, and again. Its analogous to the street magician, that admits to the public viewers that his game is stacked...yet, they continue to bet on the fixed game.

    It was done with the Social Security Act, but no one woke up. It was done with ACA (ObamaCare).

    Thus, I suggest voters must pass an IQ test, which of course many liberals and socialists will pass (I assume), but then further test them to see if they can answer questions, both pro and con , on the facts of the issue, bill or candidates. This will be similar to the drivers license test, accept its a permit to vote.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sadists like Cass Sunstein, and Ezekiel Emanuel are ecstatic when they nudge Baby Boomers through the demographic python to oblivion.

    ReplyDelete