Obama Care architect said Obama Care passed under the premise that the American voters or people were too stupid to understand the true cost and disguised the costs/taxes of the ACA.
"And while it’s nearly impossible to slow down a snowball of spin while it’s still picking up speed, now would be an excellent time for everyone to pause, take a deep breath, and appreciate the degree to which this story isn’t quite what it appears to be.
First, there’s the obvious question most of the country is probably asking: Who the hell is Jonathan Gruber? Some on the right would you believe he was directly responsible for writing every word of the law; some on the left would have you believe he was an irrelevant outsider with little influence.
The truth in this case is somewhere in between: Gruber is a respected economist who helped shape the blueprint for both Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan and the ACA.
He was, in effect, an influential numbers-cruncher who had a hand in shaping the system. Gruber didn’t work on Capitol Hill or the White House, but he was a paid contractor.
Second, if you consider the context of Gruber’s remarks, he notes that the Affordable Care Act “was written in a tortured way” for largely political reasons, which is true. As was widely discussed at the time – i.e., during the 2009 congressional debate, before the ACA passed – policymakers were constantly trying to accommodate perceptions when drafting the proposal, avoiding even hints of controversy because they were terrified of political blowback. Lawmakers in both parties do this all the time on key issues.
But that’s a key detail that’s been largely ignored this week: Gruber wasn’t saying ACA proponents hoped to exploit public ignorance; ACA proponents lived in constant fear of public ignorance derailing the entire effort.
As Neil Irwin put it, “Here’s the dirty little secret: Mr. Gruber was exposing something sordid yet completely commonplace about how Congress makes policy of all types: Legislators frequently game policy to fit the sometimes arbitrary conventions by which the Congressional Budget Office evaluates laws and the public debates them.”
What about the notion that a “lack of transparency” created a “huge political advantage”? At face value, that doesn’t even make any sense – the entirety of the ACA process couldn’t have been much more transparent. There were countless open hearings, debates, meetings, and reports, all played out under the spotlight over the course of a year. Congressional Republicans have worked in secret, behind closed doors, on an ACA alternative for five years, but the process of creating “Obamacare” was the polar opposite.
The problem here, again, is context. Jon Chait explained:
Gruber was not talking about passing the law in a non-transparent fashion. Conservatives believe the law was passed non-transparently, but nobody who supported it considers this anything but a bizarre description of one of the most drawn-out public and legislative debates in the history of Congress.
Gruber was surely referring to the non-transparent mechanism of regulating insurance companies, causing them to charge less to the sick and more to the healthy, without Congress having to carry out those transfers through direct taxes.
The Washington Postreported on Gruber’s comments, saying the policy “was crafted in a deliberately deceptive way in order to pass Congress.” But here’s the question the political world should be asking themselves right now: what deception? What exactly did we not know about the law before that we know now?
There is nothing; that’s the point. Indeed, as Sarah Kliff noted today, “If Obamacare allies were indeed trying to dupe American voters into liking and supporting health reform, they did a pretty terrible job.”
One idea that comes up in MIT health economist Jon Gruber’s recent comments about Obamacare’s drafting is that legislators were able to take advantage of “the stupidity of the American voter” to make Obamacare sound more appealing. And putting aside whether or not that was actually the plan, most survey data we have suggests that the lack of awareness about Obamacare is hurting, not helping, the law’s popularity.
And that’s where the irony kicks in. Republicans are running around screaming, “Obamacare’s architects think Americans are stupid!” but it’s the law’s opponents that have spent the last several years misleading the public, creating baseless fears, and exploiting public confusion in order to help sabotage the American system for craven, partisan reasons.
So where does that leave us? With a sideshow. The Affordable Care Act is working extremely well and every Republican prediction – literally, every single one – about the law’s failings has turned out to be wrong. Instead of talking about that, the right has decided what really matters is a year-old panel discussion in which an economist Americans haven’t heard of raised a legitimate policy point in a clumsy and offensive way.
Paul Waldman added, “Their reaction [to the Gruber story] shows that for all the talk of ‘governing,’ the incoming GOP Congress is going to treat the next two years like one long episode of the Rush Limbaugh show.
The most urgent question will be not whether they can make some kind of positive change, or even whether they can make progress on their particular policy goals. The question is whether they can score points, win the morning, get the administration on the defensive. For that, you don’t have to get anything done; every day is a new opportunity to express your outrage, which is an end in itself.”
It's one of those things that many know goes on but don't talk about. It's one of those you're not supposed to talk about it. A hide in plain sight secret. Apparently this guy was just "a" contributor, not the designer. But the tax and costs should've never been disguised. The "tortured" language is far too common as is the late night vote as are riders/earmarks. Throw in the actual politics(let's make a deal-vote for mine and I'll vote for yours) it's business as usual although I must admit a 900 page bill with individual penalties should not be usual.
