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Flashback 2009: Reid Praises Gruber On Senate Floor As “One Of The Most Respected Economists In The World”…



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO0_NW8Lo_8

Gruber video #5: Mocking critics as “adolescent children”


This one’s less of a smoking gun about deception, and more of a schadenfruede-tastic exposure of Jonathan Gruber as an arrogant crank. Watchdog.org’s Bruce Parker has this clip from the ObamaCare architect’s appearance before a Vermont legislative panel in February 2011, where one of the committee members read a warning letter about the dangers of adopting a massive, top-down government program controlling health insurance markets. After hearing a list of predicted negative consequences, Gruber dismissed it as something that might have been “written by my adolescent children”

The room may have exploded in laughter, but here’s what the adolescent writer predicted would result from ObamaCare:

Coercive mandates
Ballooning costs
Increased taxes
Bureaucratic outrages
Shabby facilities
Disgruntled providers
Long waiting lines
Lower quality care
Special-interest nest-feathering,
Destructive wage and price controls


You know, for an adolescent, these predictions look …spookily accurate, don’t they? The bill itself had a coercive mandate already, and we’ve seen ballooning costs in premiums – exactly what ObamaCare was promised to cure. There’s also a coercive HHS contraception mandate, too, courtesy of the carte blanche the law gave HHS to issue coverage requirements. The rollout was one bureaucratic outrage after another, and the web portal may be poised to deliver even more of them starting tomorrow. Thanks to the exodus by disgruntled providers, consumers now have a much narrower choice of providers, which has extended wait times for care significantly. ObamaCare is filled with taxes that will get passed along to the consumer, including the Cadillac tax that Gruber specifically cited as a central deception in the ObamaCare effort.

Who could this clairvoyant adolescent be? Parker explains that it was no adolescent at all. The letter came from John McLaughry, who served two terms as a Vermont state senator, but more importantly as a senior policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan:

“It was actually written by a former senior policy adviser in the White House who knew something about health care systems,” said John McClaughry, a two-term Vermont state senator and adviser to President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

McClaughry, who wrote the comment in an op-ed weeks before the 2011 committee meeting, told Vermont Watchdog he did not know Gruber made the condescending insult. However, he was aware of other videos discovered this week in which Gruber boasted of writing deceptive policies to trick “stupid” American voters.

“No one should trust this man. … Based on the rest of the stuff that’s come out on the videos, nobody can trust this guy. He has no use for transparency, he thinks people are stupid, and he’ll do anything to get this thing through and pocket his $400,000. That’s not in the interest of the people of Vermont,” McClaughry said.


http://hotair.com/archives/2014/11/14/gruber-video-5-mocking-critics-as-adolescent-children/

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And yet he was trusted and paid, with tax payer's money by 0bama and his gang, to lie...

WaPo fact check: Yes, Gruber got $400,000 for ObamaCare work


Or, if you prefer a more acerbic conclusion, taxpayers paid Jonathan Gruber in the mid-six-figures to lie to them, and then brag about it to all of his friends and fans later. Glenn Kessler fact-checked an assertion made by Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) about Gruber’s paid involvement with ObamaCare while Nancy Pelosi et al kept claiming amnesia about the man called the “architect” of the law. Normally, Kessler jumps in to correct factually lacking claims, but this one gets the rare check mark.

The story begins in February 2009, when HHS signed Gruber to a contract to provide a micro-simulation model for four months at $95,000. They later added an eight-month contract for $297,000, bring the total known value of “almost $400,000,” exactly what Barrasso stated. For his year or so on the job — which would have been just a little more than the ObamaCare legislative effort lasted (June 2009 – March 2010) — Gruber received roughly what the President of the United States makes in a year. That’s not too bad for an MIT professor.

However, the fact check on Barrasso is hardly the most interesting part of Kessler’s review. What exactly did this micro-simulation model do to help Democrats craft ObamaCare? Kessler offers this explanation:


The model, the Gruber Microsimulation Model, is the coin of the realm, in large part because it is similar to the model used by the Congressional Budget Office. That means administration policy-makers could predict with reasonable certainty how CBO would score legislation. Given that legislation in Washington often falls or rises depending on the CBO score, that made this model a very powerful tool for administration officials.


Reeeeeeeeaaaaaallllly. Let’s recall what Gruber had to say about CBO scoring:

“This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes,” Gruber tells the audience with a smile. “If CBO scores the mandate as taxes, the bill dies.” … “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” says the MIT economist who helped write Obamacare. “And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.”


Gruber bragged about gaming the legislative language in order to fool the CBO, and the mandate-tax issue was hardly the only issue in which CBO got snookered. The supposed deficit neutrality of the ACA was a house of cards that rapidly collapsed after passage, too, as well as the wealth transfers from the young to the old and the healthy to the sick, as Gruber explicitly mentions in the video. No wonder HHS extended Gruber’s contract for another eight months; they needed his model in order to keep cooking CBO’s analysis as the bill went through a number of changes in Congress through the fall and winter.

Gruber didn’t limit his deception to CBO, either, Kessler notes. When speaking to journalists, Gruber made a habit of not disclosing his connection to the ObamaCare effort in order to pose as an “independent” expert — a deception in which the White House participated:


Gruber’s consulting was largely unknown at the time, and eventually it became an issue as he had been frequently quoted by journalists and lawmakers who may not have known of his connection to the administration; he also generally did not disclose his connection when writing opinion articles.

In one especially fishy circumstance, Nancy-Ann DeParle, at the time the director of the White House Office of Health Reform, wrote about Gruber’s work on the White House blog on Nov. 29, 2009. “MIT Economist Confirms Senate Health Reform Bill Reduces Costs and Improves Coverage” was the headline on the post.

DeParle made no reference to the fact that Gruber had already earned hundreds of thousands of dollars working for the administration. She described him as “a MIT economist who has been closely following the health insurance reform process.”


Barrasso was right about the $400,000 or so Gruber got from taxpayers, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. That money appears to have been spent by the executive branch in a deliberate attempt to deceive Congress’ own analytical organization on a massive social-engineering experiment, and then aided and abetted by lack of disclosure of Gruber’s relationship to the project when dealing with the media. That’s dishonesty on an industrial scale, and goes way beyond Gruber himself.

The hearings on this should be fascinating.

http://hotair.com/archives/2014/11/14/wapo-fact-check-yes-gruber-got-400000-for-obamacare-work/

SMOKING GUN VIDEO: Jonathan Gruber Admitted Obama Was In the Room When Cadillac Tax Lie Was Created




On June 13, 2012, Obamacare Jonathan Gruber was interviewed by Frontline.  He told them that the Cadillac tax issue was addressed in 2009.  Obama knew it was going to be a problem, and they all agreed to lie about it.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_e00NjQvFM


What Jonathan Gruber is taking heat for right now, was planned out specifically with Barack Obama. It wasn’t just him. It was all of them, with Obama in the room taking part.

From Jonathan Gruber’s Frontline interview in June 2012.

The next time I see him is summer 2009. The big issue there is that he really wants to make sure I’m moving forward on cost control. I think that at this point he sort of knew we had a good plan on coverage, but he was worried on cost control. So we had a meeting in the Oval Office with several experts, including myself, on what can we do to get credible savings on cost control that the Congressional Budget Office would recognize and score as savings in this law.

And that was a meeting — it was very exciting, once again, because the economists in the room all said the number one thing you need to do is you need to take on the tax subsidy to employer-sponsored insurance. We need one minute of background on this. The way employer-sponsored insurance works is, if you get paid in wages, you get taxed. If you get paid in health insurance, you do not. …

So this tax subsidy economists have been railing against for decades, it’s super-expensive. We forego about $250 billion per year in tax revenues. It’s regressive — the richer you are, the bigger tax break you get. And it’s inefficient because it causes people to buy excessive health insurance. So everyone in the room said, “You want something that is real cost control that we know it will work, go after this.”

Now, the problem is, it’s a political nightmare, … and people say, “No, you can’t tax my benefits.” So what we did a lot in that room was talk about, well, how could we make this work? And Obama was like, “Well, you know” — I mean, he is really a realistic guy. He is like, “Look, I can’t just do this.” He said: “It is just not going to happen politically. The bill will not pass. How do we manage to get there through phases and other things?” And we talked about it. And he was just very interested in that topic.

Once again, that ultimately became the genesis of what is called the Cadillac tax in the health care bill, which I think is one of the most important and bravest parts of the health care law and doesn’t get nearly enough credit. I mean, this is the first time after years and years of urging — and the entire health policy, there was not one single health expert in America who is setting up a system from scratch, would have this employer subsidy in place. Not one.

So after years and years of us wanting to get rid of this, to finally go after it was just such a huge victory for health policy. And I’m just incredibly proud that he and the others who supported this law were willing to do it. …

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/11/smoking-gun-video-jonathan-gruber-admitted-obama-was-in-the-room-when-cadillac-tax-lie-was-created/



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0bama made the mistake of dealing with a dude with a big mouth who will never lose his job. I am guessing many more hours of videos like this one will surface... Drop... Drop... Drop...

Nancy Pelosi: Who’s Jon Gruber?








Nancy Pelosi In 2009: Americans Should Read Jonathan Gruber’s ObamaCare Analysis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHFOgjXevdk



http://hotair.com/archives/2014/11/13/nancy-pelosi-whos-jon-gruber/

https://web.archive.org/web/20100202225120/http://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/factcheck?id=0142

State doesn't obey logic and reasoning but political interest and the desire to control other people. To be honest, the power corrupts a lot so even decent or kind of decent people that get a lot of power end up being corrupted.
Life is short and it is probably fun to be treated like a King and to have a lot of power, it is immoral but it's understandable that some of us want it; we have to stop them!

Don't expect the government to give you anything because it can't, it can only take to some to give back a fraction to other. In addition of that, the government will tell you that the money will go somewhere but will redirect it to means of its desires. You can't know that the politicians are corrupted and still expect them to act for the well being of the State.

We have a great constitution that brought us a lot of wealth and freedom, what about respecting it?

When the 0bamacare portal went bust the first logical thing for the people in place was to rehire the firm who built the website... To fix it. Since they built it, it was logical to keep the same team to fix the problem. Of course they got paid to build it. They got paid to fix it.
I mean, since you were born, do you have any examples through your personal life this kind of logic applied to you, your family, friends or coworkers? Of course not. That makes no sense, or at least make them fix it for free.

When you have the power to print paper money forever of course that makes sense.

History is made by the winners and the journalists in the US are mostly repeating what the government is saying, they don't bother looking into the numbers or challenging the government much.

The truth is still coming out but you need to look past the disinformation

Obama Care is a total failure and it will get worse; they will react by more government intervention even if it is the government intervention in health care that caused the problem

White House Blames GOP After Videos Reveal Obama Admin Lied to Public About 0Care

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwN4n4xhX6Y


White House Spokesman Josh Earnest said Republicans were the real liars.

“I think it’s actually Republicans who haven’t been transparent or even honest about the true impact of this… It is Republicans who have been less than forthright and transparent about their proposed changes to the Affordable Care Act would do in terms of choices available to middle class families.”

We have been waiting for ~5 years for change......this is a sure way to tell that he is in fact black

It is my understanding that Obama care was never something that was popular, but the majority of people were opposed to it even when it was first passed; and it's popularity has only declined since it's effects have taken place

Well, Obama held his main campaign slogan - CHANGE. Only it turned out to be change for the worse, way way worse.

Meaning, in realspeak, what?

That the act of understanding is in his opinion, "stupid?"

U Penn Mysteriously Deletes Video Of Obamacare Architect Insulting American Voters…




The Daily Caller’s Patrick Howley reported Sunday that Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber had said at the University of Pennsylvania’s 24th Annual Health Economics Conference that it was a good thing that Americans never realized what was in the Affordable Care Act, because “the stupidity of the American voter” would have otherwise killed the law.

But for unexplained reasons, the University of Pennsylvania has pulled its video of the event, which took place in October of 2013. ”This video has been removed by the user,” a message now reads. “Sorry about that.” The video is still embedded on the conference page, but playing the video gives a similar error message.

One person who was angry to hear of the apparent cover-up was Bloomberg columnist Megan McArdle. “This is pretty shocking behavior by my alma mater,” she tweeted, “Why would @Penn pull down a public video that has political implications?”


http://dailycaller.com/2014/11/10/u-penn-deletes-video-of-obamacare-architect-insulting-american-voters/

Obamacare Architect: “Stupidity of American Voter” Was “Critical” To Passing Obamacare…






“Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” says the MIT economist who helped write Obamacare. “And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.”


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G790p0LcgbI

Hacker breached HealthCare.gov insurance site

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hacker-breached-healthcaregov-insurance-site-2014-09-04-161031834?link=MW_latest_news


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Are we protected against the hack or are we on our own?

I've been ordering prescription drugs from Canada for a long time, say 10 years, at 1/3 the cost of within the US purchases.  Now with the passing of Obamacare, there's been a lot of pressure to put these businesses out of the reach of US citizens.

Recently MC/Visa cut them off, and they asked me for personal checks to sell the meds. 

This is just one of many illustrations as to how socialist control can INCREASE COSTS.

Of course it will.

Why would the drug companies want otherwise?

A lot of people are in the same boat. Health care spending is also up as a nation, even when accounting for inflation. By more or less every measure Obama Care was a failure.

Enlighten those who are new to health care why it is so expensive?

It would be as much of a mistake for you to assume that "European style health care socialism" of Obama would work here, as it may have been for Bush to assume that "American style democracy" might flourish in the middle east.