The Significance Of The Jonathan Gruber Controversy
Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE
Jonathan Gruber, a professor of Economics at MIT and one of the authors of Obamacare, made comments in 2013 about the trick plays the Obama administration used to pass the Affordable Care Act.
Jonathan Gruber’s comments serve to help Americans understand the mechanics of the passage of Obamacare. Hopefully it will serve as a wakeup call for the entire electorate.
Jonathon Gruber’s comments reflect the attitude of President Obama and his entire administration toward the electorate.
The cover-up always makes it worse.
Mr. Gruber admits what many of us have understood throughout President Obama’s years in office. President Obama’s attitude is reflected in all the trick plays he has pulled on congress and the American people during the passage and implementation of Obamacare.
Please look at all the articles covering President Obama’s trick plays since 2008 by clicking here.
The mainstream media has done President Obama’s bidding. It has not covered the meaning of Jonathan Gruber’s comments and the disrespect he and others have for the intelligence of the American public.
A reader sent me this comment before Jonathan Gruber’s comments were discovered.
“Dr. Feld,
There is some science behind the Progressive methodology that non-progressives need to learn. The Progressive movement talks directly to the limbic portion of the brain while non-progressives tend to sort through facts in the neocortex.
Decisions are made in the emotional limbic portion of the brain, hence the reason and way marketers appeal to emotions versus your facts.
The bottom line is this, non-progressives need to turn their facts into stories that are emotional or conservatives will always be out sold by those who’s arguments are devoid of facts (or outright lies) but full of emotion.
Have an awesome day.”
The Gruber controversy has given Americans a story that stimulates an emotional response. Americans are offended by being called stupid.
Jonathan Gruber did not make these statements in a void. It had to reflect the thinking of Obama administration. Even John Kerry gave him some help.
Published on Nov 12, 2014
Gruber explains how Senator John Kerry helped him fool stupid voters into accepting a tax hike.
Mr. Gruber could not have made the decisions on his own to take the policy actions he described.
He never should have described the actions of those involved in public.
The Obama administration also provided the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) with wrong information. The information led to wrong CBO’s conclusions regarding Obamacare’s real costs. The CBO crunches numbers fed to it by the Obama administration.
The Obama administration used CBO’s false scoring to sell the CBO’s economic conclusions to the public through the mainstream media.
It is clear that President Obama and his administration believe they are smarter than the American people. President Obama believes that his administration knows what is best for Americans.
The only reason the American people have not connected the dots is because they believe the president is an honorable man. The president is not expected to lie to the public.
The progressive press is trying to divert attention from Jonathan Gruber’s comments. It is trying to get the public to ignore Mr. Gruber.
An initial diversion came from Paul Krugman in his Victory Lap article about Obamacare.
Paul Krugman said the health economist Jonathan Gruber, one of the principal architects of health reform recently summed it up:
“The Medicaid-rejection states “are willing to sacrifice billions of dollars of injections into their economy in order to punish poor people. It really is just almost awesome in its evilness.”
Paul Krugman did not provide any facts just an appeal to emotion.
MSNBC used this emotional stimulation to get its followers to ignore Jonathan Gruber’s comments.
“Part of the problem with the Jonathan Gruber “stupid” story is that it’s a shiny object for the political world to stare at for a while. It offers more heat than light. It’s a bouncing ball for political insiders to chase after, despite its relative insignificance.”
“But since it’s likely to soon be the subject of congressional hearings, and since your crazy uncle who watches Fox News all day will be talking about nothing else at Thanksgiving, let’s grudgingly tackle this week’s Most Important Story Of All Time As Agreed Upon By Republicans And The Beltway Media.”
Please note the inference that Republicans and Fox News are stupid for making an issue out of Jon Gruber’s statements. The implication is MSNBC is smart.
Progressives need public support in order to maintain power.
The problem is the public is tired of progressives’ emotional appeals devoid of facts.
The progressive press including MSNBC and The New York Times need examine their premises. They are daily losing listeners and readers .
She said,
“Let’s put Jonathan Gruber aside.”
“House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi responds to Jonathan Gruber’s comments on the Affordable Care Act, saying, “I don’t know who he is. He didn’t help write our bill. So with all due respect to your question, you had a person who wasn’t writing our bill commenting on what was going on when we were writing the bill who has withdrew some of the statements that he made. So let’s put him aside.”
It is almost as bad as "we will not know what is in the bill until we pass it."
President Obama and his administration are trying to prevent public understanding of his current tricks plays. He continues to try to divert American from the truth about Obamacare.
President Obama needs to explain the truth to regain his credibility with the American people.
He must address these unanswered issues if he wants to maintain his promise of transparency.
- Why the healthcare.gov open enrollment period was delayed until November 15th.
- What is the actual number of valid enrollees in Obamacare in 2014? Is it 8 million, 7 million, 5.6 million or 3 million? I thought Obamacare and its mandate would be in effect for small businesses and corporations in 2015.
- Why has the estimate of total enrollment for 2015 been reduced from 13 million to 9 million? I thought 2015 Obamacare would be fully implemented and many more people would sign up as they lost employer sponsored insurance.
- How many people who received government subsidies last year lied on their application?
- Why weren’t the rules for subsidies enforce?
- How many people lost their subsidy?
- How are you going to collect the subsidy from people that lied?
- How many people have claimed they are not going to re-enroll in Obamacare this year and why are they not going to enroll?
- How does a person receive a tax credit when he has no taxable income to apply that tax credit to?
10. Explain the status of the open enrollment and the mandate for small businesses and large corporations.
11. What is the status of waivers that companies and unions received from Obamacare for 2015?
12. Why does the state of Massachusetts have a failed State Health Insurance Exchange that required $400 million dollars in federal supplements each year if Romneycare is so successful?
13. Why would the government subsidize healthcare insurance companies to participate in Obamacare?
14. Why is the public being told that healthcare exchanges premiums are going down when in reality they are going up?
15. What is happening with the Minimed Insurance policies that were supposed to expire in 2015?
16. What does Obamacare cost the federal government? Is it budget neutral?
17. What is the exact amount of increased taxes used to fund Obamacare?
18. What percentage of the increased taxes are collected from each income group?
These are just a few of the questions President Obama and his administration have not provided the answer to.
The answers to these questions would permit the public to understand Obamacare’s sustainability.
The Jonathan Gruber incident has made it clear how President Obama and his administration operates as well as its lack of respect for the intelligence of the American public.
Americans are not dumb. They want to believe their leaders. Their leaders have lied to them. Americans recognize that. President Obama and his administration have little credibility with the American public. President Obama promised a transparent government. There is not any transparency.
The midterm elections proved Americans are aware. It is a good first step. Now we have to see what the Republicans will do with this leadership opportunity.
An explanation of Obamacare.
The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone
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