Posted on 11/16/2014 9:58:00 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Two well-placed sources on Capitol Hill say that the Congressional Budget Office effectively used Jonathan Gruber’s model to score Obamacare. That model favors government mandates over market competition and claims that essentially the only way to achieve a large reduction in the number of uninsured Americans is to impose an Obamacare-like individual mandate. Moreover, because the model that the CBO used in scoring Obamacare is the same one it uses today, any alternative to Obamacare that doesn’t include an individual mandate — which is to say, any conservative alternative — would be scored by the CBO as falling well short, in terms of coverage numbers, of Gruber’s preferred legislation.
While the CBO’s model isn’t exactly the same as Gruber’s, one well-placed congressional source says that the two models are “eerily similar.” That source adds that, not only was Gruber one of the CBO’s academic advisors at the time that Obamacare was scored — a claim echoed by the Huffington Post — but two of Gruber’s graduate student protégés worked on the scoring.
Gruber himself describes his model and the CBO’s as being “very similar.” In early 2011, he wrote:
“CBO and I both estimate [the] that Affordable Care Act will cover about 60 percent of those who would be uninsured absent the law. We both find that there would be a very modest reduction of employer-sponsored insurance, that premiums in the nongroup insurance market for the same quality product would fall, and that there would not be much effect on premiums in the employer-provided insurance market.”
For the record, before Obamacare passed, the CBO predicted that the president’s signature legislation would have led to 19 million more people having health insurance by 2014 (see Table 4). In reality, Obamacare has maybe hit half that number — and many if not most of Obamacare’s newly insured have simply been dumped into Medicaid.
While failing to disclose it at the time, the Obama administration paid Gruber almost $400,000 in taxpayers’ money because, in the Department of Health and Human Services’ words, he had “developed a proprietary statistically sophisticated micro-simulation model” to which the Obama administration wanted access. Noting how “similar” Gruber’s model is to the CBO’s, the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler writes that, with access to Gruber’s model, the Obama administration “could predict with reasonable certainty how CBO would score legislation.” Kessler adds, “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.”
Given the importance of Gruber’s role, why wasn’t it made more transparent? Well, as Gruber might say — and has said — “lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” especially given “the stupidity of the American voter.”
Gruber had influence over the CBO, the White House, and Congress alike. Indeed, it seems that it might be hard to overestimate his importance; his role was central to the efforts of President Obama and his Democratic allies to shove Obamacare down an unwilling citizenry’s throat.
Jane Hamsher called attention to Gruber’s singular role just days before the House’s fateful vote on Obamacare. In a piece published by the Huffington Post on March 18, 2010 — three days before Paul Ryan’s rousing and timeless speech on the House floor and the vote to follow — Hamsher highlighted that “the White House, the Senate, the DNC and other Democratic leaders...distributed Gruber’s work and cited it as independent validation of their proposals, orchestrating the appearance of broad consensus when in fact it was all part of the same effort.” Moreover, “Gruber’s work was not that of an independent analyst but rather work performed as a contractor to the White House and paid for by taxpayers.”
Hamsher’s piece is worth quoting at length, for it shows that Gruber had his fingers all over Obamacare, even as the Obama administration did its best to wipe away the prints.
She writes,
“How did the feedback loop work? Well, take Gruber’s appearance before the Senate HELP Committee on November 2, 2009, for which he used his microsimulation model to make calculations about small business insurance coverage. On the same day, Gruber released an analysis of the House health care bill, which he sent to Ezra Klein of the Washington Post. Ezra published an excerpt.
“White House blogger Jesse Lee then promoted both Gruber’s Senate testimony and Ezra Klein’s article on the White House blog. ‘We thought it would all be a little more open and transparent if we went ahead and published what our focus will be for the day’ he said, pointing to Gruber’s ‘objective analysis.’ The ‘transparent’ part apparently stopped when everyone got to Gruber’s contractual relationship to the White House, which nobody…bothered to disclose.
“Two days [after the Senate bill was unveiled], Gruber published a paper entitled ‘Impacts of the Senate High Cost Insurance Excise Tax on Wages: Updated,’ claiming that the excise tax would result in wage hikes of $234 billion from 2013 through 2019….
“The next day on [November] 21st, Ron Brownstein wrote in the Atlantic about Gruber’s effusive praise for the cost-cutting measures in the bill:…‘You couldn’t have done better than they are doing,’ says Gruber. [Brownstein also wrote that Gruber told him, “I'm sort of a known skeptic on this stuff.”]
“On Monday the 23rd, the DNC was sending the Brownstein column around in its entirety...one of 71 emails they would send touting Gruber's work....
“David Brooks of the New York Times was not convinced that the Senate bill would be deficit neutral, so Peter Orszag pointed him to...Brownstein's ‘insightful article on health care costs’….
“Paul Krugman cited Gruber’s glowing analysis in the Brownstein article – ‘this is the best effort anyone has made’ -- as one of the reasons he supported the Senate bill....Jeff Bingaman mentioned the Krugman piece on the floor of the Senate, and entered it into the Congressional Record….
“On November 27, following the release of the CBO score, Gruber issued another report saying the Senate bill would reduce non-group premiums (Gruber is one of the CBO’s academic advisors)….
“The next day... [Politico’s] Mike Allen [wrote a piece] with the headline ‘MIT analysis backs Obama health plan,’ leading readers to believe that Gruber’s work represented outside confirmation. The DNC didn’t flinch at that description, sending around an email on the 29th with the subject line: ‘MIT Analysis backs Obama Health Plan’….
“On the 29th Nancy-Ann DeParle, head of the very White House Office of Health Reform that Gruber was hired to consult for, posted perhaps the most misleading column of all on the White House blog….
“She identified Gruber as an ‘MIT Economist who has been closely following the health insurance reform process’ who had ‘issued a compelling new report.’…
“On November 30th…Harry Reid took to the floor of the Senate…, saying ‘just a few days ago an MIT economist -- one of the nation’s foremost economists -- a man by the name of Jonathan Gruber, analyzed our bill and concluded it will help Americans pay less and get more.’
“…Nancy Pelosi touted ‘the Gruber analysis’ on the Speaker's website.
“On December 3, Kathleen Sebelius released a statement…[and] substantiated [her] claims…by citing Gruber’s November 3 testimony before the HELP Committee….No mention that he was a contractor to HHS….
“On December 28, Gruber published an Op-Ed in the Washington Post -- in which he neglected to mention his contract to consult with the White House on this very issue. He was asked point-blank if he had any contracts related to the piece for which he was being paid, and he said ‘no.’”
In other words, an overwhelming number of the ostensibly independent statements or scores that were made or published in support of Obamacare —from Krugman, Klein, Brownstein, the DNC, Reid, Pelosi, Sebelius, and even, to a significant degree, the CBO itself — were traceable to the support of one man and his model. And that man was Jonathan Gruber, who was secretly under contract with the Obama administration.
Perhaps it’s time to repeal Obamacare and replace it with a winning conservative alternative that would lower costs, secure liberty, and make it possible for any American who wants to buy health insurance to be able to do so. And perhaps it’s time to make sure that Jonathan Gruber’s influence over the CBO’s scoring of Obamacare, and of Obamacare alternatives, doesn’t extend into the next Congress.
We think alike.
Look at Post #21.
Transcript of Pelosi, House Democratic Leaders, and Economists’ Press Conference Following Economic Forum
Q: Can you give us an update on the health care … [inaudible] … how close were …
Speaker Pelosi. Here’s where we are. I have been in a meeting for four hours, but when I talk to the Members again today I will be talking to them about that issue of fiscal soundness, which is what we heard over and over again from our experts. They talked about how we needed to be fiscally sound, but we needed to invest in jobs. But they said in the health care bill we really have to do the job of taking down cost. We said that that was a universal message.
And that is what our purpose is, is to improve quality, lower cost, expand coverage, and retain choice for those who like what they have. And in doing so, as the President has said: “Health care reform is entitlement reform and entitlement reform is essential to lowering the deficit.”
And what I will show Members today is how what we are about to receive from the CBO shows how we are fiscally sound as we accomplish the purposes that I just mentioned and we will continue to work for the rest of the day on that. We are moving forward in a very positive way.
You bad mouth and raise hell before the Senate has even changed hands! Hell, Harry Reid is still the majority leader. Please, let’s wait until these newly elected senators are sworn in.
Good question, but that was part of the plan in order to keep the Ponzi scheme going just one more election cycle.
I agree. Obama’s Chicago pals went to DC with him and they picked all his czars, who then picked the dirtiest most unethical government civil service types in their respective admin,service,agency,etc. to lead every branch of the Federal Gov. Obama and his accomplices have permeated and almost destroyed every US Gov agency to include the VA and the military.
Thanks for your insight. We can almost visualize how this filthy Chicago machine of Obama’s worked with the worse of the worse department head types in civil service and federal service. We know Obama had control of the Border Patrol, the IRS, AG, State, CIA, HHS,etc. Obama and his pals have about ruined our military with his LGBT pals and we know he put the VA on Obamacare. Ask any Vet about Obamacare and how great it is.
LOL!
TY for the link.
Not a simple Republican senator or Congressman voted in favor of that monstrosity called Obamacare. It must be make perfectly clear that democrat Phd com man Gruber, called stupid not all the American voters, but just the democrat voters that put the “Liar in Chief” in the White House, in spite of his Marxist anti-American back ground, and all the Democrats legislators co-conspirators with the president in the greatest deception against the American people in the history of the United States.
Bookmark
So the bastard developed a plan and developed how to rate his own plan and he has them use this criteria to rate any and all competition. UNREAL.
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Excellently well said!
Thank you.
Part of the reason that national debates are always on the terms of the left is that all of our “non-partisan” institutions, such as the CBO, are packed full of careerist lefties who will also side that the “fair” way to score a bill is the way that the Democrats desire it.
Right now
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address
Eisenhower warned us in his “military industrial complex” speech to be wary of snow-job artists like Michael Mann, PhD with his “hockey stick graph” and the now newly infamous Mr. Gruber, PhD.PhD = Piled Higher and Deeper
Thanks. I did find that linked in the article...the first I’d heard about it.
Thanks.
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