Bump!
But it was one particular line of Gruber’s advocacy that now merits notice. In videos of 2012 addresses uncovered earlier this year, Gruber boasted that the act was structured to let the administration “squeeze the States to do it”—to set up exchanges themselves. “I think what’s important to remember politically about this is, if you’re a State and you don’t set up an exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits,” he added. “I hope that’s a blatant enough political reality that States will get their act together and realize there are billions of dollars at stake here in setting up these exchanges, and they’ll do it.”
But most states didn’t “do it.” As the D.C. Circuit court noted this summer, “only fourteen states and the District of Columbia have established Exchanges. The federal government has established Exchanges in the remaining thirty-six states, in some cases with state assistance but in most cases not.” The states’ decision not to set up their own exchanges upset the administration’s expectations, since it was counting on states to do so and thus accept federal subsidies for their citizens’ insurance. That unexpected development, the Obama administration recognized, undermined the program’s workability, since the absence of subsidies would decrease individuals’ willingness or ability to comply with the “individual mandate” and purchase insurance........ Obamacare’s State of Crisis - Halbig, but King bigger