Posted on 12/09/2014 12:21:30 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
The Jonathan Gruber show is coming to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, with House Republicans set to grill the former ObamaCare adviser for his controversial remarks about the “stupidity” of voters who let the law pass.
The hearing is likely to be a spectacle, with cable news networks planning heavy coverage, as Gruber takes the witness stand to answer questions about his ties to the Obama administration and his consulting work for the Health and Human Services Department.
“Tomorrow is all about giving him the opportunity to say something stupid,” a Republican aide said. “It’s going to be a lot of fun.”
Gruber’s connections to the White House, as well as his nearly half-million-dollar federal contract, are likely to be the dominant focus of the hearing, one of the last for outgoing House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).
Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), who has served on the Oversight Committee for more than 20 years, said he wants to know exactly how closely Gruber worked with Democrats on ObamaCare and how much money he made doing so.
“Within the administration and the White House, there’s plenty of ties to this guy,” Mica said in an interview.
Mica said Democrats have left Gruber “high and dry” after multiple videos surfaced in which he suggested the administration took advantage of an ill-informed public to pass the Affordable Care Act.
In one video, Gruber said voters were “too stupid to understand” the law’s main tax; in another, he said the legislative process relied on “the exploitation” of the public.
After the videos went viral last month, President Obama dismissed Gruber as “some adviser who was never on our staff,” while House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she didn’t even know who he was.
Opponents of ObamaCare say Democrats are changing their story.
They note that Gruber has been to the White House 21 times and met with multiple members of the administration, including Obama, according to visitor logs. Pelosi’s office also cited his work in a 2009 policy analysis.
“Why was Mr. Gruber called an ‘architect’ of ObamaCare by The Washington Post, someone who was lauded by President Obama and cited by then-Speaker Pelosi, and is now just ‘some advisor’? ” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said in a statement.
As Gruber steps into the line of fire on Tuesday, he might find little protection from Democrats who once paid him nearly as much as the presidential salary for his consulting work.
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the committee’s top Democrat, said he would use the hearing to mount a defense of the healthcare law, not Gruber.
“If the Republicans want to take time and throw darts at Mr. Gruber, so be it,” Cummings said. “I think he has put himself in a position to be asked almost anything.”
Democrats signaled their strategy for the hearing with their choice of witness: Ari Goldmann, who bought health insurance through the federal marketplace and who struggled to find coverage for his pre-existing condition before the law took effect.
Cummings said the witness would offset what he called the “major distraction” caused by Gruber over the last month.
Republicans will also use the hearing to raise other problems with ObamaCare, such as last month’s misreported enrollment tally.
Marilyn Tavenner, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, will be pressed to explain why she provided an inaccurate enrollment count to the committee earlier this fall. The figure was off by nearly 400,000, a miscount that was just enough to push the number over the administration’s initial target of 7 million enrollments.
Tavenner and the Department of Health and Human Services say the error was unintentional, but Republicans, such as Issa and Mica, have said they are skeptical.
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) said he is also planning to grill Tavenner on how the CMS plans to help customers who might see their tax bills increase if their federal healthcare subsidies change.
The issue, little known outside of policy circles, will pose a problem for many of the people who signed up for a benchmark plan in 2014 through the insurance marketplace but choose not to switch their coverage in 2015.
If the new yardstick plan is cheaper, people will qualify for fewer subsidy dollars and find themselves unexpectedly owing money to the IRS the following tax season.
“The significance of this is troubling to me, when you realize what CMS is doing and not doing to inform people that they will get a tax bill [if they do not actively re-enroll],” Meadows said in an interview Monday.
“There’s a difference between telling people ‘you might get a better premium price’ — which is true and everyone should do that — and telling people they’re about to get the wrong subsidy if they don’t re-enroll.”
Naw. Gruber will have “a car wreck” and the world will move on.
Today's hearings will be an entertaining spectacle and no more.
The people who repeatedly voted to fund Obamacare will use this as pressure relief and nothing more. At the end of the day, Gruber still has his cash, Obamacare still exists and the GOP will chuckle knowing Gruber was right as idiots rush to reelect more of them in 16 expecting them to be in opposition to Democrats.
Will Trey Gowdy be there I wonder?
Anyone know what channel will be carrying the circus? Thanks!
I think it is an error to conduct them without getting all the information they need, for sure. To date, only his comments made in several venues and the multiple visits to the White House are topics of discussion.
I’d prefer they take some time and investigate all the multiple contracts he received over the last six years. How they were bid, what was the pricing structure, was effort on simultaneous contracts bid as full-time-equivalent, etc. The WH can give out contracts however they want (e.g., sole source), but the contract eventually has to go through some sort of award audit where all these things are reviewed and approved as legitimate.
1. To insure the uninsured, we first uninsure the insured.
2. Next, the newly uninsured get re-insured.
3. To re-insure the newly uninsured, we slap them w/ extra charges.
4. The extra charges are required so that the original insured, who became uninsured, and then re-insured, can now be insured (which we will provide free of charge).
This, then, is Marxist-style "redistribution of wealth"...... brought to you by lock-stepping Democrats' historic party line vote.
HHS “Started” Individual Obamacare Applications Prior To Deadline; Obtained Personal Info From States
Shark Tank / FR Posted on Friday, April 04, 2014 by M. Thatcher
In the closing days of the open enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) , the US Dept of Health and Human Services (HHS) was mailing out letters notifying certain Americans that the govt agency had already started a healthcare coverage application on their behalf.
The HHS letter stated that the information they used to begin the application for individual Healthcare was obtain by the state agency in charge of implementing Obamacare.
The next step for the individual would be to visit the web site Healthcare.gov and complete the already started application to see if they qualify for “Marketplace coverage.”
News of the HHS letter was first mentioned by a listener of the popular “Daybreak with Drew Steele” Show on Fox 92.5, which is out of Fort Myers, Florida.(Excerpt)
Read more at: http://www.shark-tank.com/2014/04/04/hhs-started-individual-obamaca ...
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NEED TO KNOW:
(1) which states participated in giving confidential information to HHS, and,
(2) how would state agencies know which of their citizens would want or need a new Obamacare-compliant policy.......without violating that individual's privacy--and without consulting the individual?
(3) for an application to be legally enforced, the individual would have had to sign it.
(4) Who signed the app? (Forgery must be considered.)
(5) When a third party commits you to a financial transaction, that person is considered your fiduciary.... and CANNOT act WRT a payment method or other financial burden that conflicts with your best interests.
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FBI TIPS PAGE https://tips.fbi.gov
Michigan legislators will request that relevant state agencies investigate the state’s deal with Gruber......they want to know (1) how Gruber was selected, and, (2) what services he provided for the money.
The states' selection process is crucial----(1) to scrutinize the credentials Gruber presented to states, (2) his monetary requirements, and, (3) what he based his expertise on.
“Mr. Gruber appears to be a very devious man – perhaps with a proclivity for fraud,” Michigan state Rep. McMillin said in an email.
Obama is downplaying Gruber's role, claiming he had no part in passing O/care. But if Gruber was NOT the Obamacare architect---then Gruber took money from states under false pretenses and should be prosecuted for govt fraud.
All expenditures of federal funds must be fully delineated in the Federal Register and/or Congressional Review.
Taxpayers should ask their congressmen to supply them w/ copies of these public documents.
I realize that there is a fixed cost for the “program model” he uses and likely some sort of licensing fee. However, some of these contracts have “consulting” components which usually involve estimates of time needed.
I find it difficult to believe he can have that much available time. There are only about 1900-2000 work hours per year in normal situations. If you couple that with the amount of time he has to spend as an MIT professor doing something, where did he have the time to apply to all these contracts?
Excellent deconstruction-—should be considered by all of the committee.
Another big show of Outrage! Another big nothing as far as anything changing.
The description of a congressional hearing beforehand as a ‘circus’ should raise questions about the seriousness of a journal whose very mission is to cover congressional activities. The description may turn out to be true, but it speaks to a genuine lack of professionalism on the part of this publication.
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