Vikingwoman wrote: PkrBum wrote: Sal wrote:The ultimate irony is that there was no deception in crafting and passing the law.
The deception was with the law’s opponents who misled the public, conjured baseless fears, and created public confusion with the purpose of sabotaging the process for craven, partisan reasons.
“This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes…Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter, or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.”
Apparently Gruber doesn't know what he's talking about:
"In a video from 2010 uncovered by CNN’s Jack Tapper, Gruber argues that health care law does little, if anything to control health care costs and claims that there is no guarantee that it would lower national health expenditures.
Four years later, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimated that U.S. health spending in 2019 will be $4 trillion, $500 billion less than the agency projected in 2010. The Congressional Budget Office also lowered its five-year cost estimates by $49 billion."
HH: So what did Dianne Feinstein, Kay Hagan, Mary Landrieu, what are they all saying needs to be done that Jon Gruber doesn’t need to be done?
JG: What they’re saying is basically, they’re saying there should be a free lunch. Here’s where I disagree with them, and I don’t care if they’re Democrats. They’re wrong. Basically, they’re saying that there should be a free lunch, that we should make insurance affordable for the sick, but not make it more expensive for the healthy. That’s not the way insurance works. Insurance is the healthy and the sick pooling together to pay one fair price, which is what the American public wants. By an overwhelming majority, the American public wants fair insurance markets. Fair insurance markets mean the healthy pay more. That’s what fair insurance markets mean. So what Landrieu and Feinstein are those, they’re just not understanding basic economics. They’re claiming you can have it both ways. They’re claiming we can fix insurance markets and yet not make people pay more, and that’s simply wrong.
HH: And last question, the real more is thirty to forty percent before subsidy, taxpayer-funded subsidy in an era of massive deficits. Am I clear on that? That’s your estimate, is that the average cost of insurance for an American is going up thirty to forty percent?
JG: By my estimate, it’s thirty percent before tax credits, but that’s not relevant, because the tax credits will lower the cost. On average, it will fall once you factor in taxes.
HH: Did Americans know that when Obamacare was passed?
JG: Did Americans know, yeah, well, did Americans know that? I don’t know, actually, what Americans knew when Obamacare was passed.
HH: Do you think the President ever said your average cost is going up thirty percent, but you’ll get some tax credits?
JG: No, he didn’t say that.
HH: Do you think Democrats anywhere said that? Did you ever say it on the record?
JG: Did I ever say it, yeah, I did reports for a number of states which said exactly that.
HH: But did you ever come on a show like this and say hey, we’ve got to adopt this, your health insurance is going up thirty percent, but there’ll be some tax credits?
JG: I believe I did, but I don’t know for sure.
HH: I’d love for a citation, Professor. Come back. I appreciate the time very, very much.