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Thread: Obamacare architect: Lack of transparency, stupidity of the American voter both key to passage

  1. #31
    Quote Originally Posted by Lucille View Post
    After making the comments, Francis said she was called into a meeting by management and told she was “disrespecting the office of the president.”
    Apparently, this is what "respecting the office of the president" looks like ...



    ... on second thought, it probably looks more like this ...




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  3. #32
    Quote Originally Posted by HOLLYWOOD View Post
    This thread on ObamaCare has incredible facts of the con job by a money grubbin Gruber.
    You misunderstand. Roe v Wade was decided based on fraudulent evidence. Obamacare was passed because of lies. How our elected officials can vote for bills when they are clueless about content just shows how messed up the process has become. If I was President, all bills would be three pages or less, and written in plain English.
    #NashvilleStrong

    “I’m a doctor. That’s a baby.”~~~Dr. Manny Sethi



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  5. #33
    Stupidity, people closing their ears or focusing on other issues was the problem. It was so frustrating trying to get the word out about Obamacare. Except for some tea partiers rightfully angrily protesting people were closing their ears and that includes the Ron Paul Presidential campaigns. Here was an issue that the tea partiers were getting riled up about but the Ron Paul campaign failed to seize upon this issue. Ron could have won early primaries in 2012 if it was a serious Presidential campaign and focused upon THIS issue.

    Even in these forums, except for a few of us die hards opposed to it the threads simply just dropped off.
    * See my visitor message area for caveats related to my posting history here.
    * Also, I have effectively retired from all social media including posting here and are basically opting out of anything to do with national politics or this country on federal or state level and rather focusing locally. I may stop by from time to time to discuss philosophy on a general level related to Libertarian schools of thought and application in the real world.

  6. #34
    please let this be the beginning of the end of this travesty of legislative garbage.
    The bigger government gets, the smaller I wish it was.
    My new motto: More Love, Less Laws

  7. #35
    According to Obama, Gruber is just some adviser who never worked on his staff who's expressing an opinion.

    Obama Comments On Grubergate: "I Did Not Mislead Americans" Even As Gruber Pocketed Millions
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-1...keted-millions

    The last thing Obama needed brought up during the just concluded G-20 conference, where world leaders generously agreed to boost global GDP by $2 trillion (let's all hold our breath while they "just go find a cash machine") while bashing Putin pretty much non-stop for 48 hours to the point where the Russian leader left early (due to "lack of sleep"), was the whole "Gruber thing", i.e., the recent revelations that the architect of the "Affordable" Care Act, Jonathan Gruber, relied on the "stupidity of American voters" to pass Obamacare. Sadly for the American president, not even halfway around the world could he get away from the humiliation that has clouded his one and only domestic policy "success" in his 6 year tenure.

    Alas, a question about Grubergate is precisely what Obama got when after preaching about "accountability to the people", a member of the press asked the head of the "most hypocritical transparent administration ever" if Obama "misled Americans" about the taxes and about keeping the plan "in order to get the bill passed?"

    Obama's response: "No, I did not." This was Obama's conclusion after he had just gotten "well-briefed before he came out here." Indeed, nothing escapes the American president who continued: "The fact that some adviser who never worked on our staff expressed an opinion that I completely disagree with in terms of the voters is no reflection on the actual process that was run."

    Obama's argument in a nutshell: "we had a lengthy argument" in the US about Obamacare. True, one that was rammed down the throats of Americans as a tax courtesy of the Supreme Court: a decision that as we now know relied on the stupidity of the American voters. Apparently, one that also relied on the partisan nature of the Supreme Court. But it's ok, because the misleading was done not by the architect of Obamacare but, suddenly, just "some advisor who never worked on our staff."

    Unfortunately, because Obama apparently wasn't briefed quite as well as he would have hoped, let's just take a look at what Dr. Gruber did do.

    From B-320482, Department of Health and Human Services--Use of Appropriated Funds for Technical Assistance and Television Advertisements, October 19, 2010
    On March 25, 2009, HHS awarded a contract to Dr. Jonathan Gruber, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to "produce a series of technical memoranda on the estimated changes in health insurance coverage and associated costs and impacts to the government under alternative specifications of health system reform." [3] HHS Contract No. HHSP233200900181P, at 3. The contract required Dr. Gruber to consult with senior HHS officials "to develop detailed specifications of alternative proposals to increase health insurance coverage" and to use the specifications to "develop estimates of the change in the number of individuals with health insurance coverage . . . and the costs to the government and the private sector associated with these estimated changes in coverage." Id. This was a firm, fixed-price contract for $95,000. Id., at 1. On June 19, 2009, HHS awarded another firm, fixed-price contract to Dr. Gruber for similar services for $297,600. HHS Contract No. HHSP23320094301EC.

    ...

    Subsequent to the award of the HHS contracts, Dr. Gruber authored opinion pieces on health care policy that were published in national newspapers. E.g., Jonathan Gruber, Reform requires consumer pressure, Boston Globe, Sept. 3, 2009, at 17; Jonathan Gruber, A Loophole Worth Closing, N.Y. Times, July 12, 2009, at WK-10. Several media outlets quoted Dr. Gruber in articles regarding health care policy. E.g., Alec MacGillis, Would Tax on Benefits Rein In Spending?, Washington Post, July 30, 2009, at A1; Lisa Wangsness, Mass. health overhaul offers lessons for US program; Employees not being dumped on public plan, Boston Globe, July 10, 2009, at 2. In 2009, Dr. Gruber twice testified before a Senate committee on health care policy issues. Increasing Health Costs Facing Small Businesses: Hearing before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Nov. 3, 2009, video available at help.senate.gov/hearings; Healthcare Reform: Hearing before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, June 11, 2009, available at help.senate.gov/hearings.

    ...

    At issue here is whether HHS violated the prohibition against using appropriations for publicity or propaganda purposes when it awarded the contract for technical assistance and when it used appropriated funds to produce and air the television advertisements. The applicable prohibition states that "[n]o part of any appropriation contained in this or any other Act shall be used directly or indirectly, including by private contractor, for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not heretofore authorized by Congress."[7]
    In other words Obama is right that Gruber wasn't part of the administration. He was nothing short than a well-paid propaganda tool designed to take advantage of, in his own words, American stupidity.

    Did we say well paid? We meant very well paid. To wit:
    • Michigan: $481,050 (source)
    • Minnesota: $329,000 (source)
    • Vermont: $400,000 (source)
    • Wisconsin: $400,000 (source)
    • West Virginia: $121,500 (source)

    ... and so on, and on, and on.

    Because it suddenly becomes all too clear that Gruber was indeed telling the truth: only a nation full of idiots would pay a lying, self-serving propaganda tool nearly $2 million for nothing but constant lies.

    As for the Obama exchange, here it is.

    Based on the idea of natural rights, government secures those rights to the individual by strictly negative intervention, making justice costless and easy of access; and beyond that it does not go. The State, on the other hand, both in its genesis and by its primary intention, is purely anti-social. It is not based on the idea of natural rights, but on the idea that the individual has no rights except those that the State may provisionally grant him. It has always made justice costly and difficult of access, and has invariably held itself above justice and common morality whenever it could advantage itself by so doing.
    --Albert J. Nock

  8. #36
    Hamsher flashback from 2010, updated 2011.

    How the White House Used Gruber's Work to Create Appearance of Broad Consensus
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-h..._b_421549.html

    Up until this point, most of the attention regarding the failure to disclose the connection between Jonathan Gruber and the White House has fallen on Gruber himself. Far more troubling, however, is the lack of disclosure on the part of the White House, the Senate, the DNC and other Democratic leaders who 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.

    The White House is placing a giant collective bet on Gruber's "assumptions" to justify key portions of the Senate bill such as the "Cadillac tax," which they allowed people to believe was independent verification. Now that we know that 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, and economists like Larry Mishel are raising serious questions about its validity, it should be made publicly available so others can judge its merits.

    Gruber began negotiating a sole-source contract with the Department of Health and Human Services in February of 2009, for which he was ultimately paid $392,600. The contract called for Gruber to use his statistical model for evaluating alternatives "derived from the President's health reform proposal." It was not a research grant, but rather a consulting contract to advise the White House Office of Health Reform, headed by Obama's health care czar Nancy-Ann DeParle, to "develop proposals" for health care reform.
    [...]
    What was Gruber's role in crafting the Senate bill? Nobody will say. Is he in effect grading his own work when he praises the bill? We don't know. What we do know is that the White House engaged an expert who was quite likely to reach the conclusions he reached, because he'd been making similar claims for years. And they worked hard to promote his work as independent validation of their plan, when in fact he was an integral part of it.
    ETA: I forgot that Valli6 already posted this upthread.
    Last edited by Lucille; 11-18-2014 at 11:58 AM.
    Based on the idea of natural rights, government secures those rights to the individual by strictly negative intervention, making justice costless and easy of access; and beyond that it does not go. The State, on the other hand, both in its genesis and by its primary intention, is purely anti-social. It is not based on the idea of natural rights, but on the idea that the individual has no rights except those that the State may provisionally grant him. It has always made justice costly and difficult of access, and has invariably held itself above justice and common morality whenever it could advantage itself by so doing.
    --Albert J. Nock

  9. #37
    Quote Originally Posted by Ronin Truth View Post
    In the aggregate the statist American electorate has been idiotic for centuries.
    Knapp: Jonathan Gruber was Right
    http://knappster.blogspot.com/2014/1...was-right.html

    A lot of people seem to be upset that he called American voters "stupid" in the context of talking about how he helped put the Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare, over on them.

    Well, the results are in and they prove his point.

    In 2012, 98.26% of those voters pulled the lever for Barack Obama, whose name is right there in the law's commonly used name, or for Mitt Romney, who test-implemented the law in Massachusetts.

    Two-and-a-half years after Gruber helped sell this thing and get it pushed through Congress, more than 98 out of 100 American voters voted for it again.

    Like Forrest Gump's mama said, "stupid is as stupid does."
    There's more where that came from:

    http://knappster.blogspot.com/2014/1...-of-stuff.html

    It's here, ladies and gentlemen ...

    As promised, there is a free download version. Yep, you can get the whole book in PDF format and it won't cost you a dime (unless you decide after reading it to hit the support/tip jar over in the sidebar, which of course I hope you'll do). Right-click/Save as here for the PDF download.
    Based on the idea of natural rights, government secures those rights to the individual by strictly negative intervention, making justice costless and easy of access; and beyond that it does not go. The State, on the other hand, both in its genesis and by its primary intention, is purely anti-social. It is not based on the idea of natural rights, but on the idea that the individual has no rights except those that the State may provisionally grant him. It has always made justice costly and difficult of access, and has invariably held itself above justice and common morality whenever it could advantage itself by so doing.
    --Albert J. Nock

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