In November 2014, a series of videos emerged of Gruber speaking about the ACA at different events, from 2010 to 2013, in ways that proved to be controversial. Many of the videos show him talking about ways in which he felt the ACA was misleadingly crafted and/or marketed in order to get the bill passed, while in some of the videos he specifically refers to American voters as ill-informed or stupid. In the first, most widely-publicized video taken at a panel discussion about the ACA at the University of Pennsylvania in October 2013, Gruber said the bill was deliberately written in a tortured way to disguise the fact that it creates a system by which healthy people pay in and sick people get money. He said this obfuscation was needed due to the stupidity of the American voter in ensuring the bills passage. Gruber said the bills inherent lack of transparency is a huge political advantage in selling it. The comments caused significant controversy. In two subsequent videos, Gruber was shown talking about the decision (which he attributed to John Kerry) to have the bill tax insurance companies instead of patients, which he called fundamentally the same thing economically but more palatable politically. In one video, he stated that the American people are too stupid to understand the difference between the two approaches, while in the other he said that the switch worked due to the lack of economic understanding of the American voter. In another video, taken in 2010, Gruber expressed doubts that the ACA would significantly reduce health care costs, though he noted that lowering costs played a major part in the way the bill was promoted.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 03:57:21 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015