FlaviusAetius

As you all probably know by this time, Jonathan Gruber is an economist at MIT and was one of the architects of both the Massachusetts health law in 2006 and the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act - more popularly/unpopularly known as "ObamaCare."

He is now embroiled in controversy for remarks he made in September 2013 at a health care conference at the University of Pennsylvania. Those comments included, inter alia - and here I am not quoting directly:

1. Lack of transparency in the run-up to the creation of the program was a huge political advantage;

2. That he and the other drafters realized that if the American public knew that the program was really one where healthy people would pay for it and that sick people and non-contributors would benefit from it would never pass (i.e. that it was simply a wealth transfer program);

3. That the so-called "Cadillac Tax" on overly generous health plans could not be sold to the public as a tax to be paid by the beneficiaries of those plans. Kerry then suggested that it be sold as a tax on the companies that provided those plans. They decided to do it that way because they knew that the American voters are too stupid and economically illiterate to know that it was one and the same thing;

4. That ObamaCare was deliberately written as densely and opaquely as possible so that most people would not be able to see what was really in it, because if they did, it would never pass.

The question before the house is, setting aside the "fog of controversy" (to quote my favourite screwball Congressional representative"), is whether Gruber is correct, i.e. that the American voters are both stupid and economically illiterate?

A tangential question would be whether you believe the main stream media aided and abetted Gruber and the program's proponents by pulling the wool over the stupid and economically illiterate voters by failing to set the economic record straight during the selling of the program. Or were they perhaps as stupid and economically illiterate as their readers and viewers?

A final question, since I've lived most of my life most here in the Second World, how does the NHS compare with your understanding of ObamaCare? I've always enjoyed superb health care with the Blues, so am not familiar with NHS's pros and cons.

sir_eccles

yes, next question

Communist!

RoadWarriorFromLP

Yes, we should all be trembling in fear when Rush Limbaugh and FOX News are upset.

If you haven't figured out that all health insurance policies operate on that principle, then you're even more dumb than Gruber thinks that you are.

Sally Redux

The old system wanted just healthy people.

Hotscot

Storm in a teacup but FOX will love it...with a straight face, and it will keep Limbaugh in narcotics...

RoadWarriorFromLP

It's annoying that the uninsured just don't die quietly.

sir_eccles

Can't they just go to a clinic in Switzerland like everyone else?

FlaviusAetius

Like that. Does that also apply to Brit voters?

sir_eccles

Probably.

Most voters do whatever their favorite channel or newspaper tells them to. See for example "It was the Sun what won it".

Russia's a little different. When you get to the voting booth a nice strong man shows you inside then closes the curtain behind you. Inside the booth you find a bowl of feathers for one candidate and a bowl of ball bearings for the other candidate and a big metal box into which you drop your selection. Voting is quite secret.

FlaviusAetius

FlaviusAetius

I assume you're speaking of others. Having been an employee of Liberty Mutual and a lawyer for many years since that time, I am not unfamiliar with the principles behind insurance.

RoadWarriorFromLP

Why should they die in a furrin communist country when they can die right here in the good ol' USA?*

*Just not in a hospital that's gonna cost me money!

Giantaxe

"Keep your government hands off my Medicare"

Yeh, at least some American voters are stupid.

RoadWarriorFromLP

Could have fooled me.

Then again, you're the same guy who couldn't figure out that there are conservatives who write for the Huffington Post. Gruber's opinion of you is higher than mine.

sir_eccles

Aha, say no more!