A top Obama advisor is finally caught on tape telling the truth—and he immediately rushes to the press to deny it.
Economist Jonathan Gruber, one of the lead architects of Obamacare, in a taped January 2012 presentation discussing the law, clearly and concisely explained why Obamacare intentionally required states to create their own health insurance exchanges if they wanted federal subsidies to help people pay for health insurance.
But then several states, and individuals, challenged that provision in court, saying that they did not create an exchange and so should not receive the subsidies. Whereupon Team Obama flipped, claiming that the law and its crafters always intended for every state to get federal subsidies to help people pay their health insurance, whether the state created its exchange or not.
That was the issue being decided by the Washington, DC, Circuit Court of Appeals, Halbig v. Burwell, which last week sided with the plaintiffs (i.e., the states), and, it turns out, with Gruber.
The issue at stake is important but complicated, which is why I will let Gruber explain it, since he does such a good job. (The relevant passage starts in the video above at 31:25):
What’s important to remember politically about this is if you’re a state and you don’t set up an exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits [to buy health insurance]—but your citizens still pay the taxes that support this bill. So you’re essentially saying [to] your citizens you’re going to pay all the taxes to help all the other states in the country. I hope that that’s a blatant enough political reality that states will get their act together and realize there are billions of dollars at stake here in setting up these exchanges. But, you know, once again the politics can get ugly around this.
Once the Gruber video hit the Internet, the economist scurried to do an interview with The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn, claiming it was a mistake; he was speaking off the cuff—essentially denying everything he said on the video.
“I honestly don’t remember why I said that,” he said, attempting to reconstruct what he might have been thinking at the time. “I was speaking off-the-cuff. It was just a mistake.”
There was never any intention to literally withhold money, to withhold tax credits, from the states that didn’t take that step. That’s clear in the intent of the law and if you talk to anybody who worked on the law. My subsequent statement was just a speak-o–you know, like a typo.
Then audio emerged of Gruber giving prepared remarks—i.e., he written down what he would say—and he said exactly the same thing.
Gruber’s video and audio lay out precisely what the plaintiffs claimed in Halbig, and the DC Circuit agreed. While people can misspeak, it is logically impossible to square what Gruber said in the two recorded presentations and his denial to The New Republic. He’s telling the truth, but not in both places—and any fool can see that. Can you say busted?
For once, we thought we found someone tied to the Obama administration telling the truth—and then he goes and denies it. And in so doing, a distinguished economist has squandered his credibility.