Does Consulting Contract Explain Gruber’s False Claims About Senate Health Bill?

FireDogLake Blog ^ | January 8, 2010 8:12 am | Jon Walker

[TexasCajun]

MIT economist Jonathan Gruber has, for a long time, been the go-to guy for people who want to defend the Senate bill. (Today Sen. John Kerry has an article on the Huffington Post defending the excise tax in which he quotes only one economist, Jonathan Gruber.) Gruber does not just support the Senate bill, he defends the bill by making completely ridiculous, over-the-top claims about the bill, which border dangerously close to outright lies. For months, I have wondered why Gruber was committing what I considered economic malpractice with his untruthful statements. I previously thought that he was just a guy who enjoyed the spotlight and was prone to exaggeration. Having recently found out that he received close to $400,000 from single source contracts with the Department of Health and Human Services to study the effect of the “President’s health care proposal,” I’m no longer as curious about his behavior.

For an example of Gruber’s nonsense, look at his statement in Ron Brownstein’s much published article on cost control, which Rahm Emanuel was telling everyone to read:

“I’m sort of a known skeptic on this stuff,” Gruber told me. “My summary is it’s really hard to figure out how to bend the cost curve, but I can’t think of a thing to try that they didn’t try. They really make the best effort anyone has ever made. Everything is in here….I can’t think of anything I’d do that they are not doing in the bill. You couldn’t have done better than they are doing.”

[TexasCajun]

Unethical Paid Hack for Obama-Care !

[TexasCajun]

From FDL:

For almost the entirety of the health care debate, the Obama Administration has relied on economist Jonathan Gruber to make the public case for its idea of reform - even the most unpopular parts. But as Firedoglake revealed on Friday, the Obama Administration has failed to disclose that it paid the same economist more than $780,000.

Jonathan Gruber's work has been cited by the White House, Members of Congress, and countless media outlets, but not once did the Obama Administration disclose it was paying him more than $780,000 in tax dollars. This is a huge ethical violation that undermines the entirety of health care reform. Sign our petition to President Obama: come clean on Jonathan Gruber and anyone else receiving public money to push health care reform.