Posted on 12/08/2014 11:27:06 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
A D.C. resident who gained healthcare coverage under ObamaCare will sit alongside the administration’s former adviser Jonathan Gruber during Tuesday’s high-profile hearing.
Democrats have picked Ari Goldmann, an independent contractor who lives in D.C., to help defend ObamaCare during a hearing by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, a Democratic aide told The Hill.
Goldmann will testify alongside Gruber and Marilyn Tavenner, the head of Centers for Medicaid and Medicare (CMS), at a hearing that the GOP hopes to use to refire attacks at the president's healthcare law.
His appearance goes against the Obama administration’s request that Tavenner appear on the witness stand alongside only other government officials, keeping her away from the embattled former adviser.
Gruber won negative headlines for the healthcare law when tapes were revealed of him saying voter "stupidity" contributed to the law's passage.
Goldmann was also asked to speak about gaining healthcare coverage in February at a Democratic gathering, where Obama also spoke.
Goldmann was unable to find an insurance plan he could afford until he found a plan through D.C. Health Link for about $250 a month and a low deductible, according to the Democratic aide.
“His preexisting conditions were fully covered, and his prescription medications are now hundreds of dollars a month cheaper,” the aide said.
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight committee, said he plans to use the hearing as a way to bring up the benefits of ObamaCare.
"To spend hours upon hours of time trying to get [Gruber[ to explain himself, to me it does not insure one more person, it does not help heal anybody, and it doesn't do anybody any good. We're wasting our time," Cummings said in an interview with Reuters.
The “person” they will use as the political example of OboloCare is probably a DC white male homosexual (with AIDS as the pre-condition) that we are now expected to “enjoy” paying for his entire future life ...
Resumes
MBA seeking opportunities in organizational development and change management
Locality: Washington, District Of Columbia
Current: Newly minted MBA with a focus in Leadership and Human Capital Management at Actively Seeking New Opportunities
Work: Actively Seeking New Opportunities, Newly minted MBA with a focus in Leadership and Human Capital Management, Washington D.C. Metro Area; San Francisco, CA (Jun 2012-Aug 2013)
Strategic Sustainability Consulting, Marketing and Communications Intern, Herndon, VA (Jun 2011-Sep 2011)
Hook Restaurant, Server and Manager, Washington, DC (Nov 2009-Aug 2010)
Gazuza Lounge, General Manager, Washington, DC (Nov 2008-Jul 2009)
Georgetown University, Research Analyst, Washington, DC (Jun 2006-Feb 2007)
Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, Development Services & Outreach Assistant, Washington, DC (Oct 2003-Jun 2006)
Education: American University - Kogod School of Business MBA, Leadership and Human Capital Management (2010-2012) Bates College BA, Religious Studies, Theater (1999-2003)
Skills: Management Consulting, Communications Coaching, Hospitality Consulting, Research, Non-profits, Event Planning, Strategic Planning, Analysis, Public Speaking, Spanish, Public Relations, Event Management, Blogging, Social Media Marketing, Data Analysis, Nonprofits
Sound like it’s going to be the Ari and Elijah Show. More fraudulent BS from the ‘RATS.
close-
He works for-The Applied Concepts Group
Read about the Founder- CEO- biggest liberal
think tank- THAT advocates FREE health care-
AND other “sustainable BS”- he is a plant-
HEY REPUGS- go after the losers of this organization -
not this “Ari” guy- but the repugs are pretty
stupid- the will get “Sandy Fluked” again!
I believe he is a waiter.
Worse...
Theater (1999-2003)
An aspiring actor working as a waiter until he's "discovered."
-PJ
This is nothing but a cheap political sideshow to distract from Republican failures to do anything substantive to derail Obamacare.
The next congress is going to be a sad joke on the American people who thought they were voting to change things in the DC swamp.
Now back to Gruber.
“......But politically savvy? No, no, no. Gruber is a chatty, affable guy, but he’s also a man with no filter—and he knows it. It’s always when he drifts away from economics, and tries to talk about politics, that he gets into trouble, colleagues say. That’s where Gruber stepped on so many land mines in those videos—claiming there was a strategy to hide uncomfortable details from voters, as if he knew the political strategy and not just the economics, and that the “stupidity of the American voter” allowed them to get away with it.
“This is the repetition of a pattern,” said Harvard’s John McDonough, a former Ted Kennedy aide who worked on both Obamacare and the Massachusetts law. “Whenever he would get outside of the areas he knows best, it was like he was sticking a needle into his knee or something.”
McDonough recalls one meeting of the Massachusetts exchange board where, in the middle of an argument about how much low-income people can afford to pay for their health care—a debate where Gruber thought they could afford more than most of the other board members did—“he told a joke that we all thought was completely tone-deaf.” Afterwards, he says, he took Gruber aside and scolded him for the remark. Gruber’s response, according to McDonough: “Every time I talk about politics, I get into trouble.”
Most people, however, say Gruber usually isn’t insulting. He’s just blunt—to a fault. Jon Kingsdale, who served as the first executive director of the Massachusetts health insurance exchange while Gruber served on the board, puts it more diplomatically: “He’s not a Washington person who carefully crafts what he says before an audience the way you would polish it if you thought it was being recorded and distributed broadly.”...............”
A waiter against the Republicans. This is not fair. The waiter has the decided advantage. ;)
“The healthcare issue was an important topic at the Democratic gathering at a waterfront resort. Before Obama spoke, the Democrats heard during a closed session from Ari Goldmann, a 32-year-old independent contractor and waiter who lives in Washington.
A Democratic aide said Goldmann told the lawmakers he was “beyond thrilled” when he was able to get health coverage under Obamacare after his insurance company told him it was canceling his plan.
Democrats hope to circulate more such stories in the months ahead as they scramble to win public approval of Obamacare and boost their election prospects.”
This guy has been the “pajama boy” model since last winter.
He should be told to bring proof for any claims he makes about what he is being provided and how much he is paying for it. Same thing from HHS. Demand they bring his case file to use to answer questions about his credibility. Strongly suspect we will find there is some more Obama lying going on here.
Why isn’t Tavenner sitting next to Gruber?
I thought Gruber said he was laying low.
According to John Fund...
“In 2009, Senator Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) decided that the principle deserved to be embedded in Obamacare, and he was able to insert a provision requiring all members of Congress and their staffs to get insurance through the Obamacare health exchanges. “The more that Congress experiences the laws it passes, the better,” said Grassley. Although his amendment was watered down before final passage to exclude committee staff, it still applies to members of Congress and their personal staffs. Most employment lawyers interpreted that to mean that the taxpayer-funded federal health-insurance subsidies dispensed to those on Congress’s payroll — which now range from $5,000 to $11,000 a year — would have to end.
Democratic and Republican staffers alike were furious, warning that Congress faced a “brain drain” if the provision stuck. Under behind-the-scenes pressure from members of Congress in both parties, President Obama used the quiet of the August recess to personally order the Office of Personnel Management, which supervises federal employment issues, to interpret the law so as to retain the generous congressional benefits.
OPM had previously balked at issuing such a ruling. Even without OPM, Congress could have voted to restore the subsidies or ordered a salary raise to compensate for the loss of benefits, but that would have been a messy, public process, which everyone wanted to avoid.
Senator Vitter says the OPM ruling has removed “the sting of Obamacare” from Congress. “Many Americans will see their health coverage dropped by employers, and they will be forced into the exchanges,” he told me last week. “If Congress is forced into them on the same terms, it will be more likely to fix Obamacare’s problems for others.” The bill he and his co-author, Senator Mike Enzi of Wyoming, have drafted would make everyone working on Capitol Hill buy insurance through the exchanges — with no subsidies. White House officials and political appointees in the executive branch would also be required to obtain health insurance through the exchanges.
The Congressional Leadership Empire decided to strike back at Vitter. Politico reported that several Democratic senators have asked staff to draft legislation that would deny federal health subsidies to anyone who votes for the Vitter plan, even if Vitter’s plan doesn’t become law. An even more spiteful draft bill would bar subsidies to any lawmaker or aide found by a congressional ethics committee to have “engaged in the solicitation of prostitution.” In 2007, Vitter’s phone number was found in the records of the “D.C. Madam,” the owner of a high-end prostitution ring. Back then, Vitter held a news conference with his wife standing next to him and apologized for a “serious sin” that he refused to discuss further. He was reelected with 57 percent of the vote in 2010.
Vitter isn’t taking the attempts to strong-arm him quietly. “Harry Reid is acting like an old-time Vegas mafia thug, and a desperate one at that,” he said in a statement to Politico. He also wrote a letter to the Senate Ethics Committee demanding an investigation of Reid and Democratic senator Barbara Boxer of California. “Threatening to take away their colleagues’ health care coverage subsidy if they do not vote a certain way, at worst constitutes bribery and a quid pro quo arrangement, and at best amounts to improper conduct,” he wrote. Senator Reid’s office responded by calling Vitter’s charges “absurd and baseless.”
What Vitter’s opponents fear most is that this fight will penetrate the public’s consciousness. A new poll taken for Independent Women’s Voice, a conservative group, found that 92 percent of voters think Congress shouldn’t be exempted from the insurance provisions of Obamacare. Most voters blame both parties equally for the exemption, which means Republicans will also be hurt politically if it stands. “This is an issue with almost unprecedented intensity,” IWV president Heather Higgins told me. “Republicans have the choice of leading the Vitter parade for repeal or getting run over by it. To duck it will be viewed by their constituents as political malpractice.””
“Goldmann will testify alongside Gruber and Marilyn Tavenner,......”
Thank you for the info!
So we are supposed to be impressed that he is honest about his lying.
The linked Politico piece ends with the author saying how Gruber was always his go-to guy when new healthcare numbers came out.
...he has had an astonishing rise in the world of health care policy—and it’s completely deserved, in their view, because of his groundbreaking work on predicting the cost impact of different kinds of health care legislation.
So which is it?
His models predicted that families would save $2,500 per year and he's not the genius they say he is, or they predicted that everyone's costs would rise and then they lied about saving $2,500 per year to get the bill passed?
-PJ
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