Free Republic

Ostensibly, Ex-President Obama is going to be hanging around D.C. so that his daughters can continue their education in their present learning institutions. There are those, however, who suspect he will be heading up a “shadow government” that will surreptitiously oversee (translation: obstruct and subvert) the efforts of the new administration when it attempts to change/improve/repeal legislation, etc., that has become the law of the land… HIS LEGACY. What is it that constitutes this precious legacy? Of course, his Signature Legislation is the infamous Affordable Care Act, A.K.A.: Obamacare. This 24,000 page monstrosity, cobbled together by economist Jonathan Gruber, who...

A new study by Jonathan Gruber, one of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) chief economic architects, suggests that roughly two-thirds of new Medicaid enrollees in 2014 were eligible for the program under previous state eligibility criteria—meaning that they were not made eligible by the ACA. If accurate, then a much smaller share of new Medicaid enrollees were made eligible for the program by the ACA than Washington experts commonly believe. For example, the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) most recent projection is that only one of six new Medicaid enrollees were eligible for the program before the ACA. Gruber’s results, combined...

Jonathan Gruber, a well-known architect of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, caused a ruckus two years ago after he was caught on tape saying “the stupidity of the American voter led us to hide Obamacare’s true costs from the public.” He told the FOX Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo that CEOs are wrong about Obamacare. The MIT professor sparked a heated debate with Bartiromo after she stated that “businesses are not hiring workers because the legislation is too expensive.” Gruber had a different take: “Please don’t use the word ‘fact’ because you’re not saying facts, you’re saying antidotes.” “I’ll tell you...

The panic over ObamaCare premiums is putting new focus on the individual mandate and how much people should pay when they don't obey it. Under current law, the penalty for being uninsured is 2.5 percent of a person's taxable income or $695 -- whichever is greater. Jonathan Gruber, a key ObamaCare adviser, declared Wednesday that he thinks that penalty needs to be greater. In an interview with CNN, Gruber pointed directly to the penalties when asked what part of the law he would change if he could go back. "I think probably the most important thing experts would agree is...

When the architect tells you this is how it was designed trust him, it’s how it was designed: to fail.And if you want it to fail better, you have to increase the mandate penalty. Here all this time I thought it was a “tax” not a penalty - even though it was established by a nameless, faceless, unaccountable administrative bureaucracy rather than the duly designated taxing authority of the Legislative Branch.Butt when the Obamacare “tax” becomes more expensive than the “shitty Obamacare bronze plan” (h/t Michael Moore) well then, everybody will opt in! Since it’s projected to run from $700 –2000...

The economist often referred to as the architect of Obamacare called Donald Trump's healthcare policy incoherent on Monday, firing back at the GOP nominee for criticizing him during Sunday night's debate. "My only comment is that last night showed the difference between a candidate with a strong and coherent health care agenda [Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton] and one with a garbage salad of right-wing talking points," Jonathan Gruber said in the Boston Business Journal. Gruber is an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who played a pivotal role in crafting the Affordable Care Act. He said several years...

You may recall Rich Weinstein from his outstanding expose of Jonathan Gruber, the architect of Obamacare. Weinstein found videos of Gruber mocking "the stupidity of the American voter" for allowing Obamacare to pass through Congress. “And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but, basically, that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass,” Gruber says of the Affordable Care Act in an academic lecture on Oct. 4, 2013... In another [video], Gruber discusses how a trick in wording hides a large tax that is passed onto consumers... “Because the American voter is too...

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said Thursday that the administration has not seen evidence that Iran's financial support for terrorism has grown since the U.S. paid the regime $1.7 billion in cash in January. "We have not seen an increase in terrorist financing by Iran," Lew told the House Financial Services Committee. But Lew also acknowledged that he wasn't aware if there was any way to trace how Iran uses the cash. Republicans pressed him on whether the U.S. recorded the serial numbers on the bills that were shipped to Iran, but Lew said he did not know. The U.S. arranged...

To the Never Trumpers, who are helping to elect the liar and crook, Hillary Clinton, here's a little walk down memory lane that highlights the routine deceit and disrespect toward the American people by Hillary and her Democrat cronies: Jonathan Gruber, the democrat architect of Obamacare, one of the biggest lies ever perpetuated on the American people, truly sums up in one statement, the underlying platform of Obama, Hillary and the Democrats over the last 7 1/2 years: "LACK OF TRANSPARENCY IS A HUGE POLITICAL ADVANTAGE." http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/11/12/another-tape-surfaces-obamacare-architect-calling-american-people-stupid.html Gruber: "If you had a law which said healthy people are going to...

If politicians don't fix the Affordable Care Act, then the vulnerable Blue Cross and local HMO plans — which serve as the backbone of Obamacare — must exit, said Robert Laszewski, the President of Health Policy and Strategy Associates. "What the politicians need to do is to understand they have got about a year to fix this," he said in an interview with CNBC's "Closing Bell." Republicans do not want to fix the existing flaws for Obamacare, Laszewski said. Instead, they want to repeal and replace it. He added that Democrats are now stating that they would rather go to...

Millions of poor Americans have signed up for no-cost health insurance that they could have gotten even without the passage of Obamacare. In recent years, the publicity of Obamacare has driven them to sign up in droves, so much so that economists and health policy wonks have dubbed the phenomenon the "woodwork effect," or the "welcome mat" population. This group turned out to be larger than anyone anticipated. A working paper released Monday finds that 43 percent of those who gained insurance in 2014 came out of the woodwork. According to MIT economics professor Jonathan Gruber, one of the authors...

We’ve noted before that a textbook written by Jonathan Gruber, the MIT economist who played a central role in the development of Obamacare and credited its passage to the “stupidity” of Americans, is mandatory reading for students in public-finance courses around the country.

[picture of Robert Creamer] Looks like the Marxist architect of Obamacare also had a major say in putting forth the Iran Deal. Robert Creamer was convicted in 2005 for tax violations and bank fraud. He served time and was under house arrest. While in prison, he crafted the core underpinnings of Obamacare. Creamer is a political consultant who is very close to Barack Obama and is married to Jan Schakowsky, the Marxist Congresswoman from Illinois. While on the inside, he wrote, Listen to Your Mother: Stand Up Straight! How Progressives Can Win. Obamacare was only the first major step in...

St. Paul Public Schools employees are likely to see their health benefits curtailed as the school district looks to avoid financial penalties set to begin in 2018. The Affordable Care Act's "Cadillac Tax" provision will charge employers an excise tax on high-cost plans -- 40 percent on every dollar over $10,200 on individual and $27,500 on family plans. Jeni Simon, a consultant with Aon Hewitt, told school board members Tuesday that companies already are redesigning their health plans in order to avoid paying the tax. A survey found 92 percent of U.S. employers expect their health plans to change by...

Tonight, Reason’s Peter Suderman published an interesting revelation about the history of the decision reached this week by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, that Obamacare subsidies couldn’t be distributed unless it happened through a state exchange. It turns out that one of the key minds behind Obamacare, MIT professor Jonathan Gruber, entirely agreed with Michael Cannon and Jonathan Adler, the scholars behind the legal theory that backed up the Halbig plaintiffs who triumphed this week.  He’s on the record explaining that Obamacare subsidies are limited to state exchanges.  Suderman writes: Jonathan Gruber, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist who helped design the Massachusetts health...

(Snip) The Wall Street Journal just revealed the news about the Oversight Committee getting these emails in a major story. The key points are that Gruber was deeply involved in crafting the health care law, he worked very closely with the White House, and, when he became a political liability, the president and his senior aides simply lied about it. Is that a big story? Not if you are a national TV network or major U.S. newspaper. Except for the Wall Street Journal, they maintained radio silence. Not a peep. A search of the New York Times shows zero hits...

Columnist George Will called MIT professor Jonathan Gruber “the gift that keeps on giving” to Obamacare opponents Monday after new emails show that the White House downplayed his role in crafting the law. Appearing on “Special Report,” Will tied Gruber to the upcoming Supreme Court decision on Obamacare subsidies, saying we’ll read the opinion “in light” of Gruber’s comments. The syndicated columnist made the comments after the House Oversight Committee released 20,000 pages of emails between Gruber and Obama administration officials. GEORGE WILL: Well, Mr. Gruber is, for opponents of the Affordable Care Act, the gift that keeps on giving....

Are you so gullible as to place your faith in the credibility of the current White House? If so, you might have to find yourself end up eating crow and apologizing to the skeptics for your gullibility as happened to Bloomberg Politics managing editor Mark Halperin on Morning Joe today. Halperin's apology came on the heels of a report yesterday in the Wall Street Journal that despite previous White House denials, it actually had quite extensive contacts with Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber.Here are some of the details that made Halperin feel foolish for placing his blind faith in the White House:

Gruber’s baaaaaa-aaaaack, and badder than ever. The Wall Street Journal’s Stephanie Armour got 20,000 pages of e-mail from the House Oversight Committee that MIT professor Jonathan Gruber exchanged with the White House on ObamaCare, making it clear that he played a far more integral role in its development than the Obama administration acknowledged after videos emerged of Gruber contradicting their position on King v Burwell. The e-mails cover 14 months and demonstrate intense involvement from the beginning of Barack Obama’s presidency to the passage of the Affordable Care Act: Jonathan Gruber, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist whose comments...

When citizen journalist Rich Weinstein exposed Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber in late 2014 for defrauding the country and calling the American voter "stupid," the White House denied he played a major role in writing the legislation and argued he was just "some advisor."video at link ... But new emails, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, reconfirm what we already knew. Gruber played an integral, major role in developing Obamacare. The emails show frequent consultations between Mr. Gruber and top Obama administration staffers and advisers in the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services on the Affordable...