Economist Was Under Contract With HHS While Touting Health Reform Bill

Foxnews ^ | 1/8/2010 | Staff

[Red in Blue PA]

MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, one of the leading academic defenders of health care reform, is taking heat for failing to disclose consistently that he was under contract with the Department of Health and Human Services while he was touting the Democrats' health proposals in the media.

Gruber, according to federal government documents, is under a $297,600 contract until next month to provide "technical assistance" in evaluating health care reform proposals. He was under a $95,000 HHS contract before that.

But while he was being paid to provide his services to HHS, he was also fending off health care reform critics in the media. Gruber was one of the prominent analysts to rebut an insurance industry report from PricewaterhouseCoopers in October saying premiums would shoot up if a health care bill passes. And he has recently written columns defending specific provisions in the House and Senate bills, particularly the "Cadillac tax" on high-cost insurance plans.

The liberal base of the Democratic Party is widely opposed to that tax, out of fear that it will cut into union benefits -- which may explain why the first criticism of Gruber came out of liberal blogs.

[Red in Blue PA]

Transparency at work!

[Pikachu_Dad]

whoo boy. more corruption from the party of sweetness and light.

[Nachum]

The list, ping

[FromLori]

Bribery and Healthcare: How your tax dollars were used to bribe members of Congress

http://www.downsizedc.org/blog/bribery-and-healthcare-how-your-tax-dollars-were-used-to-bribe-members-of-congress?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+DownsizeDCorg+(DownsizeDC.org+-+DC+vs.+Innovation)

[q_an_a]

good golly miss molly - where do they get all the money?? I mean the Tea Party should be raisng money and sending this story to millions of people with an e-mail line - where do they get this money?

[Dementio]

The guy has received $400,000 this year from the Obama administration to conduct this research. Wow. Why didn’t he tell us before? Not telling us was unethical.

[GailA]

retired Military to take BIG hit under obamacare

[Honorary Serb]

Here’s my take on Jonathan Gruber. See also the reply to my post, and the subsequent back-and-forth replies.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2416207/posts?page=5#5