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BAUCUS: CBO Claims of Lower Premiums Came from Gruber [2009 FLASHBACK]
C-SPAN ^ | December 9, 2009 | Sen. Max Baucus

Posted on 11/12/2014 3:54:09 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer

In addition to CBO, MIT's Jon Gruber has also done a study on premiums. And what does he conclude? He concludes, using Congressional Budget Office data, the Senate bill could mean people purchasing individual insurance would save every year $200 for single coverage and $500 for family coverage in 2009 dollars. Most people think he is one of the best outside experts. He has big computer models. He takes the CBO data and, in some respects, he has helped CBO by giving some information to CBO that it otherwise does not have.

Mr. Gruber also points out that people with low incomes would receive premium tax credits that will reduce the price they pay for health insurance by as much as $2,500 to $7,500.

The Congressional Budget Office and Professor Gruber are both credible and unbiased sources that are not bought and sold by the insurance industry. The Congressional Budget Office and MIT's Gruber have confirmed what many of us have known: that the bill before us will lower premiums and provide a great many options for more comprehensive coverage.

(Excerpt) Read more at c-span.org ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: California
KEYWORDS: california; cbo; dncliars; gruber; grubertheliar; jonathangruber; liaratmit; liargruber; lie2america; lie2congress; lielielie; mitliar; nancypelosi; obamacare; rinocare; socialism
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Sen. Baucus needs to be asked if he participated in Mr. Gruber's effort to mislead "stupid" voters and CBO.
1 posted on 11/12/2014 3:54:09 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Did these bogus calculations include the money that was taken from Medicare, I wonder?


2 posted on 11/12/2014 3:55:42 AM PST by Arm_Bears (Rope. Tree. Politician. Some assembly required.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

ALL the DEMOCRATS were in on this....ALL OF THEM!!!!!! Tar meet Feathers!!


3 posted on 11/12/2014 3:58:17 AM PST by Ann Archy (ABORTION....... The HUMAN Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Another corrupt member of Team Romney who gave
America ROMNEYCARE/OBAMACARE/DEATHPANELS using
fake “data” without accountability.


4 posted on 11/12/2014 4:02:37 AM PST by Diogenesis (The EXEMPT Congress is complicit in the absence of impeachment)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
The Congressional Budget Office and Professor Gruber are both credible and unbiased sources that are not bought and sold by the insurance industry

What a pantload! CBO is only credible to the extent that they are bound, gagged and harnessed to the dictates of the political dictates under which they must compute budgets. IOW, their 'race' is fixed from the git-go.

As for Gruber's credibility, well, that's just horsesh!t, and now everyone but Baucus knows it.

5 posted on 11/12/2014 4:04:10 AM PST by Gaffer
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To: All
DEMOCRAT SEN MAX BAUCUS CIRCA 2009: "The Congressional Budget Office and MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber are both credible and unbiased---unimpeachable sources that are not bought and sold by the money-grabbing insurance industry."

"The CBO Budget and MIT's Gruber confirmed what President Obama told many of us glib, gullible Democrats: that the bill before the Senate will lower premiums and provide a great many options for more comprehensive coverage......and, besides, we Democrats all know Americans are stupid and will believe anything knowledgable Senate Democrats tell them."

6 posted on 11/12/2014 4:07:14 AM PST by Liz (Another Clinton administration? Are you nuts?)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Gruber is the Colonel House of this Progressive generation.


7 posted on 11/12/2014 4:08:10 AM PST by CharlesOConnell (CharlesOConnell)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Conveniently, Baucus is ambassador to China, so he is unavailable for comment. Obama probably knew this would come out eventually. But the GOP won Baucus’s seat in WY last week, so that was a good outcome.


8 posted on 11/12/2014 4:11:27 AM PST by txrefugee
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To: All
Democrats had "somebodys" best interests at heart when they voted
straight party-line for O/Care.
(It's just that they weren't Americans' best interests):

(1) throwing Americans off affordable health plans,

(2) nationalizing 1/6 of the US economy,

(3) installing IPAB's (healthcare rationing---death panels),

(4) decimating intergenerational transfers of wealth (grandma/pa's holdings go to the govt---not to Americans),

(5) pulling $750 billion out of Medicare,

(6) drug-rationing,

(8) abandoning seniors and the chronically ill,

(9) forcing healthy young Americans to subsidize healthcare for the elderly.

=====================================================

When Dummycrats had the chance to help Americans hang onto affordable care, they voted AGAINST Sen Mike Enzi's 2010 bill which helped Americans keep their existing plans.

========================================

AMERICANS DEMAND ANSWERS: What did Democrats know and when did they know it?

9 posted on 11/12/2014 4:16:00 AM PST by Liz (Another Clinton administration? Are you nuts?)
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To: Liz
AMERICANS DEMAND ANSWERS: What did Democrats know and when did they know it?

They knew EVERYTHING... FROM THE BEGINNING! What will happen now? Absolutely nothing.

10 posted on 11/12/2014 4:24:53 AM PST by Common Sense 101
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

So either the perfesser SUCKS at economics or he was lying about the cost, too. Which is it, Herr Gruber?


11 posted on 11/12/2014 4:28:57 AM PST by wastoute (Government cannot redistribute wealth. Government can only redistribute poverty.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
Gruber needs a good horse whipping.
if the incoming GOPers don't get this, we are truly lost.
12 posted on 11/12/2014 4:38:08 AM PST by Eric in the Ozarks (Rip it out by the roots.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
"The Congressional Budget Office and Professor Gruber are both credible and unbiased sources that are not bought and sold by the insurance industry."

No, Mr. Gruber was bought and sold by the Obama administration for $400,000. Thus, while he was presenting himself as an objective observer trading on his credibility as an expert he was taking almost a half million from Obama to lie through his teeth.

13 posted on 11/12/2014 4:46:25 AM PST by circlecity
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Good find. I’m on my phone, otherwise I’d pin a virtual medal on you.


14 posted on 11/12/2014 4:50:05 AM PST by Excellence (Marine mom since April 11, 2014)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

http://economics.mit.edu/files/4895

Impacts of the Senate High Cost Insurance Excise Tax on Wages: Updated

Jonathan Gruber, November 20, 2009

The excise tax on high-cost insurance now before the Senate presents a rare “win- win” opportunity: it can both finance necessary expansions in health care for our lowest income citizens and provide an effective tool to lower health care spending. By lowering health care spending, the high-cost insurance tax will shift more compensation into wages and improve the standard of living of U.S. workers. Estimates from the Joint Tax Committee (JCT) can be used to demonstrate the important effect of the High-cost insurance tax in terms of increasing worker wages. Using data from the JCT, I show in this memo that the high-cost insurance tax will

• Raise net worker wages from 2013 through 2019 by $234 billion
• By 2019, net wages per insured household will be $700 higher because of this
excise tax
• Almost two-thirds of these gains accrue to families with incomes below $100,000,
and more than 90% of these gains accrue to families with incomes below $200,000

This memo updates a similar analysis dated November 5, 2009

Background: The JCT Estimates of the High-cost insurance Tax
This analysis relies on four documents issued by the JCT. The first is their October 13, 2009 memo which provided the score of the revised High-cost insurance tax as in the Senate Finance Committee mark. This memo shows the year-by-year revenues raised by the High-cost insurance tax. Importantly, the memo highlights the two different ways the High-cost insurance tax raises revenues. The first is through actual excise tax receipts paid by those high cost plans that remain above the High-cost insurance threshold. The second is through the fact that firms will spend less on health insurance – and this reduced spending will be shifted to workers in the form of higher wages. This division is very informative: the JCT estimates that about 80% of the revenues raised by the High-cost insurance tax will come from revenue from higher wages, not from the excise tax itself.

It is important to note that the conclusion that lower employer insurance spending will lead to higher wages is not mere speculation: it is strongly supported by both economic theory and evidence. This is why it is the basis for the modeling done by both JCT and CBO.

The second document is the JCT’s September 17, 2009 letter to Senator Orrin Hatch which showed the distributional consequences of an earlier version of the High- cost insurance tax, which had a lower rate (35%) but did not have adjustments for location, worker age, or high risk industries. These helpful tables show the distribution of the revenue burden of that tax by income group.

The third document is a March 24, 2009 JCT document which provides information on the distribution of marginal tax rates by income category.

The fourth document is the November 18, 2009 score of the Reid proposal in the Senate which lays out the score for his further revised High-cost insurance excise tax. Unfortunately, this document does not provide the details that are presented in the October 13 memo, so I cannot precisely break out the revenues into those from paying the excise tax and those from higher wages. However, the effect on wages is directly proportional to the off-budget revenues raised from payroll taxation under this legislation, so I can use the ratio of off-budget revenues in the revised score (31.3) to off-budget revenues in the October 13th score (41.7) to estimate that wage effects would be 75% as large as would be the case under the SFC proposal.

Interpreting the JCT Estimate

The JCT estimates can be used infer the impact of the High-cost insurance tax on wages. This is done as follows:

• Use the October 13th score to compute the share of revenues that are raised from taxing wages, as opposed to the excise tax itself. This falls from about 90% in 2013 to about 80% in 2015 and beyond. Assume that this distribution is the same for the November 18th score.
• Use the September 17 results to assess how these total revenues are distributed by income group. I assume the distribution for the November 18th proposal is the same as for the September 17th proposal. I also assume that the share of revenues raised from taxing wages is the same for all income groups
• Use the March 24th memo to get marginal tax rates for each income category
• Compute the increase in employee wages for each income category by taking the
total revenues raised from taxing wages (total revenues times share raised from taxing wages) and dividing by the average marginal tax rate for that income group.
• Compute the net gain to that income group by subtracting off the total tax burden on that group from the High-cost insurance tax (once again assuming the distribution of the November 18th proposal is the same as the September 17 proposal)
• Multiply those net gains by 0.75 to account for the reduction in the tax base from October 13th to November 18th

Note that the JCT distributional information is only available every other year; I imputed the missing years by assuming the average ratio of gross (or net) wages to revenues raised in the surrounding years.

Results

The results of this analysis are presented in Table 1. The second column shows the year by year revenues from the High-cost insurance tax, while the third column shows the net wage implications for workers, after subtracting out High-cost insurance tax payments.

Key findings from the table are:

• Worker wages rise by $55 billion by 2019
• This amounts to almost $700 per insured household in 2019
• Worker wages rise by $234 billion in aggregate over this time period
• This is also a very progressive wage adjustment. In every year, the share of wage gains accruing to those with incomes below $100,000 is about two-thirds of the total, and the share of wage gains accruing to those with incomes below $200,000 is over 90% of the total.

Table 1: Impacts of the High-cost insurance Tax

Year
High-cost insurance Tax Revenue ($ billions)
Net Rise in Wages ($ billions)
Net Rise in Wages per Household ($)

2013
7
13
160

2014
13
22
270

2015
17
25
320

2016
22
33
410

2017
26
39
490

2018
30
47
590

2019
35
55
690

Total
149
234


15 posted on 11/12/2014 5:01:47 AM PST by maggief
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6 Weeks
50%

Donate

16 posted on 11/12/2014 5:02:36 AM PST by DJ MacWoW (The Fed Gov is not one ring to rule them all)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Baucus is safely out of office and far away in China serving as ambassador. That was his reward for taking Gruber’s lies and running with them.


17 posted on 11/12/2014 5:09:35 AM PST by Timber Rattler (Just say NO! to RINOS and the GOP-E)
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To: maggief

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=97179

Rick Perry

Press Release - Romney Should Repudiate Government-Mandated Health Care
October 11, 2011

Campaign 2012
Perry for President

The American Presidency Project

Promote Your Page Too
Romney falsely denied his paid advisors used Romneycare to develop Obamacare
AUSTIN — At his news conference this afternoon, Mitt Romney falsely denied that MIT economist Jonathan Gruber played a key role in creating Romneycare and the individual mandate that served as the blueprint for Obamacare.

“Mitt Romney has real problems shooting straight with the American people, especially on the clear policy and personnel links between Romneycare and Obamacare,” said Perry spokesman Mark Miner. “Mr. Romney looked right into the camera and denied the facts — that his advisors helped craft the government-mandated Romneycare and Obamacare health care plans.

“We call on Mr. Romney to repudiate government-mandated health care as crafted in Romneycare and admit his policies and advisors ushered in Obamacare’s costly and destructive health care mandates.”

Jonathan Gruber has been identified as a Romney advisor by multiple media outlets over several years:
The Boston Globe (April 6, 2006) [1]
NPR (April 11, 2006) [2]
The New York Times (April 12, 2006) [3]
The Wall Street Journal (April 18, 2011) [4]
NBC News (Oct. 10, 2011) [5]
Gruber identifies himself as a “paid advisor to the Romney Administration and Massachusetts Legislature during the development of health care reform in Massachusetts” in a paper he wrote for the National Bureau of Economic Research, published in June 2011. [6]
On March 29, 2011, The Washington Post wrote, “Aside from Romney, Gruber is the man most responsible for the Massachusetts plan.” [7]
The Washington Post also wrote on March 29, 2011, that Gruber is considered to be “Romney’s number one point man on Romneycare.” [8]
Gruber’s Relationship With Obamacare

Gruber was awarded a $297,600 consulting contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on June 19, 2009 to provide “technical assistance in evaluating options for national healthcare reform.” [9]
Gruber was previously under a $95,000 contract with HHS from March 25, 2009 to July 25, 2009. [10]
After advising Romney, Gruber advised Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards on health-care policy during the 2008 campaign. He has been described as “possibly the [Democratic] party’s most influential health-care expert.” [11] [12]
Romneycare Paved Way for Obamacare; Romney’s Plan Is Just Like Obama’s

The Washington Post reported, “In [Gruber’s] opinion, without the Massachusetts plan the federal individual mandate plan wouldn’t have garnered acceptance and gotten through.” [7]
Gruber said “it’s likely” Obamacare wouldn’t have become law without Romneycare. [7]
Gruber said Romneycare was “widely discussed ... dozens of times” in Obamacare talks. [7]
Gruber said of Obamacare: “Basically, it’s the same thing” as Romneycare. [13]
SOURCES

“Health Bill Premiums May Exceed Predictions,” Boston Globe, 4/6/06,
http://www.scribd.com/doc/68388881/Health-Bill-Premiums-May-Exceed-Predictions
“Massachusetts Renews Discussion on Universal Care,” NPR, 4/11/06, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5336532
“A Health Fix That Is Not a Fantasy,” New York Times, 4/12/06, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/12/business/12leonhardt.html
“Praise Romney Doesn’t Need,” Wall Street Journal, 4/18/11, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703916004576270991154333376.html
“White House used Mitt Romney health-care law as blueprint for federal law,” NBC News, 10/11/11, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44854320/ns/politics-decision_2012/#.TpRelZwu6Ps
“The Impacts of the Affordable Care Act: How Reasonable Are the Projections?” Jonathan Gruber, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 2011, http://econ-www.mit.edu/files/6829
“EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: RomneyCare author Jonathan Gruber,” Washington Post, 3/29/11, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/exclusive-interview-romneycare-author-jonathan-gruber/2011/03/04/AF2WJorB_blog.html
“Former Romney adviser: Without Romneycare, Obamacare would never have happened,” Washington Post, 3/29/11, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/former-romney-adviser-romneycare-created-obamacare/2011/03/03/AFKY4cvB_blog.html
Federal Business Opportunities, accessed 10/11/11, https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&tab=core&id=3032e84fe13f650770acee31c1372a1b&_cview=0
“On Jonathan Gruber and disclosure,” ABC News, 1/9/10, http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2010/01/on-jonathan-gruber-and-disclosure/
“Clinton Presents Plan For Universal Coverage,” Washington Post, 9/18/07, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/17/AR2007091701026.html
“For Democrats, Pragmatism On Universal Health Care,” Washington Post, 7/10/07, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/09/AR2007070902029.html
“The New Republic: Why Romney’s 2012 Looks Grim,” NPR, 3/31/10, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125382175


18 posted on 11/12/2014 5:18:20 AM PST by maggief
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To: maggief

Waste, Fraud and Abuse at the highest levels of government.


19 posted on 11/12/2014 5:27:31 AM PST by infool7 (The ugly truth is just a big lie.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

If you like your Supreme Court Chief Justice you can keep your Supreme Court Chief Justice......


20 posted on 11/12/2014 5:46:57 AM PST by Paladin2
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