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GRUBER'S HHS CONTRACT (factcheck.org excerpt)
factcheck.org ^ | November 21, 2014 | Lori Robertson

Posted on 12/13/2014 6:16:00 AM PST by Liz

EXCERPT Gruber was hired by the Department of Health and Human Services for a one-year contract to provide “technical assistance in evaluating options for national healthcare reform,” as a Feb. 25, 2009, federal job posting indicates. The posting said he was uniquely qualified for the position not only because of his expertise in health economics but his “proprietary statistically sophisticated micro-simulation model” that could determine the impact of changes in health care policy.

Gruber’s consultancy work wasn’t made public until it was reported in early January 2010. Fox News then reported that Gruber was paid almost $400,000 for the contract, an amount that was recently confirmed by the Washington Post’s Kessler.

Gruber’s expert status in health economics was very well-known before Obama took office. We have quoted him on the subject many times, including in February 2008, when we cited his microsimulation modeling of different approaches to a health care overhaul and noted he had talked with the Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards campaigns on the topic. Gruber, who is also director of the health care program at the National Bureau of Economic Research, had advised former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and the state Legislature in developing the state’s 2006 health care law, which shares several similarities with the subsequent federal law.

In an April 2012 opinion piece, published by MassLive.com, a western Massachusetts news site, Gruber described himself as one of the architects of the Massachusetts law, but not the federal law: “Several of the architects of Massachusetts reform, including myself, worked closely with the Administration and Congress to translate the lessons from Massachusetts onto the national stage.” Similarly, his MIT bio says he was “a key architect” of the Massachusetts overhaul and a “technical consultant” to the Obama administration from 2009 to 2010 who “worked with both the Administration and Congress to help craft the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”

Gruber declined to comment for this article.

Pelosi’s post is wrong to say he testified only once before the Senate. He testified at three Senate hearings on health care overhaul options and legislation: a May, 12, 2009, Senate Finance Committee hearing; a June 11, 2009, Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing; and a Nov. 3, 2009, hearing also before the HELP Committee.

At the June hearing, he said he wanted to “congratulate the committee on a draft bill which really provides a terrific framework for fundamentally transforming healthcare in the United States.” At the November hearing, his remarks included the results of modeling the impact of the Senate Finance Committee bill on small businesses using the Gruber Microsimulation Model, which he said had been “widely used for policy analysis at both the state and federal level” and was similar to CBO’s modeling.

White House visitor logs show that Gruber visited the White House on several occasions, as reported by both the Wall Street Journal and The Hill. His six visits in 2009 include a July 20 group meeting with Obama and other economists.

Former administration advisers and congressional staff have said Gruber was tapped for his modeling work, not to draft the legislation.

Ezekiel J. Emanuel, who was the special adviser for health policy to the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget from January 2009 to January 2011, told us in a phone interview, “He was a consultant who, quote, ran the numbers,” meaning that “he did the estimates of how much, when you change things in a proposal, how that would affect the number of people covered and the cost of the program.”

Emanuel, who is now vice provost for global initiatives and chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, says calling Gruber “the architect” of the law is “utter, total nonsense.”

In his book “Reinventing American Health Care,” which was published in March, Emanuel mentions Gruber just once, in the context of economic modeling. He writes that the White House was concerned about how the CBO would score the cost of legislation. Emanuel says his brother, then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, and the president “established a very firm maximum-cost limit” of $1 trillion over 10 years. They wanted half of the money to come from savings in existing programs and half to come from new revenue, Emanuel writes.

Here’s the mention of Gruber:

“Reinventing American Health Care,” March 2014: During the development of the ACA the administration undertook 2 major efforts to create a shadow CBO “score” function. First, the Department of Health and Human Services contracted with Jonathan Gruber, an economist at MIT, to predict the CBO score. Gruber was picked largely because he had developed an economic model of the health care system that the CBO borrowed and refined to create its own model.

David Bowen, who was the health policy staff director for the HELP committee first under Sen. Ted Kennedy and then Sen. Tom Harkin, told us he “wouldn’t describe any single person as the architect of the ACA,” as a number of people made major contributions to the law. As for Gruber, he says, “There were a few experts that we sought as sounding boards and counsel, and he was one of those.”

Gruber’s economic modeling was very helpful, especially early on before there was draft legislation that CBO could score, says Bowen, who left the Senate committee shortly after the ACA was signed into law and is now an executive vice president at H&K Strategies. But Gruber wasn’t one of the people writing the legislation or working on it into the early hours. “I know who was there at 3 in the morning and I know who wasn’t,” Bowen says. Gruber wasn’t.

“It was an excellent analytical model,” Harvard University’s David Cutler, a former Obama adviser, was quoted as saying in the Wall Street Journal. “He was not a formal adviser. It was all about his model.”

Neera Tanden, a senior adviser to HHS from 2009 to 2010 and now the president of the left-leaning Center for American Progress, wrote in an op-ed in the Journal that Gruber was a consultant who “did not make policy.” She said, “The true architects of the ACA are the members of the Senate Finance and Senate Health committees who wrote the bill, with input from dozens of congressional hearings and bipartisan round tables.”

Emanuel told us that Gruber didn’t write any portion of the legislation “that I was intimately involved with,” but he couldn’t speak for the whole bill. Emanuel says the fact that Gruber calls himself an architect of the Massachusetts law doesn’t make him an architect of the federal one. The two laws are related but “distant cousins.” That sentiment was expressed by Romney’s former secretary of health and human services, Tim Murphy, who told us in a 2011 interview that there were many differences between the laws, though they shared certain mechanisms. However, Murphy said, “unless you were going to go to single-payer, how many mechanisms really are there to use?”

Gruber’s October 2013 full comments at the University of Pennsylvania conference show that he’s a supporter of the law, even though he is quite critical of some of its provisions. He may not have written it, but Obama’s claim that he was “some adviser” and Pelosi’s focus on how many committee hearings he attended brush aside the fact that he was a highly paid consultant whose modeling work was instrumental in determining the impact of health care policy. At the same time, the claim by Cassidy and conservative ads that Gruber was “the architect” overstates the role of an economic consultant and overlooks the role many others in the administration and Congress played in creating the law.


TOPICS: Government
KEYWORDS: gruber; grubercontract; hhs
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1 posted on 12/13/2014 6:16:00 AM PST by Liz
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To: Liz

The question at the hearing was not just what he made from HHS, but what he was paid by every federal and state entity.


2 posted on 12/13/2014 6:18:47 AM PST by kosciusko51 (Enough of "Who is John Galt?" Who is Patrick Henry?)
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To: Liz

3 posted on 12/13/2014 6:21:53 AM PST by cripplecreek (You can't half ass conservatism.)
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To: kosciusko51
The question was not just what he made from HHS, but what he was paid by every federal and state entity.

No question---and now Chairman Issa has subpoenaed all documents relating to the work Gruber did in about 15 states....estimated to have earned him some $5 million.

When Pelosi said ACA was a "jobs bill" she was right---except that Gruber got all the jobs.

Cong Issa asserted that Gruber repeatedly refused to tell the taxpayers (and Congress) the amount of taxpayer funds he received for his work on ObamaCare......and that a full accounting was required. Issa's subpoena means that Gruber (and the Dumbocrats) will be media fodder for the time being.

4 posted on 12/13/2014 6:29:14 AM PST by Liz (Pres Reagan on govt shutdown: "Let's close it down and see if anyone notices.")
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To: Liz

It’s funny how Obamacare has gone from an “exact copy” of Romneycare, according to the media during the last presidential election, to a “distant cousin” now.


5 posted on 12/13/2014 6:29:59 AM PST by norwaypinesavage (The Stone Age did not end because we ran out of stones)
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To: kosciusko51
The question at the hearing was not just what he made from HHS, but what he was paid by every federal and state entity.

As a former contracting officer in the military I know that single source personal service contracts, especially ones of that dollar value, require a document trail miles long to authorize. Its out there if some starry eyed reporter/reporterette wants a Nobel prize.

6 posted on 12/13/2014 6:30:39 AM PST by Don Corleone ("Oil the gun..eat the cannoli. Take it to the Mattress.")
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To: All

Michigan legislators will request that relevant state agencies investigate the state’s deal with Gruber...... they want to know (1) how Gruber was selected, and, (2) what services he provided for the money.

The states' selection process is crucial----(1) to scrutinize the credentials Gruber presented to states, (2) his monetary requirements, and, (3) what he based his expertise on.

“Mr. Gruber appears to be a very devious man – perhaps with a proclivity for fraud,” Michigan state Rep. McMillin said in an email.

Obama is downplaying Gruber's role, claiming he had no part in passing O/care. But if Gruber was NOT the Obamacare architect---then Gruber took money from states under false pretenses and should be prosecuted for govt fraud.

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

FREEPER GAFFER INSIGHTFULLY POSTED: I realize that there is a fixed cost for the “program model” he uses and likely some sort of licensing fee. However, some of these contracts have “consulting” components which usually involve estimates of time needed.

I find it difficult to believe he can have that much available time. There are only about 1900-2000 work hours per year in normal situations. If you couple that with the amount of time he has to spend as an MIT professor doing something, where did he have the time to apply to all these contracts?

....as to Gruber's multiple govt contracts over the last six years: How were they bid? What was the pricing structure. Did he falsify his work schedule? Was he working on simultaneous govt contracts, and getting paid as a "full-time" consultant? The WH can give out contracts however they want (e.g., sole source), but the contract eventually has to go through some sort of award audit for review and approval......

7 posted on 12/13/2014 6:33:56 AM PST by Liz (Pres Reagan on govt shutdown: "Let's close it down and see if anyone notices.")
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To: Liz

Liz,

Thank you for this. My first comment was that factcheck was being disingenuous looking at only the HHS funding of Gruber.


8 posted on 12/13/2014 6:37:41 AM PST by kosciusko51 (Enough of "Who is John Galt?" Who is Patrick Henry?)
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To: Liz

Gruber should be indicted for fraud


9 posted on 12/13/2014 6:41:20 AM PST by The Great RJ (Pants up...Don't loot!)
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To: norwaypinesavage

iirc wasn’t this one of the prominent pro-obamacare arguments on DU? iow, why are you repubs arguing against your own healthcare system design, romneycare, when you argue against obamacare...


10 posted on 12/13/2014 6:45:33 AM PST by SteveH
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To: Liz

Has anyone actually tested Herr Gruber’s model, or did the lazy Democrats simply take his word for its existence because he teaches at MIT? After all, this only took over the health care of millions of Americans and one-sixth ofthe economy. We taxpayers, who fund this monstrosity, should demand to see Gruber’s model.


11 posted on 12/13/2014 6:46:04 AM PST by txrefugee
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To: Liz

Need to look into consulting contracts with the SSA, NSF, etc.

++++++++++++++++

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/29/10-obamacare-questions-answered-by-mit-economist-jonathan-gruber.html

10 Obamacare Questions Answered by MIT Economist Jonathan Gruber

EXCERPT

3. What are the major differences between Romney’s and Obama’s plans?

They are the same bleeping bill! ...


12 posted on 12/13/2014 6:51:37 AM PST by maggief
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To: SteveH

My comment was about the fickle media, not socialized medicine. I support neither Obamacare, nor Romneycare.


13 posted on 12/13/2014 6:52:11 AM PST by norwaypinesavage (The Stone Age did not end because we ran out of stones)
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To: Liz
Ezekiel J. Emanuel, who was the special adviser for health policy to the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget from January 2009 to January 2011, told us in a phone interview, “He was a consultant who, quote, ran the numbers,” meaning that “he did the estimates of how much, when you change things in a proposal, how that would affect the number of people covered and the cost of the program.”

Emanuel, who is now vice provost for global initiatives and chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, says calling Gruber “the architect” of the law is “utter, total nonsense.”

In his book “Reinventing American Health Care,” which was published in March, Emanuel mentions Gruber just once, in the context of economic modeling. He writes that the White House was concerned about how the CBO would score the cost of legislation. Emanuel says his brother, then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, and the president “established a very firm maximum-cost limit” of $1 trillion over 10 years. They wanted half of the money to come from savings in existing programs and half to come from new revenue, Emanuel writes.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/09/AR2007070902029.html

For Democrats, Pragmatism On Universal Health Care

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 10, 2007

In a conference call in January, the health-care debate within the Democratic Party played out before former senator John Edwards of North Carolina, who was in search of policy advice for his presidential campaign, and his wife, Elizabeth.

On one side was Ezekiel Emanuel, a doctor and bioethics expert and the brother of Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), arguing that the American health-care system is so riddled with inefficiencies that it needs to be blown up and replaced by a plan in which people can buy coverage themselves with a voucher.

On the other side was an economist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has become possibly the party's most influential health-care expert and a voice of realism in its internal debates.

“Far be it for me to lecture you on politics, Senator Edwards,” Jonathan Gruber recalled saying, and then he did just that. He told Edwards that whatever the merits of Emanuel's idea, it just would not be politically viable. Instead, Gruber argued for a more incremental approach, like the one in Massachusetts he helped write. Its central elements would be providing subsidies to people who are unable to pay for health care, increasing the number of those who are enrolled in public programs such as Medicaid and creating a public agency to help anyone ineligible for the programs buy health insurance.

(snip)

14 posted on 12/13/2014 6:54:42 AM PST by maggief
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To: Liz

I am sure he feels he was worth every dime.


15 posted on 12/13/2014 6:57:46 AM PST by bigbob (The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly. Abraham Lincoln)
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To: norwaypinesavage

i was not criticizing you, sorry for confusion...


16 posted on 12/13/2014 7:00:17 AM PST by SteveH
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To: Liz

Bernis Madoff in federal prison for fraud. Marha Stewart was jailed for a time for fraud. Gruber free to come and go still collecting money from states and the feds for a fraudulent scheme. Tell me what is wrong here. Should not Gruber be in jail awaiting a trial? how can MIT maintain a relationship with Gruber when his economic models are faulty. I for one would not want Gruber anywhere near my college or even his published manuscripts should be pulled as questionable works of academia.


17 posted on 12/13/2014 7:34:18 AM PST by hondact200 (Candor dat viribos alas (sincerity gives wings to strength) and Nil desperandum (never despair))
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To: Liz

Don’t listen to what I said then, listen to what I am saying now. It’s amazing to me how this whole thing is ever-changing. I can’t wait until we get to the part where the Democrats had nothing to do with ACA because the Republicans stole it, changed it and duped the Demicrats into to passing it.


18 posted on 12/13/2014 7:43:54 AM PST by liberalh8ter (The only difference between flash mob 'urban yutes' and U.S. politicians is the hoodies.)
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To: The Great RJ
Gruber should be indicted for fraud

He operated across state lines...

can you RICO an individual....?

or maybe add in whoever signed off on all those lucrative consulting gigs.

RICO them all.

19 posted on 12/13/2014 8:15:20 AM PST by spokeshave (He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people,)
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To: Liz

Leigh Bureau, Gruber’s agent, scrubbed him off their page. Here is a cached version.
“Jonathan Gruber is the most sought-after analyst of the costs and benefits of healthcare reform. He was a principal architect of Massachusetts’ landmark reforms, and a key adviser to the Obama administration in its creation of the Affordable Care Act. His new book, Health Care Reform: What It Is, Why It’s Necessary, How It Works, is an innovative and accessible graphic treatment of the ACA and a powerful argument for the individual mandate. “
on this page is his NOBLIS speech about the ACA (jan 18, 2012)


20 posted on 12/13/2014 9:24:16 AM PST by machogirl
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