That's quite a rant for a non-emotional guy.
The Obama administration paid a guy to help write and sell a major piece of legislation (essentially taking over better than 15% of the U.S. Economy) then they and leading Democrats in Congress turned around and pointed to him as an "independent" expert on the law and, when this expert is found to have been spouting off his mouth about all the deception and cheap tricks the administration and he used to dupe the American people into believing they were getting a great deal, the administration and Democrats all of a sudden have amnesia and don't know the guy.
These videos simply get the facts straight. I invite you to watch them and let me know where they mislead. And, to be fair, I've posted articles to support these claims.
Finally, your assertion all politicians lie through the teeth is usually only heard when it's your guy's ox being gored and you have no defense. Your turning to my use of videos, instead of addressing the scandal, tell me you've got nothing with which to counter. You say you do your own research and draw your own conclusions. What is your conclusion about Jonathan Gruber and his relationship with the Obama administration and from where do you draw this conclusion?
now this is what I call a rant
I never said the claims are not true, that's not a position I need to defend. I actually made light of the fact that Pelosi pretends not to know the guy.
I would just be more interested in your actual take on the subject, than what Crossroads GPS take is. I kinda already know what their take is.
That it's reprehensible... and what I posted earlier:
BTW, Barry is not my guy, never been. You can look through my post history, I've criticized the guy plenty of times.
Not a rant, a summary.
My take? Jonathan Gruber makes the administration's position in King v. Burwell almost untenable. And, as such, it is in their interest to obfuscate and try to confuse the significance of Gruber's contribution to Obamacare and his relationship with the President. Additionally, Gruber's video- and audio-taped admissions will probably give rise to other legal challenges to Obamacare and resurrect those thought settled.
That's my take.
Just reprehensible? You don't believe there will (or should) be legal ramifications to his admissions?
For starters, how easy is it going to be to convince a court that the law intended for subsidies to be available to those who enrolled through the federal exchange when the chief architect of the legislation went around talking about how they deliberately crafted the legislation to exclude such subsidies in an effort to extort States into establishing exchanges?
Not interested. I doubt I'll remember your position tomorrow -- I'm generally responding to whatever post I quote.
Thanks.
We don't prosecute thought crimes in the US. We also don't prosecute people that state a less than desirable opinion (even reprehensible). Ultimately, whatever he thought didn't really pan out, as certain states did indeed not establish exchanges, and the 'workaround' is how we arrive to King vs Burwell.
I do think his comments were reprehensible and damaging to democracy.
I'm not sure paying Gruber to author and sell Obamacare while, on the other hand, holding him up a some independent outside expert is simply a thought crime. I'm betting there some actual criminality there, somewhere and, it should be investigated.
For instance, were there any Democratic Senators that voted in favor of the bill based on information given them by Jonathan Gruber? It would only take one. Surely you recall all the backroom finagling Obama had to do to get the votes for this piece of crap legislation. How many of the Democratic Senators espoused their support, based on Gruber assurances and, in effect, perpetuated the ruse? Some of the videos I posted demonstrate how heavily Gruber was relied upon by those hoping to persuade the rest of us to buy into Obamacare. Combine Gruber's escapades with other Congressional payoffs and I think there is sufficient grounds to question the legitimacy of the entire law.
That aside, not all "legal ramifications" are criminal. I think Gruber, particularly, could be subject to some civil litigation over the misrepresentations.
I just don't see a case. It's not the first law that's ambiguous (courts decide such ambiguities all the time, King vs Burwell being another in a long list), and he's free to say whatever he wants. What would a case against him look like? What would be the charges? Did he personally gain anything from these alleged misdeeds?
What you call 'payoffs' is what every elected representative are sent to do: try to get the best possible deal for their state. This isn't new, that's what compromise is: give and take. That's how democracy has worked for ages. It's not pretty, but it rarely is.
IMO, there's no GruberGate, much like there's no Bush war criminal. It's fluff to get the gullible excited.
That should tell you something but it doesn't which is sad.
Yes. Millions of dollars in consulting fees to write a piece of legislation that he then was then paid to tout as if he was an independent economic expert.
If you won't concede Obamacare qualifies as unique in the history of Congressional acts then, we may as well disagree and move on.
Fair enough, I believe there is a scandal. But, I do agree, President Bush isn't guilty of any war crimes.
I don't see how there is criminality. Obamacare was misrepresented by politicians but you could say that about most legislation. I don't see Gruber's comments as anything we didn't already know. And it's not like Americans were actually tricked, cnn polling had 59% opposing it just prior to passage and the law has been pretty much underwater ever since.
Can we retire the "-gate" suffix? Watergate was forty years ago, let's modernize. I recommend we call this "Gruber-ghazi"
So what's the charge? Misrepresentation? He is an economic expert, he gets paid to teach and express his opinion. So do a lot of experts in a lot of fields. What's illegal about that?
Move on it is.
Exactly. I guess Gruber is 'guilty' of just saying it out loud. I don't think that's illegal though.
Well, in venues when he was expressing his expertise about Obamacare, he failed to disclose his involvement in its crafting.
Look, it's probably more likely he's exposed to civil litigation but, I'm hoping he's run through the ringer a few times. Does anyone know if he testified before Congress during the Obamacare deliberations? And, if so, did he advance any of the lies there?
Very well.
I think he'll be fine. Time will tell.
Yep. It always does.
Just when you thought he'd fade away...
First, there is nothing affordable about the Affordable Care Act
Second, Death Panels:“The problem is it starts to go hand in hand with the mandate; you can’t mandate insurance that’s not affordable. This is going to be a major issue,” Gruber admitted in an October 2, 2009 lecture, the transcript of which comprised the policy brief.
“So what’s different this time? Why are we closer than we’ve ever been before? Because there are no cost controls in these proposals. Because this bill’s about coverage. Which is good! Why should we hold 48 million uninsured people hostage to the fact that we don’t yet know how to control costs in a politically acceptable way? Let’s get the people covered and then let’s do cost control.”
“The real substance of cost control is all about a single thing: telling patients they can’t have something they want. It’s about telling patients, ‘That surgery doesn’t do any good, so if you want it you have to pay the full cost.’”
“There’s no reason the American health care system can’t be, ‘You can have whatever you want, you just have to pay for it.’ That’s what we do in other walks of life. We don’t say everyone has to have a large screen TV. If you want a large screen TV, you have to pay for it. Basically the notion would be to move to a level where everyone has a solid basic insurance level of coverage. Above that people pay on their own, without tax-subsidized dollars, to buy a higher level of coverage.”
GruberGateGhazi!
First things first, but it's not like decent coverage was affordable before -- nor were any Republicans offering any solutions.
Other than the mandate they came up with and were for before they were against it, that is.
Again, you made it up. You're just going to call anything death panels.Second, Death Panels:
It's so unfortunate that the ACA replaced an affordable Healthcare system where all procedures, even unnecessary ones, were covered at no additional cost. Those were the days...
Right? The ACA acts like -- GASP -- health insurance!
Considering 85% is subsidized it acts more like an expansion of Medicaid. I'm not saying that's bad but just be intellectually honest. The young healthy people that were supposed to overpay to subsidize it rationally decided not to play.
DeathPanelsGhaziGate!
more CC bull . ACA didn't young people, it needed healthy people.
so much of y'alls talking points were destroyed years ago.
plenty of red-state poor people will get sicker, 1000s will die, for want of Medicaid expansion. THAT's the real death panel angle, from THE RED STATES
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