6th Jonathan Gruber Video – Explaining How Liberals Deliberately “Mislabeled” Aspects of Obamacare to Mask Actual Costs
By Onan Coca / 15 November 2014 / 0 Comments
Jonathan Gruber has become the gift that keeps on giving.
Each day it seems a new video is released unmasking a new aspect of the Democrat fraud against the American people. If this was a criminal courtroom the evidence for a guilty verdict in a conspiracy case would be almost insurmountable at this point.
In the latest video Gruber explains how by “mislabeling” certain aspects of Obamacare, the designers were able to hide certain costs and ensure that once those costs hit the general population they would be too cumbersome to remove from the law.
Specifically it’s something called the “Cadillac tax,” that Gruber attributes to the “brilliance” of John Kerry. The “Cadillac tax” was initially explained as a tax on employers’ expensive health insurance plans. There is not tax on these plans right now, but starting in 2018 taxes will rise to as high as 40% of the insurance cost.
"Economists have called for 40 years to get rid of the regressive, inefficient and expensive tax subsidy provided for employer provider health insurance… It turns out politically it's really hard to get rid of,” Gruber said. “And the only way we could get rid of it was first by mislabeling it, calling it a tax on insurance plans rather than a tax on people when we all know it's a tax on people who hold those insurance plans."
ObamacareBadFunny enough, in 2010 White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said quite the opposite of this tax, "I would disagree with your notion that it is a tax on an individual since the proposal is written as a tax on an insurance company that offers a plan."
The second way “to get rid of” the tax subsidy was simply to have the tax begin "late, starting in 2018. But by starting it late, we were able to tie the cap for Cadillac Tax to CPI, not medical inflation," Gruber said. CPI is the consumer price index, which is lower than medical inflation.
Gruber explains that by drafting the bill this way, they were able to pass something that would initially only impact some employer plans though it would eventually hit almost every employer plan. And by that time, those who object to the tax will be obligated to figure out how to come up with the money that repealing the tax will take from the treasury, or risk significantly adding to the national debt.
"What that means is the tax that starts out hitting only 8% of the insurance plans essentially amounts over the next 20 years essentially getting rid of the exclusion for employer sponsored plans," Gruber said. "This was the only political way we were ever going to take on one of the worst public policies in America."
Unions and employers who object in 2018, he noted, "at that point if they want to get rid of it they're going to have to fill a trillion dollar hole in the deficit...It's on the books now."
Again this proves correct the premise of Gruber’s argument – that the liberal designers of Obamacare were indeed LYING while crafting the bill.
Because as CNN points out – when the Democrats first began discussing the “Cadillac tax” it was explained as a tax that would ONLY IMPACT people with “high end” insurance plans. In fact, a White House economic spokesman said in 2009 that “the excise tax levied on insurance companies for high-premium plans, the so-called ‘Cadillac tax,’ will affect only a small portion of the very highest cost health plans – a total of 3% of premiums in 2013.” (Of course – now we know this was a complete fabrication!)
Here is the video of Gruber discussing the “mislabeling” of parts of Obamacare to ensure passage. (Starts around the 30:38 mark.)
If anyone still believes that this is just Jonathan Gruber’s interpretation of what happened, then they’re blinding themselves to the truth. Gruber’s explanations of what they were doing when creating this law jives perfectly with what is actually happening as the bill unfolds, year by year. Now, it is no longer Jonathan Gruber being dishonest… it’s the Democrats who say he is wrong.
In fact, Rich Lowry at the Nation Review went so far as to thank Gruber for being so honest about his (and all liberals) contempt for the American people.
“He has done us all a favor by affording us an unvarnished look into the progressive mind, which values complexity over simplicity, favors indirect taxes and impositions on the American public so their costs can be hidden, and has a dim view of the average American… An assumption that Americans are incompetent is woven into the Left’s worldview. It is reluctant to entrust individuals with free choice for fear they will exercise it poorly and irresponsibly.”
Well said.
Read more at
http://eaglerising.com/11403/6th-jonathan-gruber-video-explaining-liberals-deliberately-mislabeled-aspects-obamacare-mask-actual-costs/#Bl38940A0ujxmSYR.99
