November 16, 2014
Smug Filled RoomsBy Clarice FeldmanAs the story broke bit by bit over the internet -- one angry citizen’s (Rich Weinstein) research established that MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber, a major architect and salesman for ObamaCare, boasted in
6 separate videos that he lied and that voters were “too stupid” to catch on -- we got to see inside what Professor Charles Lipson smartly coined “the smug filled rooms” of the Capitol.
Many observed the only “stupid” people were the Democrats who -- without a single Republican vote -- twisted parliamentary procedure to pass this into law, accepting California’s constitutional genius Nancy Pelosi’s admonition, “we have to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it.”The revelations could not have come at a worse time for the administration.
For one thing, the Supreme Court just granted certiorari in the King case. That case tests whether the clear language of the ObamaCare subsidies for those who sign up under state-run plans was improperly extended by IRS to signers on the federal website, a bit of administration legerdemain to keep ObamaCare viable after 37 states refused to set up state insurance exchanges.
You see, Gruber’s arrogance revealed that the scheme was not only contrary to the clear language of the statute, but as well to the intent of its authors. He has gravely undercut the administration’s argument to look beyond the language to sustain their expansion of it. While countless Democrats -- including especially Nancy Pelosi -- who credited and relied on Gruber’s work now act as if they never heard of him, they can’t so easily dispose of him and his role in the creation of Obamacare .
James Taranto spotted this dilemma:
In March, a group of left-leaning “economics scholars,” including Gruber himself, filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case of King v. Sebelius, then under consideration by the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. (Last week the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal of the case, now styled King v. Burwell.) The March brief appealed to Gruber’s authority:
‘Economist and MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber has developed a sophisticated economic model that allows for a robust prediction of outcomes in the health care system, depending on various policy changes. The Gruber Microsimulation Model (“GMSIM”) utilizes two primary sets of data: (1) Fixed information on individuals, derived from 2011 Current Population Survey data and updated to 2013 and later years; and (2) varying information on policy parameters, which inform the changes in price and eligibility of various forms of insurance. . . . The GMSIM has been cited as one of the leading options for modeling health insurance reforms such as the ACA [the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act].’
A three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit sided with the administration in King. On the same day, a panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled for the plaintiffs in Halbig v. Burwell, another case raising the same legal question -- to wit, whether the Internal Revenue Service exceeded its statutory authority in making tax subsidies available to purchasers of medical insurance policies on the federally run exchange.
The plaintiffs rest their argument on the plain language of the statute, which limits subsidies to taxpayers “enrolled in [policies] through an Exchange established by the State.” The administration’s defenders, including Gruber, have argued that the plain-language interpretation is counter to congressional intent and that the limitation is a mere “typo.” That claim is nonsensical, as we observed Monday. Even if it was a drafting error, it was far more serious than a mere typo.
But as we noted in July, Gruber himself had asserted on multiple occasions that it was Congress’s intention to limit the subsidies to state-established exchanges. In that view, Congress’s intent was to make it so attractive to set up an exchange that no state would refuse.
Last week, the day before Election Day, 18 Democratic state attorneys general, led by Virginia’s Mark Herring, filed a brief with the D.C. Circuit, arguing that the full court should reverse the panel’s decision in Halbig. According to them, Gruber is no authority at all:
‘The best that Appellants and their amici come up with are YouTube videos of Professor Jonathan Gruber, a private citizen at non-governmental meetings in January 2012, years after the ACA was enacted. But Appellants fail to demonstrate that Professor Gruber’s message was disseminated to the State officials responsible for determining whether to build their own Exchange. In any event, Gruber later corrected himself, calling his earlier statements a mistake.’
Back in July, Gruber rather hilariously characterized his earlier comments as a “speak-o.” Presto, change-o, typo, speak-o!
The Democratic state attorneys, who distanced themselves from Gruber in their brief, are not alone. As each new video appears more administration backers claim they never heard of him, he’s “a private citizen” and such.
But you cannot pay him hundreds of thousands of dollars, cite him in your speeches and on your websites and in your briefs as an authority and then credibly pretend you don't know him .
Read the rest here:
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/11/smug_filled_rooms.html++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
