To: isopatch  who wrote (12801 ) 12/11/2014 2:06:34 PM From: joseffy  2 RecommendationsRecommended By  isopatch John
    Respond to    of 16547  6 Reasons Jonathan Gruber Definitely Wrote Obamacare  ...............................................................................................................                   12/11/2014   by Patrick Howleydailycaller.com  Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber claimed on Capitol Hill this week that he did not write whole parts of Obamacare.  Nonsense.   Wyoming Rep. Cynthia Lummis grilled Gruber at Tuesday’s House   Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing. Lummis brought up   past statements Gruber made identifying himself as a co-writer of   Obamacare and saying that he wrote entire sections of it. Gruber denied   his prime writing role and stonewalled on key questions about his   participation in designing the law.  (RELATED: Gruber Lawyers Up)     The Jonathan Gruber of the Oversight hearing was contrite, bumbling,   and glibly apologetic — just a doddering little academic that got   himself caught up in big, bad Washington politics.  But Jonathan Gruber was, indeed, the “brains” behind the key parts of  Obamacare . Here’s how we know:   1. He bragged to his students on video that he wrote Obamacare Much  like the loathsome pot-smoking professor in “Animal House” who  plays  the guitar for his young female students, Jonathan Gruber has a  need to  impress. In a lecture captured on video, he admitted that he  “helped  write” Obamacare. He was telling the truth.  (Scroll to 8:44)VIDEO      2. He came up with the law’s “Cadillac tax” in an Oval Office meeting  with President Obama Gruber personally met with Obama in the Oval  Office to develop the  law’s “Cadillac tax” in an intentionally  deceptive way. Having come up  with a major portion of the law, Gruber’s  testimony that he did not  write any major sections of Obamacare rings  false.VIDEO     3. He convinced Obama to create the individual and employer mandates  That was a pretty major part of the health-care law. “Mr. Mandate”   Gruber did this beginning in his role as a member of President-elect   Obama’s transition team in 2008. The New York Times even said so.  (RELATED: Gruber Convinced Obama To Create Mandates).     4. Obama was stealing ideas from Gruber as early as 2006 Why did Obama  say in a 2006 speech captured on video that he stole  ideas liberally  from Gruber? He needed to. At that point, Gruber, who  worked on the  Massachusetts model for national health-care reform, was  way more  important and influential than Obama in the Democratic Party’s   health-care push. The next Democratic president was going to be tasked   with health-care reform. Then-Senator Obama needed to get in with the   right folks early.VIDEO     5. Gruber was slated to write the health-care law before it ever  became known as “Obamacare” In other words, he still would have been the  architect of the law if  Hillary Clinton or John Edwards had won the  presidency in 2008. When the  influential Gruber-linked health-care  advocacy group the Herndon  Alliance went to all three Democratic  candidates in that election, it  got Obama, Clinton and Edwards to sign  up to endorse more or less the  same exact plan. The Herndon Alliance  formed out of Ted Kennedy’s  years-long health care reform push, which  started in Massachusetts with  the Gruber-designed Romneycare law. If  anything, the group favored  Clinton over Obama.  As The New York Times’  Paul Krugman wrote    during the 2008 primary, Clinton was better suited to write the health   reform bill than Obama. Whose analysis did Krugman cite in making that   determination? Jonathan Gruber’s. Make no mistake. The health-care law   never needed Barack Obama. But it always involved Jonathan Gruber.   6. Gruber’s speaker bio was pretty clear that he “helped craft” the law  The professor spoke at a June 27 panel sponsored by the Alliance for   Health Reform and The Commonwealth Fund, and bragged about his work with   the Obama administration and Congress.