If a conservative, or even a mere Republican, had made the statements Professor Jonathan Gruber freely delivered at a policy forum a year ago, he or she would have been repudiated by the mass media, shunned by colleagues, and sent out to some pasture. Instead, liberal mouthpieces have excused or ignored what he said as they went about pouring his remarks into their favorite memory hole.
Gruber is a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he had a played a key role in crafting the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as ObamaCare. A year ago, well after ObamaCare had been approved by Congress and given a pass by the Supreme Court, he participated in a panel at Stonehill College, a small Catholic institution located about 30 miles south of Boston. His pronouncements were videotaped and have just now gotten wide exposure on the Internet. I’m sure he and the Obama team wish either that he’d never said what he uttered or that the videotape would never have surfaced.
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He first of all admitted to a lack of full disclosure when the law was being considered. “I wish we could make it all transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not.” Obviously, not all aspects of the law were truthfully presented, and lying is now termed a lack of transparency. Gruber added that had it been stated that “healthy people are going to pay in, it would not have passed.” Then, he said, “… this bill was written in a tortured way to make sure the CBO [Congressional Budget Office] did not score the mandate as taxes.” If the CBO realized that it was a tax measure, which is what the Supreme Court eventually said it was, “the bill dies.” And he went further, stating that the bill was “written to do that.” To do what? “To keep the fact that it is a tax from being known.” So much for complete disclosure!
The deceitful professor went on to admit further deceitfulness and even to insult the American people. He stated: “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to get for the thing to pass.” Maybe some people are stupid (the ones who don’t vote?), but where were the supposedly tough members of the mass media when ObamaCare had yet to become law?
ObamaCare should be known as government’s takeover of one-seventh of the nation’s economy. The finest health-care system anywhere on earth is in the process of being destroyed by government. Is it constitutional? Only if one can find the words “medical,” “medical care,” or “medicine” in the Constitution. But none of these words is there.
ObamaCare ought to be cancelled. Republican majorities in both houses of Congress must realize that a prime reason why they scored so well in the 2014 elections happens to be non-stupid voter dislike (should we say “abhorrence”) of the government’s move into this critically important arena. Contact House Speaker John Boehner and incoming Senate Majority Leader McConnell and let them know they were lied to by promoters of ObamaCare, and add that you resent one of its architects calling you and other American voters stupid.
John F. McManus is president of The John Birch Society and publisher of The New American. This column appeared originally at the insideJBS blog and is reprinted here with permission.
