Think Obamacare’s Affordable? You’re Stupid

Before he became the Obama administration’s least favorite overpaid expert, MIT economist Jonathan Gruber was its darling. He appeared in an Obama campaign ad saying, “I helped (Massachusetts) Gov. (Mitt) Romney develop his health care reform, or Romneycare, before going down to Washington to help President Obama develop his national version of that law.” The false portrayal of Romneycare and Obamacare as practically identical fueled the Democratic delusion that Congress had drafted the Affordable Care Act to appeal to rascally Republicans.

Now Gruber is in the doghouse because he was captured on video being brutally honest. In 2010, Gruber told a panel, “Barack Obama’s not a stupid man, OK?” Obama knew the public doesn’t care about the uninsured, Gruber said. “What the American public cares about is costs. And that’s why even though the bill that they made is 90 percent health insurance coverage and 10 percent about cost control, all you ever hear people talk about is cost control.”

Ergo, candidate Obama’s 2008 promise that his universal health plan would “bring down premiums by $2,500 for the typical family.”

What happened to those savings? Josh Archambault, senior fellow at the Foundation for Government Accountability, a free market think tank, answered, “We have not seen them yet.”

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