“Of all the taxes in ObamaCare, none is more onerous than the whopping 40 percent Cadillac tax on the more generous employer-provided health care plans, which often are union plans.
The now-famous former outside adviser on ObamaCare, Jonathan Gruber of MIT, spoke about the Cadillac tax before an audience at the Pioneer Institute in 2011, saying, “It turns out politically, it’s really hard to get rid of. 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.””
“The White House continued to distance itself from a controversial adviser Tuesday, suggesting that Jonathan Gruber had a narrow role focused on economic issues when he worked on the development of the Affordable Care Act.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Mr. Gruber, who received about $400,000 from the Department of Health and Human Services for his work, advised the administration on the economics of health care – not on the logistics of getting the law passed.”
“Retired Dallas police Sgt. Tom Wafer recently received a call from a commander that “shocked the fool” out of him: The city can’t let him or any of his fellow retirees watch police surveillance camera feeds anymore when the year is over because of an obscure provision of the Affordable Care Act.
City officials say they had to cut Wafer, 74, along with two dozen other retired officers because the health care law put them in a costly bind. The layoffs also affect a few other city agencies but hit the Dallas Police Department hardest.”
“Any plan Gov. Pat McCrory’s administration presents for expanding Medicaid would have a tough time getting through the state legislature.
A key House member said Tuesday it would probably be premature to consider expanding Medicaid next year with the future of the federal health care law uncertain.”
“State lawmakers on Tuesday voiced their continued frustration with the technical problems still afflicting the Washington Healthplanfinder insurance exchange.
On Saturday, the first day of enrollment for the second round of insurance signups on the exchange, the site was live for only a couple of hours before a technical error was discovered and the exchange was taken offline for repairs. Meanwhile, first-round problems involving the transfer of payment information from the exchange to insurance companies have not been corrected, despite assurances they would be fixed by now.”
“Jonathan Gruber set off a firestorm of controversy, at least in the conservative media, with the recent revelation of his comments about the “stupidity of the American people,” which allowed the Affordable Care Act to be passed. In essence, he admitted that the bill was written in a way that would allow its purveyors to characterize it as the cure-all and salvation for a health care system that was in trouble, with no danger of their deception being discovered by a populace that is trusting and naive. He obviously never intended for his comments to make it into the public sphere and did not consider the fact that someone is always recording on their smartphone.”
“Guy and Katie have been covering the fiasco regarding MIT professor Jonathan Gruber who said repeatedly that Obamacare’s passage relied on “the stupidity of the American voter” and a “lack of transparency” to get it through Congress.
As the firestorm grew, Democrats began to distance themselves, or outright deny ever knowing Gruber, like Nancy Pelosi did, in order to prevent what’s quickly becoming a public relations nightmare.”
“Jonathan Gruber strikes again. NRO’s Jim Geragthy digs up yet another video of the increasingly infamous MIT economist sounding off on the law he helped design, and assassinating the character of its critics. In this episode, recorded in April 2014, Gruber rips into Republican opponents of Medicaid expansion, calling some governors’ and legislators’ efforts to reject the federal strings “almost awesome in its evilness.” Note how the interview subject grins as he’s introduced as “the architect” of Obamacare — a reality some people are rather eager to deny these days:”