Jonathan Gruber, the embattled Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist whose comments about President Barack Obama’s health law touched off a political furor, worked more closely than previously known with the White House and top federal officials to shape and influence the law, according to previously unreleased emails.
Long before there was the Affordable Care Act, presidential candidate and Democratic front-runner Secretary Hillary Clinton was advocating for her own version of health care reform, popularly known as “Hillarycare.” While the Clintons failed to successfully implement Hillarycare, a little over a decade later, President Barack Obama passed “Obamacare,” which effectively overhauled the United States health care system. While the general refrain in the media touted that Obamacare was different than Hillarycare, the two are actually very similar in structure and regulation.
The Affordable Care Act created a new kind of “cooperative” heralded by supporters of health reform. These Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans, chartered and regulated by the states, would compete with for-profit health-insurance companies and were meant to appease disgruntled advocates of a single-payer and “public option” model for the nation’s health-care system.