“The pending U.S. Supreme Court ruling on ObamaCare coupled with a small provision buried in the law could give Republicans in the new Congress the opportunity to power-boost free-market health reform.
The high court will hear arguments, likely in March, on whether the Obama administration had legal authority to allow tax subsidies to flow through the health insurance exchange established by the federal government.”
“The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear King v. Burwell, an important case about Obamacare’s subsidies (tax credits) to health insurers. Plaintiffs argue that in the 36 states with federal Obamacare exchanges, subsidies cannot be paid legally. If no subsidies can be paid, neither the individual mandate to buy health insurance nor the employer mandate to offer insurance can be enforced.
Few people would voluntarily buy health insurance from an Obamacare exchange if health insurers on the exchanges did not receive subsidies to enroll people. The premiums would be too high otherwise. Experts expect that the Supreme Court might decide on King v. Burwell in July, in which case Obamacare will end with a bang.”
“Democrats took a serious one-two punch last week. First, they suffered their second consecutive mid-term “wave” election on Tuesday, losing the Senate in the process. Then on Friday, the Supreme Court announced it would review yet another Obamacare case that Obamacare champion Ron Pollack of Families USA said represented “the most serious existential threat” of the moment to the president’s signature piece of domestic policy legislation.
Consequently, conservative health reformers now have a platinum opportunity [1] to drastically overhaul or perhaps even replace the most misguided law enacted in recent memory. But taking advantage of this historic opportunity will require an exquisite balancing of speed and shrewdness.”
“Democrats are desperately distancing themselves from Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber. He “never worked on our staff,” President Obama said this weekend in Brisbane, Australia, (even though Gruber was paid almost $400,000 by his administration, is the intellectual author of the individual mandate and met in the Oval Office with Obama and the head of the Congressional Budget Office to pore over the bill). “I don’t know who he is,” Nancy Pelosi declared on Capitol Hill (even though she repeatedly cited him by name during the Obamacare debate).
The reason Democrats are running from Gruber is the same reason conservatives should be thanking him: Gruber has exposed what liberals really think of the American people.”
“Imagine what would have happened in the midterm elections if the Jonathan Gruber videos had emerged a week before November 4th than the week after. Actually, we don’t have to imagine it, at least not entirely. There is one more Senate race still left to settle, and it looks like Gruber will play a big part in the finale for Mary Landrieu in Louisiana:
I included this in last night’s QOTD, but it’s worth its own look here. The attack strategy in the last two cycles of “Senator X was the deciding vote on ObamaCare” had a mixed track record. The exposure of Gruber’s remarks makes the attack work better than it did in the past, though. It makes each Democrat complicit in the lies and deceptions of ObamaCare which may resonate better than opposition to the law itself. The sheer arrogance of Gruber’s remarks will rub most voters raw.”
“Do President Obama’s adamant denials that he misled the American public on various important aspects of Obamacare stand up to scrutiny? No, and it’s not even a close call.
In the past several weeks, there’s been a major uproar in the alternative media — the liberal media doing their usual best to cover up stories damaging to this administration and the cause of progressivism — over recordings that have surfaced of MIT economist Jonathan Gruber. Gruber essentially admitted that the administration duped the American people, whom he called “stupid,” on certain issues and the Congressional Budget Office as to the cost of the legislation.”
“Over the past few years Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber has been candid about how the Obama administration lied to misled “stupid” Americans in order to get healthcare legislation passed. We’ve seen countless videos that show Gruber talking about his close relationship with President Obama, how seniors are “terrible” at picking healthcare plans, describing how taxes were “mislabed” in order to dupe Americans into believing Obamacare wasn’t a tax increase, how a lack of transparency was “critical” to passing Obamacare, how the redistribution of wealth from healthy to sick was covered up, etc. But when the folks over at Hannity confronted Gruber this week about his comments, he didn’t have much to say other than “no comment.””
“Speaker of the House John Boehner has hired Jonathan Turley, a renowned liberal law professor, as his lead counsel in the House’s lawsuit against the Obama administration’s delay of Obamacare’s employer mandate.
Turley is a law professor at the George Washington University, frequent legal commentator and self-avowed liberal. He may be the perfect pick for House Republicans — Turley is not only a liberal, but is friendly toward Obamacare itself, according to his writings. But he’s vociferously pushed back against President Obama’s generous use of executive action in the past and has hit the administration for its implementation of the health-care law and he said he jumped at the chance to represent House Republicans.”
“The White House looked to distance itself Thursday from critical remarks made by one of the architects of President Barack Obama’s health care law, who suggested the law benefited from a lack of transparency and the ignorance of the American voter.
In videos that have surfaced, MIT economist Jonathan Gruber has been quoted as saying the “lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” in seeing the complicated law passed. “Call it the stupidity of the American voter, or whatever,” he said in the video from a conference in 2013. “But basically, that was really, really critical to get the thing to pass. I wish we could make it all transparent. But I’d rather have this law than not.””
“Nobody much cared how much credit Jonathan Gruber took for Obamacare — until now.
Once videos surfaced in which the MIT economist talked about the public’s “stupidity,” his claims suddenly matter a lot.
Conservatives are using the controversy — not the first involving the high-profile health care expert and Obamacare comic book author — to show that Democrats knew the law was terrible all along.”