The NY Times of late has been stuck on stupid. Really stuck. Really stupid. They have endorsed Obama’s lies, omitted key information in sensitive issues, outright lied about George Bush and Iraq, and tried to peddle Obamacare fiction.
Now they’re at it again. I was reading a Media Research Center article on the ongoing effort by the broadcast networks to censor Grubergate when two items caused me to slam the attention brakes.
The conclusion of the AP article even hinted that deception regarding ObamaCare’s costs couldn’t be the case: “[A]s it was being written, the law was frequently reviewed by the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office, the Joint Committee on Taxation and the often-critical Medicare Office of the Actuary.”
Similarly, the article that appeared in the print New York Times observed that, even though Gruber “has expressed regret about his comments,” the GOP “have decided to believe what they see on the videos.”
As for the AP article, it’s GIGO- garbage in, garbage out. The CBO generates results based on the data input. Gruber has already admitted that they fed the CBO false information. False data in, false conclusion out.
The NY Times then goes into full bullsh*t mode. The article reads:
Mr. Gruber also made headlines in July when a video surfaced that showed him agreeing that the health care law’s tax subsidies were supposed to go only to states that set up their own health exchanges. Thirty-seven states chose not to. That put Mr. Gruber on the opposite side of the White House in a lawsuit that is heading to the Supreme Court.
He said at the time that he “made a mistake in some 2012 speeches,” and reaffirmed his belief that the law’s tax subsidies are proper and constitutional. But Republicans have decided to believe what they see on the videos.
They want us all to believe that Gruber made a gaffe- a whole slew of them, actually, and that he didn’t mean a single one of them.
Michael Kinsley is credited with saying “A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth.”
Gruber made a gaffe alright. He told the truth. He was arrogant, condescending, smug, self-righteous and above all, honest.
The Times would have us buy the propaganda. Michael Shear’s sneering line says it all:
“But Republicans have decided to believe what they see on the videos.”
Can you imagine that? Republicans have decided to believe their own eyes instead of the horse crap from Gruber and the NY Times.
Groucho Marx was credited with saying
“Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?”
In the case of the Times, it’s readily apparent.
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
For obvious stonewalling reasons, the NYT refuses to accept that “regret” does not mean, “I was wrong,” or “What I said was incorrect.”
“Stupid” is right, Dr.J. NYT may well be unable to grasp that this very simply means that Gruber is sorry his arrogant pride controlled his mouth, over, and over and over again.
Gruber’s problem isn’t that he’s stupid, or that he designed a bad health care insurance system. Gruber is very smart. He designed a good health care insurance system. Gruber’s problem is that he’s the guy in the checkered shirt. Gruber is Mandark.
However much delight republicans might get from using it to embarrass Obama, they aren’t going to be able to get rid of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act based on Gruber’s behavior.
Gruber, the gift that keeps on giving… And then there were six… http://youtu.be/dDaIstnTftg
Also just read this very interesting piece: http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2012/02/07/the-tortuous-conservative-history-of-the-individual-mandate/?optimizely=a
@Greg:
I disagree vehemently. Anything government has to deceive it’s people about, anything government has to lie repeatedly about, is NOT good policy. It is NOT good law. Why if stripping the right to vote from someone had been in the bill “you had to pass to find out what was in it”?
@Greg:
Good in who’s eyes? Those who lost their insurance plans? Those who lost their doctors? Those who did not see a 2500 dollar savings? It’s a sure bet you have not read one single page of this law and yet you proclaim it good.
Most of us like to know what we are buying before we plunk down our money.
You however are apparently just a lemming. Ignorance is bliss.
Who else remembers the 2008 debates during which Obama/Hillary took opposite sides about the Individual Mandate?
Who was FOR it?
Who was adamantly opposed to it?
That’s right.
Obama OPPOSED the individual mandate he now loves.
(Just like he now embraces 24 new versions of the ObamaCare (he supposedly supported) that he created via executive order.
Many of his new versions of O’Care were just to get him through elections.)
People who read the whole thing looked at the CBO scoring as a fiction based on bad numbers.
They knew a system that relied on 10 years of income for only 5 years of spending was bound to fall of its own weight, sooner or later.
Gruber’s most recent video (I’ve seen, anyway) shows how he stole from the Federal Gov’t to make Mass. state plan look solvent during its first years.
That he, the creator of both plans, knew that MassCare couldn’t sustain itself yet sold the DEMS on a nat’l version is delusional.
His mess has not been totally uncovered yet.
But the ”Great Recession” helped cover ObamaCare’s great costs in that everything was bad, so more money being sucked out of the economy wasn’t as noticeable at first.
But, if you are one of those 7 million using the Exchanges, you are finding out how much your policy has gone up now that the election is over.
People are preferring to pay the penalty rather than carry a policy in greater numbers.
Oh, and about Michael Kinsley.
He quit TV when his Parkinson’s got really bad.
By 2006 he was forced to try brain surgery for some relief.
The operation was said to be a success.
His first words after the operation were, “Well, of course, when you cut taxes, government revenues go up. Why couldn’t I see that before?”
He has always been a terrific wit.
@DrJohn, #4:
How much deception has there been on the part of the Affordable Care Act’s opponents? Some elected officials and media pundits were looking the public squarely in the eye and telling them that the legislation included death panels. That premiums would skyrocket. (The followup deception is that average premiums actually are skyrocketing. I have seen no evidence that rates on the average are rising any faster than in the past.) That failure to sign up would result in imprisonment. (Rand Paul.) That most small businesses would lose their health insurance. They claimed Obamacare is responsible for the proliferation of part-time jobs. (As if keeping employees short of full-time work schedules to cut costs was some sort of recent innovation.) In California, republicans even put up a misleading website intended to steer the public away from the official Covered California site. The competing site was paid for with public tax dollars. Then there were the attack ads, totally misrepresenting the situations of critically ill patients who supposedly had their individual policies pulled out from under them to be left with no affordable alternatives in the new marketplaces. This simply wasn’t true. It was a deliberate lie, put out by people who paid to have it told as widely as possible.
I’m afraid a full discussion of that topic would involve a lot more than Obamacare and cover a lot more modern history than that of the Obama administration. I don’t think it would turn out to be a problem restricted to one party or the other, either.
@Greg:
Ever the sycophant, aren’t you, Greggie? So how about this:
I went from $0.00 cost for health, Rx, vision and dental insurance due to years of negotiated union contracts to now being required to pay over $300.00 a month for the same coverage. Oh, no, not with the same companies that I really, REALLY, liked but I was forced to change insurers, as well.
You see, the “if you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance. Period” was a lie.
@retire05, #8:
I thought everybody on the right hated unions for getting the workers they represented that sort of unbelievably good benefit package. They’re certainly doing everything they can to disempower what unions are left.
They’ve now got unionized labor hammered down to only 11.3 percent of the workforce—a .5 percent drop from just last year. And they still blame unions for everything that’s wrong with the economy, when they aren’t busy blaming Obama or democrats. There’s another republican lie to list in the right-hand column of the tally.
@Greg: A good system where the numbers do not make sense is a good system? What that means is that we all pay more, we can not keep the plan we like and we can not keep our doctor. You have a very warped idea of what “good” is!
Do people know the “Food Nazi’s” on a NATIONAL LEVEL are hovering…
No one wanted to believe the largest ‘Voice’ on this issue – the TEA PARTY!
They continually opposed Government Healthcare…Citing once the Government has “CONTROL” over YOUR HEALTH (Care)….they will HAVE. CONTROL over your LIFE.
It is coming… but only.if we do not pressure our representatives to make Drastic changes or removal of this horrid Law.
No one wanted to believe the people who ‘were NOT LYING’ to the American People…
@Greg:
Nice attempt to change the subject, Greggie, but…………………..major fail.
Unions have become nothing more than an arm of the DNC. Even union members dislike the unions illegally giving their dues to Democrat candidates. Or are you stupid enough to think that the CWAPAC garners millions in donations to all those Democrat campaigns.
I can’t wait until we get some Republicans that actually have a set of cajones that will go after the unions for violating CWA vs. Beck.
Now, I guess you want to tell me again how I was not telling the truth when I said that my health insurance premiums had gone up 300%. You need to learn to stop letting your mouth overload your ass.
@retire05, #12:
You seems to think “$0.00 cost for health, Rx, vision and dental insurance” was some sort of normal arrangement that democrats have somehow robbed you of, apparently by taking over your union or some such nonsense. Hardly. Most people who have had decent health insurance have been paying for it all along. It generally hasn’t been cheap, seldom covered routine vision and dental costs, and has been steadily getting more expensive for years. I didn’t bring the topic of unions up in connection with any of this, by the way. You did.
It never ceases to amaze me how easily republicans seem to be able to convince working and middle class voters to support policies that are clearly contrary to their own best interests, and then turn right around and convince them that the consequences of those policies are proof that they need to push them even harder. Wages have been stagnant for a couple of decades? Hey, it’s because of unions! Let’s just totally ignore the fact that a higher wage was one of the things they traditionally fought for, and that the decline of the working and middle classes correlates with the decline of union membership and power. Once we’re rid of them completely the free market will kick in and everything will be great.
Deception is certainly a big part of the republican modus operandi. I’ve never heard so many lies at any other time in my life as I have since Obama was elected. Most of them just aren’t coming from the Obama administration.
@Greg:
Is that what I said? No. Are you so dense that you cannot comprehend English? Those insurance benefits were negotiated for by the union that has supported the Democrats, election after election. Stupid union members donned their little red CWA t-shirts every Friday and promoted Obamacare, never realizing that they had helped elect an administration that didn’t give a flying fig about them except for their votes. The management of the CWA was too stupid to know they were being played. Smug and secure that the union would never lose the benefits it had negotiated over the last three decades, they drank the Obama Kool-Aid.
But they never counted on the Cadillac tax. They were too stupid to realize that the insurance companies, having to pay the Cadillac tax, would simply pass that tax on to the price they charged the companies that furnished the insurance, and the companies, like AT & T, would just say “no” and refuse to pay the tax. That is what you get when you have a bunch of union goons, too stupid to make it on their own, running the unions.
That’s bullshit. Almost all the major unions had negotiated for free/extremely low cost medical/dental/vision/Rx insurance benefits for their memberships.
Yeah, I brought up the unions. They got played like a cheap fiddle and now they are seeing even greater membership losses as workers understand that the unions back Democrats, not them. You think that 11% is bad? You ain’t seen nothing yet, Bubba.
You’re right. Not even Woodrow Wilson or FDR lied to the American people to the extent this current Administration has. Obama knew, HE KNEW, Greggie, that if you liked your doctor, if you liked your health insurance, you would not be able to keep them. HE KNEW. Get that through your thick head. You were lied to. I was lied to. We ALL were lied to. Yet, you continue to back this Administration, the most deceitful, lying, deceptive President we have had in our entire national history.
You Socialists have been trying to push your Marxism down our throats for 7 decades. But news flash, Greggie; the American people are waking up. They are opening their eyes. If the election two weeks ago didn’t prove that to you, then you have gone so far off the rails that you will remain delusional ’til the day you die.
@Greg:
And the unions made wage concessions in trade for insurance benefits. Now they have lost both. You Democrat Socialists are a real piece of work. “For the working man” has been your mantra. Well guess what, Greggie? The working man has just learned that Democrats aren’t loyal to them, either.
Communication Workers of America try to cover their asses by joining in with George Soros’ MoveOn.org after they stupidly went along with Obamacare. True to the CWA’s Communist leadership (it didn’t used to be that way but now the CWA allows the Communist Party of America to hold meetings at CWA union halls) they are trying to blame AT & T for the loss of retiree health insurance benefits. AT & T didn’t design the Cadillac tax that no company can absorb, Jonathan Gruber and John Kerry did.
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/stand-up-fight-back-for?source=s.icn.em.mt&r_by=161168
Here’s a hint, CWA; many of your forced union members are not that dumb.
I read the article. I’m not clear why your anger would be focused on the union or on democrats. AT&T CEOs broke faith with their own retirees to increase profits, correct? Most likely they’ll be personally rewarded for doing so. Unions often aren’t in a strong position to resist such pressures these days. Both their legal protections and their memberships have been greatly reduced, and the employees they represent are often in no financial position to risk strikes or lock outs. Nor did this begin with Obamacare. The same thing has been done again and again for decades. It happened years ago with American steel workers. The airline industry did it to their employees. Auto workers took huge hits. Some industries moved overseas, deserting their American workforce entirely. What it’s been about all along is wealth redistribution, from American workers and their families upward, to owners and investors. None of it helps the unions. It weakens them. I don’t see where it helps the Democratic Party, either. Union members have always been their big supporters.
@Greg: See Greg, you are one of the dumb voters he and the administration has fooled. You keep perpetuating the lies!! You bought into the lie so much, you will never give up defending Obama Care!
…along with Medicare, Social Security, public education, environmental protection, consumer protection, freedom both of and from religion as one sees fit, sovereign control over one’s own body, collective bargaining, and all of those other “leftist” ideals and concepts that “smarter” people are gradually being convinced are unAmerican and evil.
@retire05: You’re still on retiree’s insurance. You’re gonna like it when you get on Medicare. much better deal. kind’ve expensive tho.
@Redteam:
Nope. Those prices I quoted (Blue Cross/Blue Shield Plan F – $183/month, plus vision insurance, dental insurance and Rx insurance) is for secondary Medigap Insurance on top of the $104.00 a month for Medicare Part B. Those AT & T retirees who have yet to reach age 65 are now paying upwards of $800.00 a month for one person And they are pissed.
In 2013, AT & T vision care insurance was dropped for retirees and their Rx insurance deductible rose to $2,600. a year.
It wasn’t like the company didn’t try to warn the union this would happen. It did. But the rocket scientists that run the CWA told the membership that there would be an exemption because of the union, never realizing that AT & T retirees didn’t get insurance from the union, but from the company.
@retire05: in 8 you said:” I went from $0.00 cost for health, Rx, vision and dental insurance due to years of negotiated union contracts to now being required to pay over $300.00 a month for the same coverage. Oh, no, not with the same companies that I really, REALLY, liked but I was forced to change insurers, as well.”
That’s why I assumed you were still on your retiree insurance rather than medicare/supplemental. Neither of those(medicare/supplemental) require a change of insurers. I’ve had the same supplemental for about 9 years and it is about $360 month for my wife and I. Does not include Rx ($50 month, separate coverage) I’m relatively satisfied with the insurance, but it is still expensive (360+104+104+50)x12 =$7416 +co pays a year.
@Redteam:
Wrote Gruber:
What would happen if we repealed the mandate?
Some critics have suggested repealing the mandate embedded in the PPACA, while retaining most of its more “popular” provisions. But such a policy would be disastrous for both the cost of insurance and the number of people covered.
I have developed the Gruber microsimulation model to estimate how health reforms would affect insurance markets; this is a very similar model to the one the Congressional Budget Office used to score the PPACA, and my model derives very similar to CBO. I can use this model to consider what would happen if Congress removed the mandate while keeping all other aspects of the law intact. I find that:
▪ Total insurance coverage would rise by fewer than 10 million persons rather than the 32 million persons estimated by CBO. The number of uninsured would be reduced by less than 20 percent rather than by about two-thirds.
▪ Employer-sponsored insurance, which is projected to erode by about 5 million persons under reform, would instead erode by over 20 million persons.
Obama has, illegally, postponed the individual mandate until after the 2016 elections. They (Obama and Gruber) knew that without the individual mandate, 20 million would lose their employer-sponsored health insurance. THEY KNEW IT WOULD HAPPEN.
@Redteam:
I had United Health Care which became my supplemental after I went on Medicare. It is no longer available to me. UHC pulled out. I spend three days researching health care plans just to find one that would cover my doctors who, due to where I live, are considered out-of-network. Then it took two hours on the phone to work with a health care adviser from Hewitt to actually sign up.