GOP Fail: The Gruber Testimony

Jonathan Gruber

Sometimes opportunity knocks and no one answers.  Jonathan Gruber's testimony today was one of those times.  Gruber was a central player in the scam that is Obamacare and yet the focus of the questions and the coverage was on irrelevancies.

I watched some Fox News and they were shocked Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber would call voters "stupid."  Other news stories were similar, highlighting issues like Gruber's apologies or his refusal to disclose his pay.   None of those issues, though, really matter to the average voter.  They have never heard of Gruber and little care whether he apologizes for dumb statements.

The average voter does care intensely about his family's health care.  Gruber's videos revealthat the administration knew that average Americans would be harmed by Obamacare.  In particular, they reveal that:

• Obamacare was designed to make the average (healthy) American pay more.  The $2,500 cut was never real.  If Americans knew this, Gruber explained, "it would not have passed."
• Obamacare does raise taxes.   To avoid admitting that, the "bill was written in a tortured way."
• Despite the promise Obama made 37 times, Gruber knew from the beginning that there would be people who would loose the plans.

In sum, the foundational promises of Obamacare were false and, worse, were known to be false from the beginning.

The true Gruber scandal is not that an obscure technocrat insulted voters.  The true scandal is that the whole of Obamacare was dishonest from the start: prices have gone up and people have lost their plans and their doctors and the Democrats knew from the beginning that this would happen.  For the GOP, this should have been today's focus.