Jonathan Gruber Failed to Disclose His $392,600 Contracts with HHS (Updated)

[a kennedy]

MIT health economist Jonathan Gruber has been the go-to source that all the health care bill apologists point to to defend otherwise dubious arguments. But he has consistently failed to disclose that he has had a sole-source contract with the Department of Health and Human Services since June 19, 2009 to consult on the “President’s health reform proposal.”

He is one source for the claim that the excise tax will result in raises for workers (though his underlying study is in-apt to the excise tax question). He is the basis for the argument that the Senate bill reduces families’ risk–even if it remains totally unaffordable. Even Politico stenographer Mike Allen points to Gruber’s research.

But none of the references to Gruber I’ve seen have revealed that Gruber has a $297,600 contract with HHS to produce, a technical memorandum on the estimated changes in health insurance coverage and associated costs and impacts to the government under alternative specifications of health system reform. The requirement includes developing estimates of various health reform proposals on health insurance coverage and cost. The alternative specifications to be considered will be derived from the President’s health reform proposal.

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2010/01/07/jonathan-grubers-rent-a-scholarship/

D*mn!!! :mad:

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. WH outsourced THAT, too?

Used to be the OMB would do those things. Ya know, use a government employee.

[Octafish]

2. Must be a small oversight.

The guy's big payoff awaits in a numbered Swiss bank account.

As for the rest of us who actually work for a living, life will continue to get more and more difficult.

Thank you, a kennedy, for the heads-up an important article detailing how the game is played.

[frazzled]

3. Two things

First of all, there are 23 world-class economists who back him up:

Dr. Henry Aaron, The Brookings Institution
Dr. Kenneth Arrow, Stanford University, Nobel Laureate in Economics
Dr. Alan Auerbach, University of California, Berkeley
Dr. Katherine Baicker, Harvard University
Dr. Alan Blinder, Princeton University
Dr. David Cutler, Harvard University
Dr. Angus Deaton, Princeton University
Dr. J. Bradford DeLong, University of California, Berkeley
Dr. Peter Diamond, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dr. Victor Fuchs, Stanford University
Dr. Alan Garber, Stanford University
Dr. Jonathan Gruber, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dr. Mark McClellan, The Brookings Institution
Dr. Daniel McFadden, University of California, Berkeley, Nobel Laureate in Economics
Dr. David Meltzer, University of Chicago
Dr. Joseph Newhouse, Harvard University
Dr. Uwe Reinhardt, Princeton University
Dr. Robert Reischauer, The Urban Institute
Dr. Alice Rivlin, The Brookings Institution
Dr. Meredith Rosenthal, Harvard University
Dr. John Shoven, Stanford University
Dr. Jonathan Skinner, Dartmouth College
Dr. Laura D’Andrea Tyson, University of California, Berkeley

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/economists... /

Second, if I were trying to formulate health care policy he'd be one of the people I'd hire, too, given his longtime bona fides in this area. It doesn't mean he doesn't believe what he says. From his bio:

]Dr. Gruber was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2005, and in 2006 he received the American Society of Health Economists Inaugural Medal for the best health economist in the nation aged 40 and under. Dr. Gruber's research focuses on the areas of public finance and health economics. He has published more than 125 research articles, has edited six research volumes, and is the author of Public Finance and Public Policy, a leading undergraduate text.
During the 1997-1998 academic year, Dr. Gruber was on leave as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the Treasury Department. He was a key architect of Massachusetts’ ambitious health reform effort, and in 2006 became an inaugural member of the Health Connector Board, the main implementing body for that effort. In that year, he was named the 19th most powerful person in health care in the United States by Modern Healthcare Magazine. During the 2008 he was a consultant to the Clinton, Edwards and Obama Presidential campaigns and was called by the Washington Post, “possibly the party's most influential health-care expert.”

http://econ-www.mit.edu/faculty/gruberj/shortbio

Let me do the math: 32 world renowned economists, the Democratic party's "most influential health-care expert" . . . versus Jane Hamsher, a one-time Hollywood producer. (How much advertising revenue does she get from unions?I don't know.) Who should I consider when trying to assess this complicated issue?

[chimpymustgo]

4. Great find. Thanks for posting. And thanks to FIREDOGLAKE for the story.

[TexasObserver]

5. Oh, great. Now we have our own Armstrong Williams.

http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=50a02d4fc3a51290e76060afc540efbf

Did the president learn nothing from the Bush administration's scandals, or is this an instance of him being out of this particular loop?

[chimpymustgo]

7. Seems Obama learned a LOT from B*sh.

[pschoeb]

6. I wonder if all the Gruber pushers are paid for as well

nt

[slipslidingaway]

8. knr nt