Former Romney Adviser Jonathan Gruber: Without RomneyCare, We Wouldn’t Have ObamaCare

[cal04]

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/03/29/romney-adviser-without-romneycare-obamacare-doesnt-happen/

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) has attempted to distance his statewide health care plan from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as he positions himself for the 2012 presidential primaries.

But MIT professor Jonathan Gruber, who advised both Romney and President Obama on their health care reform plans, told the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin today that without Romney’s plan (and more specifically, that plan’s individual mandate) President Obama never could have gotten his plan through Congress:

He says that as the federal health care plan emerged, the Massachusetts plan was “widely discussed.”

In his opinion, without the Massachusetts plan the federal individual mandate plan wouldn’t have garnered acceptance and gotten through. “It was huge,” Gruber says, to have the Massachusetts plan to point to. And without it, he thinks “it’s likely” ObamaCare wouldn’t have become law.

[kenny blankenship]

1. Now that ought to stand Mitt in good stead with Republicans!

I guess they could run McCain again.

[aSpeckofDust]

2. The better question is, why is it standing well with us? n/t

[damntexdem]

3. But would we have something better?

I don't know, but isn't it possible?

[Shiver]

4. I don't think so.

We didn't have the votes for the perfect plan, and I prefer having something over fighting to our last breath and ending up with nothing. As it is, what we have no can be built on in the future.

[Gravel Democrat]

5. Greenwald says Gruber was "receiving large, undisclosed payments from the Obama administration "

so there's the ethics thingy

"In the midst of my lengthy discussion yesterday of Cass Sunstein's proposal to "cognitively infiltrate extremist groups" by employing covert agents and secretly paying so-called "independent" analysts to tout the government line, I noted the recent controversy surrounding MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber. Specifically, Gruber was receiving large, undisclosed payments from the Obama administration at exactly the time when the Obama White House (and Gruber himself) were holding him out as an "objective" expert endorsing various parts of the President's health care plan.

Consistent with Sunstein's view that certain actions may be wrong when done by Bad People but acceptable when done by those who are "well intentioned" and trying to "improve social welfare," I noted that many Democrats who strenuously objected to non-disclosure scandals during the Bush years have been minimizing the conduct at issue in the Gruber matter, and cited Paul Krugman as an example. Krugman responded last night on his blog, and I want to discuss a few of the points he makes because I think they have significance beyond the Gruber issue..."

more: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/16/krugman

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