David Brooks, "Obama in Winter": "Gruberism" in Action

It's no secret that The New York Times has gone to extreme efforts to avoid mention of MIT professor Jonathan Gruber, whose recently revealed declarations concerning the stupidity of American voters and a lack of transparency involving the passage of Obamacare have aroused indignation throughout the United States. Well, in his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Obama in Winter," David Brooks writes of "Gruberism" as it relates to the Obama administration. Referring to Obama's threat to veto the Keystone XL pipeline and to take unilateral action on immigration, Brooks concludes:

"I’m not sure why the Obama administration has been behaving so strangely since the midterms. Maybe various people in the White House are angry in defeat and want to show that they can be as obstructionist as anyone. Maybe, in moments of stress, they are only really sensitive to criticism from the left flank. Maybe it’s Gruberism: the belief that everybody else is slightly dumber and less well-motivated than oneself and, therefore, politics is more about manipulation than conversation.

Whatever it is, it’s been a long journey from the Iowa caucuses in early 2008 to the pre-emptive obstruction of today. I wonder if, post-presidency, Mr. Obama will look back and regret that he got sucked into the very emotional maelstrom he set out to destroy."

Obama will look back and regret something in 2017 and the years thereafter? Sorry, David, not a chance. Owing to a narcissistic belief in his moral and intellectual superiority, Obama is not capable of regret. Everyone else is wrong. Everyone else is to blame. He was betrayed by those stupid American voters, who twice elected him to the highest office in the land. And given that Obama was betrayed, we can only expect total war with Congress and scorched earth during his final two years in office.

Obama has been "behaving so strangely since the midterms"? Not at all. It's all part and parcel of the Götterdämmerung of this tragedy's final act.

Paul Krugman, "When Government Succeeds": A Triumph of Imagination Over Intelligence

"Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence."

- H.L. Mencken

Paul Krugman must sure as heck love the Obama administration.

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "When Government Succeeds," Paul Krugman crows over the successes of the Obama administration, among them Obamacare:

"Then there’s health reform. As usual, much of the national dialogue over the Affordable Care Act is being dominated by fake scandals drummed up by the enemies of reform. But if you look at the actual results so far, they’re remarkably good. The number of Americans without health insurance has dropped sharply, with around 10 million of the previously uninsured now covered; the program’s costs remain below expectations, with average premium rises for next year well below historical rates of increase; and a new Gallup survey finds that the newly insured are very satisfied with their coverage. By any normal standards, this is a dramatic example of policy success, verging on policy triumph."

Obamacare is "a  dramatic example of policy success, verging on policy triumph"? Maybe, if you decide to ignore a couple of things:

• Let's ignore the farcical launch of HealthCare.gov.

• Let's also ignore, "If you like your health care plan or health care provider, you can keep them."

• Let's also ignore Friday's New York Times article entitled "Cost of Coverage Under Affordable Care Act to Increase in 2015" by Robert Pear, Reed Abelson and Agustin Armendariz.

• Let's also ignore reduced enrollment goals for 2015.

• Let's also ignore the possible "enrollment" of persons who haven't paid their premiums.

• Let's also ignore the shoddy drafting of the Affordable Care Act, acknowledged by Krugman a week ago, which could well result in the ultimate unravelling of the law.

• Let's also ignore the law's 42 changes, including delayed implementation of the employer mandate.

• But most important, let's ignore MIT Professor Gruber's take on Obamacare:

"This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. Okay, so it’s written to do that. In terms of risk rated subsidies, if you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in – you made explicit healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed… Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really really critical for the thing to pass… Look, I wish Mark was right that we could make it all transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not."

Obamacare is a "triumph"? Krugman is obviously head over heels in love.

Charles Krauthammer, "The Gruber Confession": The Arrogance of Academic Liberalism

Go to the homepage of The New York Times and do a search for "Jonathan Gruber": You won't find his name. Now, go to the opinion pages of the Times and do the same search: Once again, his name does not appear [David Brooks is writing about George Eliot ("The Agency Moment"), and Paul Krugman is telling us about a carbon emissions agreement between the US and China ("China, Coal, Climate")].

Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, however, believes that Gruber deserves mention. In an opinion piece entitled "The Gruber Confession," Krauthammer derides "the arrogance of an academic liberalism, so perfectly embodied in the Gruber Confession, that rules in the name of a citizenry it mocks, disdains and deliberately, contemptuously deceives." Krauthammer writes of the decision of the US Supreme Court to grant certiorari in the case of King v. Burwell:

"Last week, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case claiming that the administration is violating its own health-care law, which clearly specifies that subsidies can be given only to insurance purchased on 'exchanges established by the state.' Just 13 states have set up such exchanges. Yet the administration is giving tax credits to plans bought on the federal exchange — serving 37 states — despite what the law says.

If the plaintiffs prevail, the subsidy system collapses and, with it, Obamacare itself. Which is why the administration is frantically arguing that 'exchanges established by the state' is merely sloppy drafting, a kind of legislative typo. And that the intent all along was to subsidize all plans on all exchanges.

Re-enter Professor Gruber. On a separate video in a different speech, he explains what Obamacare intended: 'If you’re a state and you don’t set up an exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits.' The legislative idea was to coerce states into setting up their own exchanges by otherwise denying their citizens subsidies."

A "legislative typo"? Krauthammer is obviously referring to Paul Krugman's inane opinion piece on Monday, "Death by Typo," which took the position that the Affordable Care Act intended to provide tax credits to plans bought on federal exchanges. Needless to say, the Krugman op-ed managed to avoid any mention of Gruber. Another example of "the arrogance of an academic liberalism"?

Compare, however, Krugman's attempt to ignore Gruber with Nancy Pelosi's effort to disavow any knowledge of the man or his involvement in enacting Obamacare.

It may take a few months, but Obamacare is destined to be walloped in 2015 by the Supreme Court and is headed for oblivion.

Linda Greenhouse, "Law in the Raw": Slaw Through a Straw

And in the aftermath of Paul Krugman's inane opinion piece on Monday, we are blessed with yet another "objective" analysis from the op-ed page of The New York Times concerning the Affordable Care Act. In a Times opinion piece entitled "Law in the Raw," Linda Greenhouse writes of the US Supreme Court decision to grant certiorari in the case of King v. Burwell:

"These two provisions, part of a 900-page statute that was cobbled together without going through the usual House-Senate conference committee in which it might have been cleaned up, are the source of the confusion. The answer to the problem, as the Fourth Circuit panel found unanimously in the King case, is obvious. It’s a basic principle of administrative law that when a federal statute is ambiguous, courts defer to the agency’s interpretation — here, the I.R.S. regulation that makes the tax credits available without regard to whether the exchange is state or federal."

Okay, but is the Affordable Care Act "ambiguous"? John Steele Gordon's article in Commentary entitled "Paul Krugman at It Again" provides powerful evidence that the statute says exactly what it intended to say:

"[Krugman] writes, 'you can ask the people who drafted the law what they intended, and it wasn’t what the plaintiffs claim.'

OK, let’s do that and ask Jonathan Gruber, one of the main architects of ObamaCare. In 2012, long before this controversy arose, he was asked at a public forum about subsidies being limited to the exchanges set up by the states. He says that limiting the subsidies to state exchanges was entirely on purpose, in order to coerce the states into setting up the exchanges. 'I think what’s important to remember politically about this,' he says, 'is if you’re a state and you don’t set up an exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits.'"

Jonathan Gruber? Why is there not a single mention of Gruber in Greenhouse's op-ed? Just this past week we learned of MIT Professor Gruber's take on Obamacare:

"This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. Okay, so it’s written to do that. In terms of risk rated subsidies, if you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in – you made explicit healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed… Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really really critical for the thing to pass… Look, I wish Mark was right that we could make it all transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not."

Obamacare was purposefully written in a "tortured way"? The "stupidity of the American voter" was "really really critical for the thing to pass"? "Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage"?

Apparently, Greenhouse thinks none of the above has anything to do with a discussion of the Affordable Care Act's "ambiguity."

Yeah, right.