By Rick Manning
Obamacare was built and sold on a series of lies. To quote an insurance company commercial, everyone knows that.
We’ve known it since then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi uttered her famous line, “We have to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it.”
We knew it when they attacked Sarah Palin for claiming that Obamacare contained death panels, only to have Paul Krugman and others admit that a Medicare advisory board would be empowered to deny life-extending/saving treatments.
We knew it when they said you could keep your health insurance if you liked it, then sent out hundreds of thousands of cancellation notices to people who were perfectly happy with their health care.
We even knew it when they claimed you could keep your doctor if you like him/her.
So, what is the big deal about the man who then-Senator John Kerry called the Sherpa — Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber — who guided them to getting the law passed?
Who cares that the guy who met with President Obama five times during the construction of Obamacare, and that the aforementioned Pelosi quoted as being the expert let the cat out of the bag?
You should.
Because Gruber’s admissions made in what must have been a self-congratulatory tour of elitist institutions destroy any legitimacy the law once had.
Gruber has admitted that the so-called “Cadillac tax” will actually drive all employer provided health plans out of existence within twenty years due to the way it is constructed. The truth is they plan to force you out of your health plan, and all those labor unions with their top end plans who supported the law had to be lied to.
Gruber has admitted that the only way they could get the votes for the law was to deliberately lie about both the contents of it and the impact it would have. He knew that all those agenda driven reporters would eat up their denials, and either dismiss or deride arguments against the law without doing any research on their own. After all, their sources in the Administration, and experts like Mr. Gruber could be relied upon.
Finally, even D.C. media leaders are coming to grips with the reality that what they were fed and dutifully parroted about Obamacare were lies. One of these, Ron Fournier (National Journal), even wrote an article expressing how liberals should be the most upset at these lies in his piece “Obamacare’s foundation of lies.”
Obamacare was indeed built on upon outright deception. Fortunately for those opposed to the law, Gruber was caught telling the truth after the law was passed and states were considering whether to set up their own health exchange networks, when he plainly stated that if a state didn’t set up an exchange, they would not be eligible for the federal subsidies.
When 27 states refused to set up exchanges, the Internal Revenue Service rewrote the law to directly subvert the intent of those states by declaring that their residents were eligible for the exact benefits that the law said they were not eligible to receive.
Sometime next year the Supreme Court will decide if the plainly written language in the law can be overridden by the executive branch and rewritten to suit their needs.
And the ultimate irony is that Jonathan Gruber, the man who bragged about pulling the wool over the “stupid” American public’s eyes, will be front and center for telling the truth about Obamacare, in what could very well be a major legal blow to the law’s impact.
Rick Manning is vice president of public policy and communications for Americans for Limited Government.
