Obamacare cost-saving, and Gruber: it’s lies all the way down
Let’s not forget good old Obamacare. The administration hasn’t, and the lies keep coming:
On Dec. 3, federal actuaries released data showing that health spending inched up only 3.6 percent in 2013.
Marilyn Tavenner, the head of Medicare and Medicaid, boasted that it’s “evidence that our efforts to reform the health-care-delivery system are working.” Sorry, not true.
That 3.6 percent figure is an improvement only by a hair.
The real slowing of health care spending started way back in 2009, in the wake of the Great Recession, long before ObamaCare even passed. Health spending slowed to a comfortable 3.8 percent rise that year, and stayed at that slow pace in 2010.
Not that the president acknowledged that health spending was growing at the slowest rate in a half-century.
To pass his health bill, he needed a crisis. So he and then-Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius repeatedly lied, warning that costs were “skyrocketing,” spending was “spiraling” out of control and health needs would gobble up ever more GDP unless Congress quickly passed the Affordable Care Act…
On Dec. 2, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell announced “demonstrable progress” in making hospital care safer.
Her report claims that some 50,000 fewer patients died from bed sores, infections, medication errors, falls and other mishaps from 2010 to 2013, largely due to new payment incentives and a patient safety program in ObamaCare.
That happy claim was repeated verbatim by many media outlets.
Not so fast, say patient safety experts who actually read the report…
There’s another much more subtle lie inherent in the administration’s claims, which is the assumption that if an effect follows an event, the effect is caused by that event. That sort of “lie” is hardly limited to the Obama administration or Obamacare, of course. It’s a common problem with a great deal of social science and medical research—actually, just about any research in the soft rather than hard sciences.
In other, related news, Jonathan Gruber is testifying before Congress today. He is in the unenviable position of having to say he lied about lying but is now telling the truth about his lies about lying. However, Gruber also managed to do what most people cannot or will not do, which is to avoid hedging and qualifying in his apology:
I sincerely apologize both for conjecturing with a tone of expertise and for doing so in such a disparaging fashion. It is never appropriate to try to make oneself seem more important or smarter by demeaning others. I know better. I knew better. I am embarrassed, and I am sorry.
In Gruber’s closing paragraph he tries to say “It’s me, not Obamacare!” He is willing to fall on his sword for the greater good:
I behaved badly, and I will have to live with that, but my own inexcusable arrogance is not a flaw in the Affordable Care
Act.
No, it’s not. But the ACA has its own flaws galore, much greater than Gruber’s. Its proponents had their own inexcusable arrogance, lies, and parliamentary shenanigans, and Obamacare has its own terrible consequences.
[NOTE: By the way, for what it’s worth, when I first heard about Gruber—which was in connection with his highly-praised prediction a year ago that only 3% of Americans will be impacted negatively by Obamacare—I wrote an article for PJ that pointed out Gruber’s partisanship and non-objectivity, plus the fact that he had had to admit there were quite a few flaws in the reasoning behind the models for which he was so well-known. In it, I quoted an Avik Roy article that features a statement Gruber himself had made:
Most importantly, Gruber has admitted that his model has a catastrophic flaw: it can’t model the impact of Obamacare’s requirement that insurers take all comers regardless of pre-existing conditions. Here’s what he said to the State of Colorado:
“It is important to recognize some limitations in our modeling of prices. In particular, given publicly available data we cannot incorporate the effects of the ban on pre-existing conditions exclusions. This ban will cause a rise in premiums as insurers are forced to cover conditions that they had previously excluded. In addition, there are new premium taxes on insurers that will raise premium rates”¦Overall, we cannot predict the net impacts of these factors on premiums without more analysis.”
It’s precisely this aspect of the law that non-partisan analysts have pointed to as a reason why Obamacare will drive up premiums.
Why did anyone ever listen to Gruber? Because he was telling them what they wanted to hear. To use a model that omits the fact that Obamacare required the coverage of people with pre-existing conditions, and to act as though this will have no effect on premiums, is not just incompetent, but shockingly so, as anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of insurance and math could have easily seen.]
[NOTE II: Any attacks on Gruber from the left would be following the same playbook Gruber himself is following: It’s Gruber, not Obamacare! Gruber’s the villain!]
Obamacare is just the son of Hillarycare. Hillarycare was unaffordable and Obamacare is too. In 1995 the state of Tennessee initiated Hillarycare under the name Tenncare. The first year cost was $2.5 billion. By 2004 the cost had increased to $8 billion. The cost had more than tripled in less than 10 years. Tenncare was the largest line item in the Tennessee budget and was on the way to bankrupting the state. The idea that the government can provide inexpensive, readily available, first class medical care is a socialist fantasy.
It was not a case of incompetence but of willful deceit. Any lie, any means necessary to the advancement of the left’s agenda is a ‘good’ by their ‘moral’ calculus.
That ObamaCare is unaffordable is dismissed as untrue (there’s always the rich) but even if socialism is unsustainable, better all be miserably poor than that anyone have more than another.
“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, a creed of ignorance, and a gospel of envy. Its only inherent virtue, the equal sharing of misery.” Winston Churchill
It seems less and less debatable that those on the far left are hate filled fanatics. The blunt truth is that they have become an existential, mortal threat to civilization and eventually, they will have to be put down like the rabid dogs that they are… but there is a great probability that humanity will not do so, until they have filled the world with misery.
Irrespective of intent, Gruber is a whistleblower. In one fell blow, he exposed the “best and brightest” interest in normalizing premeditated abortion, Obamacare, and other rationing policies: DRAT = Displace, Replace, Abort, and Tax.
Watching Dr. Gruber’s self-immolation in his Congressional testimony today was quite breathtaking.
No amount of coaching/preparation could have prevented him from being confronted with the facts.
Hopefully the exposure will have some impact on getting the ACA nullified.
Trey Gowdy…now that’s the fellow I want as Speaker. I almost had tears in my eyes from laughing so hard at his take down of Gruber… enjoy!
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2014/12/09/watch-trey-gowdy-verbally-pummel-obamacare-architect-jonathan-gruber-n1929573
With the open enrollment deadline looming, and “my” insurance agent telling me that I’ve got to commit by 12/15/14 in order to ensure no lapse in coverage on 1/1/15, I’ve just been forced to increase my own health care expense by $600 per month on premiums, plus almost $5000 in the deductible, plus no more breaks on scrips or on doctor visits , until we hit the new very high family deductible. I can’t tell you how pissed off I am today, and watching those two worms writhe before the committee helped but little.
Based on the cost of the health insurance I had two years ago, I’ll be robbed by the federal government during 2015 to the tune of about $1200 each month. But I’m just one of the 5 million or so people in the “private insurance marketplace”, among the self-employed group the regime always dismisses as being “insignificant”. I feel incandescent.
Rant mode off, thanks.
I imagine Gruber is content to take the blame because he’s already been paid handsomely, and it ensures that Obama will protect him (as if Holder would prosecute anyone who broke the law for Obama). We’ve seen this played out too many time during the Obama administration: whistleblowers & leakers that hurt Obama are punished, people who keep quiet and protect Obama are safe, and in some cases, promoted.
After watching the House committee savage Gruber, I asked myself, “Why are they doing this to him? This man could actually be our best witness against Obamacare.” My approach would have been to thank him for his candor in describing the clever methods they used to sell this (turkey of a) law. By praising him for his candor, they might actually have gotten him to become a witness for the prosecution.
That has been my attitude about Gruber from day one. Give thanks that he was willing (due to his hubris, but that’s another issue) to speak openly about what we kept unsuccessfully telling people about the law. He has made our case against the law far better than we ever could have. Instead of browbeating him, butter him up and ask him to tell us more. Praise him for his many visits to the White House and for being a close advisor to the President. Stroke his ego and see where it takes you. Well, it’s worth thinking about.
Sorry Folks but it is all a Kabuki Dance.
In the end, many of those Republiks that asked tough questions will vote to have a continuing resolution for the next year. That act will continue Obamacare. So tell me, are these principled legislators aka Give me Liberty or give me Death or simply playing to the crowd? I have to vote with the latter 🙁
Here is a link that I found interesting. Gruber co-wrote a paper back in 1997 that talked about how it was good that the country had abortion since it saved 1.8 billion/ yr. At least he is consistent with getting rid of those he thinks are inferior. 🙁
“Once again, Gruber has done what no other Democrat is capable of doing: he’s revealed the truth about how the Democrat party really views Americans. You are not worthy to be born if you might be poor and you are too stupid to know what’s good for you.”
http://www.redstate.com/2014/12/09/gruber-abortion-statement-drops-bomb/
Congress gets Gruber to testify in hearings, and the next day it comes out the GOP leadership wants to pass a bill that funds Obamacare. The GOP leadership is not stupid. They are progressive Grubers just like the dems. Anyone who thinks they are not is just kidding themselves.
Neo: There’s another much more subtle lie inherent in the administration’s claims, which is the assumption that if an effect follows an event, the effect is caused by that event.
ah. but only if such an event is good for the cause..
so in the case where that is true, and its a bad outcome, they have nothing to do with it.
in the case where that is false, and its a bad outcome, they have nothing to do with it
in the case where its true, and its a good for the cause outcome, they go nutters crowing about it
in the case where its false, and its good for the cause, they work their arses off attempting to make it so
so feminists take credit for social changes that were not theirs… (women moving into industry on their own due to need)… and deny social changes that are theirs (birth rate below replacement, mgtow abandonment of relationships, etc)
I second the nomination of Trey Gowdy. If the House elects Boner again, they’ll need more than Viagra to get the voters up for 2016.