By Robert Laurie ——Bio and Archives--December 30, 2014
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“The problem is it starts to go hand in hand with the mandate; you can’t mandate insurance that’s not affordable. This is going to be a major issue,” Gruber admitted in an October 2, 2009 lecture, the transcript of which comprised the policy brief. “So what’s different this time? Why are we closer than we’ve ever been before? Because there are no cost controls in these proposals. Because this bill’s about coverage. Which is good! Why should we hold 48 million uninsured people hostage to the fact that we don’t yet know how to control costs in a politically acceptable way? Let’s get the people covered and then let’s do cost control.”
“The real substance of cost control is all about a single thing: telling patients they can’t have something they want. It’s about telling patients, ‘That surgery doesn’t do any good, so if you want it you have to pay the full cost.’” “There’s no reason the American health care system can’t be, ‘You can have whatever you want, you just have to pay for it.’ That’s what we do in other walks of life. We don’t say everyone has to have a large screen TV. If you want a large screen TV, you have to pay for it. Basically the notion would be to move to a level where everyone has a solid basic insurance level of coverage. Above that people pay on their own, without tax-subsidized dollars, to buy a higher level of coverage.”Wait, did someone pushing ObamaCare just use the free market as justification for a law based on IRS penalties and forced participation? Amazing. Later, after the law passed, Gruber famously claimed that he wished the pitch to pass ObamaCare could have included a dose of reality. However, he - and the administration he advised - knew the law would never escape Congress if the truth had been admitted. In Gruber's own words, the truth doesn't "sell." The lies did. Had the realities of ObamaCare been openly admitted prior to its passage, the law would have been doomed.
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