Health Care Reform: What It Is, Why It's Necessary, How It Works (2011) - Plot & Excerpts
In November 2014, a series of videos emerged of Gruber speaking about the ACA at different events, from 2010 to 2013, in ways that proved to be controversial. Many of the videos show him talking about ways in which he felt the ACA was misleadingly crafted and/or marketed in order to get the bill passed, while in some of the videos he specifically refers to American voters as ill-informed or "stupid." In the first, most widely-publicized video taken at a panel discussion about the ACA at the University of Pennsylvania in October 2013, Gruber said the bill was deliberately written "in a tortured way" to disguise the fact that it creates a system by which "healthy people pay in and sick people get money." He said this obfuscation was needed due to "the stupidity of the American voter" in ensuring the bill's passage. Gruber said the bill's inherent "lack of transparency is a huge political advantage" in selling it.[23] The comments caused significant controversy.[24][25][26][27][28] In two subsequent videos, Gruber was shown talking about the decision (which he attributed to John Kerry) to have the bill tax insurance companies instead of patients, which he called fundamentally the same thing economically but more palatable politically. In one video, he stated that "the American people are too stupid to understand the difference" between the two approaches, while in the other he said that the switch worked due to "the lack of economic understanding of the American voter."[29] In another video, taken in 2010, Gruber expressed doubts that the ACA would significantly reduce health care costs, though he noted that lowering costs played a major part in the way the bill was promoted.[30]After the first of these videos came out, Gruber apologized for his wording, saying he "spoke inappropriately".[31] Some defenders of the ACA, such as Jonathan Cohn, called Gruber's statements about Americans "wrong and inappropriate" while maintaining that the trickery of which Gruber spoke was standard procedure for bills in Washington, and not a cause for scandal.[32][33] Opponents of the Act, on the other hand, were harsher in their criticism: commentator Rich Lowry said that the videos were emblematic of "the progressive mind, which values complexity over simplicity, favors indirect taxes and impositions on the American public so their costs can be hidden, and has a dim view of the average American,"[34] while commentator Charles Krauthammer called the first video "the ultimate vindication of the charge that Obamacare was sold on a pack of lies."[35] Conservative S. E. Cupp wrote that the videos also showed "willful ignorance" on Gruber's part in thinking that the Act was successfully marketed to voters, stating that "the law has never cracked a 51% favorability rating" and that, in the first elections after the ACA passed, Republicans, who had opposed it, retook the House of Representatives and gained control of 11 additional state governorships.[36] First off: this is a cartoon book (excuse me....graphic novel). It takes about an hour to read. It also does a decent job of explaining why the health care system is not working and how the ACA (Affordable Care Act) begins to tackle the problem. Text written by Johnathan Gruber, an MIT professor of economics and an architect of both the Massachusetts healthcare plan, and a central figure in the construction of the ACA and Democratic healthcare policy consultant. It was a little light on detail, but the whole point was to get the big picture across in the smallest amount of space-time.
What do You think about Health Care Reform: What It Is, Why It's Necessary, How It Works (2011)?
Well worth the read. Good introduction and explanation of the affordable care act
—Sab
Fairly entertaining propaganda. But it's propaganda. No more, no less.
—Pett
really good rundown of the health reform model currently in place.
—Wcompas
explains the facts quick and easy. Great book to get the gist.
—judy
