Although many journalistic outlets have conducted a blackout [1] of ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber's comments about duping "stupid" Americans, CNN's Jake Tapper has delivered consistent coverage and on CNN.com [2], Wednesday, offered an elaborate explanation of why Gruber's impolitic comments are really important.
After explaining how the President insisted that his health care plan wouldn't do what Gruber says it will, Tapper declared, "Gruber thinks ObamaCare is a good thing. It's just that we voters were too stupid to realize that. So, we had to be fooled. And that's why so many people are mad about it." [MP3 audio here [3].]
Going beyond Gruber's insults about "stupid" American voters, Tapper showcased other comments by the adviser and contrasted them with Obama's assertions:
JAKE TAPPER: Okay, this may be the most important. Gruber says that he and economists do not think it doesn't not make a lot of sense that employers do not have to pay taxes on the health insurance they provide to their employees. Remember, there's this tax, right, on just the high-end plans. Well, Gruber says that tax, through an accounting gimmick, is eventually going to hit all employer plans. All of them.
JONATHAN GRUBER: What that means is a tax that starts by only taxing about the top eight percent of health insurance plans, essentially amounts over the next 20 years to basically getting rid of the employer exclusion-provided health insurance. This was the only political way we were ever going to take on what is one of the worst public policies in America.
Tapper explained, "So, he's saying this is eventually going to hit all the insurance plans provided by all employers."
The CNN anchor then included a clip of Obama claiming, "I've taken off the table... [the idea] that you would eliminate the tax deduction that employers get for providing you health insurance."
Tapper's coverage on Gruber has included several segments on the impact of the video, as well as highlighting footage of the adviser's repeated insults to American voters. This contrasts with the blackout on NBC's Nightly News and ABC's Good Morning America. The Today [4]show finally noticed the controversy on Monday. How empty has NBC's coverage been? The Daily Show has covered Gruber and Nightly News has not.
A partial transcript of Tapper's November 19 video blog is below:
JAKE TAPPER: So, who is [Jonathan Gruber] and why should you care? Well, what he says might have a direct impact on your health insurance. So, first off, who is this guy, this guy that Democrats claim they barely know?
BARACK OBAMA: Some adviser who never worked on our staff.
NANCY PELOSI: I don't know who he is. He didn't help write our bill.
TAPPER: But he was paid almost $400,000 by the Obama administration, the Department of Health and Human Services, to be a consultant, to help them write ObamaCare. But don't take my word for it. Here's Jonathan Gruber on an Obama campaign video in 2012 in which Obama was dinging Romney for writing RomneyCare, which he was then running away from and which Gruber also helped write.
JONATHAN GRUBER: I helped Governor Romney develop his health care reform, or RomneyCare, before going down to Washington to help President Obama develop his national version of that law.
TAPPER: Okay, so Gruber is one of the guys that helped write ObamaCare. So what? Well, this controversy began when this video came out from last year at the University of Pennsylvania, where Gruber was talking about the sneaky way in which ObamaCare was written so as not to make it appear that the requirement that you have health insurance or your employer provide you with health insurance, so that wouldn't appear officially as a tax.
GRUBER: 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 to getting the thing passed.
TAPPER: And according to Gruber, there was a whole lot of misleading going on. Take the issue of taxing high end health insurance plans. Now, the White House pushed back every time someone said that was a tax on people who had the insurance. "No, no," they said. That was a tax on the insurance company.
ROBERT GIBBS: I would disagree with your notion that is a tax on an individual sense. The proposal is written on an insurance company that offers a plan.
TAPPER: But Gruber in these videos suggests that the administration was being less than forthcoming or, what people outside of Washington D.C., people call lying.
GRUBER: Politically, it's really hard to get rid of. And the only way we could take it on was to label it, call it a tax on insurance plans, rather than a tax on people. And we all know it's really a tax on people who hold those insurance plans.
JAKE TAPPER: Okay, this may be the most important. Gruber says that he and economists do not think it doesn't not make a lot of sense that employers do not have to pay taxes on the health insurance they provide to their employees. Remember, there's this tax, right, on just the high-end plans. Well, Gruber says that tax, through an accounting gimmick, is eventually going to hit all employer plans. All of them.
JONATHAN GRUBER: What that means is a tax that starts by only taxing about the top eight percent of health insurance plans, essentially amounts over the next 20 years to basically getting rid of the employer exclusion-provided health insurance. This was the only political way we were ever going to take on what is one of the worst public policies in America.
TAPPER: So, he's saying this is eventually going to hit all the insurance plans provided by all employers. Again, this is not what the White House was saying at the time.
OBAMA: What I've said and what I've taken off the table would be the idea that you just described, which would be that you would actually provide – that you would eliminate the tax deduction that employers get for providing you health insurance. Because, frankly, a lot of employers would stop providing health care and we'd probably see more people lose their health insurance.
TAPPER: And keep in mind, of course, Gruber thinks ObamaCare is a good thing. It's just that we voters were too stupid to realize that. So, we had to be fooled. And that's why so many people are mad about it. And with a Republican-controlled Senate and House and a pending Supreme Court case, all of this impact might have an impact on you.
— Scott Whitlock is Senior News Analyst at the Media Research Center. Follow Scott Whitlock on Twitter. [5]