Randy131 Loc: Florida

If that was really true, then why did they pay Emmanuel and Gruber all that money, if the 'ACA' (Obamacare) was just what the 'Heritage Foundation' produced, as professor Jonathon Gruber has claimed the opposite many times over, declaring that he did the lions share of the work. What a bunch of BS, Obama's worshippers learned well from him, especially in changing the facts of histroy, and lying, as the "Lying King" Obama did more of than all our previous Presidents added together did. If "the right wing added 98 amendments", then should be able to name each of those amandments (or at least some) and who were the sponors (at least the ones that you are capable of naming the amandments) of each, but don't start worrying too much, we know that you can't, because that is also a big lie, one that Obama would be proud to claim as his own.

permafrost Loc: Minnesota

Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber says Republicans setting up a 'scam'
Genevieve DiNatale Monday, March 13, 2017
Jonathan Gruber
Credit: AP

Jonathan Gruber
COMMENTS
MIT economics professor and Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber said that any healthcare replacement law the GOP has in store is a “scam.”


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>>>>>>>>>>>>>


The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, adopted 161 amendments to its health care bill that were authored by Republicans, yes. And, yes, the Senate Finance Committee-adopted bill included Republican amendments and passed the Committee with a bipartisan vote. Those two bills - along with bits from other legislation - eventually became the legislative framework for what passed as the Affordable Care Act.

However, many of those amendments and changes in the underlying bills weren’t substantial. Now, drawing the line between what constitutes substantial versus technical is going to depend heavily on a person’s own biases, which is why, at the time, Republicans rejected the claim that they had been allowed “substantive” input to the bill, while Democrats said, “Look at all the changes we let you make!”

But tallying up the number of amendments Republicans filed, which were approved, and which were substantive kind of misses the forest for the trees. The negotiations with Republicans resulted in the exclusion of several liberal ideas for health reform - to include a nationwide public option - while including several previously Republican-supported concepts in a failed attempt to attract Republican support.

The result was that the law left a lot of liberals (eg, me) dissatisfied that the reforms didn’t go far enough; and, unfortunately, our dissatisfaction was spun-up in conservative circles as evidence that “majorities of Americans are unhappy with the ACA,” which, while technically true, missed the point that many of us were unhappy that it didn’t go far enough, not that it existed at all, but regardless kept “Repeal and Replace” afloat.

But that’s all for a different topic.

In short, yes, technically, the Affordable Care Act includes a raft of Republican amendments and broad concepts. Were they significant enough amendments to matter? Eight years later, that’s still up for debate.

archie bunker Loc: Texas

Isn't Gruber the dude who said that they had to use tortured language, and rely on the stupidity of the American voter to get this thing passed?

permafrost Loc: Minnesota

Yes, then he took his money and hid.. Now he says the gop plan is a fraud..

he has a long record of changing his statement.. Likes to see his name in print it seems..

Differing reports that he was paid to say one thing or the other, for or against the ACA.

Latest has been that the republican bill is fraud..

This is from the Boston globe..

Jonathan Gruber, the MIT economist who once said passing President Obama’s health law depended on “the stupidity of the American voter,” endured a humiliating four-hour congressional hearing on Tuesday and apologized for remarks that he acknowledged were demeaning.

“I am embarrassed and I am sorry,” Gruber, who helped craft the Massachusetts law and was a consultant on the federal law, said at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing.

Gruber denied repeated requests by the committee to confirm or deny that he had been paid at least $2.5 million to help eight state governments implement the federal health law, prompting a threat from several members of the committee to subpoena the information after Gruber referred them to his lawyer.

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Gruber called his comments, made during a series of academic conferences between 2011 and 2013 but only released in recent months, “glib, thoughtless, and sometimes downright insulting.”

archie bunker Loc: Texas

The fact that he called you stupid doesn't make you have second thoughts? And, as has already been asked, what were the Republican amendments put into it, and who sponsored them?

permafrost Loc: Minnesota

Archie,,

The fact that he called the republican health plan a fraud, doesn`t make you have second thoughts??

the main point is that both sides have demonized him at differing times.. He is after attention and money.. this is what his comments on both issues are about..

Did I not post enough of the amendments to show what they were about???

Let me go back and look, I can post a few volumes if it is needed. the main changes were mentioned. Maybe I did not include them..

I will look..

archie bunker Loc: Texas

Well Permi, If a republican comes up with something, it's bad. If a Democrat comes up with something, it's bad. At least that's what we're told.
You go ahead, and stick with your party, and I'll stay out here being the scourge of the nation, and despise all of those sunsofbitches.

permafrost Loc: Minnesota

OK, I did not post that part.. Now can not find the article..

This one will do.. Excerpts..


Almost no one is noting the extraordinary influence Republicans had on the healthcare reform bill crafted by the Senate, as it made its way through the committee process last year. The bill approved by Sen. Christopher Dodd's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee, for instance, included 161 amendments authored by Republicans. Only 49 Republican amendments were rejected out of 210 considered. Yet the bill got zero Republican votes when it passed out of the committee.
You'll all remember the Senate Finance Committee process, chaired by Montana Sen. Max Baucus. Baucus and President Obama empowered a bipartisan "Gang of Six" from the committee, three Democrats and three Republicans, and they spent the summer locked in negotiations that, again, never produced one Republican vote for the bill in committee. The Finance Committee ultimately scuttled the public option in its version of the bill, looking for GOP (and conservative Democratic) support.
The Washington Post's Ezra Klein has noted that the final Democratic proposals have contained multiple GOP planks. To mention just a few:
Allow individuals, small businesses, and trade associations to pool together and acquire health insurance at lower prices, the same way large corporations and labor unions do
Give states the tools to create their own innovative reforms that lower healthcare costs
End junk lawsuits
Let families and businesses buy health insurance across state lines
Maybe most disturbing to liberal Democrats, the White House didn't include the public option in the outline of the strong healthcare reform compromise the president wants to see. Even though Obama seems ready to use reconciliation to pass elements of the bill, he's telegraphing his unwillingness to use it for the popular but controversial public option (even though, at one time at least, it likely had 50 votes). The final concession: Sen. Jay Rockefeller, once the public option's most ardent supporter, now opposes using reconciliation to pass the measure because he fears it would be too divisive.

To recap: Senate Democrats have accepted at least 161 Republican amendments to their healthcare reform legislation, they've incorporated core GOP planks, and they've scuttled an aspect of the plan most popular with its base, the public option, because of opposition by Republicans as well as red state Democrats.
But they haven't compromised with Republicans? It seems as though the GOP's definition of compromise and collaboration involves the president and the Democrats dropping all of their ideas and passing the Republican platform. That's OK; it's their job to push their party line. But too much of the media seems to be falling for it.

E

You have never read the ACA >>> Either did you or a single Congressman or Senator before it was passed.

Republicans are mad because it was a black guy that finally gave healthcare to 27 million people in this country. >>> I can't imagine who that black guy was. But they didn't get health care now any more then they got it before. Those that are enrolled get unaffordable insurance with unaffordable deductibles making it almost worthless unless they get some massive health bill. Most just got another form of welfare at our expense or insurance for coverage that they don't want or need.

Airforceone

That’s is about to change.west Virgina just picked up 16 democratic seats and lost none. So that’s 16 to zero. And it wasn’t 1,300 it was 910 so still reading fake news. Another thing which points to a lack of reseach all 2 term presidents has lost seats in there Party it just so happened under Obama he lost 18 % but a big portion of that was GerrymanderingThats a little known agenda that Republican Governors in the ignorant south used. It’s called Gerrymandering and that all goes away when the next Census comes out.

Now what a wonderful statement and it shows how as Trump would say you are really reallly reallly bright. So let me attempt to educate you.

Prior to the ACA during the Bush administration the cost of employee based health Insurance Increased at a rate of 15% to 20% I know all this because I was in business for 24 years and had 165 employees. So I know the insurance industry and the cost. Now you’re comment if someone gets sick or hurt they go to the emergency room for treatment and the doctors and hospitals pick up the cost (VERY GOOD IT SHOWS YOU ARE BRIGHT) but what you left out is theses doctors and hospitals make up the cost for free treatment by increasing the cost for medical care which now causes an increase in you’re premiums. I know that might be hard to understand because you’re like Trump you are really really smart. So these hospitals and doctors are not picking up the cost( YOU ARE) in paying higher premiums. Hey send me the Kool Aide you’re drinking.

I find you’re kool aide comment offensive and you really should grow up you sound like a child.

Now please don’t even attempt to try and tell me about Obamacare I have been researching that bill since 2012. You have no idea and I will say it again no idea what’s in that ACA. You have not read it and you’re just using foolish out of touch talking points.

Now I know it’s difficult but the poor do not fall under the mandate they fall under the subsidy program which depending on there income the gov. will subsidies all or a portion of there premiums. I know that’s hard to understand but I have ways of explaining this.

Now the mandate is targeted to the young that do not get insurance. These are the people that cause premiums to increase because they have no health Insurance but when they get hurt or sick they go to the hospital they get free medical care the hospital in turn increases there charges and premiums go up. So by requiring these kids that can get very inexpensive policies called the Bronze plans and all carriers have them will cost anywhere from $65 to $95 a month.

What you’re problem is like I said you have zero knowledge about how Obamacare works so for you’re homework assignment I want you to google a couple of things in the ACA.

1) what is the open enrollment under the ACA
2) What is the ACA mandate and why do we have a mandate.
3) who qualifies for the ACA Subsidies
4) what is the Medicaid expansion program under the ACA.

I will be available to help you I have a lot of experience explaining and educating people with low IQ’s or learning disabilities. But I know you are really really smart so it should be no problem for you.

emarine

Well done buddy...

E

I know how you write so I won't waste my time reading it all. Especially when I see the B.S. starting in the first paragraph.

a big portion of that was Gerrymandering >>> Tell me about it. We in Illinois have been putting up with that B. S. for about forty years now and despite that, we still manage to elect Republican Governors along the way, like our current one. NO, it is the State Legislature led by a Democratic Speaker of the House for about 35 plus years who rules our state with an iron fist, covered in doodoo, and who gerrymanders our state legislature and our Congressional districts in a text book example of how to screw the other party, even when they are the majority.

Thats a well known agenda in Illinois that the Democrat legislature in the ignorant Illinois State House use.

It’s called Gerrymandering and that all goes away when the next Census comes out. >>> How dumb you are. Gerrymandering won't go away until it is taken out of the hands of the state legislatures, especially Illinois. Those bastards have driven us down so far that we are last or near last in about every category, fighting California for the worst of fifty. But you are a liberal and your bias will never stop. Pathetic.

Airforceone

I am not a GD liberal I am a independent I was a Republican for years until the Republican Party that use to be fiscal conservative are no longer fiscal. Then spend and borrow and blow up the deficit. Read the 2018 Budget that was created by Republicans only there’s a $475 billion deficit in the budget. Now tell me it makes sense with a $475 billion deficit in there budget and now cut taxes by $1.5 trillion all deficit financed. If there Budget is $475 billion going directly to the deficit should we not be raising taxes to cover the deficit.

After all the conservative talking point was The Democrats are tax and spend. The republicans are borrow and spend and blow up the deficit.

These wealthy tax cuts are foolish it didn’t work under Reagan it didn’t work under Bush 43 and it won’t work under Trump these tax cuts have done nothing but blow up the deficit and widen income and equality.

The Republicans for years are trying to get rid of Wealfare, SS, and Medicare so they use these programs to lie about the deficit. I say BS this deficit was driven by unpaid for tax cuts by Reagan And Bush. Then add in the Iraq War and Afghans War. Then add in deregulation by Bush that created 10% unemployment which cost Trillions of lost revenue to the federal government then add in the TARP bailout with two big to fail of $750 billion.
(THEN BLAME DEMOCRATS AND OBAMA FOR THE DEFICIT.

Well let’s agree that these districts should not be screwed with. How can a Piece of garbage like Trump get elected in this country when he lost the election by over 3 million votes. I don’t care if you live in California or South Carolina he lost by 3 million votes and because you are able to target a few dustricts in FL. WI. And PA. He gets the presidency. The republicans learned from the Bush 43 when he lost the election andxstill ended up as the president.

E

Well let’s agree that these districts should not be screwed with. >>> Districts should be set by approved computer programing and keep the politicians out of it.

How can a Piece of garbage like Trump get elected in this country when he lost the election by over 3 million votes. >>> Why should a piece of garbage like H. Clinton be president when she clearly lost the Electoral College, the law of the land.

I don’t care if you live in California or South Carolina he lost by 3 million votes and because you are able to target a few dustricts in FL. WI. And PA. >>> And she targeted a few districts where there were more votes then registered voters.

He gets the presidency. The republicans learned from the Bush 43 when he lost the election andxstill ended up as the president. >>>He didn't lose the election. He won by the rules.

Airforceone

No there’s still 42,000 votes in Broward county to this day still did not get counted.

But yes a computer program based on population of each town should put the districts together. Have you ever looked at how these red state governors did there redistricting. It’s amazing