I don’t know how or why Jonathan Gruber has gotten so much wrong about the Affordable Care Act. But as someone who worked on health reform for the Obama administration, I’d like to clear up a few things:
Mr. Gruber was not, as many claim, the architect of the health-care law. He is an MIT economist who, as a consultant to the Department of Health and Human Services, modeled the impact of various subsidy levels and rules. He did not make policy, nor did he work for the White House, HHS, or any congressional committee. Earlier, he advised the Massachusetts legislature when it created the health-care reforms that were a model for the ACA.
And Mr. Gruber’s comments in 2013 that the law passed only because of “the stupidity of the American voter” and a “lack of transparency” by the Obama administration are simply incorrect.
The “Grubergate” controversy exemplifies the through-the-looking-glass nature of the debate over the Affordable Care Act.
The above excerpt was originally published in The Wall Street Journal.
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