Obamacare Architect: We Passed the Law Thanks to the 'Stupidity of the American Voter'

a reply to: 200Plus

He's sorry he said it, but not sorry for what he said.



In other words, he meant it.

originally posted by: butcherguy
a reply to: Gryphon66

I wonder how much the Constitution says that I have to give in charity.... According to your wishes?

What in the world are you even talking about now?

1. The Constitution does not say you have to give a dime in charity.

2. What would my wishes have to do with your charitable gifts?

3. You do have to obey the laws of the land as we all do, and no, being a law-abiding citizen is not being "a statist."

a reply to: Gryphon66

What in the world are you even talking about now? 

Pretty simple really.
You made a reference to the families and children... or something like that.
Our government is mired in a huge debt. Who are they to tell me to pay for health care of others in what amounts to a charitable contribution?
What business of theirs to tell me that I have to have health care insurance?
You are correct... the Constitution does not allow for forced charity... yet we have it.

a reply to: 200Plus

I seriously didn't think the situation could get worse.

It got worse.


1. The video should not have been taken down by U Penn or whoever did it.

2. This guy is in serious need of a press agent if he's going to keep talking in public.

3. /sigh

Dr. Gruber is one of a team of individuals who worked on the development of the ACA. He is not the "chief architect" or "the main author of" or whatever. That is press hype, and you all know it. His opinions are his opinions and he has the right to express them no matter how ... dumb they are or arrogant or elitist or whatever. He's one guy. ACA was presented to the Congress. Republicans pretended to negotiate on passage and then defaulted after weakening the provisions of the Act. Democrats chose this legislation as the core of their strategy; I thought that was ill-chosen then, and I think it's ill-chosen now. The ACA could be much better, but doing nothing was much worse. Millions of people have been helped, and to pull that rug out from under them would be catastrophic. However, the Republican Congress has promised to do so, and so, I guess we'll see.

No, it's not right for any kind of public official to call Americans stupid.

No, it's not right for any legislation to be obfuscatingly complex and intentionally confusing BUT, the ACA is not the first piece of legislation like that and will not be the last.

a reply to: Gryphon66

I had to create an account just to respond to you. There is nowhere near 8 Million previously uninsured people currently enrolled in the ACA. The number is actually somewhere around 1.5 to 2 million previously uninsured people.

You said " So, 20 million covered. I did rely on my memory rather than check it. Thank you for keeping things factual. " This statement is completely dishonest at best. Yes 20 million people might be covered but about 18 million to 18.5 million of those 20 million covered already had health insurance. The only reason they are covered now is because they were FORCED off their prior plan due to the effects of the ACA.

You really need to reread your articles you posted before using them as proof.

originally posted by: searcus1
a reply to: Gryphon66

The number is actually somewhere around 1.5 to 2 million previously uninsured people.

Affordable Care Act: 3.4M uninsured Californians now have health coverage

3.4 million in California alone. That's nearly double your 'actual' number. Can you explain that?

Obamacare has led to health coverage for millions more people

As the law's initial enrollment period closes, at least 9.5 million previously uninsured people have gained coverage.

As for an 'actual' number of people who are signed up to the state exchanges only, we just got some news on that data;
Estimates lowered of how many people will sign up for Obamacare in 2015

About 7.1 million people have health plans through the marketplaces today, according to the federal agency.

a reply to: searcus1

Welcome to ATS Searcus1!

I'm not going to pile on regarding "your number" as Links234 already addressed it with you and provided you with evidence to consider.

I would wonder though, since you signed up to give me advice on my posting techniques, just where did you get your "1.5 to 2 million previously uninsured people" information from? You don't give a citation or reference or link or anything; that's usual for making claims here that are not generally accepted common knowledge.

And, it's a little harsh, right out of the gate, to accuse someone of dishonesty and then do nothing to prove it.

Thanks for your unsolicited advice, and again, welcome to ATS!

If only racist and biggies were against Obamacare, as the narrative went.

Does this now mean, that all the smart people in America are racist and biggiots?

originally posted by: butcherguy
a reply to: Gryphon66

What in the world are you even talking about now? 

Pretty simple really.
You made a reference to the families and children... or something like that.
Our government is mired in a huge debt. Who are they to tell me to pay for health care of others in what amounts to a charitable contribution?
What business of theirs to tell me that I have to have health care insurance?
You are correct... the Constitution does not allow for forced charity... yet we have it.

Who is telling you that you have to pay for the healthcare of others?

What "business of theirs" is it? I'm not going to run through the long explanation: our Constitution sets up the governmental process that passed the laws that you and all the rest of us have to follow. "They" aren't picking on you; we all have to have coverage. If you're referring to the taxes you pay that stops being "your money" when you pay your taxbill so the Government is not using "your tax money" for anything.

Have you stopped for a minute to consider whether or not people are better off under ACA than they were without it?

EDIT: Oh, and as far as our debt goes, you do know that we owe about 50-60% of it to ourselves, right? Figure that one out.
"Who holds our debt?" Factcheck.org

a reply to: Gryphon66
Congratulations!
You are delusional.
As evidence, I will cite your post above. You believe that the fiscal policies of the US Government are sound.

a reply to: butcherguy

So he must be referring to Congress as the American voter, because the general citizens did not vote on this? Since Nancy told us that the bill would have to be passed before we see what's in it, the American people must have been too stupid to rise up against it....oh wait, the Tea Party and half of Congress did....

originally posted by: Gryphon66
a reply to: xuenchen

LIke you, I'm excited to see 26 million or so Americans get their insurance taken away by the Republicans.

Though, admittedly, probably for different reasons.

Is that so you can see the other 26 million get their policies that they were paying for back?

a reply to: Gryphon66

Actually, the architect of the bill says so.

Going by the headline calling him the architect. If you say he only was part of a team that developed it, oh well, let's get caught up in semantics now.
But please allow me to interpret for you what he said

“This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure [the Congressional Budget Office] did not score the mandate as taxes,” Gruber said in one 52-second clip. “If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. OK, so it’s written to do that. In terms of risk-rated subsidies, if you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in – you made explicit healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed.” Gruber then trumpeted the value of a “lack of transparency” — and

What that means is that while the intent is clearly that people who are not sick must be mandated to pay into the system(because that is what the system relies on), healthy people are paying for sick people but the bill wouldn't pass if it were that obvious so they had to write the bill in such a way as to obscure that point. And the same with it being a tax, but interesting Justice Roberts did declare it a tax and that somehow validated it as Constitutional, but the guy clearly knows that if it were written as a tax in such an obvious way(it's a tax because if you don't pay into the system you get fined), it wouldn't pass muster.

a reply to: 200Plus

that's the problem with these so-called "academics"...and, really, with people in these upper tiers of society...

they can never speak straight....

what he means is that he's sorry he got caught...he's sorry that it got uploaded to the net...he's not sorry he said it, he's just sorry people outside of his little club heard it..

originally posted by: ThirdEyeofHorus
a reply to: Gryphon66

Actually, the architect of the bill says so.

2nd line

Who are you referring to?

And what does he or she say?

before i start.... 'sup. gryph? how's life?

originally posted by: Gryphon66
1. The Constitution does not say you have to give a dime in charity.

exactly.

2. What would my wishes have to do with your charitable gifts?

i don't aim to speak to your wishes, but i would like to point out that something isn't a "gift", if one is forced to give it...that sort of thing is usually seen as extortion, or robbery under color of law..

3. You do have to obey the laws of the land as we all do, and no, being a law-abiding citizen is not being "a statist."

no, but defending bad laws, and bad policies, and things that are obviously unconstitutional, and unamerican, just because they are what the government wants, IS being a statist.

a reply to: Daedalus

Hey Daedalus, life's good, and yours?

IN order of your responses,

1. Well good, we agree.

2. What does the concept of "gift" have to do with the insurance we're talking about?

3. "Bad" "obviously" and "unamerican" are opinions. They may be yours but not everyone shares them. You know as well as I do that the term "statist" gets tossed around here conveniently to try to damn one side of an argument without offering any proof or making a counter argument.

originally posted by: Gryphon66
a reply to: Daedalus

Hey Daedalus, life's good, and yours?

glad to hear it. life still sucks pretty hard...i'm making moves to correct though..

IN order of your responses,

1. Well good, we agree.

i suppose, after a fashion....though it's entirely possible i could be misreading the intent to your statements....however, i strongly doubt that..

2. What does the concept of "gift" have to do with the insurance we're talking about?

once again, could be a misunderstanding of intent in statements, but it seems in this dance you two are having, that somehow, federally-mandated insurance policies are being likened to compulsory charitable gifts....which they kinda are, when you think about it...which kinda makes them not charitable, or gifts....

3. "Bad" "obviously" and "unamerican" are opinions. They may be yours but not everyone shares them. You know as well as I do that the term "statist" gets tossed around here conveniently to try to damn one side of an argument without offering any proof or making a counter argument.

can't forget "fascist", "fascism", "nazi", and "racist"...showstoppers, FTW...

in the case of "fascist/fascism" they don't even know wtf the word means, because they keep misusing it...

anyway, i'm not sure it's really opinion.....stealing is bad, no matter how noble you think your reasons may be...

people who don't think stealing is bad, are morally bankrupt. people people who can't understand when something is unconstitutional, are ignorant, and need to actually read and study the damned document, and people who can't understand when something is unamerican, obviously aren't very good citizens, because they have no sense of what it is to be american, or what we're supposed to be all about here...

i'm from the old school that says "it's unamerican to ruin your neighbor's life by stealing from him so you can have what he has"...kinda goes in line with the whole "thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods"....only twisted a little....you can covet the S**T out of what your neighbor has..but don't steal it from him...go get your own..

a reply to: links234

sooooo, links......when are you going to address my questions and remarks to you?

a reply to: ThirdEyeofHorus

Short and sweet. The guy is one of those academics who are "so smart they're dumb."

I've made it clear what my estimation of this fellow is, and you know as well as I do that these headlines are hype, though I am quite sure you would choke before you admitted it.

The very concept of insurance is that many more people pay into the system than the insurance company ever has to pay out for. That's the basic concept of insurance. Given the techniques employed by insurance companies before ACA, they weren't paying out that much and were reaping huge profits by ripping people off, but that's neither here nor there and I know you probably don't care about big business screwing the little guy.

But, insurance under ACA works the same way as all insurance does. Stop acting like it's something you've never heard of before or that it's suddenly "charity."