OPINION:
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
Ignoring an overwhelming mandate in the midterm elections opposing the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, liberal pundits launched the opening — albeit errant — salvos in the battle over possible changes to the law.
In perhaps the shrillest commentary attacking opposition to the law, Paul Krugman, the Nobel economic laureate and columnist for The New York Times, condemned the Supreme Court for its decision even to hear a lawsuit that could overturn a critical portion of the national health care plan.
“Judges who support this cruel absurdity aren’t stupid; they know what they’re doing. What they are, instead, is corrupt, willing to pervert the law to serve political masters. And what we’ll find out in the months ahead is how deep the corruption goes,” Mr. Krugman wrote.
Michael Tomasky of The Daily Beast joined the rant. “Obama would be forced to veto his own fix. Thus, the perfect crime: They’d have committed the murder, put the smoking gun in the president’s hand in full view of everyone — and they’d get away with it,” he argued.
Corrupt judges? The “perfect crime?” Are these people serious? Alas, they are.
What these authors failed to include in these renditions were the statements from a key architect of Obamacare.
A recently discovered 2013 clip captured Jonathan Gruber, the MIT health economist who crafted much of Obamacare, and his disingenuousness about how the law was written.
“This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure [the Congressional Budget Office] did not score the mandate as taxes,” Mr. Gruber said at a conference. “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.”
Mr. Gruber defended his stance because of the “stupidity of the American voter.” He apologized for his comments after they sped through the conservative blogosphere.
So voters are stupid, too? Mr. Gruber apparently didn’t foresee the avalanche of voters who rejected Obamacare. All of the new GOP senators, from Cory Gardner in Colorado to Shelley Moore Capito in West Virginia, made the repeal of Obamacare a key component of their campaigns. Many Senate Democrats who lost their seats voted for the health care act.
The University of Pennsylvania, which sponsored the conference of economists, removed the video for several hours from YouTube and then uploaded the material again after thousands of viewers tried to access the talk.
Maggie Fox, the senior health care analyst for NBCNews.com, chose to ignore the results in a column that argued Congress couldn’t repeal Obamacare. Moreover, she said the GOP likes the law.
“Republicans actually like a lot about Obamacare. It’s great business for health insurance companies, which in turn give plenty of money to Republicans,” she wrote.
According to OpenSecrets.org, the insurance industry contributed nearly $42 million to federal parties and candidates this election season. Two-thirds of the money went to Republicans, which means a third went to Democrats.
Ms. Fox failed to note that Democrats got about $14 million, preferring to stick it to the GOP. As the analyst should know, industries tend to spread their money around during election campaigns.
As HealthCare.gov, the flawed website of Obamacare, opens up again this weekend, the media have rebounded from their election depression and plan to focus on the GOP and Obamacare.
It seems clear it will be a bumpy road, but the GOP should have the upper hand because of the strong voice of the voters. That is far more important than the limited and erroneous wailings of a few liberal columnists.
• Christopher Harper teaches journalism at Temple University. He worked for more than 20 years at The Associated Press, Newsweek, ABC News and “20/20.” He can be contacted at charper@washingtontimes.com and on Twitter @charper51.
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