(Of course, the bipartisan special interests -- war profiteers, Israel, banks, health conglomerates, etc -- never have anything to worry about)
"Economist faulted for his ties to Obama; Critics say he failed to tell of his paid work" by Kay Lazar and Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff | January 9, 2010
So much for TRANSPARENCY, huh?
Also see: Obama's Opaqueness
The Secrets of Obama
Jonathan Gruber, a well-known health economist at MIT and a member of the board that oversees the landmark Massachusetts health care law, is being paid nearly $400,000 by the Obama administration to provide technical assistance on legislation he has championed in media interviews.
Smell the conflict-of-interest?
Related: Memory Hole: Why the Nation Doesn't Need Massachusetts Health Care
The Ghostwriters at MGH
Also see:
- The Massachusetts Model: Working Or Not?
- The Massachusetts Model: Going Out of Business
- The Massachusetts Model: Crazy Coverage
- The Massachusetts Model: Immigrant Insult
- The Massachusetts Model: Profit and the Paycheck
- The Massachusetts Model: By the Numbers
- The Massachusetts Model: Treasurer's Assessment
- The Massachusetts Model: Care-Keeping Costs
- The Massachusetts Model: Mass. Hospitality
- The Massachusetts Model: Lessons Learned
- The Massachusetts Model: Non-Compliant Complacency
- The Massachusetts Model: Office Visit
- The Massachusetts Model: Student Shakedown
- The Massachusetts Model: Medicaid Mess
- The Massachusetts Model: Upset Stomach
- The Massachusetts Model: Poor Hospitals Shortchanged By State
- The Massachusetts Model: Padding Insurer Profits
Gruber has not disclosed the details of his relationship with the administration in many instances, and his failure to do so became the talk of Washington health care and media circles yesterday, after news of his two contracts with the US Department of Health and Human Services surfaced on the DailyKos blog and the website Politico....
Then it sure went away quick, didn't it?
The economist disclosed in an interview with the Globe last June that he had a contract to provide technical assistance to the Obama administration and that he was providing technical help to the two Senate committees working on health care and to House Democrats constructing the legislation. The newspaper reported that he was advising the administration and Congress but did not report whether or how much he was paid.
Just didn't think to ask, huh, Globe?
Gruber wrote an oped piece last month in The Washington Post about a proposed tax on high-cost health insurance plans and was quoted in November in an online Atlantic Monthly article praising the Senate bill’s efforts to contain health care costs. In neither case did he disclose his financial relationship with the administration. He did, however, mention his paid work for the administration in a recent article in The New England Journal of Medicine.
In a phone interview with the Globe yesterday, Gruber said that he never attempted to hide his government contracts and disclosed them whenever he was asked by reporters, though he added that in retrospect that it would have been a good idea to tell the Post about them.
Yup, NO ONE ASKED, huh, Globe?
PFFFFFFT!
What a TRULY PATHETIC PoS you really are.
He said, he could recall only three or four instances in the past year when reporters asked him whether he had an administration contract.
“Generally they don’t ask and I don’t think it’s an issue,’’ Gruber said....
And that is the problem in a nutshell.
How many OTHER QUESTIONS is the AmeriKan MSM NOT ASKING, huh?
The Obama administration’s support for the tax on insurance companies that offer more generous health plans has infuriated many on the political left, which is disappointed in the president for making too many concessions to moderates on health care.
Aren't you used to it by now?
Liberal bloggers seized on Gruber’s relationship with the Obama administration yesterday, saying the lucrative contracts undercut the credibility of Gruber’s analysis.
Common Cause, a nonpartisan government watchdog group, said Gruber could have been more transparent about his paid government work.
“It certainly would be better if the press and others had been made aware of this,’’ said spokeswoman Mary Boyle. But she added that he had disclosed the contracts at least once and added, “This guy was an expert, and he didn’t suddenly change his tune when he got this contract.’’
Okay, Common Cause says it's no problem so just forget it, pfft.
One of the most sought-after health economists in the country, Gruber is among a handful of academics who have developed highly sophisticated computer models for estimating the economic effects of health care policy changes.
Oh, like the RIGGED global warming models?
Pffft!
Typically economists like Gruber do some work for a fee and some work pro bono, said Len Nichols, a health economist for the New America Foundation who was a senior adviser in the Office of Management and Budget during the Clinton administration. He has known Gruber since the Clinton era and describes him as a professional friend. Nichols said the money helps pay computer programmers who handle the detail work of plugging variables into the model.
PLUGGING IN SOME NUMBERS costs $400,000 DOLLARS?
How STOO-PID do you think we are out here?!
Earlier this year, Gruber was paid $10,000 by Community Catalyst, a Boston-based national health care advocacy group, to provide technical assistance on a report suggesting ways to make one of the health care proposals before Congress more affordable.
Sigh.
Kathy Melley, the organization’s communications director, said that Gruber crunched the numbers, but did not contribute analysis to the report or endorse its recommendations.
Gruber said yesterday that he was not paid for technical assistance he provided to House and Senate committees working on health care proposals in the last year.
He also supplied technical assistance in the construction of the health care law that Massachusetts passed in 2006.I feel unclean, folks.
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