Again, I followed the health care debate extremely closely. At no time was it disclosed that customers on the exchange would have to shop every year for a new plan to maintain their subsidy benefit.
Maybe that’s just a function of American politics, where politicians put their best sheen on the policies they promote while ignoring the downsides. But it will be seen as dealing in bad faith, especially when it results directly in a hit to people’s pocketbooks. During tax season, when exchange customers discover that they made more money than they initially estimated to acquire coverage and the IRS seeks to claw back some of their subsidies, the same outcry will ensue.
All of this is to say that the problems with Obamacare and the problems with Jonathan Gruber’s comments, as Ezra Klein hinted at, are one and the same. The law is enormously complicated, reflecting compromises endemic to American politics. But while the law had excessive media coverage, these time bombs that were never effectively communicated to the public do still exist. The administration, in four years of implementation, only selectively disclosed these facts.
The growing impression that politicians don’t play straight with their constituents is completely toxic, particularly to Democrats, who actually want to use government to improve people’s lives. It’s one thing to downplay unpalatable choices made in the law; it’s another to never disclose the consequences of legislation until it’s too late for anyone to react. Combine that with the moustache-twirling of a Jonathan Gruber, saying that the idiots should be happy for what they got, and you have basically every conservative stereotype about liberal elites confirmed.
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