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Jonathan Gruber and the Smoking Gun That Wasn’t

Conservative economist Scott Sumner offers up a desperately needed example of intellectual honesty on l’affaire Gruber. (For those who haven’t been keeping score at home: Some libertarians last night released a video of Obamacare “architect” Jonathan Gruber in 2012 seemingly affirming the reasoning of the D.C. Circuit Court’s ruling on the legality of offering healthcare […]

Conservative economist Scott Sumner offers up a desperately needed example of intellectual honesty on l’affaire Gruber. (For those who haven’t been keeping score at home: Some libertarians last night released a video of Obamacare “architect” Jonathan Gruber in 2012 seemingly affirming the reasoning of the D.C. Circuit Court’s ruling on the legality of offering healthcare subsidies via exchange.)

Sumner actually watched the video and noticed Gruber’s remarks were taken out of context (context: what a concept!):

That seems to suggest he agrees with the recent court ruling.  But he actually disagrees with the ruling.  Indeed he seems to regard the ruling as ludicrous.  That doesn’t look good.  Until you realize that the quote was taken out of context, and that the comments immediately preceding the quote tells a very different story: “Yes, so these health insurance exchanges . . . will be these new shopping places and they’ll be the place that people go to get their subsidies for health insurance. In the law it says if the states don’t provide them the federal backstop will. The federal government has been sort of slow in putting up its backstop in part because I think they want to sort of squeeze the states to do it.”

That seems to imply the federal backstops would provide health subsidies.  So how can we reconcile these two statements?  I believe Gruber was trying to say that the federal government was being slow in setting up the exchanges, because until they did so, those states without state exchanges would get no subsidy.  Once the federal exchanges were set up, they would all get the subsidy.

What I don’t understand is why commenters were providing me with the quote on top, but not the second quote, which provides important context.

The cherry-picking of off-the-cuff remarks isn’t the worst thing about this absurdist drama. Take a step back: Michael Cannon, the Cato mastermind, basically went on a fishing expedition to find someone with standing in the Halbig case. His lightbulb: the average citizen has standing! And now this bombshell video: the Gruber remarks were the first and so far only piece of documentary evidence I’ve seen that anyone actually believed subsidies weren’t intended to be offered via the federal exchanges. This evidence was discovered two years after the lawsuit was filed.

We already had a murder charge without a body; now we have a smoking gun with all its bullets. I’m sorry. We’re not in the realm of reasonable disagreement. The charitable explanation is that this stuff is pure unmitigated cuckoo cockamamie BS. The cynical explanation, per Sumner:

BTW, which of the following two statements represents the conservative view on the role of the courts?

A.  The courts should interpret the laws passed by the duly elected members of Congress, and should not be substituting their own views.  Original intent is what matters.  Unelected judges should not set policy.

B.  Yay!!  the courts have just gutted the ACA, which was an awful law passed by Congress.

I used to think it was A; now I wonder if it is B.

You’ll pardon me if I don’t find this behavior—this abusive legal chicanery—the least bit “conservative.”

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