Hes also behind a series of scoops that could convince the Supreme Court to dismantle part of the Affordable Care Act. Weinstein has absorbed hours upon hours of interviews with Jonathan Gruber, an MIT professor who advised the Massachusetts legislature when it created “Romneycare” and the Congress when it created “Obamacare.” Conservatives had been looking for ways to demonstrate that the wording of the ACA denied insurance subsidies to consumers in states that did not create their own health exchanges. Weinstein found a clip of Gruber suggesting that states that did not create health insurance exchanges risked giving up the ACAs subsidies; it went straight into the King v. Burwell brief, and into a case thats currently headed to the Supreme Court. Weinstein, back at home, was stunned at the reaction. Why did he keep finding Gruber gaffes? Why didnt the press glom onto this stuff first? “It’s terrifying that the guy in his mom’s basement is finding his stuff, and nobody else is,” he says. “I really do find this disturbing.” Weinstein dates his accidental citizen journalism back to the end of 2013 and the first run of insurance cancellations or policy changes. He was among the people who got a letter informing him that his old policy did not meet ACA standards. “When Obama said If you like your plan, you can keep your plan, period—frankly, I believed him,” says Weinstein. “He very often speaks with qualifiers. When he said period, there were no qualifiers. You can understand that when I lost my own plan, and the replacement cost twice as much, I wasn’t happy. So I’m watching the news, and at that time I was thinking: Hey, the administration was not telling people the truth, and the media was doing nothing!” So Weinstein, new plan in hand, started watching the news. “These people were showing up on the shows, calling themselves architects of the law,” he recalls. “I saw David Cutler, Zeke Emanuel, Jonathan Gruber, people like that. I wondered if these guys had some type of paper trail. So I looked into what Dr. Cutler had said and written, and it was generally all about cost control. After I finished with Cutler, I went to Dr. Gruber. I assume I went through every video, every radio interview, every podcast. Every everything.” Weinstein dug and dug and eventually discovered the first Gruber quote, known in conservative circles as the “speak-o.” Gruber had been on TV arguing that the case against subsidies in non-exchange states was ludicrous. Yet at a January 2012 symposium, Gruber seemed to be making the conservatives argument. “What’s important to remember politically about this is if youre a state and you don’t set up an exchange, that means your citizens dont get their tax credits—but your citizens still pay the taxes that support this bill,” said Gruber. “So you’re essentially saying [to] your citizens you’re going to pay all the taxes to help all the other states in the country.” The investment advisor e-mailed this around. Nobody cared. Nobody noticed the clip until after the D.C. circuit ruled 2-1 in favor of plaintiffs who were suing to stop the subsidies. Weinstein clicked around for articles about the decision, and left a comment on The Washington Posts Volokh Conspiracy blog, pointing to the clip. In short order, Ryan Radia of the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute noticed the clip and promoted it. Within hours, Grubers “speak-o” had greatly muddied the liberal argument. “The next day, I woke up and turned on my iPad,” Weinstein recalls. “I did a quick search. You know, Gee, if I wonder if anything is out there about this Jonathan Gruber guy? And the first result was about this video. Holy crap, what is going on? Excuse my language. It just kept getting bigger and bigger. Later that day, a friend told me that Rush Limbaugh was talking about this video. I’m at WaWa, and Im eating a sandwich in the car, and Limbaugh comes back from commercial and says Theres more on this Gruber video. The White House is responding. I’m like, What do you mean, the White House is responding?” There came a wave of reporters, senators, and wonks arguing that Gruber had mangled the description of congressional intent. They were matched with more clips of Gruber suggesting that, no, really, the subsidies were intended to nudge states into creating exchanges. Gruber, all of a sudden, was getting the sort of vetting previously reserved for high court nominees or Senate candidates. All because somebody actually paid attention to the words he was blabbing at sleepy-looking health care conferences. He wasnt even eavesdropping. He was just...listening. I wondered if Weinstein shared Grubers worry that a victory for the King plaintiffs would make health care unaffordable for millions of people. “If they do undo the subsidies, there’ll be a disruption, and the markets will adjust,” he says. “Some states will build their own exchanges. People will say, Oh, you’re trying to kill 5 million people, but I do believe therell be a solution.” Before he hangs up, Weinstein asks me to remember two things. One: He doesnt actually have a position on the validity of the anti-subsidy lawsuits. Two: He does not hate Jonathan Gruber. “Apparently people have been posting his MIT information and bullying him,” he says. “I’ve been telling people to not do that. I dont like that at all. Do not bully him.” bloomberg/politics/articles/2014-11-11/meet-the-mildmannered-investment-advisor-whos-humiliating-the-administration-over-obamacare
Posted on: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 05:40:46 +0000
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