In what has become a minor national political scandal, an economist’s controversial comments on the Affordable Care Act have cost him consulting fees. But he will complete his work on a financing plan for Vermont’s single-payer health care system.
Videos have come to light in the past week in which Massachusetts Institute of Technology Economist Jonathan Gruber made disparaging remarks during a discussion last year about the Affordable Care Act. “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, you know, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to get anything to pass. Look, I wish we could make it all transparent. But I’d rather have this law than not.”
Vermont has paid Gruber $160,000 from a $400,000 contract. Critics jumped on the comments and called on the Shumlin administration to fire him. But the financing plan is due to be presented to the legislature on January 15th. Chief of Health Care Reform Lawrence Miller announced that Gruber will continue his work unpaid, although his assistants will be paid. “I hadn’t seen those videos until a couple of days ago and I was appalled. We were extremely disappointed and went fairly quickly to sorting out how best to proceed given our concerns about that prospective yet faced with the need to ensure that we deliver a complete financing package with analysis to the Legislature in January.”
Miller says Gruber is not the only nor key analyst, but he is the micro-economic expert for the report. “He has a micro-economic simulation model that as part of this contract was tuned for Vermont. Because this affects 20 percent of the Vermont economy it’s critically important to have good economic analysis.”
But critics say Gruber’s comments have destroyed his credibility. Ethan Allen Institute President Rob Roper is most concerned about the comments regarding transparency. “The implication being that he was perfectly willing to manipulate the data. Well, he’s the guy who is evaluating the Green Mountain Care financing plan and if he thinks that he would rather go forward with a single-payer health care model for the state of Vermont than not, we can’t trust the data that he’s going to present backing up whether this plan is feasible or not.”
Vermonters for Health Care Freedom President Darcie Johnston is opposed to single-payer. She says they were the first to call on the state to terminate Gruber. “Shumlin being Shumlin did what Shumlin does best and it’s basically smoke and mirrors. Yes they can say that they’re not paying Jonathan Gruber any more. But the reality is they’re paying the MIT student assistants to complete the work. So there is money still being paid out for work on an economic model that is tainted.”
Vermont Leads is a statewide public education program in support of Vermont’s single-payer plan. Executive Director Peter Sterling found the comments reprehensible and regrettable. But he says Gruber’s role as a consulting economist is separate. “Mr. Gruber is arguably one of the brightest minds in the entire country on modeling different economic scenarios around health care reform. I don’t think that credibility has been destroyed.”
Health Care Reform Chief Lawrence Miller emphasizes that Gruber is only one of a number of consulting economists working on the single-payer financing plan. “The model will be reviewed by the Legislature’s economist, the administration’s usual economist, the RAND Corporation, REMI and the Joint Fiscal Office. I think Mr. Gruber has a long way to go to reestablish his credibility in many areas. But I don’t think his credibility as an analyst has ever been put in question.”
Contacted by e-mail, Gruber tells WAMC that he is “not doing any interviews at this point.”
