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Obama administration gave MIT health economist Jonathan Gruber a six figure paycheck to back Cadillac Tax
From FireDogLake:
MIT health economist Jonathan Gruber has been the go-to source that all the health care bill apologists point to to defend otherwise dubious arguments. But he has consistently failed to disclose that he has had a sole-source contract with the Department of Health and Human Services since June 19, 2009 to consult on the “President’s health reform proposal.”
How much was that contract worth? $396,200. Now Obama media shill Ezra Klein, who knew Gruber for years, denies that he knew anything about this conflict of interest:
MIT health economist Jon Gruber has made a number of appearances on this blog, and on blogs like this one. Alongside Harvard's David Cutler, he's probably been the most aggressive academic economist supporting the reform effort. On some level, that's no surprise: He was one of the architects of the Massachusetts reform, and arguably the leading health economist in the country, and so he's the guy best versed in the implications of scaling the Massachusetts approach to the whole nation.
What is a surprise is that he's also got a $300,000 contract with the Department of Health and Human Services to use his microsimulation model to produce "a technical memorandum on the estimated changes in health insurance coverage and associated costs and impacts to the government under alternative specifications of health system reform."
I wasn't aware of that, and if I had been, I would've made sure it was disclosed when I quoted Gruber. On the other hand, the implication that Gruber is somehow a paid shill for this bill belies a fairly long and consistent record in support of health reform, and in particular, this type of health reform...
Good to know Gruber also created Romneycare in Massachusetts. 
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The criteria for determining whether your health insurance policy is "Cadillac" has nothing to do with measuring how many extra services you're getting. It all counts on how expensive your plan is; if your plan is expensive enough, it will be taxed more.
Older workers could pay three times as much as younger workers, under the Senate bill's provisions. And so older workers will pay three times as much, and then be taxed 40% for busting the "Cadillac" threshold.
So the Senate Bill basically says, we'll pay for these subsidies to the insurnace industry by taxing the sick and the elderly more.
But, I have the impression lately that things in Mass aren't so great. I've read that people don't like Deval Patrick (the trial balloon for the Obama presidency) and that they don't like the state's HC Plan. The rush to pass the Congressional Plan is wrong headed and does not bode well for us.
I've heard the same thing about Deval Patrick and the state's HC Plan. I remember Masslib at Alegre's Corner write a lot about her frustrations with her state's health care plan and said she couldn't afford health insurance under the MA reforms.
if the "Cadillac tax" is going to be the last straw for some supporters of Obama's health care deform. I think many people with good insurance plans feel much sympathy for those without. If the health care bill includes this tax, that sympathy is going to evaporate.
WHERETHEHELL IS MY ERA???