Of all the Jonathan Gruber videos released so far, this one could be the most damaging. It does not show the Obamcare architect calling Americans stupid, but it does cut the legs out from under the administration’s case about to be argued before the Supreme Court.
Revealed on Tuesday’s Greta Van Susteren program on Fox News Channel, the blockbuster has the Obamacare architect explaining that if your state doesn’t set up an exchange, then its residents aren’t eligible for tax credits. That is precisely the opposite of what the administration is arguing before the high court.
The question 9-juror panel is whether the language of the Affordable Care Act restricts the premium subsidies (in the form of tax credits) to residents buying insurance from a state-run exchange, and prohibits the credits on the federal exchange, which serves a little over 7 million Americans in 36 states. The specific language says participants in the state exchanges get the tax credit but doesn’t mention the federal exchange. The administration is arguing that the omission of the federal exchange is a typo, while the plaintiffs argue that there was no intention to cover a federal exchange in the bill. A ruling against the White House would severely damage Obamacare because the tax credits are critical to ensuring that lower-income Americans can afford insurance.
The video, which follows, is from a January 2012 Gruber appearance. In it he explains:
If you’re a state and you don’t accept an exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits. But your citizens still pay the taxes to support this bill. So you’re essentially saying to your citizens, you’re going to pay all the taxes to support all the states in this country.
It is not known whether the video can be used as evidence in the Supreme Court case, but as Van Susteren and her panel discuss, if it can be used abd will be very damaging to the Obama administration and Obamacare.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr-7SUDacSs
Cross-posted at the Mental Recession
