But if we can take just a half step up from radio yammerhead land, did Gruber say anything that isn't common knowledge? I'm not playing faux naive here. I'm serious. Basically, Gruber said two things.
First, he noted that it was important to make sure the mandate wasn't scored as a tax by the CBO. Indeed it was, and this was a topic of frequent discussion while the bill was being debated. We can all argue about whether this was an example of the CBO scoring process being gamed, but it has nothing to do with the American voter. Rather, it has everything to do with the American congressman, who's afraid to vote for anything unless it comes packaged with a nice, neat bow bearing an arbitrary, predetermined price tag.
As for risk-rated subsidies, I don't even know what Gruber is talking about here. Of course healthy people pay in and sick people get money. It's health insurance. That's how it works. Once again, this was a common topic of discussion while the bill was being debated—in fact, one that opponents of the bill talked about constantly. They complained endlessly that healthy young people would pay relatively higher rates than they deserved, while older, sicker people would get a relative break on their premiums. This was no big secret, but the bill passed anyway.
It's true that the average Joe didn't know anything about this, but not because the average Joe is stupid. It's because most people simply don't pay attention to this stuff even slightly. The fraction of the electorate that cares about the minutiae of policymaking could be stored in a pickle jar. That's just life.
