You knew it was coming, and now the day has finally arrived that the esteemed professor of MIT, and one of the original architects of Obamacare, Jonathan Gruber, is touring the media circuit blaming the epic collapse of Obamacare on President Trump. Here is an exchange from last night with Chris Wallace on Fox News:
Gruber: "Look, and whose fault is this? Before President Trump was elected there were no counties in America that did not have an insurer. Since President Trump's been elected, a massive degree of uncertainty..."
Wallace: "Wait, you're going to blame the problems with Obamacare on President Trump?"
Gruber: "We had a situation under Obamacare where there was a one-time premium increase last year that made up for the fact that insurers massively under-priced in the first two years.
The problem was fixed. Insurer profits were trending positively. Insurers were saying positive things about their ability to stay in the exchanges and succeed.
Then you have a President who comes in, undercuts open enrollment, doesn't honor the obligations this law makes to insurers, and, as a result, premiums are going up and insurers are exiting."
Forward to the 7:50 mark for the relevant exchange:
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com
And, since Gruber insists that 'all' the "insurers were saying positive things" about Obamacare in 2016, we thought we'd take a look back for ourselves. Ironically, this quote from Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini in August 2016, in which he announced that "structural challenges facing public exchanges" had forced him to the decision to withdraw from Obamacare completely in 2017 seemed slightly less than "positive" to us.
“While we are pleased with our overall results, in light of updated 2016 projections for our individual products and the significant structural challenges facing the public exchanges, we intend to withdraw all of our 2017 public exchange expansion plans, and are undertaking a complete evaluation of future participation in our current 15-state footprint,” said Aetna Chief Executive Mark T. Bertolini. Aetna had previously made regulatory filings indicating it was considering growing into five new state marketplaces in 2017.
“Nobody is getting adequately reimbursed.”
But, perhaps we just don't understand the quote correctly.
Of course, Gruber is the same academic who was caught on film repeatedly telling students and other professors that Obamacare only passed courtesy of the "stupidity of American voters."