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RUSH: Earlier this week, a three-judge panel at the DC Circuit Court of Appeals rules that there is a major, major flaw and problem in Obamacare. The three-judge panel read the law, and they said, “You know what? This law says that the only citizens who can get subsidies for their health care insurance are those citizens who buy it through state exchanges.”

The law says that the federal exchange, HealthCare.gov, cannot provide subsidies. But the Regime has been providing subsidies through HealthCare.gov, in violation of Obamacare. Well, when the three-judge panel issued its 2-1 ruling in favor of the law, the rule of law — an anti-Obamacare ruling — the left started caterwauling and whining and moaning and bleeding like a bunch of stuck pigs that it was a typographical error.


It was a semantic screw up. “Everybody knew what Congress intended. Congress never intended for people at the federal exchange not to be subsidized.” To which those of us up to speed said, “Well, yes they did. If they had intended for there to be subsidies for the federal exchange, it would have said so. It doesn’t say that. In fact, it says just the opposite. And the left said, “No, no, not fair! Everybody knows the intent of Congress.”

So what has happened is, somebody went back and found evidence from the man considered to be the actual architect of both Romneycare and Obamacare. His name is Jonathan Gruber. He’s a framer. He’s one of the founders of Obamacare. He’s a framer. He’s an MIT economics professor, and in a 2012 video the architect of Obamacare stated unequivocally that subsidies are not available in states that don’t set up their own exchanges.

Furthermore (exactly as I told you earlier in the week), this was done to put pressure on Republican governors. There were 36 states that did not sign on to Obamacare and did not set up their own exchanges. So these guys were running around thinking that they had scored a major political victory because they thought that every American would want a subsidy.

And when they found out that they weren’t gonna get a subsidy because their governor didn’t sign on, that this would be very bad for their governor (which is a Republican) and they would get rid of him. So not only was this not a typo, it was put in purposefully so as to hopefully do political damage to Republican governors for not setting up exchanges. There were many Republican governors who said, “We can’t afford this.

“We can’t afford to take on the burden of Medicare, and we cannot afford the burden of providing subsidies. Even if there’s gonna be a percentage reimbursed down the road, we can’t afford it.” So they didn’t sign onto it. Plus they were opposed to Obamacare politically. So there’s a number of reasons why they didn’t establish exchanges, but one of the big ones was they couldn’t afford it.

So this Gruber guy and all the other Democrats were out around talking about how this was specifically done to put political pressure on these governors that didn’t set up exchanges, and we have it on video. Well, we have it on audio. We have two bites. They’re both from January 18th, 2012, Falls Church, Virginia. This is during a Q&A.

MIT economics professor Jonathan Gruber, who is recognized as the guy who wrote Obamacare and Romneycare — and, by the way, he accepts that accolade. There was sort of a town hall meeting about it, and an audience member said, “It’s my understanding that if the states don’t provide subsidies, that the federal government will.”

GRUBER: I think what’s important to remember politically about this is if you’re a state and you don’t set up an exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits.

RUSH: Whoooa, that sounds like he means it! Doesn’t it to you? It doesn’t sound like a typo to me. Gruber said, “I think what’s important to remember politically about this is if you’re a state and you don’t set up an exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits,” don’t get their subsidies. Right there you have it, the tantamount admission that this was put in for political pressure.

I could have played the whole bite. I wanted to separate that because that stand-alone says it all. “It’s important to remember politically…” It’s a health care bill now, right? “I think what’s important to remember politically about this is if you’re a state and you don’t set up an exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits,” meaning they don’t get their subsidies. He then continued with this…


GRUBER: But your citizens still paid the taxes that support this bill. So you’re essentially saying to your citizens, “You’re gonna pay all the taxes to help all the other states in the country.” I hope that that’s a blatant enough political reality that the states will get their act together and realize there are billions of dollars at stake here in setting up these exchanges and will do it. But, you know, once again: The politics can get ugly around this.

RUSH: All right. So Gruber is out there, by the way, saying, “It was a typo.” What makes this important is that Gruber, before anybody produced this video and audio from 2012, was out spouting the party line earlier this week. “Ah, it was just a typo! Everybody knew that we intended for the federal exchange to provide subsidies.”

Then they found this video where it’s abundantly clear that they didn’t intend for the federal government to be offering tax credits or subsidies. They wrote it in the law that that would be the case! It’s in the law that the federal government cannot and does not and will not provide subsidies — and this guy, Gruber, in these two sound bites, explains why. It was to put pressure on Republican governors to set up exchanges.

Pure and simple.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s Pam in Los Angeles as we continue. Greetings and great to have you on Open Line Friday. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Wow, what an honor this is. A thrill. I’m a Tea Party patriot, and I just wanted to make a point about the recent accusations that we’re heartless for not helping the children. The leftists have been selling the public, Americans back and forth about helping the children, helping people with health care costs and calling us heartless. But I recall that Kathleen Sebelius, back in June 2013, was remarking on a 10-year-old girl that needed a lung transplant, and she said, “Hey, some people live and some people die.”

In other words, they’re admitting that we have limited resources and decisions have to be made about these things. But they’re our decisions to make as free people. It’s not the government’s decision to make about charity, about how much to help. These decisions do not get any easier whether the government makes them, but they are agonizing decisions. But they’re our decisions to make as free people. And I’m just concerned that they understand decisions need to be made, but they would like to make them for us.

RUSH: Naturally. They’re statists. But, you know, Kathleen Sebelius was not the first to say, “Well, you know, in that instance we just can’t save everybody.” Don’t forget that it was Barack Obama, his own self, on an ABC prime time special from the East Room in the White House. I’ll never forget this. A woman stood up. I swear I will never forget. I can’t believe this even happened, much less the answer. But ABC was doing a public service. The American people were allowed in the East Room to ask their president about Obamacare. And a woman, a citizen actually stood up — I never thought I would ever see this — asked the president if her mother’s will to live would be considered in the government deciding to treat her. In this case, a pacemaker.

She was a hundred years old or some such thing, the woman’s mother. Now, just the fact — and I know for you regular listeners I’ve talked about this many times, but keep in mind there are new people tuning in here every day, so pardon the redundancy. But I still can’t believe that we’ve gotten to the point where a citizen has to ask the president if her mother can get a pacemaker. The moment I saw that, I said, “What is happening to us?” And how sad is it that this woman apparently, this is the only place she had left to go because the government was paying for it under Obamacare, or was going to be paying for it. She wanted to know, because she’d been to a couple doctors and had been turned down because, nah, mother’s too old.

But they did find a doctor who would do it eventually. The family found a doctor who would put the pacemaker in her mother. So she wanted to know if Obama would consider, once Obamacare became law, somebody’s spirit, somebody’s will to live. And Obama said no, we can’t do that. It’s too nebulous. There are other factors that are much more solid in determining. We’re just gonna have to face the fact that the compassionate thing to do for some people is to — and with great love and with appreciation for all they’ve done for us, give ’em a pill so that they could at least enjoy the remaining time. He actually said it. The whole thing was surreal to me. So it wasn’t Sebelius who first acknowledged that the health care plan would result in some people dying ’cause they just couldn’t do anything about it. It was the president himself.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Mere moments ago, ladies and gentlemen, just moments ago, right here on this program we played audio sound bites of Mr. Jonathan Gruber, the economist from MIT, from January of 2012 explaining that (paraphrasing), “Oh, yeah, there was no way that people who signed up through HealthCare.gov get subsidies. No, no, no, no.” And, in fact, said Mr. Gruber, the architect of Obamacare, in fact, the politics is that citizens who live in states who do not set up an exchange are not gonna get their subsidies because there aren’t any subsidies from the federal exchange. He made it plain as day in 2012.

Shortly after we aired that audio, a reporter asked the press secretary at the White House, Josh Earnest, about the video, the Jonathan Gruber video. He said, “Do you have a response to this, Josh? Your critics are saying that this proves that subsidies were not to be provided from HealthCare.gov.”


EARNEST: Mr. Gruber filed an amicus brief in the Halbig case, taking the administration’s side, that all individuals should get access to those tax credits, as long as they’re eligible to get them. So I think his views on this are pretty clear. I think that he described those remarks as a mistake, but I’d refer you to his explanation for why he said them. I think what is clear is that he, like Congress, intended for every eligible American to have access to tax credits that lower their health care costs regardless of who is operating the marketplace.

RUSH: He did not! They’re just lying through their teeth again! He’s now saying (imitating Earnest), “Well, Gruber, he didn’t really mean it. No, no, no. I think it’s really clear that Gruber, like Congress, intended for every American to get tax credits.” No! They intended for people that lived in states that did not have Republicans sign up to Obamacare not get the subsidies. And the only way they couldn’t get the subsidies was if the state didn’t set up an exchange, because you could not get tax credits at HealthCare.gov. It’s in the law. Gruber put it in the law.

Gruber is now saying (paraphrasing), “Well, I made a mistake. I didn’t mean that.” And Earnest is saying, “Well, he, like everybody else, everybody, Congress always intended for everybody to get them.” No, the law doesn’t say it. These people are shameless. They’ll lie in your face with impunity. They will lie without any remorse or guilt or nervousness whatsoever. They’ll just get right in your face and lie to you and demand that you figure out a way of dealing with it.

There’s another Gruber tape, by the way. This is not the only one. It’s from a public appearance he made at the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco. And this was also in January 2012. This was January the 10th. And he made the same connection between subsidies and state exchanges on at least another occasion. He didn’t misspeak. He went out there in January of 2012 — this was an election year, don’t forget. And they were trying to hammer Republican governors who had not set up exchanges and they were trying to convince people in those states that it was those governors making sure they didn’t get tax credits.

Why? Because you couldn’t get them at the federal exchange, HealthCare.gov. And now they’re just lying right to our faces. Josh Earnest, Jonathan Gruber. I mean, it’s shameless. But it’s also instructive, folks. If they’ll lie here, when are they not lying? And the answer is, sadly, very rarely.

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