Mr Gruber and The Washington Post

For John, BLUF:  It isn't the number insured (or uninsured), but the number of health care providers.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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From The Washington Post we have an OpEd by Mr Chris Cillizza, "Why Jonathan Gruber is conservative catnip".  Mr Cillizza suggests that those who are up in arms over Professor Jonathan Gruber see it confirming two points long believed about Democrats and about "Obamacare":

(a) The ACA was made purposely vague to keep the public in the dark about its depth and breadth, and
(b) liberals think conservatives are stupid.

Well, and per Professor Gruber, not just the public in the dark, but also the Congressional Budget Office.  Here is one exposition of this thought.  By the way, you can get the CBO report, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act:  Cost Estimate, from 18 November 2009.  The description is "Cost estimate for the amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 3590, as proposed in the Senate on November 18, 2009".

In his column Mr Cillizza includes:

Even David Brooks, no conservative bomb-thrower, writing in the New York Times on Tuesday about Obama's struggles in his second term, suggests:  "Maybe it’s Gruberism:  the belief that everybody else is slightly dumber and less well-motivated than oneself and, therefore, politics is more about manipulation than conversation."

Here is the exit question.  How is the PP&ACA doing with reducing the uninsured?  Here are the numbers of uninsured Americans per Wikipedia (2014 is from the Health Reform Monitoring Survey)  Almost as good as the last two years of the Clinton Administration.

1999	2000	2001	2008	2010	2012	2014
13.6	13.1	13.5	14.9	16.3	15.4	13.9

And, it really isn't the number of insured or uninsured, but it is the number of providers (Physicians, Physicians Assistants, Nurse Practitioners) available to those needing medical help.  How are we doing on that?

Hat tip to Rush Limbaugh.

Regards  —  Cliff