ObamaCare: A legislative Trojan horse

With enrollment now open for ObamaCare’s second year, millions of Americans are getting a first look at what their healthcare future holds—namely higher prices and fewer choices. This may come as a surprise to ObamaCare’s new enrollees, who were promised exactly the opposite. But it isn’t a surprise to ObamaCare’s architects, who designed the law precisely so that Americans couldn’t know what it would do and how it would hurt them. 

In numerous videos that recently emerged, Jonathan Gruber, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of ObamaCare’s chief architects, explained the political calculus behind the law. After a century of failed attempts to pass sweeping health care reform—most prominently with “Hillary Care” in the early 90s—the Left knew they’d have to try something more creative in order to convince the American public to support a government takeover of health care. 

{mosads}The solution? Trick voters. 

According to Gruber, the White House wrote the law to be as opaque as possible. The resulting “lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” Gruber mused in the video. “Call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really really critical for the thing to pass.” 

The administration also feared that if voters understood the true cost of the law—namely, that it would tax Americans through the individual mandate, which forces everyone to purchase health care insurance—it would go up in smoke. No problem, according to Gruber: The law “was written in a tortured way to make sure [the Congressional Budget Office] did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies.” 

The Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the individual mandate is in fact a tax, but no matter. The White House had already duped the American public—just as ObamaCare’s designers intended. 

ObamaCare’s duplicitous nature doesn’t end there. In a separate video that emerged earlier this week, Gruber spoke of yet another instance where the Obama administration intentionally deceived the American public. Discussing the so-called “Cadillac” tax on expensive health insurance plans—which is passed on to customers via higher premiums—Gruber bragged, “It’s very clever, you know, basic exploitation of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter.” 

Exploiting American voters. Stupidity of American voters. Lack of transparency. These are damning revelations about how ObamaCare came into being. They also shine a light on how the Obama administration views the American people—the people who voted him into office not once, but twice. 

We have since seen these deceitful tactics affect ObamaCare’s implementation. President Obama continues going to great lengths to hide from public view the disastrous consequences of his health care law—and, in the process, limit voters’ ability to hold him accountable for his policies on Election Day. 

Americans everywhere know his now-infamous promise that “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan”—Politifact’s 2013 “Lie of the Year.” At least 6.3 millionAmericans have learned the hard way that this was a lie. Less well-known is that the President also delayed many of the law’s key provisions to deceive voters into believing the worst has already passed. 

The business mandate—which forces employers with 50 or more employees to provide health insurance or pay a substantial penalty—was pushed back one year to January 1, 2015—conveniently just after this year’s midterm elections. The business community has warned all along this will result in skyrocketing health care costs for employees. Apparently the American people didn’t deserve to know that until after the latest election. 

This charade can only go on for so long. ObamaCare’s harms are increasingly being felt across the country—and voters are opposing it in increasing numbers. A recent survey found that more than half of Americans now oppose the law, while only 36 percent support it. Those same Americans went to the polls on November 4 and delivered a stinging rebuke to President Obama and ObamaCare’s supporters in Congress. Try as they might, that’s a reality that ObamaCare’s architects can’t hide. 

Luke Hilgemann is the chief operating officer at Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political advocacy organization.