Reader's view: Boychuk used GOP trick in column

In his column in the News Tribune Nov. 18, Ben Boychuk of the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal used a typical trick of the GOP: He quoted MIT economics professor Jonathan Gruber and injected damning misinformation about a remark made by Gruber more than a year ago (Red-Blue America: “Obamacare was built on a foundation of lies”).
Gruber was reported thanking “the stupidity of the American voter” for leading to the passage of the Affordable Care Act. But as a law professor, Gruber merely was lamenting the role of deception used by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress to pass laws of all types.
Politicususa.com quotes Neil Irwin of the New York Times, saying, “Mr. Gruber was exposing something sordid yet completely commonplace about how Congress makes policy of all types.”
Brian Beutler of the New Republic pointed out that, “First Gruber’s actually overstating the degree to which the ACA needed to be finessed in order to pass. It’s true that the bill’s authors took steps to maximize its public appeal and minimize its vulnerabilities. Everyone writing significant legislation does this.” But, Beutler also pointed out, “The Obamacare debate was one of the most transparent in recent memory.”
Media Matters added, “The Senate held years of bipartisan hearings on the health care reform before ACA passed.”
And Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus posted a timeline of his committee’s work on the bill since 2008, including, “31 bipartisan discussions about the health care reform bill.”
Strange how Boychuck chose this time to distort something that was said in October 2013, with Democrats trying to defend a bill everyone in Congress knew from the beginning could be established by either the states or federal government (which the dictionary also defines as a state). How apparent is it the GOP really is using word games to obtain another sordid victory?
Peter W. Johnson
Superior