Obamacare's not imploding. The main goal of Obamacare was two-fold. One was to cover the uninsured, of which we've covered 20 million, the largest expansion in American history. The other was to fix broken insurance markets where insurers could deny people insurance just because they were sick or they had been sick. Those have been fixed, and for the vast majority of Americans, costs in those markets have come down, thanks to the subsidies made available under Obamacare.
Jonathan GruberIf you're a state and you don't set up an exchange, that means your citizens don't get their tax credits.
Jonathan GruberLack of transparency is a huge political advantage. Call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically, that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.
Jonathan GruberWhat's important to remember politically about this, is if youโre a state and you donโt set up an Exchange, that means your citizens donโt get their tax credits. But your citizens still pay the taxes that support this bill. So youโre essentially saying to your citizens, youโre going to pay all the taxes to help all the other states in the country. I hope thatโs a blatant enough political reality that states will get their act together and realize there are billions of dollars at stake here in setting up these Exchanges, and that theyโll do it. But you know, once again, the politics can get ugly around this.
Jonathan Gruber