Kossack Mote Dai's discovery that "objective" analyst and MIT economist Jonathon Gruber has received a sole-source contracts with the Department of Health and Human Services since June 19, 2009 to consult on the “President’s health reform proposal" has gained some larger attention.
Marcy reported that he has two contracts for a total of $392,600 to consult on the plan. The issue is that Gruber has consistently been referenced by the White House as an objective analyst in support of the bill--including the controversial excise tax--without disclosing his role as a contractor on the issue. Marcy:
Now, HHS says they had to put Dr. Gruber in charge of evaluating health care reform proposals because he’s got,
"a proven micro-simulation model with the flexibility to ascertain the distribution of changes in health care spending and public and private sector health care costs due to a large variety of changes in health insurance benefit design, public program eligibility criteria, and tax policy."
Even assuming that Gruber is the only one in the world who can run these simulations, don’t you think it’s rather, um, dubious that the guy evaluating the heath care reform–for $300,000–is also the package’s single biggest champion?
Politico's Ben Smith followed up with Gruber:
I asked Gruber about the reports, and he responded by stressing that the contract was not for public relations, but for analysis, and that he's long advocated for a consistent set of policies.
I do indeed have a contract with HHS. Throughout this year I have provided technical assistance to the administration and to Congress with my micro-simulation model, as well as based on my experience as a member of the Massachusetts health connector board. But NONE of the work I have done in public, or any public declarations I ahve [sic] made, has been in any way funded by the Administration. That funding was strictly for internal work that I did for the administration and, via the administration, for congress. All externally visible work and comments, such as my editorials or public reports, have been done on my own time.
Moreover, at no time have I publicly advocated a position that I did not firmly believe - indeed, I have been completely consistent with my academic track record....
Gruber told POLITICO that he has told reporters of the contract "whenever they asked" and noted that he formally disclosed that "I am a paid consultant to the Obama Administration" in a form attached to his most recent, December 24 article in the New England Journal of Medicine, though it wasn't widely known by reporters on the beat.
Gruber received his first contract back in March, and didn't disclose these contracts publicly until last month, and that's a problem. Gruber's analysis has been used for public relations by the White House in support the plan. Using the excuse that "if anyone asked, I told them" is not the same as actual transparency, and opens Gruber and the White House up, unnecessarily, to criticism on the transparency front. This isn't to question Gruber's qualifications as an economist or to suggest that his analysis has been influenced by the money. It's to point out that by not disclosing that he was getting paid for these analyses, that he opened himself--and the White House--to those charges from the bill's opponents. The lack of disclosure for all these months was a boneheaded move by both Gruber and the White House.
