Legal Commentary

Did Obama Oppose The Excise Tax In July 2009? What Changed His Mind?

By Big Tent Democrat

Via Greenwald, the NYTimes Ombudsman:

Jonathan Gruber, a prominent M.I.T. health economist, wrote an Op-Ed column in July supporting an excise tax on so-called Cadillac health plans. Not long before, he had signed a contract with the Department of Health and Human Services to analyze the economic impact of various health care proposals in Congress. He did not tell Op-Ed editors, nor was the contract mentioned on at least 12 other occasions when he was quoted in The Times after he was consulting for the administration. [. . .] He said he has long supported the tax and that the administration opposed it when he wrote his column, so he was hardly bending his views to a government paymaster.

(Emphasis supplied.) Did the Obama Administration oppose an excise tax in July 2009? This is news to me. My recollection is that Peter Orzag, Obama's head of OMB, has always been a proponent of the excise tax. I know of no statements by the Obama Administration opposing the excise tax. If Gruber is right, who opposed the excise tax and what changed their minds?

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on January 17, 2010 (boomark / email).