Categories:
Labor Market
Regulation
In July 1994, Jonathan Gruber, then an assistant professor of economics at MIT, and I, then the John M. Olin Fellow at Washington University’s Center for the Study of American Business, testified on the economic effects of government mandates on employers to provide health insurance for their employees. The late Senator Edward Kennedy was the committee chair.
Kennedy’s brief introduction of the witnesses starts at 2:35:54. Gruber’s testimony starts at 2:37:20 and goes to 2:42:58. My testimony starts at 2:43:02 and goes to 2:49:22.
Here’s the video.
Here’s an article I wrote about it a few months later.
READER COMMENTS
Sam
Dec 12 2014 at 11:36pm
[Comment removed for policy violations.–Econlib Ed.]
MikeP
Dec 13 2014 at 3:29pm
That was a great video.
The elitist condescension of Jonathan Gruber, even two decades ago, is astonishing. No, people will not be disemployed by health insurance mandates: they will simply pay for the mandated health insurance out of their wages! This is good and right because Jonathan Gruber, Bill Clinton, and the bill’s sponsors in Congress feel in their hearts that health insurance is more important than anything else that every one of those tens of millions of people would rather do with their wages.
Was it intentional that the speakers were ordered that way, with Gruber teeing that softball up for you?
David R. Henderson
Dec 14 2014 at 8:57am
@MikeP,
That was a great video.
Yes. I agree.
The elitist condescension of Jonathan Gruber, even two decades ago, is astonishing. No, people will not be disemployed by health insurance mandates: they will simply pay for the mandated health insurance out of their wages! This is good and right because Jonathan Gruber, Bill Clinton, and the bill’s sponsors in Congress feel in their hearts that health insurance is more important than anything else that every one of those tens of millions of people would rather do with their wages.
That’s one reason I showed it. There are so many grounds on which to disapprove of Jonathan Gruber.
Was it intentional that the speakers were ordered that way, with Gruber teeing that softball up for you?
Yes. But not because they thought it was a softball. Kennedy chaired the committee and so his side decided that Gruber should go first. I knew his research and so I hoped he would talk about it. He did.
Floccina
Dec 17 2014 at 10:15am
Why might an economist like Gruber who admits that the employee will pay for his own insurance even if the employer writes the check, support an employer mandate?
Comments are closed.