Talk:Jonathan Gruber (economist)

Notability

I have found several online articles written by Mr. Gruber, but a cursory search does not turn up much in the way of third-party notability resources about him, other than his MIT information pages and this Wikipedia article. Is being an employee of a university notability by itself? I will dig a little deeper. -- KingNewbs (talk) 16:37, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I have added a couple footnotes and cited them in the text. -- KingNewbs (talk) 16:47, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

MIT is not just a university, it is one of the top universities in the World. Gruber is a well-known health economist. Masterpiece2000 (talk) 04:16, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with you about MIT being automatic evidence for notability, but in this case I think external evidence for notability is certainly present. I was definitely hasty in my initial edit, and it has been very educational to see the reaction -- I've learned a lot about what to look for and how to tag established articles. Thanks. -- KingNewbs (talk) 21:21, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Overly political for someone in academia?

Note these rather left-wing comments by Jonathan Gruber:

"JONATHAN GRUBER, M.I.T.: It's 12 million people, about a third of which will end up paying more under this law. And that as you said in the introductions [is] sort of the idea. We currently have a highly discriminatory system where if you’re sick, if you’ve been sick or [if] you’re going to get sick, you cannot get health insurance.

The only way to end that discriminatory system is to bring everyone into the system and pay one fair price. That means that the genetic winners, the lottery winners who've been paying an artificially low price because of this discrimination now will have to pay more in return. And that, by my estimate, is about four million people. In return, we'll have a fixed system where over 30 million people will now for the first time be able to access fairly price and guaranteed health insurance."

Source:

So, all those who take care of themselves, don't smoke, don't eat too much, stay fit etc - they have been given "unfairly low" healthcare prices? Wow. Astonishing for an economist to put it that way - look up "moral hazard" and see what happens when you remove penalties for bad behavior. You get more bad behavior - surprise!

Clearly this is evidence of his blatant politicking - coupled with the earlier revelations about his dual work for the Obama administration while pretending to be just an unbiased economist.

Shameful really. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 171.101.191.10 (talk) 04:44, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Biography

The Biography section here is effectively useless. Someone must know Gruber's real background including upbringing, religious and political affiliations from adolescence on up. The curious who read about Gruber wish to understand how this generically gifted individual has drawn the conclusions that he has? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.85.160.34 (talk) 22:19, 15 November 2013 (UTC) Agreed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.195.87.250 (talk) 22:26, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Controversy Section

The last sense in the Controversy Section doesn't track well. Perhaps the author could recast it for greater clarity. There seems to be a time-line confusion. CRK-Wenonah (talk) 15:11, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

President Obama's high praise for Jonathan Gruber

"You have already drawn some of the brightest minds from academia and policy circles, many of them I have stolen ideas from liberally, people ranging from Robert Gordon to Austan Goolsbee; Jon Gruber; my dear friend, Jim Wallis here, who can inform what are sometimes dry policy debates with a prophetic voice"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6yoHcOhF0U

96.59.92.70 (talk) 00:15, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Follow the money

For deceiving the American people, Gruber appears to have earned around 5 million dollars. With these four states:

Michigan: $481,050

Minnesota: $329,000

Vermont: $400,000

Wisconsin: $400,000

We have confirmation of nearly 1.5 million dollars. In addition, he was hired by eight additional states: Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin. The specific amounts paid in these is unknown, but according to the Washington Post:

"it’s safe to say that about $400,000 appears to be the standard rate for gaining access to the Gruber Microsimulation Model."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2014/11/14/did-jonathan-gruber-earn-almost-400000-from-the-obama-administration/

96.59.92.70 (talk) 03:03, 20 November 2014 (UTC)