Phil Kerpen On The Brett Winterble Show

Tune in here to this Monday's edition of the Brett Winterble Show! 

We’re joined by Phil Kerpen from American Commitment to talk about the origins of Obamacare and the current debate over healthcare subsidies. Kerpen explains how economist Jonathan Gruber, a key architect of the Affordable Care Act, designed the program’s structure and misled the public about its real costs and redistributive goals. He recalls how Gruber once boasted about relying on the “stupidity of the American voter” to push the legislation through, and how Democrats later denied knowing him when his comments resurfaced.

The conversation then shifts to the present-day battle in Congress over extending the extra COVID-era Obamacare subsidies. Kerpen argues that these expanded subsidies have led to waste, fraud, and inflated costs, while Democrats continue to blame Republicans for the system’s failures. Brett and Phil agree that restoring fiscal responsibility and accountability in healthcare policy is critical as the debate moves forward.

Listen here for all of this and more on The Brett Winterble Show!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
News Talk eleven ten got a nine three WBT Brett
Witterble Show. Great to be with you.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
One of my favorite people that talk about this is
Phil Kirpin, who's joining us here on this Obamacare stuff.
He is the president of Amercom and a principle of
comm for Prosperity and of course a syndicated columnist. Let's
let's have him on the show. Thanks so much for
the time today. I appreciate that, Phil ay my pleasure. Brett,

(00:33):
tell me tell me about Jonathan Gruber because I lifted
one of those montages that you had there, and I
thought it was fascinating to hear this because so many
people forget what the Obamacare thing was really about, when
from the genesis point.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Well, he was the guy that sort of designed the
actual mechanics and nuts and bolts of this law as
well as the deceptive CBO score and that they used
to get it past the finish line. And you know,
they paid him a couple of million dollars whatever, It
was a lot of money to develop it.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
And he.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Was also the guy who whenever he would speak at conferences,
he was very upfront about how, you know, the American
people are so stupid. That's how we were able to
pool them when we did this, and it never would
have passed if we'd been honest about what we were
trying to do, which was mostly, you know, do a
massive redistribution of wealth and an expansion of coverage at
enormous costs, not to have any real cost containment measures

(01:32):
of any kind. And when he became famous, and the
guy who found all these tapes was a guy named
rich Weinstein from Philadelphia who just started watching all of
these different academic conferences and all of a sudden pulling
all these clips. And he actually I was one of
the people he sent them to, and then I helped
distribute it more widely. This was ten or eleven years
ago now, so it was a while ago when we

(01:53):
started putting all these clips out of him saying all
these things about how stupid people were and how he
got away with it and all this stuff. Although don
We're like, oh no, we never heard of that guy
and with it. So then we had to pull all
the clips of all the Democrats talking about how he
was the guy who did wow. So so that's the
story of that. I saw people have started to circulate
them again recently, so I brought back, you know, some

(02:15):
of the original ones that we did from back then
and put them put.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Them on AX. Tell me, tell me your reaction to
what you saw last night with with the with the
breakthrough with Chuck Schumer's a little breakthrough there. How how
does this thing end?

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Well, you know, it's pretty amazing because after spending you know,
a month and a half saying Republicans were the ones
shutting down the government and blocking funding to the government,
then the Democrats said, okay, we okay, then we'll find
the government. It just sort of proved, you know, how
everything they were saying was alive the whole time. And
you know, they've been, uh, they've actually been shockingly successful
at this bizarre sort of argument that if you don't

(02:54):
have you know, sort of supersize expanded COVID emergency extra
bond care subsidies on top of the regular subsidies, then
you're the one sabotaging healthcare instead of you know, sort
of the obvious fact that this thing was melting down
becase was never really designed to succeed, and we've had
it costs viral and you know, we've been sort of
patching it together very very poorly with just massive infusions

(03:17):
of additional tax dollars. But that's not sustainable. And but
you know, what the Democrats have done from a messaging
standpoint is actually kind of brilliant because somehow, the inevitable
collapse of their healthcare system that they designed with no
Republican support, they're blaming it on Republicans. And that's if
they've accomplished anything. It was that sort of political magic act.

(03:38):
And you know, now we're you know, we're gonna see
what happens over the next month because they're still you know,
they're going to press this fight still. But just something everyone,
your listeners understand what we're talking about. The original Obamacare
had very generous subsidies up to four hundred percent of
the federal poverty level, but above that they said, okay,
you make you know, eighty or one hundred grand, whatever
it is, you're on your own. And what they did

(03:59):
during COVID is they said, no, we're going to get
rid of all income limits. So no matter how much
people make, they're going to be able to qualify for subsidies.
Nobody's going to pay more than eight and a half
percent of their income towards premiums and everything above that
taxpayers are going to pick up. And at the low end,
people who are low income. They said, instead of paying
two percent of your income, if you're under one undred
and fifty percent of the pivelements, you're going to pay zero.

(04:20):
And you know the problem when people are paying zero
is insurance companies unscrupulous brokers. They can sign up people
who might not even exist or do exist, they're never
going to use it, who don't value it or don't care,
but they never get it built so they don't care.
There's no disincentive to fraudulent sign up sort of people
who just don't value it and aren't going to use it.
We've got millions and millions of people who are signed up,

(04:41):
and the insurance companies got billions and billions of dollars
from people who sign up, who filed no claims, who
don't use it, who might not even exist, if they
do exist, don't value the coverage. So where Republicans have
been saying is look, COVID's over. We don't need this
emergency COVID expansion anymore. We go back to the original structure.
Taxpayers still pay eighty percent plus of all of the premium.
But you know, let's bring back the idea there's an

(05:02):
income limit on subsidies and that even at the bottom,
people who are on that munch should still pay something
five months a week whenever it is right, so then
they actually value it, you know, they're actual, real people
who exist. And Sumer actually got pressed on this point
by the New Center from Ohio, Bernie Moreno, and he
like ran off the kind of floor. He did not
answer these questions about these sensible changes the Republicans want

(05:24):
kind of with the expiration of these extra supersized subsidies.
And they've really been they've they've intentionally deceived a lot
of people. They make it sound like all the subsidies
end at the end of this year, when we're really
just talking about the extra COVID subsidies, right that ends,
It's still going to be pretty generous subsidies. But I
actually think, you know, I actually think surem' did us
a favor in that, you know, the path at least

(05:44):
resistance for Republicans would have been to just extend this. Sure,
but now a lot of them know a lot more
about it they would have otherwise, and they've been educated.
I think they're going to put up more of a
fight on it now than they would have if we
hadn't had the shut down.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
Great stuff. Where do people go to follow you?

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Commitment dot org is the website I'm also on. Exit's
my last name Kurpin k E R P E M.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
I love talking to you, man, I look forward to
catching up with you again, and we got to keep
this fight going. Thanks so much, my friend.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
Thanks have a good one.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
You got it.