After Massive Cost Increase Obamacare Architect Says the Healthcare System is 'Working as Designed'

Even though Obamacare has been proven to be a total failure, one of the architects of Obama’s Affordable Care Act is claiming that the system is working just fine.

However, The White House just announced that premiums on the Obamacare exchanges will be increasing by 25% in 2017.

Even with these stats coming directly from the White House, Jonathan Gruber, an Obamacare architect, appeared on CNN this week and defended the system. “There’s no sense in which it needs to be fixed,” said Gruber to CNN’s Carol Costello. “The law is working as designed. However, it could work better.” 

This isn’t the first time he has expressed similar sentiments.

“MIT economics professor Jonathan Gruber infamously told an audience at the University of Pennsylvania in November 2014 that Democrats required “the stupidity of the American voter” for Obamacare to become law,” writes The Washington Times.

When asked how Obamacare can be improved, Gruber gave this ridiculous answer.

“I think probably the most important thing experts would agree on is that we need a larger mandate penalty. We have individuals who are essentially free-riding on the system. They’re essentially waiting until they get sick and then getting health insurance.”

Basically, he thinks higher fines or taxes to force individuals into enrolling into a healthcare plan is how the system can be improved. 

“The whole idea of this plan, the way it was pioneered in Massachusetts, was that the individual mandate penalty would bring those people into the system and have them participate. The penalty right now is probably too low and that’s something I think ideally we would fix,” said Gruber.

Gruber has formerly said that a “small fraction of people” paying for insurance plans without subsidies will actually see prices skyrocket.

But again, The Department of Health and Human Services announced this week that Obamacare’s benchmark plan will spike to $302 in 2017, which is a $60 increase from 2016. 

“It’s true that 85 percent of people buying insurance ‘on the exchanges’ are getting subsidies. However, as Gruber surely knows as many as half the people buying Obamacare plans are not buying them on the exchanges. And none of those people buying off-exchange plans are getting any subsides at all. So the idea that the 22 percent increases only apply a ‘small fraction’ is another attempt to deceive people about what is going on. Gruber knows the truth, he just doesn’t want viewers to know it,” writes John Sexton of Hot Air.

Author’s note: With all of the facts we know, like how the premiums are raising and health insurers are being forced to drop out, how can Gruber continue his wildly optimistic narrative about Obamacare?