Jonathan Gruber: ‘No Evidence Obamacare Has Caused Job Loss’

Obamacare “architect” Jonathan Gruber asserts there is “no evidence” President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare legislation “has caused job loss.”

In an interview Tuesday, Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo confronted Gruber with Obamacare’s double-digit premium hikes, the fact that insurance companies are leaving exchanges, and that small businesses are either slowing hiring or turning full-time positions to part-time due to the costs of Obamacare.

Gruber accused Bartiromo of “making up facts” about Obamacare. He said media coverage of the healthcare law has been “completely misleading” and that Obamacare “has actually saved people money.”

“You made up the fact that Obamacare has caused job loss,” he said. “There is no evidence…there is none…look at the data. There is not a single data point.”

Bartiromo countered her “data” are CEOs of businesses who come on her show and say they are not hiring more employees because they don’t want to incur the costs of Obamacare.

“Who cares if some CEO comes on the show and tells you that’s the reason?” Gruber responded. “That’s not how you consider data.”

Writing at Investors Business Daily (IBD) in 2014, Jed Graham observed the Obama administration was dismissing the idea that Obamacare would create job losses due to its costs:

White House economists dismiss such evidence as anecdotal, but BLS data show that the workweek in low-wage sectors sank to a record low in July — just before the Obama administration delayed enforcement of the employer mandate until 2015.

In the interest of an informed debate, we’ve compiled a list of job actions with strong proof that ObamaCare’s employer mandate is behind cuts to work hours or staffing levels. As of September 5th, our ObamaCare scorecard included 450 employers with more than 100 school districts among them. Recently, IBD explained that a big minimum wage hike alongside the employer mandate would add to pressure on employers to cut workers to part-time, complicating the goal of reducing inequality.

Bartiromo also slammed Gruber on his comments in which he said Obamacare’s planners counted on the “stupidity” of the American voter to “get the thing to pass.” Gruber countered that while he “regretted” those words, he insists they were “taken out of context” because he was speaking at an academic conference.