Gruber Dust Up

There is a significant dust up in liberal circles over the role of MIT health economist in crafting the health care bill. The facts, so far as I can tell, are that the government paid him to do an analysis of the economics of the Senate health insurance reform bill, and that his analysis was then cited as independent by various government sources without noting that he was paid to do the analysis. Marci Wheeler of Fire Dog Lake and Glenn Greenwald cried foul, calling this similar to the Bush administrations hiring commentators to put out propaganda. Paul Krugman and Brad DeLong take strong exception. DeLong:

Jon Gruber is not a "consultant" or "strategist" who gets bribed by a political party or a government. Jon Gruber is, instead, an MIT health economics professor whom HHS hired to run a whole bunch of people whose job it was to mirror CBO--to carry out the analytical work on health proposals to tell HHS in advance what CBO was likely to say would be the budgetary implications of different pieces of health care. Gruber is best in the business at this: if you asked me what Doug Elmendorf and his team at CBO were likely to think, and if I couldn't reach Elmendorf, I would ask Gruber. It was a very good thing that HHS hired Gruber to run a team to do this.

Unlike you standard "consultant" or "pundit" or "strategist"--who will turn on a dime and spin as you wish him to if you sign him up for the team and pay him in six figures--Jon Gruber has said nothing this past year about health care reform that he was not already saying in 2008, and 2007, and 2006. Nothing. Nothing at all.

I'm going to guess that it is not entirely coincidence that the lawyers don't see any difference between a paid advocate and a technical analysis but the economists do. I've got to go with Krugman and DeLong here. Partly it's a matter of professional ethics. If a lawyer produces misleading statements on behalf of a client, nobody thinks the worse of him - that's his job. A scientist who produces a distorted analysis for pay is a crook, a liar, and is, or should become, a professional pariah.

To be sure, there is a disclosure issue, and Gruber and HHS were remiss in failing to disclose it. But I don't buy the Wheeler-Greenwald equation of this to the kind of paid flackery they compare it to.