Cross-posted to Economists for Obama

Jonathan Gruber of MIT has a new NBER working paper on health insurance coverage, based largely on a simulation model. Krugman cites the paper as evidence that making coverage mandatory makes a big difference for the number actually covered.

However, if you read the whole paper (unfortunately only available to subscribers), you find that Gruber sidesteps the crucial question of how a mandate will be enforced and just assumes a mandate will work.

There's more...

I'm as surprised as Gregg Levine at the fallout of Gruber's deception among the DC reportage class. This seems like a slam dunk of not only a severe lack of transparency, but outright deception.

Both the Washington Post and the NYTimes has confirmed that Gruber, even when asked in written form, did not disclose his financlal connections. Gruber "signed a contract that obligated him to tell editors of such a relationship" and he did not.

WaPost: Gruber, when asked whether he "received any funding, for research or otherwise, from organizations or persons identified in the column," answered "no."

NYT's: Like other writers for the Op-Ed page, Professor Gruber signed a contract that obligated him to tell editors of such a relationship. Had editors been aware of Professor Gruber’s government ties, the Op-Ed page would have insisted on disclosure or not published his article.

So evern Gruber's excuse of "when they asked I told" turns out to be a lie. This will be exhibit 1 for showing how a lack of transparency and dishonesty, among those recieving government funds, works.

Yes, there is ethical fallout here in the administration:

Along with Rahm letting everybody know he was letting everybody know, OMB Director Peter Orszag got on the White House blog to push the Brownstein article and an op-ed that Orszag penned for the Washington Post that touted a letter he co-signed with Jonathan Gruber. Orszag and Gruber go back a ways–years earlier, Orszag worked with Gruber to co-write at least two papers for a Boston College think tank called the Center for Retirement Research.

And its not time to circle the wagons and go to bat for these guys, and they've got some explaining to do:

Rahm didn’t leak that Gruber worked for the administration. Gruber didn’t tell Brownstein that he worked for the administration. Orszag doesn’t disclose his prior relationship with Gruber.

And the fallout continues, among same reporters who were touting Gruber as a independent source of information. They got burned, so what is the matter with the ethical radar of Ezra Klein, Kate Pickard, Karen Tumulty, Ron Brownstein, Jonathan Cohn?

Well, as I mentioned below. This is a benchmark of sorts among DC's revolving door of government consultants and the flow of money, so lets lay out a few honest conclusions here. Its one thing for a conservative flack like Armstrong Williams to get caught with his hands in the cookie jar, but quite another for an elite liberal thought-leader in the DC wonkworld to do so.

Yes, its terrible optics that the Government is paying $400K for a consultant for 10 months, more than the President makes; but more than that, it's not really surprising to anyone that knows how DC works. once we start down the path of transparency, it'll seem like a minor