Romney talked George Bush into giving Romneycare $500 million fed. tax dollars a year without which Romneycare couldn't have happened. A Ted Kennedy "slush fund" deal was ending on 7/1/2005-Gruber at Simmons College, Feb. 2014, at U. of Rhode Island in 2012-Daily Caller

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11/13/14, "Obamacare Architect: Ted Kennedy ‘Ripped Off’ Medicaid," Daily Caller, Chuck Ross
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"In several of Gruber’s lectures, which are available online, the MIT economist walks his audience through the process of how Obamacare came into being. The story begins in Massachusetts where Gruber helped create the state’s universal health law, now known as Romneycare.  
 
“We had a pretty powerful senator you may have heard of named Ted Kennedy,” Gruber said during an event at Simmons College in February (2014). "Ted Kennedy had managed to figure out a way to rip off the federal Medicaid program to the tune of about $500 million a year through a series of strange manipulations.

“Here was Mitt Romney’s dirty little secret that we don’t like to talk about in Massachusetts, which is the way we passed our law is the federal government paid for it.

“George Bush said why am I sending this Democrat [meaning Ted Kennedy] $500 million a year, I’m taking it back,” Gruber explained, adding 

“Mitt Romney to his credit went to George Bush and said, look, can we keep the money if we use it for universal coverage.  

And Bush to his credit said yes.”...

Gruber followed a similar script in other lectures, including one at Washington University in St. Louis last year and another at the University of Rhode Island in 2012.

At the University of Rhode Island event, Gruber said Kennedy was “delivering about $400 million a year in slush funds to our SafeNet hospitals, basically ripping off the federal Medicaid program.”

In that lecture, Gruber said Bush acted “appropriately” to address Kennedy’s fund.

Gruber was referring to Kennedy’s procurement in 1996 of a Section 1115 Medicaid waiver from the Clinton administration. 

The waiver was seen as a key component of Massachusetts’ “MassHealth” program. Though Gruber implies underhandedness in Kennedy’s methods, the Democrat touted the waiver as one of the highlights of his career.

As Forbes columnist and former Romney adviser Avik Roy explained in 2012, Massachusetts’ waiver was coming to an end on July 1, 2005. Seeing this, Romney proposed a plan that increased access to cost-effective plan and to a “Safety Net Care” program.

Gruber’s public statements are being heavily vetted now after several videos appeared this week in which the economist bragged about how the American public was tricked into supporting Obamacare....

“It’s a very clever, you know, basic exploitation of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter,” Gruber said of one portion of the law, the Cadillac tax, at the University of Rhode Island lecture. (Related: In A Third Video, Obamacare Architect Talks About ‘Basic Exploitation’ Of American Voter)

At a 2013 academic panel held at the University of Pennsylvania, Gruber said that Obamacare was “written in a tortured way” in order to ensure that it would get passed.

“Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” Gruber said. “And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to get the thing to pass.”"

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From Simmons College website about Gruber's Feb. 2014 appearance:

"Dr. Jonathan Gruber presented “Health Care Reform in the U.S.: Past, Present, and Future” at the Linda K. Paresky Conference Center at Simmons College on February 25, 2014.

Dr. Gruber's talk provided an insider’s perspective on one of the most important challenges facing the U. S. economy.

“With increasing life expectancy, slower income growth, and a historically low personal savings rate, it has become more important than ever to have access to affordable health care,” said Zinnia Mukherjee, Assistant Professor of Economics at Simmons College.

Dr. Gruber has long been recognized as one of the country’s leading advocates of health care reform, and has personally worked to increase access to affordable care. Dr. Gruber was a key architect of the Massachusetts health care reform effort and was an inaugural member of the Health Connector Board. During 2009-2010, Dr. Gruber served as a technical consultant to the Obama Administration and helped craft the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

A prolific and prominent scholar, Dr. Gruber has published over 140 research articles, edited six research volumes and is the author of Public Finance and Public Policy, a leading undergraduate text, and Health Care Reform, a graphic novel.

“A public lecture by a preeminent health care economist exemplifies the way Economics in particular and the Social Sciences in general are approached at Simmons,” said Masato Aoki, Associate Professor of Economics and Department Chair at Simmons College."

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From University of Rhode Island "Honors Colloquium 2012," description of participant Gruber on You Tube video page:
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"From 2003-2006 he was a key architect of Massachusetts' ambitious health reform effort, and in 2006 became an inaugural member of the Health Connector Board, the main implementing body for that effort. In that year, he was named the 19th most powerful person in health care in the United States by Modern Healthcare Magazine."

Ted Kennedy "slush fund" reference is at beginning of U of RI video.

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