So, this Gruber scandal disappoints. Let me focus on one example.

Remember, back in November, when everyone inside the Beltway was all a-twitter (in both senses of the phrase) about how Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, was making practically every White House staffer read an Atlantic article by Ron Brownstein? That piece, touting what FDL’s own Jon Walker called “free market economagic,” relied heavily on the work of Jonathan Gruber—then billed as “a leading health economist at MIT,” now well-understood to be a super-remunerated contractor in the employ of several parts of the Obama Administration.

I was on a conference call with White House budget director Peter Orszag and Office of Health Reform chief Nancy-Ann DeParle today, and both of them were adamant that the health care reform moving through Congress would cut costs over the long term and “move us into the future of health care,” as Orszag put it.

Rahm Emanuel is making practically every staffer in the White House read Ronald Brownstein’s completely uninformed article about the great “free market economagic” cost saving solutions in the Senate bill. This explains a lot about why the current health care reform proposals are so bad. This is probably the single worst piece of news I have heard during the entire health care debate. If someone as powerful as Rahm thinks there is any value in Brownstein’s writing, reform is in very bad shape.