Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber’s remarks about the “stupidity of the American voter” and a “lack of transparency” as factors necessary to passing Obamacare have spurred responses from across the political spectrum.
Former DNC chairman Howard Dean responded to Morning Joe host Mika Brzezinski’s comment that Gruber’s statement “might be a problem.”
“The problem is not that he said it. The problem is that he thinks it,” said Dean about Gruber, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor. “I’m serious. The core problem of the d— law is that it was put together by a bunch of elitists who don’t fundamentally understand the American people. That’s what the problem is.”
On Tuesday, Gruber told Ronan Farrow on MSNBC that his comment was “inappropriate”:
“The comments in the video were made at an academic conference,” Gruber said. “I was speaking off the cuff, and I basically spoke inappropriately and I regret having made those comments.”
Ron Fournier at the National Journal describes his political ideology as “amorphous” and says that he has “openly rooted for Obamacare’s success.”
Upon hearing Gruber’s remarks, Fournier wrote that “even I have to admit, as a supporter, that Obamacare was built and sold on a foundation of lies,” adding that, “He called you stupid. He admitted that the White House lied to you. Its officials lied to all of us—Republicans, Democrats and independents; rich and poor; white and brown; men and women.
Liberals, said Fournier, “should be the angriest:”
Not only were they personally deceived, but the administration’s dishonest approach to health care reform has helped make Obamacare unpopular while undermining the public’s faith in an activist government. A double blow to progressives.
Jason Millman, a health policy writer for The Washington Post, called Gruber “fiercely intelligent and passionate about the health reforms he helped create” in a piece titled “Meet Jonathan Gruber, the man who’s willing to say what everyone else is only thinking about Obamacare.”
