Politics

Pelosi Said She Doesn’t Know Who Jonathan Gruber Is Despite Previously Citing Him By Name

Patrick Howley Political Reporter
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Rep. Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she does not know who Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber is — despite previously citing Gruber by name.

“I don’t know who he is. He didn’t help write our bill,” Pelosi said at her weekly briefing with reporters.

But Pelosi has previously cited Gruber’s influence on the bill.

Pelosi used her Speaker of the House website in 2010 to promote “the Gruber Analysis.”

“An analysis of the House bill by noted MIT health care economist Jonathan Gruber concludes that the bill would result in lower premiums than under current law for the millions of Americans using the newly-established Health Insurance Exchange – including those who are not receiving affordability credits to help them purchase coverage,” then-Speaker Pelosi’s website wrote, frequently citing Gruber by name and linking to his analysis.

“I don’t know if you have seen Jonathan Gruber of MIT’s analysis of what the comparison is to the status quo versus what will happen in our bill for those who seek insurance within the exchange,” Pelosi told reporters in 2009. “And our bill takes down those costs, even some now, and much less preventing the upward spiral.”

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Pelosi’s office has since attempted to spin out of the discrepancy.

“She said she doesn’t ‘know who he is,’ not that she’s ‘never heard of him,'” Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill told The Washington Post Thursday.

MIT Professor Gruber, who served as a top Obama administration consultant during the writing of Obamacare, inflamed the country by calling the American voters stupid in a video published by The Daily Caller earlier this week. (RELATED: Gruber: Lack of Transparency Was Key Because ‘Stupidity of the American Voter’ Would Have Killed Obamacare).

Alex Olson contributed to this report.

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