Jonathan Gruber, the Obamacare architect that admitted Obamacare only passed because politicians hid what was in it from the public, is now accusing the GOP of trying to “confuse people” about the law.
Gruber told Boston-area public broadcaster WGBH late Tuesday that the upcoming Supreme Court case which challenges whether Obamacare allows subsidies in federally-run exchanges is, in fact, a Republican attempt to confuse the American people.
“I think this comes to the master strategy of the Republican Party, which is to confuse people enough about the law so that they don’t understand the subsidies they’re getting are because of the law,” Gruber said.
Gruber’s comments are especially ironic in the aftermath of a 2013 video, uncovered by regular citizen Rich Weinstein, in which Gruber explains to a University of Pennsylvania audience that Democrats had to hide the actual cost of the health-care law from the public because of “the stupidity of the American voter.”
“Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” Gruber had said.
Gruber now opposes the challenges to the Obama administration’s rule on Obamacare subsidies, but he first attracted attention over the summer when Weinstein and bloggers John Sexton and Morgan Richmond discovered several tapes of Gruber explaining that Obamacare does actually restrict subsidies to state-run exchanges.
Gruber tried to brush aside his subsidy comments as a “speak-o.” He also told MSNBC’s Ronan Farrow earlier on Tuesday that he was speaking “off the cuff” in the latest video and regrets calling the American voters stupid. (RELATED: Obamacare Architect Claims Comments Were Just a Typo)
“I apologize for the terms I used, I expressed myself very poorly,” Gruber said when asked about his comments, but stood by his point that Obamacare would not have passed had the public known that it would effectively redistribute money. The host, Emily Rooney, later joked about the revelations briefly before ending the segment and advised him not to tweet.
“I have certainly learned my lesson,” Gruber laughed.”Now I know I can not only not tweet, I can’t speak,” he lamented.