The federal government has paid Jonathan Gruber at least $4 million since the year 2000, for his work as an expert witness, a legal consultant and for his consultation on Obamacare.
That comes on top of at least $1.6 million the MIT economist has been paid by several states to consult on their health care bills.
Gruber, the so-called architect of Obamacare, came under fire this week after a number of videos emerged of him speaking candidly about how Obamacare was passed.
Gruber was paid $392,600 by the Department of Health and Human Services for his work on Obamacare. His main contribution was in the realm of economic modeling to help score the bill for budgetary purposes.
In a bombshell video from 2013 published this week, Gruber was seen telling an audience of academics “this bill was written in a tortured way to make sure the [Congressional Budget Office] did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies.”
Gruber also said a lack of transparency was necessary for the bill to pass – “call it the stupidity of the American voter,” he said.
Gruber has done other work for the federal government.
The Department of Justice paid Gruber $1.737 million between 2000 and 2005 for providing legal services as an expert witness, according to the site USASpending.gov, which tracks federal expenditures.
The State Department paid Gruber $103,500 in 2008 and 2009 to provide legal services.
On top of that, as The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler reported Friday, Gruber also earned $2.05 million from the National Institutes of Health.
Including his work on Obamacare, the federal government has paid Gruber $4,283,100 since 2000.
That sum does not include the millions Gruber has earned for consulting work he’s done for various states.
As Kessler reports, Gruber earned $481,050; $329,000; $400,000; and $400,000 from the states of Michigan, Minnesota, Vermont and Wisconsin, respectively.
Gruber has done work on other states’ health care bills, including Massachusetts and California.
All told, Gruber has earned at least $5,893,100 for his work for federal and state governments.