How Close Was Jonathan Gruber To Obama, Democrats?

Jonathan Gruber’s mouth is the gift that won’t stop giving to Republicans, as a series of videos surface more than suggesting what the American people already know — the administration lied about ObamaCare. But as Democrats, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and the White House, attempt to distance themselves from the toxic elitist, details indicate he was one of the top go-to advisors during the health care debate.

Gruber was retained by the Department of Health and Human Services in 2009 to the tune of $297,600 to provide “technical assistance in evaluating options for national healthcare reform.” Gruber also confirmed to The Washington Post that he was paid another $95,000 prior, bringing the running total to approximately $400,000, all funded by the very people he was compelled to mock as stupid — the American people.

Gruber was recently caught shooting off his mouth yet again on video, this time bragging how the Massachusetts health care system he helped design worked by ripping off millions of dollars from the federal government.

On top of that, another video has surfaced from Vermont showing him mocking a critic of single-payer health care, comparing him to an “adolescent” child.

The latest videos of Jonathan Gruber come after House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi claimed Thursday she didn’t know who he was. However, as we demonstrated this week, Pelosi was lying. She actually cited Gruber’s analysis — repeatedly — several years ago to counter Republicans’ arguments against passing ObamaCare. Amazingly, her office continues to insist he played no real role in the crafting of their bill, and that she wasn’t familiar with the man.

Yet, video after video has emerged of Gruber boasting about the behind-the-scenes efforts to ram the Affordable Care Act down the throats of the American people, who have never offered majority support for the bill. The latest videos pertain to state health overhauls, in both Massachusetts and Vermont.

One video, which is viewable above, was taped in January 2012 at the University of Rhode Island, and shows Gruber discussing the Massachusetts overhaul under then-Gov. Mitt Romney. He explained how the state was able to bill the feds over hundreds of millions of Medicaid dollars.

“The dirty secret in Massachusetts is the feds paid for our bill, okay?” he said. “In Massachusetts we had a very powerful senator you may know named Ted Kennedy. … Ted Kennedy and smart people in Massachusetts had basically figured out a way to sort of rip off the feds for about 400 million dollars a year.”

In yet another video, reported by Watchdog.org and shot by TrueNorthReports.com, Gruber in 2011 mocked a critic during a Vermont House committee hearing examining a publicly financed health program. At the hearing, a lawmaker read aloud one comment that warned of “ballooning costs” and “bureaucratic outrages.”

As the hearing participants began to laugh, Gruber said: “Was this written by my adolescent children by any chance?”

According to Watchdog.org, Gruber is currently being paid to advise the state of Vermont on a new health care plan. Watchdog.org also spoke with the man who wrote the comment that drew Gruber’s snarky rebuke, former state senator and Reagan adviser John McClaughry.

“No one should trust this man,” McClaughry told Watchdog.org. “Based on the rest of the stuff that’s come out on the videos, nobody can trust this guy.”

Even though Pelosi claimed she wasn’t familiar with Gruber, at least some other Democrats are no longer attempting to insult the intelligence of the American people. They have made clear they do in fact know him and aren’t too pleased with him at the moment.

On CNN, former White House press secretary Jay Carney said of the tapes, “It’s not good” and acknowledged he helped write ObamaCare and the Massachusetts law.

Gruber “speaks from the ivory tower with remarkable hubris about the American voter and by extension the American Congress,” Carney added. “To speak that way [is] very harmful politically to the president.”

Speaking of the president, Gruber is heard several times in at least two videos purporting to have meetings with Obama.

A brief search of the White House visitor logs reveal President Obama was, in fact, present for the July 20, 2009, meetings that also included Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs Phil Schiliro, Director of the White House Office of Health Reform Nancy-Ann DeParle, Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag (a former CBO director himself), National Economic Council Director Larry Summers, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers Christy Romer, senior adviser David Axelrod, and press secretary Robert Gibbs.

The Department of Health and Human Services adviser Meena Seshamani, Harvard University economist David Cutler and Alice Rivlin of the Brookings Institute, who was founding director of CBO from 1975-1983, were all present, as well.

According to an account from Gruber, himself, which is backed up by a now-dead link erased by Elmendorf yet archived by Google’s way-back machine, the president was aware of all the deception and lies.

“He talks himself about being in the Oval Office, on loan to Congress, particularly the Senate Budget Committee,” Rich Weinstein, who helped dig up the Gruber tapes.

Gruber is still raking in the people’s money hand over fist. According to reports in July, he was hired by Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin for $400,000 to study how to create a revenue stream for a single-payer health care system. Records show Minnesota paid him nearly $330,000 for health care work in 2011 and 2012. And around the same time, a 2012 contract from Michigan offered $481 million for health care analysis to a team of three firms, including Gruber and his “Gruber Microsimulation Model.”