ObamaCare architect mouths off again, as videos cause problems for Dems
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The mouth that won't stop giving -- and that has Democrats and the Obama administration cringing -- has been caught shooting off 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 is. Though Pelosi actually cited Gruber's analysis -- repeatedly -- several years ago to boost the passage of ObamaCare, her office continued to insist he played no real role in the crafting of their bill.
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Yet video after video has emerged of Gruber boasting about the behind-the-scenes crafting of the Affordable Care Act, and how law-writers supposedly took advantage of the "stupidity" of the American voter.
The latest videos pertain to state health overhauls, in Massachusetts and Vermont.
One video, from a January 2012 forum, shows Gruber discussing the Massachusetts overhaul under then-Gov. Mitt Romney. He explained how the state was able to bilk the feds over hundreds of millions of Medicaid dollars.
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"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."
He explained how when ObamaCare was written, they had to take a different approach because they had to raise money elsewhere. (As he explained in other recently uncovered videos, part of this involved taxing insurance companies for high-end health plans.)
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."
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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."
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Even though Pelosi claimed she wasn't familiar with Gruber, other Democrats have made clear they know him -- and are not happy with him.
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.
Carney said Gruber "speaks from the ivory tower with remarkable hubris about the American voter and by extension the American Congress."
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He added: "To speak that way [is] very harmful politically to the president."