MIT professor Jonathan Gruber apologizes to Congress for remarks about “stupidity of the American voter’’
WASHINGTON _MIT professor Jonathan Gruber refused repeated requests Tuesday to reveal the full amount he was paid to advise states on complying with the federal health law during a combative and contentious congressional hearing in which he was criticized by both Democrats and Republicans for stating that the law was passed by relying on “the stupidity of the American voter.’’
“I am embarrassed and I am sorry,’’ Gruber said at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing.
The hearing was an opportunity for Republicans, and some Democrats, to grill Gruber for a series of comments he made at academic conferences between 2011 and 2013 about the law’s passage. The comments, which surfaced in recent months on videos, show him saying that authors of the bill disguised taxes to make the bill more politically palatable.
“I am shown making a series of glib, thoughtless, and sometimes downright insulting comments,’’ Gruber said of the videos.
Republicans have seized on the comments to make the case that the Obama administration used deception to pass the health care law. In Tuesday’s hearing, they recounted a series of past administration comments, including Obama’s promise that “if you like your healthcare plan you can keep it,’’ which was named “Lie of the Year,’’ by the website Politifact last year.
Gruber, an economics consultant for both the federal law and the Massachusetts law that preceded it, attempted to play down his role in crafting the legislation. He used the technical term — “economic microsimulation modeling’’ – to describe his chief contribution and said his comments at academic conferences were beyond the bounds of his expertise.
But Republicans at Tuesday’s hearing said he is only now recanting his comments because they were made public.
“Professor Gruber is often said in Washington to be the definition of a gaffe,’’ said Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican who chairs the committee. That is somebody who “accidentally tells the truth.’’
The top Democrat on the committee, Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, made the opposite point, criticizing Gruber for handing Republican opponents of the health bill a “political gift.’’
“As far as I can tell we are here today to beat up on Jonathan Gruber for stupid, I mean absolutely stupid comments, he made over the last few years,’’ Cummings said. “This may be good political theater but it will not help a single American get health insurance.’’
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