"I don't know who he is. He didn't help write our bill."

"I don't know who he is."

Nancy Pelosi claims she doesn't know who Jonathan Gruber is, but she praised his work on Obamacare and cited his work as proof that Obamacare was better than the Republican alternatives.

Obviously, she's lying to distance herself from Gruber's brutally honest comments that they had to mislead the public to pass Obamacare, and that they succeeded because Americans are stupid.


So the next question is, who else does Pelosi not know? Harry Reid? President Obama?

"Jonathan Gruber of MIT's analysis of what the comparison is"

Here are comments from Reason:

When Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was asked today for comment about MIT professor Jonathan Gruber's recent remarks that "lack of transparency" and "the stupidity of the American voter" were critical to helping pass Obamacare, she responded briskly: "I don't know who he is. He didn't help write our bill." 

Watch the complete video of her denial at the end of the post, via C-SPAN. 

Pelosi's remarks are easy enough to check. And she appears to be wrong on both statements.

Did Gruber help write the Affordable Care Act? According to a 2012 article in The New York Times, he did: 

After Mr. Gruber helped the administration put together the basic principles of the proposal, the White House lent him to Capitol Hill to help Congressional staff members draft the specifics of the legislation.

As for whether Pelosi's claim to not know who he is, well, she knew who he was November of 2009, and said so at a press conference.

The Washington Post dug up a transcript of Pelosi citing Gruber's work by name in support of Obamacare. Here's the relevant section: 

Q: As you know, the Republicans released their health- care bill this week. And I wanted to get your comment on the bill, and specifically on the CBO analysis that it would cost significantly less than the Democratic plan and that it would lower premiums.

PELOSI: Let me just say this. Anything you need to know about the difference between the Democratic bill and the Republican bill is that the Republicans do not end the health insurance companies' discrimination against people with preexisting conditions. They let that stand. That's scandalous, the fact that it exists. I don't understand why they have not heard the American people, who have said preexisting conditions should not be a source of discrimination.

And secondly, the Republican plan ensures about 3 million more people than now, and ours does 36 million people. So that's a very big difference in that.

We're not finished getting all of our reports back from CBO, but we'll have a side by side to compare. But our bill brings down rates. I don't know if you have seen Jonathan Gruber of MIT's analysis of what the comparison is to the status quo versus what will happen in our bill for those who seek insurance within the exchange.  [emphasis added]

Those remarks are also on video. Watch below.

In addition, Pelosi's office touted Gruber's analysis of the law's premiums on the House Speaker's website. For that matter, so did the White House. There's just no question that Gruber was closely involved with the creation of the law, and widely cited as an authority on how it would work. 

In attempting to deny any connection between herself and Gruber, or between Gruber and the law, in order to shrug off Gruber's claim that "lack of transparency" was key to passing Obamacare, Pelosi ended up inadvertently proving Gruber's essential point: In making the case for Obamacare, supporters of the law have not been transparent with the public.

Here's the video from today:

<iframe frameborder='0' width='512' height='390' scrollable='no' src='http://www.c-span.org/video/standalone/?c4514585'></iframe>

And here's the video from 2009:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHFOgjXevdk

"extraordinarily transparent"

The White House Press Secretary, Josh Ernest, wins the 2014 award for Orwellian rhetoric for calling President Obama's lie "extraordinarily transparent." He was responding to questions about Gruber's actual transparency regarding Obamacare, which the administration is trying to obscure in pursuit of "extraordinary transparency."

President Obama, of course, won the 2013 Orwellian rhetoric prize with his lie of the year: If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep your healthcare plan.

Lie of the Year: 'If you like your health care plan, you can keep it'

 Here's a transcript provided by the White House:

Q While you've been here, the President has been here, there's videotape from Jonathan Gruber, who was one of the architects when the law came out. Among the things he said was that the bill was originally written in a "very tortured way," in his words, to kind of mislead people about the taxes in the law and other parts of the law.He went on to say, "A lack of transparency was a huge political advantage for the President…" in terms of selling it to the American people.

I thought it was just the opposite. Didn't the President promise unprecedented transparency?Why would one of the architects of the law suggest that you were misleading people?

MR. EARNEST:Well, I'm not sure, frankly, Ed.The fact of the matter is the process associated with writing and passing and implementing the Affordable Care Act has been extraordinarily transparent. We all sat through many town hall meetings and discussions where this piece of legislation was vigorously debated by people on both sides.There was even a meeting that the President convened at Blair House with Republicans to discuss this policy proposal.It was, as you know, broadcast by C-SPAN.

There was a steadfast commitment by this administration to make sure that people had good insight into the benefits of the law.... And again, I think the President is proud of the transparent process that was undertaken to pass that bill into law.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/11/13/press-briefing-press-secretary-josh-earnest-and-deputy-national-security


Need I point out that none of the mainstream media have covered Gruber's comments? It's a total news blackout.
______________________________________________________________________________
There are other winners as well. Here's Pelosi for starters:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, said Thursday that Mr. Gruber’s comments were a year old and he’s backtracked from most of them.

“I don’t who he is, he didn’t help write our bill,” she said.

Except: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Jonathan Gruber was, by most accounts, one of the key figures in constructing the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. He helped designed the Massachusetts health care law on which it was modeled, assisted the White House in laying out the foundation of the law, and, accordingto The New York Times, was eventually sent to Capitol Hill "to help Congressional staff members draft the specifics of the legislation." He provided the media with a stream of supportive quotes, and was paid almost $400,000 for his consulting work. 

____________________________________________________________________________ As another blogger put it:

Responding to damning comments from key Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber that the passage of the ACA  was predicated on avoiding transparency and exploiting “stupid voters,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said thisduring a press briefing in Burma:

“The fact of the matter is, the process associated with the writing and passing and implementing of the Affordable Care Act has been extraordinarily transparent.”

Extraordinarily!

Except, of course, for the President and other elected officials repeatedly saying that “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan—period.”

Oh…and that it was drafted in secrecy by lobbyists from the health care industry and Congressional aides and voted on before anyone in Congress had an opportunity to read it in its final form.

Then there was the fact that the usual procedure of vetting the bill through committees in the House and Senate was bypassed, and floor debate was curtailed.

Of course, the bill was so long and written in such impenetrable jargon and had so many cross-references that it was unreadable. This is what Nancy Pelosi explained that we had to pass it to find out what was in it.

Other than that, though…wait!

There was the little device of swearing that the individual mandate was not a tax until the bill was passed, then arguing before the Supreme Court that it was in fact a tax, as the bill’s architects intended from the start.

Extraordinarily transparent.

http://ethicsalarms.com/2014/11/13/a-jumbo-for-press-secretary-josh-earnest/