President Obama says he and his administration did not mislead the public on the financing of the health care law, disputing statements by a consultant who said supporters of the bill took advantage of the "stupidity" of American voters.
"The fact that an adviser who was never on our staff expressed an opinion that I completely disagree with in terms of the voters is not a reflection on the actual process that was run," Obama told reporters at a news conference following the G-20 summit in Brisbane, Australia.
Obama was responding to a recently discovered videotape featuring Jonathan Gruber, an MIT professor and outside adviser of health care. Gruber said the Obama administration obscured the financing of the law in order to get it passed.
"If you have a law that makes explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it wouldn't have passed," Gruber said on the video. "Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage and, basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever. But basically that was really critical to getting the thing to pass."
At the G-20 news conference, Obama said all aspects of the health care law underwent extensive debate before he signed it in 2010.
"I would just advise every press outlet here: Pull up every clip and every story," Obama said. "I think it's fair to say there was not a provision in the health care law that was not extensively debated and was fully transparent -- it was a tough debate."
From Politico:
"While Gruber was not a staffer, he was a paid consultant whose models were used to help assess the impact of various policy changes being considered as part of health care legislation. Official logs show he visited the White House about a dozen times between 2009 and this year.
"Despite Obama's dismissive tone toward Gruber, the president has acknowledged that some of his own statements about the law were ill-advised, in particular his repeated promises that if Americans liked their health care plans they could keep them. In fact, many plans were deemed inadequate under the law, leading people to get notices that their plans were being canceled."
President Obama says he and his administration did not mislead the public on the financing of the health care law, disputing statements by a consultant who said supporters of the bill took advantage of the "stupidity" of American voters.
"The fact that an adviser who was never on our staff expressed an opinion that I completely disagree with in terms of the voters is not a reflection on the actual process that was run," Obama told reporters at a news conference following the G-20 summit in Brisbane, Australia.
Obama was responding to a recently discovered videotape featuring Jonathan Gruber, an MIT professor and outside adviser of health care. Gruber said the Obama administration obscured the financing of the law in order to get it passed.
"If you have a law that makes explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it wouldn't have passed," Gruber said on the video. "Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage and, basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever. But basically that was really critical to getting the thing to pass."
At the G-20 news conference, Obama said all aspects of the health care law underwent extensive debate before he signed it in 2010.
"I would just advise every press outlet here: Pull up every clip and every story," Obama said. "I think it's fair to say there was not a provision in the health care law that was not extensively debated and was fully transparent -- it was a tough debate."
From Politico:
"While Gruber was not a staffer, he was a paid consultant whose models were used to help assess the impact of various policy changes being considered as part of health care legislation. Official logs show he visited the White House about a dozen times between 2009 and this year.
"Despite Obama's dismissive tone toward Gruber, the president has acknowledged that some of his own statements about the law were ill-advised, in particular his repeated promises that if Americans liked their health care plans they could keep them. In fact, many plans were deemed inadequate under the law, leading people to get notices that their plans were being canceled."
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