Dems struggle to turn page on ‘stupidity’

Republicans for a second week are seizing on controversial remarks by ObamaCare consultant Jonathan Gruber, who said the “stupidity of the American voter” helped ensure passage of the healthcare reform law.

GOP strategist Karl Rove on Monday argued that every promise used to sell voters on the healthcare law has proven to be wrong.

{mosads}“They’re probably going to try and make this about Gruber, but we ought not to let it be just about Gruber,” Rove said on Fox News. “Because, look, every single major promise used to sell the Affordable Care Act has turned out to be wrong.

“Health economists and other experts knew it was wrong at the time,” added Rove, who pointed out as an example President Obama’s promise that people who liked their existing health plans could keep them.

And House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Gruber’s remarks pointed to a larger problem about how Washington uses “complicated processes to game the system in favor of imposing what they want and what they assume the American people want.”

In a blog post, he pointed to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board, which McCarthy said takes virtually no public comment and “has been biased in favor of particularly policies.” McCarthy argued Congress should pass a GOP bill that would strengthen public participation and peer review in the board.

The comments point to the difficulties Democrats face in seeking to turn the page on

Gruber, an MIT professor, a year ago argued that a “lack of transparency” helped ObamaCare pass.

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell in a Monday interview with WTSB said she was offended by Gruber’s remarks.

On Sunday, the secretary was grilled on NBC’s “Meet the Press” about Gruber’s comments, highlighting how the professor’s remarks had dominated coverage of the second year of enrollment in the healthcare law.

Republicans are looking to take advantage of the story by asking Gruber to testify at hearings.

“We may want to have hearings on this,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told The Washington Post last week. “We shouldn’t be surprised they were misleading us.”

Gruber said last week that he regrets having made the comments, and Democrats, sensing the political damage that could be done, have pushed back hard.

“As one who worked hard to make ACA and its benefits clear, let me say: if you looked up ‘stupid’ in dictionary, you’d find Gruber’s picture,” former Obama White House senior adviser David Axelrod tweeted on Sunday.

Axelrod then added on Monday that Gruber had made “valuable” contributions to the law, but his “throwaway quips were offensive.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) sought to downplay Gruber as insignificant. 

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

Yet Pelosi’s office has touted Gruber’s work for the healthcare law, and Pelosi herself mentioned Gruber’s work in a 2009 interview.

The president, while attending a conference of world leaders in Australia, was confronted with the comments at a press conference on Sunday, and responded that Gruber was just “some adviser.”

“The fact that some adviser who never worked on our staff expressed an opinion that I completely disagree with in terms of the voters is no reflection on the actual process that was run,” Obama said.

After being asked about Gruber on Sunday, Obama pivoted to touting the law.

“I know this wasn’t part of your question,” he added.