OVERNIGHT HEALTH: Burwell rips ‘stupidity’ remarks

by Sarah Ferris and Elise Viebeck - 11/17/14 5:58 PM ET

The head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Monday strongly condemned comments from former ObamaCare consultant Jonathan Gruber in which he blamed the law’s passage on the “stupidity” of the American voter.

“I was extremely offended by his comments,” HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell told an audience in Tampa Bay, offering her most critical comments yet about the Obama administration’s former adviser.

{mosads}“As a public servant for many years, I have worked on these issues, and I have complete confidence in the American people,” Burwell said at an event to promote open enrollment in ObamaCare. Her remarks were recorded by WTSB, a local Gannett affiliate.

Burwell’s criticism of Gruber came one day after she gave her first public remarks about the newly resurfaced videos in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.” In that interview, she said she took issue with Gruber’s suggestion that ObamaCare was passed on a premise of deception.

“The law is based on the issues of transparency,” she said Sunday. Read more here.

Dems struggle to turn page: 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 law.

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

A conservative group on Monday also unearthed a video of President Obama in 2006, claiming he had “liberally” stolen ideas from Gruber and praising the professor and other liberal policy experts. Read more here.

Ebola funding to be addressed: Funding for the fight to combat Ebola and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) will be addressed in the lame-duck spending bill, a GOP leadership aide told The Hill Monday. “No decisions have been made,” the aide said, on pursuing a short-term spending bill or moving forward with an omnibus, “But in any scenario, ISIS and Ebola funding would be addressed.”

House Appropriations Committee spokeswoman Jennifer Hing wouldn’t confirm the decision but said House lawmakers are currently negotiating these emergency spending requests with the Senate. The White House has asked Congress to approve nearly $6.2 billion for domestic and overseas efforts to eliminate the Ebola outbreak and $5.6 billion more for U.S. military operations against ISIS. Read more here.

On the frontlines of Ebola: A House Foreign Affairs subcommittee will meet Tuesday to hear from aid workers about what’s still needed on the ground in the battle against Ebola.

The hearing will also discuss a new bipartisan bill from Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) called the Ebola Emergency Response Act. The bill helps nongovernmental groups fill the gap in West Africa after the only international public health group, the World Health Organization “dropped the ball” for months, Smith said.

“This hearing will give momentum for that bill to be passed out of full committee as early as this week,” Smith’s spokesman, Jeff Sagnip, told The Hill.

‘Nowhere near over’: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Thomas Frieden said the Ebola epidemic is “nowhere near over” in West Africa, despite a decline in cases in Liberia, one of the hardest-hit countries. Speaking at an event at the Aspen Institute on Monday, Frieden compared the epidemic to a widening forest fire that could easily spread to other regions in Africa. He said he was “very concerned” by the idea that Ebola is receding, which has been promoted by some media outlets.

“It’s nowhere near over,” Frieden said. “It’s going to be a very long, hard fight. … There are so many cases that we’re not able to do the kind of outbreak control that is needed.” Frieden repeated several times, “We have a long way to go” while discussing the CDC’s response on the ground and in the United States. Read more here.

Celebs promote ObamaCare: The White House is again leaning on celebrities to promote the ObamaCare open enrollment period, with dozens of actors, athletes and musicians hawking the president’s signature healthcare law.

On Monday — the first of several “celebrity days of action” — the White House, Department of Health Human Services and Organizing for Action reposted tweets from actors including Julianne Moore, Kerry Washington, and Jared Leto, Olympic gold medalist Shaun White and musician Pharell Williams. The administration is looking to stars to flood social media channels with messages encouraging their fans to sign up for health insurance. Read more here.

Tuesday’s schedule:

The House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health will hold a hearing on the Ebola fight from a ground-level view.

The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight will look at the U.S. public health response to the outbreak in a hearing of its own. CDC Director Tom Frieden is scheduled to testify.

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell will speak about ObamaCare in Houston.

State by state:

NC might reverse course on Medicaid expansion

Ind.’s Healthy Indiana Plan renewed for 2015

Appeals court sides with feds in Medicaid dispute with Maine

Massachusetts says new health exchange working

Reading list:

Self-insurance could be small business option

Medicare sign-up needs to be simplified, group says

‘Vaccine court’ keeps claimants waiting

Health law turns Obama and insurers into allies

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