Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber, whose comments citing the healthcare law's lack of transparency and mocking "the stupidity of the American voter" have created a huge political headache for the White House, will testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Dec. 9.
Gruber and Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, are scheduled to testify at the hearing, which will examine "deceptions" in Obamacare, said
Rep. Darrell Issa, committee chairman.
Issa said the panel wanted to question Tavenner about her previous testimony before the committee, in which she said the administration had accomplished its goal by enrolling 7.3 million persons in Obamacare.
It turned out, however, that the administration
padded enrollment figures by including 480,000 people who received dental insurance, a point acknowledged by Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell.
President Barack Obama and senior administration officials have portrayed Gruber as a relatively minor figure in the development of the healthcare overhaul. But critics of the program say Gruber's many contacts with administration officials and six-figure compensation for his work, among other things, show he played a substantial role in designing the program and attempting to persuade Americans to support it.
Gruber had more than a dozen appointments to visit the White House after Obama administration officials and congressional Democrats began drafting the law in 2009, and received close to $400,000 for his work from HHS.
He visited the White House at least six times in 2009 and twice the following year. In 2011 he wrote "Health Care Reform," a cartoon book that attempts to explain Obamacare.
A note about the author says that Gruber "consulted extensively with both the administration and Congress during the development" of the legislation, the
Wall Street Journal reported.
According to his online MIT biography, Gruber "worked with both the administration and Congress to help craft the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act."
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