MSNBC’s Ronan Farrow was given a chance on Friday to revisit a falsehood stated earlier this week on his show — and he struck out badly.
Farrow was assured this week in an interview with Jonathan Gruber, one of the chief architects of the Affordable Care Act, that the MIT health economist’s 2013 remarks about the “stupidity” of the American voter were “off the cuff” and inappropriate.
However, it turns out Gruber has a habit of making disparaging remarks about the “ignorance,” “stupidity” and “exploitation” of American voters.
When Gruber appeared earlier this week on MSNBC to explain his “stupidity” remarks, additional footage of his many comments on the law’s lack of transparency had not yet received national attention.
Knowing now about Gruber’s habit of making damaging Obamacare remarks, Farrow apparently wanted to take another crack at the health economist’s comments, what they mean for the health care law and Gruber’s insistence that his 2013 remarks were merely “off the cuff.”
However, rather than bring the Obamacare architect back into the studio to answer these questions, and perhaps give Democrats a way to distance themselves from his controversial remarks, Farrow brought in Jay Angoff, a former Health and Human Services senior official.
Unsurprisingly, Angoff chose to position Gruber as an outsider, a good economist but no expert on Obamacare, claims that Farrow apparently felt didn’t require any pushback.
“Jonathan Gruber’s an economist. He’s not a political analyst. His opinions, again, are not the opinions of the industry. Not the opinions of the administration. Not the opinions of Congress,” Angoff said, with no pushback from Farrow.
Angoff also stated flatly that Gruber is wrong when he claims that Obamacare has everything to do with coverage and almost nothing to do with cost reduction.
Gruber was paid roughly $400,000 by the White House for his help with crafting the massive health care law, which was signed into law in 2010. Further, in 2012, Gruber claimed at an event at the University of Rhode Island that he was regularly shuttled directly to the White House so that he could help lawmakers draft the bill.
