Jonathan Gruber has made more headlines than anyone else when it comes to the Obamacare subsidies case, but he won’t be attending the Supreme Court hearing Wednesday.
Gruber, who unwittingly made waves last year when a half-dozen of his past comments about the Affordable Care Act surfaced, said he won’t be attending the King v. Burwell oral arguments, in an email to the Washington Examiner.
Gruber has been a major proponent of the health care law, even advising the White House as it was being written in 2009 and 2010. But he has made comments since then that appear to support arguments by the law’s opponents who are trying to derail a major part of it in the upcoming case.
In the case, the plaintiffs say the Obama administration illegally awarded insurance subsidies in the 37 states relying on healthcare.gov instead of creating their own insurance marketplaces. The administration disagrees, saying that Congress intended for the subsidies to be awarded in all states.
Gruber, who is an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, sides with the administration. But in 2012, he said citizens in states that don’t set up an exchange don’t get their tax subsidies. Another time, he suggested that parts of the law, including its insurance subsidies and so-called Cadillac tax on expensive plans, wouldn’t have passed if voters weren’t “stupid.”
In response, Gruber called his comments a “typo.” “I made a mistake talking about it,” he told the New Republic. But as the videos were circulated around the Internet, Republicans tore into Gruber and Democrats distanced themselves from him.
Gruber got some headlines again this week, when it was reported that Massachusetts’ governor fired him from a board overseeing the state’s health insurance exchange.
