Jonathan Gruber is 49 years old, in apparent good health, and by all accounts possessed of a brilliant mind for the economics of healthcare. But for all his mental powers, Gruber suffered extensive and repeated failures of memory Tuesday, when he testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Complicating the picture, Gruber’s was a specialized type of memory loss: the more difficult and challenging the question about his notorious descriptions of Obamacare’s birth, the more tenuous Gruber’s memory became.
After swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, Gruber told committee members he could not remember saying some of the outrageous statements that have replayed on video in recent weeks. For example, Ohio Republican Rep. Michael Turner asked Gruber about a statement that Obamacare “was written in a tortured way to make sure [the Congressional Budget Office] did not score the [individual] mandate as taxes.” Even though the event at which Gruber spoke wasn’t all that long ago — Oct. 17, 2013 — Gruber seemed fuzzy about the whole thing.
“Mr. Gruber, you made these statements, did you not?” Turner asked.
“I don’t recall exactly,” Gruber said.
“You don’t recall?” an incredulous Turner replied. “Now, one of them we actually saw on video. Do you recall that one?”
“Yes.”
“Right,” Turner said. “I can’t imagine how you don’t recall your own statements because the American voter has seen them over and over again as you’ve called them stupid. Do you deny making these statements, Mr. Gruber, even though you don’t recall them? Do you deny calling Obamacare a tax?”
“If you’re reading my actual quotes, then I don’t deny it,” Gruber said.
“I’m reading your actual quotes.”
“Then I don’t deny it.”
At another point, Gruber said he couldn’t remember perhaps his most famous words — that the American people were “too stupid” to understand that Obamacare’s authors had come up with a slick, indirect way to raise their taxes. “When did you realize that these comments are indefensible and inappropriate?” South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy asked Gruber.
“I honestly didn’t remember making them,” Gruber answered.
“You didn’t remember calling your fellow citizens stupid?” Gowdy asked. “And you didn’t remember saying that you’re the only person who cares about the uninsured and that the rest of your fellow citizens don’t give a damn about the uninsured? You don’t remember saying that?”
“I don’t,” Gruber said, “because they were really glib and thoughtless comments that I made.”
To some, Gruber’s memory losses were nearly comical, but as the hearing progressed, Gruber also suffered a serious lapse on perhaps the key issue of the hearing: whether his views on Obamacare were shared by the Democratic lawmakers and staff who wrote the law, and by the members of the Obama administration who worked alongside them. Did any of those Democrats also believe it was necessary to pull the wool over the American people’s eyes in order to pass Obamacare?
The questioner, again, was Turner. “You said this bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the individual mandate as taxes,” Turner said to Gruber. “Did you ever speak to anyone in the administration who acknowledged that to you?”
“That was an inexcusable term used by — ” Gruber began.
“I’m not asking you about how you believe that whether or not you should have said that or not,” Turner replied. “It’s a factual statement you’re making. Did anybody in the administration ever have that conversation with you?”
“I do not recall anyone using the word ‘tortured,’ ” Gruber said.
“Did they have the conversation with you that it had to be drafted in a way that the CBO did not score the individual mandate as taxes?” Turner persisted.
“I don’t — ” Gruber began.
“You’re under oath.”
“I honestly do not recall.”
When the talking point (what I said was inexcusable) didn’t work, and then when the parsing (no one used the word ‘tortured’) didn’t work, Gruber went to Plan C, the last resort: I don’t recall. And just for emphasis, he added that he honestly did not recall.
It all began to get on the nerves of committee chairman Darrell Issa. When Gruber told another questioner, Michigan Republican Rep. Kerry Bentivolio, that he could not recall how much he made from Obamacare-related contracts, Issa stepped in. “You keep saying you don’t recall,” the chairman said. “Do you not recall any numbers at all? … You’re an economist. You work with numbers. Why is it that every question that comes from this side of the dais, we get a ‘don’t recall,’ Mr. Gruber?”
Why, indeed. In all, Gruber said “I don’t recall” or some variant of the phrase about 20 times during his testimony, frustrating the Republicans who had hoped to elicit actual information during the hearing. What the GOP got instead was one of the nation’s foremost experts on healthcare who, for a few hours at least, could barely remember his name.
