NBC News on Tuesday finally devoted a segment to covering MIT health economist Jonathan Gruber and his controversial statements regarding the Affordable Care Act’s “lack of transparency” and the “stupidity of the American voter.”
Gruber, one of the chief architects of Obamacare, appeared before Congress Tuesday to testify on his role in creating the massive healthcare law and his remarks on its questionable passage.
“[I]t is unlikely that most Americans have heard the name Jonathan Gruber until a few weeks ago, when a video emerged of him insulting their intelligence,” NBC News’s Brian Williams said in a Dec. 9 newscast.
Reports that Gruber said at an event in 2013 that Obamacare passed thanks to law’s “lack of transparency” and the “stupidity of the American voter” date back to Nov. 7.
“Gruber was under fire for saying, at conferences, that American voters are stupid and were misled in order to get the healthcare law passed,” Capitol Hill correspondent Kelly O’Donnell said in the NBC News segment.
CBS News was the first of the three broadcast networks to cover the Gruber debacle, Scott Pelley saying in a Nov. 13 newscast that Republicans had turned him into “an all-important player.” The network’s Jan Crawford reported on Gruber’s remarks the same day.
ABC News’ “World News Tonight With David Muir” waited until Nov. 18 to cover the topic, the network dedicating a mere one minute and 16 seconds to the subject.
