Jonathan Gruber, the MIT professor who helped craft Romneycare in Massachusetts and, later, Obamacare, has become the face of the most recent partisan disagreements over the federal healthcare law.
Now, he is also the star of a Republican attack ad in the Senate run-off in Louisiana.
A new television advertisement by Freedom Partners Action Fund, among the pro-Republican political groups funded by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, attempts to tie Sen. Mary Landrieu to Gruber’s controversial remark, caught on film, that the healthcare law was deliberately approved with minimal transparency. The ad will air statewide as part of Freedom Partners’ $2.1 million investment in the run-off.
“Sen. Mary Landrieu sold Obamacare to us the Washington way, with false promises and deception,” a female narrator says in the ad. “And Obamacare’s chief architect admits it.”
The ad then cuts to video of Gruber saying of Obamacare, “The lack of transparency, the stupidity of the American voter, that was really really critical to get the thing to pass.”
Gruber has become the latest avatar of frustrations with the federal healthcare law, after videos surfaced of Gruber criticizing parts of the law — including subsidies to incentivize state exchanges, which he called “terrible policy.”
Democratic leaders have attempted to distance themselves from Gruber in response. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi denied any knowledge of who Gruber is, while President Obama insisted he had never been on staff.
“The fact that an adviser who was never on our staff expressed an opinion that I completely disagree with in terms of the voters is not a reflection on the actual process that was run,” Obama said.
Those remarks have led to a deluge of information documenting Gruber’s many connections to the White House and the healthcare law.
Landrieu has continued to vouch her support for the healthcare law in the face of a threat to her re-election from Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy, who leads Landrieu by double digits in the sparse public polling conducted since Election Day.
Among Cassidy’s most potent weapons in the electoral fight is President Obama’s unpopularity in Louisiana, which has dogged Landrieu even as she has tried to separate herself from the president’s policies.
In a last-minute push this week, Landrieu attempted to highlight her legislative independence from Obama by bringing to the Senate floor a measure to approve construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, a longtime priority for the oil and gas industries in Louisiana. But the measure fell one vote short of passage Tuesday, handing Landrieu a stinging defeat.
