Earnest ‘Disagrees’ with Gruber: ObamaCare Process ‘Extraordinarily Transparent’

Earnest "Disagrees" With Gruber: Obamacare Process "Extraordinarily Transparent" (RealClearPolitics)

ED HENRY: While you've been here, the President has been here, there's videotape from Jonathan Gruber, who was one of the architects when the law came out.Among the things he said was that the bill was originally written in a "very tortured way," in his words, to kind of mislead people about the taxes in the law and other parts of the law.He went on to say, "A lack of transparency was a huge political advantage for the President…" in terms of selling it to the American people.

I thought it was just the opposite.Didn't the President promise unprecedented transparency?Why would one of the architects of the law suggest that you were misleading people?

MR. EARNEST: Well, I'm not sure, frankly, Ed. The fact of the matter is the process associated with writing and passing and implementing the Affordable Care Act has been extraordinarily transparent.We all sat through many town hall meetings and discussions where this piece of legislation was vigorously debated by people on both sides.There was even a meeting that the President convened at Blair House with Republicans to discuss this policy proposal.It was, as you know, broadcast by C-SPAN.

There was a steadfast commitment by this administration to make sure that people had good insight into the benefits of the law.The fact is we spent a lot of time talking about one of those benefits.And that is the fact that individuals could receive tax credits from the federal government to make their health care costs more affordable.The fact is, I think it's actually Republicans who haven't been particularly transparent or even honest about the true impact of those.