According to an articlethis morning on CNN.com, former Secretary of Health and HumanServices Kathleen Sebelius said that “she never worked with Gruber ‘personally’though he worked ‘with a number of our agencies.'” Jonathan Gruber is the MIT professor who has been caught on videotape numerous times stating that the “stupidity of the American voter” was critical to Obamacare passage.
The article continuedthat “Sebelius made her comments Monday after appearing on CNN, saying that theMIT economist was not an ‘architect’ of Obamacare, as some havesuggested, but agreed that he could be considered one by osmosis given his rolein drafting the Massachusetts health care law that she said served as a ‘template’ for Obamacare.”
However, an August 7,2014 articleby Breitbart uncovered that Sebelius issueda press release on December 3, 2009. The subtitle for the release was “SecretaryReleases New Fact Sheet” which”highlighted the benefits of health insurance reform for businesses andreleased a new fact sheet regarding a recent analysis from the CongressionalBudget Office.” The report, which wasissued during the Obamacare debate, included 16 footnotes highlighting sourcesfor the report. Although, the release was represented to highlight a new analysis by the Congressional Budget Office it onlylisted the CBO once while listing Gruber three times. No other individualwas listed.
Specifically, Sebelius’ “facts” footnotes Gruber related to:
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Premium savings for high premium plans “This could yield increases in workers wages, by around $70 billion in 2019.”
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The benefits of improved workplace productivity – “Current job-lock (inability to leave current employment if it will result in loss of health insurance) has been demonstrated to hurt the economy through reduced productivity, and prevents an employee from taking a job with potentially higher wages.”
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“Health insurance reform could save 80,000 jobs in the small business sector by 2019 and increase take-home pay by almost $30 billion.”
For someone that never worked with Gruber personally, Sebelius relied on him for information when marketing Obamacare during the peak of the debate.