According to government data, the nearly $6 million in confirmed taxpayer dollars that Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber was paid from 2009 to 2014 – about $1 million per year – is roughly 24 times the average salary earned by full-time American workers in the same general time frame.
The average annual full-time U.S. salary was about $41,600 in those years, which multiplied 24 times is $998,400, or nearly $1 million a year.
Gruber, who became famous last week from a video in which he admitted Obamacare was passed due to a “lack of transparency” and “the stupidity of the American voter,” has received at least $5,886,150 in taxpayer-funded dollars for his work on the President Obama’s signature health care law as well as health care consulting fees from several states, the National Review Online reports.
According to NRO, records indicate Gruber has received the following payments, with some as recently as last July:
- $392,600 from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources
- $103,500 from the U.S. Department of State
- $1,730,000 from the U.S. Department of Justice
- $2,050,000 from the U.S. National Institutes of Health
- $392,000 from the state of Minnesota
- $400,000 from the state of Vermont
- $400,000 from the state of Wisconsin
- $481,050 from the state of Michigan
This amount does not include Gruber’s fees for consultations in other states that could not be located in online public records, NRO added.
Unlike Gruber, the average American working full-time earned roughly $41,600 per year between 2009 and 2013, according to the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) most recent salary data.
In 2010, the year Obamacare was passed by Congress and signed into law, full-time American workers earned an average salary of $39,960, the SSA shows.
The roughly $1 million/year that Gruber collected for his involvement in Obamacare is also significantly higher than the annual salaries of other top federal officials who worked on the law, including President Obama, whose $400,000 annual salary is less than half what Gruber was paid per year.
Kathleen Sebelius, then the secretary of Health and Human Services, was earning about $199,700 per year during her time in Obama’s administration, which is about one-fifth of Gruber’s yearly collection of taxpayer dollars.
Then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who vigorously defended the president’s health care law when it was passed, earned $223,500 per year — about one-fourth of Gruber’s annual payment. (As minority leader in the House, Pelosi’s salary dropped to $193,400 in January 2011.)
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, also an outspoken proponent of Obamacare, earns an annual salary of $193,400. That’s less than one-fifth Gruber’s yearly Obamacare earnings.
Only days after the initial video of Gruber insulting the American people was released, another video surfaced of Gruber saying that Americans are “too stupid to understand” how Obamacare works. Since then, numerous videos have been circulated showing Gruber insulting senior citizens and admitting Obamacare included political language to “squeeze the states” into setting up their own health care exchanges.
Since the videos were released, Obama and other top Democratic leaders, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, have sought to distance themselves from the Obamacare architect, with Obama recently calling Gruber “some adviser who never worked on our staff.”
However, records indicate that Gruber was present at numerous Obamacare planning meetings at the White House, personally advised Obama on the proposed bill, and his analysis of the new health care law was featured on the White House website, the Daily Caller reports.