Obamacare Architect Apologizes, Regrets Making 'Stupidity of The American Voter' Comment (VIDEO)

Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber apologized on Tuesday, stating his regret for making comments about how he had taken advantage of "the stupidity of the American voter" and helped Congress pass the healthcare law through a "lack of transparency."

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Gruber made his first public comments on MSNBC after conservative media unearthed a video clip that was taken at an event in October 2013, where the 49-year-old was seen discussing the healthcare law, NPR reported.

"The comments in the video were made at an academic conference," Gruber said on "Ronan Farrow Daily." "I was speaking off the cuff. I basically spoke inappropriately. I regret having made those comments."

Speaking on a panel last year that was secretly captured on video and posted on YouTube by the group American Commitment, Gruber suggested that the individual mandate, which was only upheld by the Supreme Court because it was a tax, was actually not a tax.

"This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure the Congressional Budget Score did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. Okay, so it's written to do that. In terms of risk-rated subsidies, if you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in - you made explicit healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed...," Gruber, who served as a technical consultant to the Obama administration during Obamacare's design, had stated.

Given a choice between honestly informing the public or passing the bill, Gruber went to boldly state that he'd rather have the bill, The Daily Caller reported.

"Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage," he continued. "Basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really critical to getting the thing to pass."

"Look, I wish we could make it all transparent, but I'd rather have this law than not," Gruber, who wrote a comic book style explanation of the law, added.

After the controversial clip went viral, Gruber came out Tuesday saying he only meant that much of Obamacare's financing was done through the tax code, calling that more "politically palatable" than other means, according to The Hill.

"That was the only point I was making," he said.

Meanwhile, as a consultant on both the federal and Massachusetts healthcare reform laws, Gruber also predicted that 2015 exchange enrollments will exceed the administration's target of 9.1 million.

"The administration is being conservative," he said. "I believe the number is likely to be higher than that."

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