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Jonathan Gruber on Obamacare: 'This Law Was Never Supposed to Help Everybody'

Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber told Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Wednesday that former President Obama's signature health care law was "never supposed to help everybody."

Carlson had Gruber on his show to defend the Affordable Care Act and discuss plans by Republicans to repeal and replace the law.

Gruber, a professor at MIT, famously was recorded saying that a "lack of transparency" and the "stupidity of the American voter" made it easier to pass the health care law in 2010.

He claimed on Wednesday there has been a large spread of misinformation about the law and that Americans have not heard enough about positive aspects of Obamacare.

Carlson noted that people who have benefited from the health care law do seem to have a positive view of it but a majority of Americans still oppose Obamacare.

"I thought this law was supposed to help everybody?" Carlson asked Gruber.

"This law was never supposed to help everybody," Gruber responded. He explained that the initial design of the law was not meant to interfere with the health care of those who already had insurance. Instead the law was supposed to focus specifically on the 20 percent of Americans who did not have health insurance.

Gruber's response did not appear to match former President Obama's own words on health care. Obama, as a presidential candidate and then as president, promised multiple times that the law would lower premiums for everybody.

"If you already have health insurance, the only thing that will change for you under this plan is the amount of money you will spend on premiums. That will be less," then-Sen. Obama said during a 2007 campaign speech.

After Gruber's response, Carlson asked who had been hurt by the implementation of Obamacare.

"The wealthiest Americans, the top two percent of Americans who had to pay new taxes, and second is very health individuals who benefited from a previously discriminatory insurance market," Gruber said.

Later in the interview, Gruber argued that more Americans had benefited from the law than those who had been disadvantaged by it. He blamed Carlson for only focusing on those who had been hurt by it.