House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) tweeted on Tuesday that the drafting process for the Affordable Care Act was "one of the most transparent in recent memory."
Pelosi defended the health care law the day after House Republicans unveiled their Obamacare replacement plan on Monday night. Some lawmakers, including Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.), criticized House Republican leaders for drawing up the bill in a secret fashion.
The House's top Democrat built on this criticism and took to Twitter on Tuesday to argue the Affordable Care Act was crafted in a transparent manner. She cited the number of hearings and meetings that were held before Obamacare was passed.
The truth? ACA resulted from one of the most transparent drafting processes in recent memory.
— Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) March 7, 2017
There were 79 hearings and markups in 2009 & 2010 on the ACA.
(Those were bipartisan meetings, for the record)
— Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) March 7, 2017
And the bill was posted for *30 days* before the first committee held a vote on ACA.
— Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) March 7, 2017
Pelosi's comments appear to contradict past statements made by one of Obamacare's chief architects, MIT professor Jonathan Gruber, who was reportedly paid about $400,000 for his consulting work.
Gruber said in October 2013 that the Affordable Care Act "was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO [Congressional Budget Office] did not score the mandate as taxes" because "if CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies."
"Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage," Gruber added. "Basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass."