Mitt Romney and Barack Obama never met to discuss the federal health care law, but Romney's advisers did. New records reviewed by NBC News's Michael Isikoff point out that "White House officials had a dozen meetings in 2009 with three health-care advisers and experts who helped shape the health care reform law signed by Romney in 2006." One meeting, NBC News reports, "was in the Oval Office and presided over by Barack Obama." Jon Gruber, one of the advisers who attended the Obama meeting, said that the White House "really wanted to know how we can take that same approach we used in Massachusetts and turn that into a national model." Especially in light of Perry's recent "Romney Remedy" ad, Romney is distancing himself from Gruber like an embarrassing ex, as aides have tried to suggest Gruber wasn't a really an adviser to Romney. However, as Isikoff writes, Gruber was "personally recognized by Romney when the governor signed the health-care bill into law" as well as "appointed by Romney as a board member to the Connector Authority." Gruber himself has a few, possibly damaging, words for Romney:
I think he is the single person most responsible for health care reform in the United States. … I’m not trying to make a political position or a political statement, I honestly feel that way. If Mitt Romney had not stood up for this reform in Massachusetts … I don’t think it would have happened nationally. So I think he really is the guy with whom it all starts.”
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