Report: Vermont fires Gruber

Embattled former ObamaCare adviser Jonathan Gruber has been booted from his healthcare consulting gig in Vermont, according to reports on Wednesday.

Gruber had a $400,000 contract with the state, where he was charged with helping to create a single-payer system. But he has faced fierce criticism over the last two weeks for recently unearthed comments saying the “stupidity of the American voter” and a “lack of transparency” aided ObamaCare’s passage.

Gov. Peter Shumlin’s (D) decision to end Gruber’s contract reverses his own statement on Tuesday, when he said Vermont needed Gruber to finish the plan by January.

“I am caught between a rock and a hard place,” Shumlin told the Burlington Free Press. “I have a man who’s made comments about all of us, the American public, that I find reprehensible and outright shocking.”

Gruber has already earned nearly half of his contract, which was slated to expire in February.

Republican legislators in Vermont caused a stir this week, demanding that Shumlin end the contract.

“If the powers that be attempted to trick them like that, then those people should be immediately removed from positions of authority, be they elected officials or hired contractors,” Senate Minority Leader Joe Benning told Vermont Watchdog last week.

Vermont’s break with Gruber was reported by Fox News and Vermont Watchdog.

Officials across the government have scrambled to avoid association with Gruber.

But federal contracting databases reveal that Gruber was paid roughly $400,000 for his work on ObamaCare, with some reports pegging his total income from government consulting at around $6 million since 2000.