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Let them eat iPhones:  Jason Chaffetz on Health Care & the Poor (Young Turks)

Let them eat iPhones: Jason Chaffetz on Health Care & the Poor (Young Turks)

Juan Cole 03/08/2017

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Cenk Uygur | (The Young Turks Video Clip) | – –

TYT metadata: “Poor people don’t fund Jason Chaffetz’s campaigns, so they can take a long walk off a short pier. Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, breaks it down. . .

“Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) is proposing a quick fix for low-income Americans unable to afford coverage under President Donald Trump’s newly proposed health care law: Don’t buy an iPhone.

The American Health Care Act, unveiled by House Republican leaders Monday, offers less financial assistance to low-income people than former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, so it would likely result in millions of Americans losing the health coverage they have today.

But the Republican chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said Tuesday that Americans who might struggle to afford insurance under the GOP plan simply need to make the choice to “invest in health care.”

“Americans have choices, and they’ve got to make a choice,” Chaffetz said Tuesday on CNN. “So rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest in their own health care. They’ve got to make those decisions themselves.”

Having to choose between a smartphone and health care coverage is a scenario Chaffetz likely can’t relate to. With a net worth of at least $320,000 in 2014, he makes less than many of his colleagues in Congress and was only the 301st wealthiest lawmaker based on financial disclosures that year. But he still lives well above the median income in America (about $56,500 in 2015) and enjoys comprehensive health care benefits afforded to members of Congress.

CNN host Alisyn Camerota asked Chaffetz if Americans might have more health care access but less coverage under Trump’s new health care bill.”*

The Young Turks: “Republicans To The Poor: iPhones Or Healthcare”

Filed Under: Donald Trump, Health Care, Plutocracy, workers

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

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