Another GOP Rep. Compares Access to Health Care To Buying A Cell Phone (VIDEO)

Republican candidate Warren Davidson speaks at a forum at the Miami University Hamilton Downtown Center, Monday, May 23, 2016, in Hamilton, Ohio. The center hosted candidates ahead of a June 7 special election to complete for John Boehner's vacated seat in Congress. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
Republican candidate Warren Davidson speaks at a forum at the Miami University Hamilton Downtown Center, Monday, May 23, 2016, in Hamilton, Ohio. The center hosted candidates ahead of a June 7 special election to com... Republican candidate Warren Davidson speaks at a forum at the Miami University Hamilton Downtown Center, Monday, May 23, 2016, in Hamilton, Ohio. The center hosted candidates ahead of a June 7 special election to complete for John Boehner's vacated seat in Congress. (AP Photo/John Minchillo) MORE LESS
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A Republican member of Congress suggested last week that one of his constituents should simply buy better health insurance, rather than settling for catastrophic care, if Republicans roll back Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid.

That comment earned Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) boos from the crowd at a town hall Tuesday.

Davidson was responding to one town hall attendee who told him that her son, who works in the service industry and does not work enough hours to qualify for employer-provided care, did not have health insurance until Ohio expanded Medicaid access under Obamacare. Under Republicans’ efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, she said, her son might lose Medicaid coverage and be left with only “catastrophic” health care plans, which do not cover the 10 “Essential Health Benefits” (EHBs) laid out by Obamacare.

“Can you explain why my son and millions of others in his situation are not deserving of affordable, decent health care that has essential benefits so that he can stay healthy and continue working?” she asked.

“I don’t know anything about your son, but as you described him, his skills are focused in a industry that doesn’t have the kind of options that you want him to have for health care,” Davidson responded. “I don’t believe that the taxpayers here are entitled to give that to him. I believe he’s got the opportunity to go earn those health benefits.”

Davidson noted that most Americans “earn” health care through their employer, and that the expansion of Medicaid authorized by Obamacare provided an incentive to grow the Medicaid rolls.

“What about prescribing what benefits he shall have?” he continued. “If he doesn’t want a catastrophic care plan, then don’t buy a catastrophic care plan. If you don’t want a flip phone, don’t buy a flip phone.”

The crowd began booing. “Oh my God, stop doing that,” one attendee told the congressman.

“I’m sorry, health care is much different than a cell phone,” the questioner responded. “And I’m tired of people using cell phone analogies with health care.”

She may have been referring to Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), who said in defense of Republicans’ health care plan in early March: “Americans have choices. And they’ve got to make a choice. And so maybe rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and they want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest in their own health care.”

Watch the exchange below at 36:50:

H/t Huffington Post

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