Conservative Idaho Congressman Raúl Labrador made headlines last Saturday when he said, “nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care” at a crowded town hall meeting. He made this comment in response to concerns about the Republicans' American Health Care Act , which he voted in favor of last week. His comment was immediately met by a wave of boos. In a statement Labrador released Saturday, he said his comment at the town hall “wasn’t very elegant.”
“We know that is wrong,” Art Caplan told Boston Public Radio Wednesday. “People die because they don’t get health care all the time. It’s just nonsense.” Caplan is a medical ethicist and director of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center.
Caplan said he was astounded that a congressman voting on a health care bill would be so ignorant of the dangers people without health care face.
“These people did not get past seventh-grade ethics,” he said, referring to Labrador, Paul Ryan and other Republicans who helped write the American Health Care Act. “They are going with ethical egoism, which is, 'I’m not responsible for any one but me.'”
“He has been reading too much Ayn Rand,” he continued.
Caplan warned that the current Republican motives and plans for the health care bill are antithetical to the insurance model of health care they are pushing for.
“Health care depends on pooling risks, sharing as a community, the healthy now take care of the sick. You have to pool the risk if you are going to use an insurance model,” Caplan said. “Labrador just doesn’t seem to get this.”
To hear the full conversation, click on the audio player above.
