Too Poor for Health Insurance? Don't Buy an iPhone.

[T]he 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,” [Jason] 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.

  Huffpo

Let's get to the real point: What does an iPhone cost? Six, seven hundred? How many months of health insurance will that buy you? Two, three?

The real point is people like Jason Chaffetz don't want poor people to have any of the "nice" things available to wealthier folk. How can we feel our birthright of privilege if poor people can have the same things we have?  This is the same attitude as the "people shouldn't be able to buy steaks with food stamps" bunch.

“What we’re trying to say — and maybe I didn’t say it as smoothly as I possibly could — but people need to make a conscious choice, and I believe in self-reliance,” he said. “They’re going to have to make those decisions.”

“We want them to have their communication equipment too, but it’s frustrating,” he added.

Dick.