CONTACT: Ben Gardner, ben@robdavidsonforcongress.com
@VoteRobDavidson
www.facebook.com/RobDavidsonForCongress/
SPRING LAKE, Michigan (June 9, 2018) — An emergency physician’s plea for universal healthcare followed by a blunt challenge to his congressman is going viral today, approaching half-a-million views since Saturday. Rob Davidson is running for Congress in the Second Congressional District of West Michigan after several debates in 2017 with the incumbent, Bill Huizenga, over U.S. healthcare, which Davidson has said and repeats in the video is dysfunctional and broken.
First posted on Twitter, Davidson’s video was made and shared Saturday morning shortly after he finished his overnight 8-hour shift at the emergency department of a small hospital in rural West Michigan. Davidson’s 2:23 video was viewed by 450,000 people as of this afternoon, with numbers still climbing. Responding to the video, thousands of patients nationwide shared their stories with Davidson and healthcare professionals expressed their thanks for shining a spotlight on the nation’s healthcare crisis. National news media shared the video on social media.
In the video, Davidson recounts the harrowing circumstances his overnight ER patients without adequate healthcare face: those who couldn’t get dental care until too late, and others forced to haggle over critical tests because they were already buried in medical bills they couldn’t pay. Nearly every patient he saw during the Friday-to-Saturday shift had a preexisting condition and would be in danger of losing their healthcare or pay higher premiums under a bill that passed the House in May 2017 and the actions of the Trump Administration. Huizenga voted in favor of the so-called American Health Care Act. The Trump Administration is moving to end protections under current, including preexisting conditions.
Davidson ends his video with a challenge to Huizenga, who has advocated patients price shop for tests and treatments and delay healthcare to keep medical bills low, to hold an in-person town hall in the district so his constituents can ask him why he isn’t doing more to help reform healthcare.
Davidson says in the self-shot video: “This is healthcare in this country, Congressman Huizenga, despite the fact that you think people should sell their satellite dishes to pay for their healthcare, that isn’t the reality. You need to get back to your district and talk to your constituents.”
Davidson said that in a private meeting with Huizenga at North Ottawa Community Hospital in Grand Haven on March 6, 2017, the congressman said people should decide whether to spend their money on healthcare or satellite dishes, a variation of an infamous analogy made by now-retired U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz in March 2017 when he chastised low-income Americans for buying new iPhones instead of paying for healthcare.
Today, Davidson said of his video: “I’m grateful that so many people heard the message in my video, which reflects the frustration and anger that so many families in West Michigan and across the country experience day to day when they have to deal with a broken healthcare system that puts insurance industry and Big Pharma profits ahead of people’s lives. Too many people are skipping the doctor because they can’t afford expensive copays. Too many seniors are splitting pills or foregoing lifesaving prescription drugs. Too many families are paying exorbitant premiums that cover less and less. The system is broken and folks recognize — even if Congressman Huizenga won’t — that healthcare for all will improve and save people’s lives.”
Nearly 300,000 people in the Second Congressional District have a preexisting condition, according to the Center for American Progress.
Huizenga last held an in-district town hall Aug. 23, 2017, nearly a year ago, in Muskegon. In an interview on WHTC radio July 5, 2018, Huizenga claimed he talks to the public all the time and was not afraid to hold a town hall. In the same interview, he insulted his constituents who asked tough questions, accusing them of trying to “create spectacle.” In contrast, Davidson has pledged to hold at least four public in-person town halls if he is elected to Congress.
Committee to Elect Rob Davidson, 518 West Savidge Street, Suite 3, Spring Lake, Michigan 49456.