Mike Pence confronted by ER doctor over Medicaid cuts: 'He either doesn't understand or doesn't care'

Rob Davidson, an emergency room doctor, confronted Vice President Mike Pence about the administration's “damaging health care cuts” on Thursday.

The encounter, posted to Twitter by Dr Davidson, took place at the Drake Diner in Des Moines, Iowa.

“I confronted him about his damaging health care cuts because for me it's not about politics, it's about saving lives,” says Dr Davidson in a pair of tweets.

“When I told him he is putting my patients' lives at risk, @VP deflected and denied knowledge of the policy. He either doesn't understand, or doesn't care about the impact of this administrations' policies on patients everywhere.”

In the video, Dr Davidson, who has 20 years of experience in a rural west Michigan ER, tells the vice president that he is worried about plans to cut Medicare and the roll out of cuts to Medicaid, saying that his patients depend on expanded Medicaid.

Beyond his role as a doctor in one of the poorest counties in Michigan, Dr Davidson is also the executive president of the Committee to Protect Medicare.

The vice president looks perplexed and replies that he doesn't know about cuts to Medicaid. Dr Davidson explains recently announced plans from the Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services that he says will cut the amount of funding going to states.

Mr Pence responds that when he was governor of Indiana, the state got a waiver from the Obama administration, allowing it to expand Medicaid coverage.

“Right, but now they're talking about scaling back the Medicaid expansion that we got with the Affordable Care Act,” says Dr Davidson.

Mr Pence refers again to his work as governor of Indiana, but Dr Davidson clarifies that he is talking about what is happening now under the current administration.

Challenging the vice president again, Dr Davidson says that the cuts will affect both states that took waivers and that took Medicaid expansion money too. He says that cutting Medicaid will affect millions of people across the country and pointedly asks whether that is a good idea.

When the vice president says that he is over simplifying the subject, Dr Davidson responds that he doesn't think he is because “it comes down to that for the people I take care of all the time.”

“People I see in the emergency department that can't get primary care doctors, once they got Medicaid they could get primary care doctors and stay out of the ER, they work more, they actually contribute to our community more,” he adds.

The discussion continues with Mr Pence again referring to his record as governor when he launched the Healthy Indiana Plan, the nation’s first consumer-directed programme for Medicaid recipients, which expanded access to health care in the state.

Dr Davidson says that expanding Medicaid rather than contracting it would be great, as it is a godsend to the patients he serves, and that he knows that his contemporaries in Iowa feel the same.

The vice president makes a pitch for state-based innovation and reform, but Dr Davidson counters that “innovation and reform in the setting of cuts equals less people with health care.”

“I respectfully disagree,” responds Mr Pence and the discussion ends cordially.

Dr Davidson was praised on Twitter for confronting the vice president.

“I was truly just taking what so many of us are feeling and putting it out there. I'm just one of many doctors doing this work,” he said.