Labrador defends health care comments he made at town hall meeting
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LEWISTON — Idaho congressman Raul Labrador is receiving criticism following his comments at a town hall meeting in Lewiston.
“Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care,” Republican congressman Raul Labrador said Friday in response to a statement by a woman that the “lack of health care was essentially asking people to die.”
On Saturday, Labrador said he was trying to explain that all hospitals are required by law to treat patients in need of emergency care, regardless of a person’s ability to pay, and that the Republican plan does not change that.
“I was responding to a false notion that the Republican health care plan will cause people to die in the streets, which I completely reject,” he said in a statement.
He also stated that the remark on Friday “wasn’t very elegant.”
Labrador, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, asked people to consider his full remarks.