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FLASHBACK: Obama Tells Americans To Cut Spending To Afford Insurance [VIDEO]

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Robert Donachie Capitol Hill and Health Care Reporter
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House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz and former President Barack Obama may have similar views regarding American spending on health care.

Chaffetz caught major flack from the media Tuesday after he told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota: “Americans have choices, and they’ve got to make a choice. 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.”

Essentially, Chaffetz is saying that citizens have to make prudential choices when spending their money.

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When speaking to Spanish-language media March 6, 2014, Obama made similar statements to Chaffetz. He said that maybe Americans could cut back spending in some ways to afford health coverage.

Obama was asked what someone who makes around $36,000 a year and has a family of three should do when faced with an average insurance bill of $316 a month. The former president replied: “If you looked at that person’s budget, and you looked at their cable bill, their cell phone bill, other things that they are spending on, it may turn out it’s just that they haven’t prioritized health care because right now everybody is healthy.”

Obama went on to say that if that person in question got sick, “he will wish he had paid that $300 a month.”

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