Michigan ER doctor confronts Mike Pence over Medicaid cuts, video goes viral

A video capturing the interaction between a west Michigan doctor pushing Mike Pence on health care cuts has gone viral.

Emergency room physician Rob Davidson — who made a failed run for Congress in 2018 as a Democrat — was eating at a diner in Des Moines, Iowa, on Jan. 30 when Pence came in.

As the vice president was making the rounds through the restaurant and approached Davidson's table, the doctor expressed his concerns over potential cuts to both Medicare and Medicaid and how they will impact his patients.

"I work in one of the poorest counties in Michigan and my patients depend on expanded Medicaid," Davidson says to Pence in the video. "So how is that going to affect my patients?"

Pence pauses before telling him he had not "heard about cutting some Medicare."

Davidson then tells Pence that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced a plan allowing states to file waivers to get block grants, which Davidson said would cut federal Medicaid funding.

"Is that a good idea?"

Pence does not directly answer Davidson's question, but explains that, in his time as governor of Indiana, he expanded Medicaid coverage.

Davidson pushes back, saying the reversal of the Medicaid expansion would impact hundreds of thousands of people. Again, Pence refers to the expanded coverage in Indiana. The two continue to go back and forth on the subject for several minutes.

Pence told Davidson that "the argument is for state-based innovation and reform to be able to improve," which the doctor tells him is cuts that leave fewer people with health care.

"I respectfully disagree," Pence said.

More: Trump says he'd take 'take a look' at changing entitlements such as Medicare

The tweets quickly picked up national attention, with more than 3.5 million views and nearly 30,000 retweets as of Sunday night. CNN shared the video of the interaction between the two. The clip itself has more than 378,000 views as of Sunday night.

"Certainly, it's a unique moment that doesn't happen very often where you have the vice president in a very unscripted moment having a very prolonged conversation," Davidson said in an interview with the Free Press. "I'm hoping that it continues to shed light on the issue and the work that my committee is doing. I am less interested in me and my thoughts and more interested in the work we are doing as a committee."

Davidson is a doctor at Spectrum Health Gerber Memorial hospital in Fremont, Michigan, and the executive director of the Committee to Protect Medicare. He told Vox he was in Iowa for a news conference relating to his work with the committee when he ran into the vice president.

Davidson said he does not plan to run again and instead will focus his time on the work of the Committee to Protect Medicare.

NPR reported that Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, called the new approach a means to ensure financial sustainability for the program in the long term by letting states operate with a defined budget. Currently, there is no limit to what the federal government contributes in matching funds to states and Medicaid beneficiaries have a right to whatever care they need for however long they need it, NPR said.

Meredith Spelbring is a news intern with the Detroit Free Press. Reach her at mspelbring@freepress.com or on Twitter @mere0415.