Rob Davidson

Because of an unscripted, candid interaction I had a few weeks back with Vice President Mike Pence drew more than 4 million views online, I have the dubious distinction of being another target of the Trump Administration.

This time, President Trump’s Medicare and Medicaid czar, Seema Verma – who also happened to be Pence’s Medicaid chief when he was Indiana’s governor – dismissed me as an “activist doctor.”

Though Verma probably didn’t mean that as a compliment, I’ll happily wear the “activist doctor” label if it means standing up for my patients when policymakers threaten their healthcare.

And when one of those senior policymakers — especially one who has the ear of the president and the loyalty of Trump’s evangelical base, as Pence does — happens to walk into a diner where I’m finishing dinner, I will put my fork down and ask him why the administration he represents is taking healthcare away from millions of Americans.

Physicians fighting back

On the day I ran into Pence, I’d already said plenty.

As the executive director of the Committee to Protect Medicare, I’d been traveling to many states, standing with doctors, healthcare professionals and patient advocates. At each of these stops, from Detroit to Columbus to Houston to Des Moines, we raised awareness about the many ways the Trump Administration has been cutting Americans’ healthcare.

We had a lot of material:

• The president continues to support the elimination of the Affordable Care Act, which threatens healthcare protections for 130 million Americans with preexisting conditions.

• He’s quietly privatizing Medicare, which would raise costs and reduce coverage for 60 million Americans older than 65 and people with disabilities.

• His proposed 2020 budget cuts hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

On the day Mr. Pence walked into the Drake Diner on Jan. 30, I had just finished a news conference in Des Moines with a group of local doctors who are members of the Committee To Protect Medicare. To paraphrase Humphrey Bogart in “Casablanca”: Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, the second-most-powerful man in the country walks into the one where I’m having a black bean burger – and on the day Verma announced cuts to Medicaid, disguised as so-called “block grants.”

The vice president was in town with Trump, who was a few miles away, revving up their base at a rally at Drake University. For Mr. Pence, the half-empty Drake Diner was supposed to be an innocuous, low-wattage event, staged for a small retinue of reporters who’d witness a lot of glad-handing and no controversy.

When Pence stopped at our table, I asked him about the proposed Medicaid cuts Verma had announced a few hours earlier.

Of caps and cuts

The vice president denied the Trump Administration’s block grant program would cut healthcare.

If fact, block grants would cap federal funds for Medicaid, indexing them to inflation. Because medical costs increase faster than inflation, fixed Medicaid funds would shrink relative to current conditions and conceivably real-world need. To compensate, block-granted states would need to reduce benefits and enrollment, effectively cutting healthcare for many underserved patients.

And capped funds don’t account for economic downturns, when more people typically turn to Medicaid for healthcare..

He ended our conversation by essentially shrugging his shoulders and walking away. He essentially said “So what?” to millions of Americans who depend on Medicaid for their medical needs.

As a veteran of the emergency department, I see firsthand how Medicaid, and especially programs that expanded Medicaid eligibility in my home state of Michigan and 36 other states, have transformed lives.

People who hadn’t seen a doctor in decades are now taking charge of their health. Workers with injuries or illnesses can get treatment and not miss work. Healthcare doesn’t just improve health; it allows people to enjoy more freedom and independence, to work, to better care for their families and to give back to their communities. In the rural, underserved west Michigan community where I work, Medicaid is a godsend and a lifeline.

As I asked Mr. Pence several times: “How does cutting healthcare help my patients?”

Instead of answering an honest question from a physician concerned about my patients, the Trump Administration does what it always does. It dismissed and belittled me. Trump has mocked proud, patriotic Americans of greater pedigree than a small-town doctor from Michigan. Senator Mitt Romney. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman. Seventeen-year-old climate activist, Greta Thurnberg. The late Congressman John Dingell. The late Sen. John McCain. Gold Star families. The list is long.

In comparison, I’m an easy target. Unfortunately, Trump thinks American families are easy targets too when he sabotages their healthcare.

Cutting healthcare helps no one, except profit-driven drug companies and insurance corporations.

And that’s the real answer to the question I asked Vice President Pence.

Rob Davidson is an emergency room physician in Fremont, Mich. A Democrat, he was unsuccessful in a 2018 bid to unseat incumbent U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Zeeland) in Michigan's 2nd Congressional District.