‘FIND A WAY TO GET IT’

GOP Senator’s Staffer to Cancer Survivor: You Don’t Get Health Care if You Can’t Afford It

The three-time cancer survivor says she was “incredibly angry and hurt” at the staffer’s lack of empathy.

A staff assistant for Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) callously compared a three-time cancer survivor’s fear of not being able to afford health care during COVID-19 to having to forgo new clothes, according to WRAL. “Just like if I want to go to the store and buy a new dress shirt. If I can’t afford that dress shirt, I don’t get to get it,” the staffer told Bev Veals on a recorded phone call. “Sounds like something you’re going to have to figure it out.” A spokesperson for Tillis said that “immediate disciplinary action has been taken” for this staff member’s “completely inappropriate” conversation. Veals said she’s had to use retirement savings to keep her insurance after her husband was furloughed from his job.