Orrin Hatch comments on Chip health program at heart of social media storm

TV host Joe Scarborough, accused of taking remarks out of context, says Utah Republican was playing ‘cartoon version of a GOP senator’ in spending discussion

A social media storm blew up on Sunday after a TV host suggested the Utah Republican Orrin Hatch thought children and pregnant women who receive federal healthcare assistance did not deserve such help because they “won’t lift a finger” to help themselves.

Joe Scarborough, the former Republican congressman and TV host who shared Hatch’s remarks on Twitter, was accused of taking them out of context. Responding, he said Hatch had been playing “a cartoon version of a GOP senator”.

The chair of the Senate finance committee made the remarks during debate on the tax bill on the Senate floor on Thursday.

Independent reports have said that if the Senate tax cuts became law as they were passed early on Saturday, heavily in favour of richer Americans and corporations, they could add as much as $2tn to the national debt. Republicans counter that the economic stimulus provided by the cuts will cancel out such cost.

During debate, Hatch was pressed by the Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown about the financial plight of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (Chip).

About nine million children and 370,000 pregnant women are covered by Chip, which Hatch helped to write and which was signed by Bill Clinton in 1997. Its funding lapsed on 1 October, amid fights over the Affordable Care Act.

The program, which costs about $15bn a year, is subsisting on emergency funding. A federal report released in July predicted that “all states are expected to exhaust their federal Chip funds during [financial year] 2018”.

“Nobody believes more in the Chip programme than I,” said Hatch, 83, in answer to Brown. “I invented it, I was the one who wrote it.”

After agreeing that the late Massachusetts Democrat Ted Kennedy also contributed to the creation of Chip, Hatch continued: “Let me tell you something: we’re going to do Chip. There’s no question about it in my mind. And it’s got to be done the right way.

“But … the reason Chip’s having trouble is because we don’t have money any more. And to just add more and more spending and more and more spending …

“I happen to think Chip has done a terrific job for people who really needed the help. I’ve taken the position here for my whole Senate service: I believe in helping those who cannot help themselves but would if they could.

“I have a rough time wanting to spend billions and billions and trillions of dollars to help people who won’t help themselves – won’t lift a finger – and expect the federal government to do everything.

“Unfortunately the liberal philosophy has created millions of people that way, who believe everything they ever are or hope to be depends upon the federal government rather than the opportunities that this great country grants them. And I’ve got to say, I think it’s pretty hard to argue against these comments.”

Hatch also said that he did not not “know anybody here who is not going to support Chip when we bring it up and I am one who wants to make sure we bring it up”.

Argument over Hatch’s meaning accelerated on Sunday after Scarborough, a former Republican congressman turned MSNBC host, tweeted and linked to Chip the portion in which Hatch lamented government spending on “people who won’t help themselves”.

In response to critics who said he had taken the remarks out of context, Scarborough wrote: “Some are saying I posted a misleading quote about Sen[ator] Hatch. I disagree. After saying that he started the Chip program, he then says there isn’t any money for it. This on a night he voted to plunge America $1tn deeper in debt for corporate tax cuts.

“He then plays a cartoon version of a GOP senator by saying it’s all those poor people getting welfare benefits that are bankrupting us, when anyone with basic knowledge of the federal debt knows this is a lie.

“Then after saying children’s health insurance is important but there’s no money for it, Hatch says the Senate will eventually get to it. But later suggests it’s not the be-all-end-all. His vote showed it’s certainly not as important for tax breaks for the richest among us.”

Scarborough’s original tweet, however, was taken down.

• This article was amended on 4 December 2017 to clarify that Sherrod Brown was questioning Orrin Hatch during the tax bill debate on Thursday.