If healthcare is a “moral right,” as Democratic congressional candidate Dean Phillips has argued, you’d think he’d feel compelled to ensure his own employees have coverage. As we noted last month, that hasn’t always been the case, and that unexplained discrepancy is starting to cause problems for the House hopeful.
Asked in an interview last year, “Does the coffee shop you’ve started offer health insurance?” Phillips said, “No, we don’t.” That admission came shortly after the entrepreneur argued “healthcare should be a moral right” in the same conversation. In a recent debate, Phillips still tried to claim it was “not true” his business declined to offer coverage at that point, despite being on the record saying otherwise in his own words.
Phillips is running in a competitive district that Democrats hope to flip in November, and none of this has gone unnoticed by the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC affiliated with House leadership. On Wednesday, the group is launching a 30-second ad that features video of Phillips saying, “I believe every American citizen should be afforded health insurance. I believe it to be a moral right,” before noting that Phillips didn’t always offer coverage at his own coffee shop. “He’s worth up to $77 million, but said no to health care for his own workers. Dean Phillips: the worst kind of hypocrisy,” a narrator says.
According to a press release, the ad will air in the Minneapolis television market and on digital platforms district-wide.
