The Best Late-Night Jokes About Jason Chaffetz’s Health Care vs. iPhone Blunder

Yes, we’re living in a time when, every day, you don’t whether to laugh or cry at what’s going on in Washington. The latest example of this came in the midst of the Republican rollout of their replacement for Obamacare. GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz from Utah went on CNN Tuesday to answer questions about how much more Americans are going to have to spend under the new plan. Dodging the question as a matter of principle (i.e., because he has none), Chaffetz said of the sick citizens in this country, “People have to make a choice. Maybe, rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and they want to go spend hundreds of dollars on, maybe they should invest in their own health care.”

Chaffetz was immediately and widely mocked and scorned on the Internet for his lordly advice to what the current batch of Republicans so often see as a greedy, spoiled citizenry. The late-night shows responded as well. Stephen Colbert, who has referred to “Utah congressman and seductive beaver Jason Chaffetz,” noted that the average cost of health care is $25,000 per family annually, “so just stop buying 33 iPhones a year.”

Jimmy Kimmel also took this line of japery, putting together a taped segment to help Americans make their new health care choices. These included, “Open heart surgery? Easy: don’t buy 380 iPhones.” The bit also plugged a “handy iPhone-to-Healthcare Calculator app.” But, oops, you’d need a phone for that.

Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon are in reruns this week, so we missed more savage satire from the former and who knows what from the latter — the way people-pleaser Fallon views the world, he might have asked Chaffetz to come on The Tonight Show and repeat his “Awesome cool joke!” while stroking the congressman’s beaver pelt. But James Corden also weighed in, noting that “just like the Galaxy S7, that comment blew up in [Chaffetz’s] face.”

These days, I sometimes feel that to laugh at what’s going on in Washington is to suggest that the current situation is just business as usual, encouraging the public to take a resigned, “what can you do?” attitude. But every once in a while, sustained mockery helps make a serious point as well.

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel Live air weeknights at 11:35 p.m. on CBS and ABC, respectively. The Late Late Show With James Corden airs weeknights at 12:35 a.m. on CBS.

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