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No, Mike Pence never said people need 'Jesus care' more than health care
The internet has a way of twisting people’s words — or making them up altogether.
Vice President Mike Pence is known for his religious beliefs, and currently a fake quote attributed to him is circulating on the internet, suggesting that he once said people with pre-existing conditions need "Jesus care" more than health care.
Here is the supposed quote, in full: "What the American people need is not more health care. What we need is more Jesus care. I believe if we can just get more of the people with pre-existing health conditions back into churches, you would see a lot of healing and many of these problems would go away. People who lead Godly lives don’t worry about Doctors. We have The Lord to take care of us."
The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
The quote is fabricated. There is no record of Pence ever saying those words.
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It first appeared online in May 2017 following House Republicans' approval of the American Health Care Act, a measure to partially repeal Obamacare. It later failed in the Senate.
This time around, the quote was posted Feb. 14 on a Facebook page called "Why Republicans Suck." In less than 24 hours it racked up nearly 200 shares.
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The quote’s text is alongside a photo of Pence and what resembles a Fox News symbol. The symbol is actually from a page called "Fox News the FB page," which reportedly started circulating the fake quote. The page is not affiliated with the news outlet and can no longer be found on Facebook.
Alyssa Farah, Pence’s press secretary, also told us the quote is bogus: "This quote is fake and wasn’t said by Vice President Pence."
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Our Sources
Facebook post, Feb. 14, 2019
TruthorFiction.com, Mike Pence: People with Pre-Existing Conditions Need Jesus Care-Fiction!, May 8, 2017
Snopes, Did Mike Pence Say Americans Need More ‘Jesus Care,’ Not Health Care? May 4, 2017
Email interview, Alyssa Farah, press secretary for Vice President Mike Pence, Feb. 18, 2019
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No, Mike Pence never said people need 'Jesus care' more than health care
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