On his “A Closer Look” segment on Tuesday’s episode of Late Night, Seth Meyers took on the GOP’s full-speed-ahead “plan” to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with…the satisfaction of petty revenge? The sweet taste of vengeance? A get-well-soon card for all of the people who won’t be able to afford insurance? They’re, uh, still working out the details.
“Sure, Obamacare isn’t perfect,” Meyers admits midway through the clip. “Obamacare is like a fireman who carried you from a burning building, but on the way out, he banged your head into the doorframe. Sure, you have a headache now, but at least you’re not on f***ing fire.”
Meyers goes through the greatest hits of the past week in relation to the health-care repeal disaster, including Paul Ryan’s CNN town hall debate on Thursday — which began with a question from a Reagan Republican with cancer who personally thanked President Obama for saving his life — and the fact that the repeal would give the wealthiest Americans a huge tax break.
Which brings us to Trump. “What does, ‘We’re going to win on health care’ even mean?” Meyers asks, after showing clip after clip of Trump promising to do just that on the campaign trail. “Trump talks about policy like he’s trying to get off the phone with someone,” Meyers remarks, commenting on an interview the president-elect gave to the Washington Post over the weekend in which he promised, “We’re going to have insurance for everybody,” without elaborating. Instead, he reiterated that he’s waiting for his pick for secretary of health and human services, Georgia Congressman Tom Price, to be confirmed so he can figure out the details of the master plan that Republicans have been formulating since Obama passed the Affordable Care Act six years ago, right? Right?!
But Price, Meyers points out, has a personal incentive to work with and not against the pharmaceutical companies he’d be in charge of regulating as the secretary of health and human services. He cuts to a CNN clip from Monday reporting that Price bought shares in a manufacturer of medical devices just days before he introduced a bill “that would have massively helped that company” — which then made “multiple donations” through its PAC to Price’s reelection campaign.
“Well, it sounds like somebody’s winning on health care!” Meyers quips. Watch the full segment below, and God help us all.