John Oliver Torches the "Universally Hated" Republican Health Care Bill

By Taylor Link, Salon

13 March 17

 

The host of "Last Week Tonight" says the plan is "literally taking money for the poor and giving it to the rich"

ohn Oliver joined the rest of America Sunday night when he trashed the GOP’s new health care bill. Oliver dedicated the latest show of “Last Week Tonight” to House Speaker Paul Ryan’s amazingly unpopular American Health Care Act.

“You know the changes to Medicaid are rough just from how creepily enthusiastic Paul Ryan sounds talking about them,” Oliver said.

One of the more unwelcome changes Ryan and Republicans have proposed includes the reduction of Medicaid, or, as Oliver put it: “Cutting the living shit out of Medicaid.”

“People are going to be hurt by this bill. And those hit the hardest — who stand to lose $5,000 or more under the plan — are ironically a group that voted for Trump by a huge margin,” Oliver said. “It’s like if the people in Pompeii had voted for that volcano.”

Oliver summarized the purposed of the bill as “literally taking money for the poor and giving it to the rich.”

To prove he was not exaggerating the unpopularity of this bill, Oliver highlighted one conservative’s response.

“It is not just liberals uncomfortable with this idea,” Oliver said. “This week, Paul Ryan paid a visit to Tucker Carlson’s “second second-second chance attempt at his own TV news show with Tucker Carlson” and found himself under attack.”

“This bill seems almost universally hated in Washington,” Oliver continued. “It is truly the Ted Cruz of health care legislation.”

Even President Donald Trump, who has endorsed American Health Care Act, appears to recognize the impending doom of the bill.

“Trump is not clambering to put his name on this bill,” Oliver pointed out. “And he has put his name on some of the shittiest products in human history.”