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'Full Frontal' Covers The Roots Of Our Toxic Relationship With Healthcare

By Emily Cutler | Late Night TV | October 5, 2017 |

By Emily Cutler | Late Night TV | October 5, 2017 |


First and foremost, please, please, please go watch the opening segment on Puerto Rico, and if you can, donate. You may be shocked (SHOCKED) to find out that America’s Imperialism and long standing racism have had lasting, devastating effects on people. Go fucking figure.

And then, when you’re done with that, come back to find out how our domestic, long standing racism has had lasting, devastating effects on other people. Namely every single one of us.

So here is where we need to address that lie that Obama told about healthcare reform. You know, that whole thing about “if you like your health insurance, you can keep your insurance”? Everyone knew on its face that’s a lie. Because anyone who says they’re “happy” with their health insurance is a goddamn liar.

Sure, you could be happy with your doctor. You might even not be actively unhappy with your health insurance at the moment. But did you enjoy sitting through your work’s benefits meeting? Trying to game out which plan will ultimately save you the most money while offering realistic levels of coverage? Patching together your FSAs and HSAs to maximize your pre-tax dollar contributions to your deductible? Trying to find an in-network doctor who also has hours that work with your schedule? So you can keep working the job that gives you the health insurance you’re so happy with?

I’m not arguing that socialized healthcare will magically solve every problem presented by managing a nation’s medical care. But there’s no doubt that:

1) it will reduce the issues specific to choosing healthcare coverage

2) our system is pretty fucking jacked right now.

We spend more money per person than other nations, and by and large, are less happy with the results. But the spectacle of the government being involved in your healthcare (other than, you know, the current level they’re already involved in your healthcare what with the taxes and sanctioned monopolies and whatnot) is so powerful that people refuse to discuss ways of addressing our very real issues. To retool an old Jon Stewart line, our paranoid fear of a possible dystopic future prevents us from addressing that we just took away healthcare from literal children; what the fuck is wrong with us?

But on the plus side, we’ll all have a cool fifty bucks in tax savings next year, so I guess that’s worth it.