John Oliver finally stopped focusing on Trump this week, and instead turned to the GOP congress and their lack of Obamacare alternative.
It’s been a scant three weeks since John Oliver returned to the airwaves for his weekly deep dives. The first two weeks since he began his first season under the Trump administration have focused on, well, Trump–first how unfit for the office he is, and second how his ties to Russia should scar everyone.
This week, for the first time since coming back Oliver turned to a new subject, and in doing so also got back to his regular format. One of the more striking things about the first two episodes is not just the single minded focus on Trump, but that the main segment took up literally the entire episode, leaving no room for his shorter fare like “And Now This” or “How Is This Not A Thing?”.
But this week, in getting away on focusing directly on Trump, John Oliver also managed to get his viral segment back down to a far more manageable length–a mere 18 minutes and change. His topic? Obamacare, aka the Affordable Care Act. or, more precisely, the lack of anything to replace it with by the Republican party in their claimed plan for “Repeal and Replace.”
This, as we know has been the problem all along. The GOP did a great job undermining the program, but now that they’ve been put into power, they’ve discovered their lack of any better ideas is a major flaw in the whole “Repeal and Replace” plan.
"“Republicans have happily complained about the flaws in the law, taken no responsibility for fixing them and in fact have often undermined the whole thing. But that time is now over. It is their turn to present a planand the clock is ticking. Insurance companies are deciding right now whether to even offer Obamacare plans for next year.”"
Next: John Oliver Takes on Trump vs the Truth on Last Week Tonight
No the ACA is not perfect–healthcare companies are exploiting deductible loopholes left and right, for instance. But unless the GOP comes up with an alternative other than “repeal and replace it…with exactly the same thing, just add more loopholes”, we’re not going to get anywhere.