Bill Maher Calls Out Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Obamacare Claim to Her Face
What To Know
- Bill Maher confronted Marjorie Taylor Greene on her opposition to Obamacare during her appearance on ‘Real Time.’
- The discussion centered on rising health insurance premiums following the expiration of COVID-19-era subsidies.
- Greene argued that taxpayer-funded healthcare for others is unfair, while Maher countered that Republicans have not come up with anything to replace it.
Bill Maher called out Marjorie Taylor Greene‘s stance on Obamacare to her face during her late-night debut.
On Friday, October 31, the U.S. House of Representatives member from Georgia, 51, was a featured guest on Real Time With Bill Maher. She and journalist/podcast host, Michael Moynihan, debated the state of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as “Obamacare,” with Maher amid the ongoing government shutdown.
The trio discussed Obamacare premiums going up on November 1 after Congress allowed COVD-19-era subsidies to expire. Both Greene and Moynihan argued for price transparency within hospitals and doctors’ offices. Additionally, they blamed skyrocketing health insurance costs in the private sector on Obamacare, prompting Maher, 69, to set the record straight about what the ACA does.
In defense of Obamacare, he pointed out, “I do know this: A lot of people had no health insurance, and then they got something that was relatively affordable called Obamacare. And the Republicans never stopped trying to kill it. And they kept kicking out different legs of this apparatus. And yet, it’s still popular and still works.”
Maher continued, “They have this mythical idea that there’s some better,” Maher added before quoting U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune. “‘The president would like to overhaul Obamacare and give people health insurance that is higher quality and more affordable.’ Yeah, and I’d like to be able to dunk.”
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“It’s not a mystery. You keep acting like there’s this way where we’re going to get to this better version,” Maher added. “But [Mitt] Romney found this out, the Clintons found this out, [Barack] Obama found this out. There’s only a certain way you can do this, that you can give people healthcare. And it’s the insurance game. And you act like it’s Big Foot, ‘We’re gonna find it.’ You’re not gonna find it. This is it.”
To that, Greene shared, “I disagree. I tell you. When you make the American taxpayer foot the bill for so many other people, it’s completely wrong. And that’s what’s been happening for years now. American taxpayers were even having to pay for illegal aliens’ health insurance. That’s completely wrong.”
“Well, not all of them,” Maher interjected.
“If people in the private sector can do things and be successful, then the government can do things and be successful too. But the problem is, it’s always a fight in Washington, D.C., between the two parties,” Greene continued. “And they sit in their camps, and they never come together to come up with real solutions.”
She added, “And when you have the lobbyists in Washington, D.C. — and I see them nonstop — and you have them coming in and they’re trying to tell lawmakers, ‘Here’s how you need to write the bills,’ that’s the absolute failure. And I truly believe that we need to do a better job, and I wish that [Speaker of the House] Mike Johnson would call us back into session so we could actually do our jobs.”
Real Time With Bill Maher, Fridays, 10/9c, HBO
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