 In an interview with Mehdi Hassan, a Biden administration official was asked about Medicare for All and as you are going to see, he faced plans and completely humiliates himself. This is difficult to watch. And there are a lot of good things in legislation, but also some questionable things. I want to talk about one of those. Today's the 11th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act. As you say, the rescue plan expands subsidies for ACA plans, making premiums much cheaper for many families. That's a good thing. It could also spend an estimated $35 billion fully covering Cobra for around two million unemployed people for just six months. How is that a good use of that money, $35 billion subsidizing insurance companies for six months? Wouldn't that money be better invested towards building universal health care in this country? Well, clearly you have health insurance right now. But the question is, you ought to pose that to people who have lost their job through no fault of their own that has lost their health insurance and they need a bridge so that they stay with insurance so that they can get that checkup and detect cancer early. It's very easy for people to make judgment calls when they're not in other people's shoes. And I won't do that. I won't put a price on lives. I won't put a price on... Hold on. Wait. Hold on. Hold on. Let me finish. Hold on. Wait. Okay. Do you think that she has early stages of breast cancer so that we can beat it? I mean, look, did we rise to the moment? Yes. Did we spend $1.9 trillion? We did. You know why? Because there was $1.9 trillion worth of problems in this country that we were trying to fix. Yes. Thank you. So with respect, I just need to push back a little bit. I'm in favor of you spending $1.9 trillion. I'd have gone higher. I'm very happy that you're spending lots of money. And as for the money on health care, it's not that I don't want you to spend $35 billion on health care. I'm in favor of universal health care. When you say there's no price tag on health care, the problem is you're... The president, Joe Biden, told us there is. He says we can't afford Medicare for all. I'm saying if you can afford $35 billion to give to Cobra, which is a very inefficient overpriced way of giving people health care, why not spend that money on a universal health care system that helps everyone, not just insurance companies? Well, remember, this is a response to a pandemic. If we didn't have COVID-19, you wouldn't see us doing that Cobra appropriation. So remember, we're probably saying close to the same thing, but remember, this is in response to people losing their jobs through no fault of their own. And if you don't have COVID-19 out there, people are not losing their jobs. That was very embarrassing. That is the definition of cringe-worthy. I know that the word cringe gets overused quite a bit, but I actually felt embarrassed for him. And when Medi tried to stop him so he can clarify, because he very obviously misunderstood what was being asked, he insisted that he keep going because he very obviously had a set of talking points that he wanted to get through and he wasn't going to stop talking until he hit on all of those talking points that the Biden administration gave him, except that's not what you were asked. Oh, this is awkward. And I love that the talking points he was using, it really wasn't even substantive. Basically what he was saying was, listen, with that 1.6 billion or however much it was for Cobra, some people are calling us heroes. Are we heroes? I mean, maybe we are certainly giving Americans more for-profit insurance in a time of need. So if that makes me a hero, if that makes members of the Biden administration heroes, I guess we're going to have to plead guilty there on that charge. That's not what you were being asked, Cedric. The question is, why are you subsidizing private insurance, particularly Cobra, which as Medi pointed out is shit. He didn't say that obviously, I'm paraphrasing, but Cobra is not good. I mean, anything that you can do to expand coverage during a pandemic, of course, that's preferable to nothing. But if you're already spending all of this money on health care, why not just go for the most cost-effective solution? Medicare for all. Now, the real answer is that Biden has donors in the health industry that will not allow him to do this. Health industry donors helped him get elected. And of course, he's going to pay them back by not opting for Medicare for all by subsidizing for-profit health insurance that, consequently, lines the pockets of health industry CEOs. Now, Medi asks, when you say there's no price tag on health care, the problem is President Joe Biden told us there is. He says, we can't afford Medicare for all. So you kind of are literally putting a price tag on Medicare for all. Cedric responds by saying, well, remember, this is a response to a pandemic. If we didn't have COVID-19, you wouldn't see us doing that Cobra appropriation. OK, so in other words, you wouldn't have tried to expand coverage if there wasn't a pandemic. Let me remind you that before the pandemic took place, thousands of Americans every single year were not just losing their coverage. They were dying due to a lack of coverage. And this was after the Affordable Care Act was passed. So a pandemic changes things because according to him, folks lose their jobs and this is to no fault of their own during a pandemic because it impacted the economy. And since in America, we tie health insurance to employers, you know, you have to do something to help them. So why all of a sudden doesn't make a difference during a pandemic? That's what I wish that Medi would have asked him. Why is it bad more so during a pandemic for people to lose their health insurance and possibly die when this was already happening? Of course, the pandemic exacerbated the issue, but it's not like the pandemic presented a new issue. Health care in America has always been overly expensive. And on top of that, people die every single year because they don't have health care. And I'm not talking about health insurance. I'm not talking about lack of access to health care. I am talking about health care, period. How many people go bankrupt because they have a medical bill that they can pay? How many go fund means have we seen because somebody got in an accident or they got an unexpected medical emergency that led to bills? I mean, my dad died more than a year ago now. And I want to say up until the end of last year, my mom was still getting medical bills after he had already died. Isn't this system a little bit egregious? Wasn't it egregious before the pandemic? And all of a sudden, Cedric wants you to think that the Biden administration, their heroes, because they expanded Cobra. What the fucking do? Yay, Cobra, great. How about you actually fix the broken health care system rather than just putting band-aids on it here and there? Because it's very obviously the case that the band-aids aren't helping. The wound is too big for a band-aid. You need an actual systemic approach to health care reform. But of course, with corporate Democrats like Joe Biden in power, that will never happen. So you just have to keep building support among the population and keep rallying members of Congress to actually fight harder for Medicare for All, because this is the solution to this issue of health care in America. It's not more subsidies for private, for-profit health insurance companies. It is a single-payer Medicare for All system where everyone pays into it and nobody is denied health care, not health insurance, health care. Period. End of story.