Seth Meyers: Why the new Trumpcare is ‘disastrous’ for affordable health care

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“Late Night” host Seth Meyers dedicated his “A Closer Look” segment on Wednesday night to the new Republican healthcare bill making its way toward a vote in the United States House of Representatives. He called the latest bill, supported by President Donald Trump and commonly referred to as “Trumpcare,” “disastrous.””

Republicans have been trying to repeal and replace Obamacare for seven years now, and a previous Trump-backed bill on health care failed before a vote in the House.

“The whole thing is like the suitcase of a kid who says he’s running away from home: It looks like he has a plan, but if you open that suitcase up, all you’re going to find are some loose Legos and a sleeve of Ritz crackers,” Meyers said.

Meyers also criticized the Republicans for allowing people with preexisting conditions to pay more for their health insurance.

“This new bill would allow states to waive out of Obamacare’s ban on preexisting conditions,” he said.

“Part of the problem for Republicans is that they’re trying to hide a core truth about their bill — as well as a core truth about Republican ideology — which is that they simply don’t think it’s the government’s job to ensure that people get affordable health care,” Meyers continued. “Normally they don’t admit that openly, but on Monday, Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks, a hardline conservative, admitted in a moment of honesty that he has no problem with people with preexisting conditions paying more for their health insurance.”

Meyers then showed a clip of Brooks saying that “people who lead good lives, they’re healthy, they’ve done the things to keep their bodies healthy. And right now, those are the people who have done things the right way that are seeing their costs skyrocketing.”

“People who ‘lead good lives’? So what does that mean?” Meyers asked. “People who are sick lead ‘bad’ lives? If that were really how it worked, Donald Trump would have died three years before he was born.”