John Oliver reminds you there's an election Tuesday, with Medicaid and thousand of lives at stake

Everyone is focused on Ben Carson and Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. But "we should not be talking about the 2016 race when America has important elections this Tuesday," John Oliver said on Sunday's Last Week Tonight. And if you didn't know about this week's elections, you may not live in Mississippi, Kentucky, Virginia, or New Jersey, all of which are having either gubernatorial or legislative elections (along with cities and states across the U.S. voting on local issues and referenda).

If you don't live in those four states, why should you care? "There are American lives at stake here," Oliver said, explaining that the election will determine whether some 500,000 people stay in, or fall into, the "Medicaid Gap." "Now, I know that sounds like a terrible clothing chain where you can buy khaki hospital gowns sewn by children in India," Oliver said, "but amazingly, it's even worse than that." Thanks to a Supreme Court decision you may have forgotten about, 20 states opted out of expanding Medicaid using federal money, putting 3.1 million American "in the illogical situation of not making enough money to receive government assistance."

After explaining the Medicaid Gap in some detail, Oliver returned to Tuesday's election, where voters in Virginia, Mississippi, and Kentucky could determine the future of Medicaid expansion. Mississippi is a lost cause, but if Democrats win two state Senate seats in Virginia, the Commonwealth will expand Medicaid, and if a bell factory owner named Matt Bevin is elected governor in Kentucky he has promised to take Medicaid away from people who already have it. Oliver's call to arms on Sunday was relatively passive, by Last Week Tonight's standards. "On Tuesday, even if you don't live in a state holding an election, spare a thought for the people who do," he said. "Because the results may ultimately affect the health of half a million people — and, of course, one ridiculous-looking animal." That would be the pangolin, and you can see what that's all about in the video below. Peter Weber

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