Even Seth Meyers can't believe Donald Trump isn't exploiting ObamaCare troubles

(Image credit: Late Night)

published 27 October 2016

With two weeks until Election Day, Donald Trump's main task is to "appeal to voters beyond his base," Seth Meyers said on Wednesday's Late Night, and on Monday, he got "a golden opportunity" when the Obama administration announced that ObamaCare premiums will rise by double digits next year. "You'd think some bad ObamaCare news might help him," Meyers said, "but the Trump campaign never misses the opportunity to miss an opportunity."

Meyers got to ObamaCare, after a detour of the day's juiciest political news, including the "Blacks for Trump" sign malfunction and Newt Gingrich telling Megyn Kelly she's "fascinated by sex." "Fascinated by sex?" Meyers said. "Even if she was a sex addict, I'm pretty sure Newt Gingrich is the cure."

The ObamaCare premium hikes are "bad news on the surface, but it's still in line with the projections made by the Congressional Budget Office," he noted. "Obviously, ObamaCare is a nuanced, complicated issue that requires sober analysis and discussion," added Meyers, who routinely distills nuanced, complicated issues down to 10-minute comedy-news segments. But Trump, of course, just said that ObamaCare is "killing us." "ObamaCare is killing us, China is killing us, political correctness is killing us," Meyer said. "God forbid President Trump ever has to deal with a slight dip in GDP — he'd probably tweet: 'It's a depression!!! Every man for himself!!! Eat your neighbors!!!'"

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"The context is important here," Meyers said, returning to ObamaCare, noting that the premium increases will affect only the small percentage of people who get insurance from the individual market, and even then, the "vast majority" of them will get higher subsidies, leaving most ObamaCare users with options for plans less than $75 a month. But instead of trying to make political hay of the issue, Trump was out promoting his hotels and golf courses on Monday and Tuesday. Meyers had a theory about that, too: "As for ObamaCare, it's a huge improvement, but it also is imperfect. It has problems, and we need serious ideas for how to make it better, but the reason Republicans haven't proposed any real plans to fix or replace ObamaCare is because they don't have any. And the guy they nominated for president doesn't even seem to know what it is." Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.