Name: Why NYC Nurses are Striking, and the Bigger Problem with Healthcare
Uploaded: 2026-01-22T20:10:03.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Why NYC Nurses are Striking, and the Bigger Problem with Healthcare' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2026-01-22. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Why NYC Nurses are Striking, and the Bigger Problem with Healthcare' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2026-01-22. Transcript available.

I saw that you were out there on the nurses' picket line, the New York nurses.
Yep.
Yeah, that's awesome. We went the other day, too. We had a great time.
Oh, wow. That's a nice crowd. Jesus.
That's when you were. That was there. Was that...
Oh, that's me today. There I am.
Yeah, that's you this morning.
Who's that handsome guy in the brown coat? Oh, that's me. All right.
Who's that kid with him? Oh, that's the mayor.
Oh, yeah, that's Zoran, huh?
Yeah.
Yeah, there we were. We went out there the other day. We had a good time. We
stayed for a few hours, walked around, shook some bells, you know.
Great.
Got out there. My sister's a nurse.
My sister's a nurse.
Where is she a nurse?
She's a nurse down in Louisiana.
Good.
But I figured that if, you know, things start here in New York, a lot of big
things start here.
Let me just say something.
I really appreciate the work you do and other podcasters do. This is one of the
technological revolutions that is really good. You know, sometimes I go on TV
and I'm asked to deal with an issue in seven seconds. I can't deal with it. You
can't deal with it, right?
Yeah.
Takes a little bit of time. So thank you for what you're doing.
Oh, well, I appreciate that.
Yeah, we're trying to learn as we go, too. And it changes a lot, you know. But
were you at Mount Sinai? Which one did you go?
Mount Sinai.
Yeah, that's where we went.
Yeah, yeah. Well, I'll tell you, I was really proud to go there and be
alongside Mayor Zoran Mamdani. You know, I'm the former chairman of the Health
Education Labor Committee. And I'll tell you, Theo, I have met with nurses all
over this country. I love nurses. It's no great secret that our health care
system is broken. Everybody knows that. And the people who are keeping it going
are, in fact, the nurses.
You know, they're with you when babies are born. They're with you when you die.
They're with you in between. They're at your bedside. They're the backbone of
the health care system. And I love them.
And I'll tell you something. Time and time again, nurses would come into my
office and they'd start talking and suddenly they'd start crying. And you know
what they were crying about? They were crying about the fact that they were
unable to do the jobs, to do the work that they were trained and wanted to do.
That they didn't have the number of nurses they needed, the staffing ratios
that they needed. They broke down. And I was just a couple of years ago, not
dissimilar for what's going on in New York City right now in New Brunswick, New
Jersey. These nurses went on strike. You know why they went on strike? Because
they needed help to provide better patient care. It wasn't even about money.
Right. They're just saying, hey, we can't, I can't even be a nurse. This is my
calling in the world. And I'm, I can't even do it to a decent potential.
Exactly.
And it's tough enough. We talked last night, we talked last time about patients
being stressed to the gills, not only dealing with their, with their physical
ailments, but having to deal with the stress of, of begging for insurance
companies to support, just all of that.
And now you're going to put the nurses under the same stress.
Exactly. It's pathetic. And, and I'm sure, you know, this, the CEOs there are
these big, huge hustles. One guy is making 26 million a year. Another guy, I
think it's making 16 million. Another guy making five. They're bringing in all
these traveling nurses, spending hundreds of millions of dollars rather than
sitting down and negotiating a decent contract with these dedicated nurses.
There they are. You got them up there.
Yep. And I'm grateful. I want to just mention these wonderful CEOs by name
today, just so, because look, it's a, it's time where we put a name with people
who are making certain choices. And so we have Brendan Carr. Uh, that's, I know
he's over at Mount Sinai. Brian Donnelly. There he is. Look at that big smile.
I'd be smiling too. If I just made $15 million this year.
And that's Philip O. Ozua, who looks like a guess who character and Stephen Corwin
from Monopoly. I don't know if that's alleged. Uh, these are the CEOs current.
And I think one is just leaving the, the, one of his posts, um, who are, who,
these are the, these are who nurses are asking for help from.
Right.
Is that right? And just to be clear, Bernie, what are the nurses asking for?
What they're asking for what they call safe patient nurse patient ratios. That
means if you're a nurse on duty and you have too many patients to take care of,
you can't do your job.
A nurse, a patient calls out, needs your help. You can't get there. So they
want more staffing to be able to provide the quality, uh, care that patients
deserve.
And I know in addition to that, I think they were, they wanted healthcare
benefits not to be cut.
Right. For themselves.
Right.
Which is pretty, if you think that nurses, nurses can't get healthcare, they
can't be sure that they're going to have healthcare.
They're working with the sick. We can't say, Hey, we're going to do our best to
make sure you don't get sick.
That's pretty crazy. And the other thing they worry about, and I hope we can
discuss this a little bit as AI and robotics.
They've raised that issue as well.
Have they really?
Yeah. And there was a Dr. Oz, who's head of CMS in Washington right now, was
talking the other day.
Uh, let me get it straight. I think it was Alabama, rural Alabama. We're there
weak on the number of, uh, obstetricians that they have.
Yeah. And he was proudly talking about how they have robots now who are
providing examinations for pregnant women.
Yeah.
And who's controlling those robots? It's not some pervert at his house, huh?
Well, but the point is, if you're a patient, do you really want a robot
examining you?
Right.
So, I mean, I think all of this, Theo, adds up to the fact, and I'll tell you,
I've been all over the country, and wherever I go, I talk about this.
Whether you're conservative, you're moderate, you're progressive, you
understand the healthcare system is broken today.
Yeah.
We are spending, this is insane. Do you know how much we spend per capita? Add
everything else, right? Medicaid, Medicare, what you pay out of your own pocket.
How much do we spend per person on healthcare in the United States of America?
Do you know? Take a wild and crazy guess.
Per year?
No, per person.
Oh.
Per person.
Okay.
$15,000 per person.
Okay.
So, a family of four spends, theoretically, $60,000.
Oh, wow.
That is double what any other country on earth is spending. You got it?
Yeah.
You would think that if we're spending, you know, if I buy a $100,000 car, you
buy a $50,000 car, my car should be a little bit better than your car, right?
Right.
And yet, despite all of those expenditures, our system is worse than others. We're
the only major country not to guarantee healthcare to all people.
But it's because there's these kind of like darker agreements between hospitals
and insurance companies, right? And the cost of drugs.
Yeah. It has to do essentially, look, in this day and age, running a healthcare
system is very difficult. Technology changes. It ain't easy. I admit that.
But what is the goal of a rational healthcare system? It is to say, first of
all, to answer the fundamental question, is healthcare a human right? What do
you think? Should everybody, regardless of income, get healthcare?
I believe that based on how much money our country has, I think it's wrong not
to provide that to people because we waste it in so many other ways.
Okay. Good point. So the issue here is why is the wealthiest nation on earth,
the United States of America, the only major country not to guarantee
healthcare to all people? Okay. That to me is a fundamental issue.
So today, despite spending so much money, 85 million Americans are uninsured or
underinsured.
And if Trump gets his way and throws another 15 million people off of Medicaid,
raise that number to roughly 100 million.
Okay.
There are estimates out there that when you have that many people, uninsured,
no insurance, and underinsured means high deductibles, right?
So if you've got a high deductible, you may be insured. I've talked to people,
I suspect you have, their deductibles, $10,000, $15,000 a year, right?
So if you don't have any money, what the hell, how do you go to the doctor?
Yeah.
You can't.
So you add all that together, people get sick, they can't go to the doctor,
some 50,000, 60,000 people die a year in America unnecessarily because they don't
get to a doctor on time.
That is pretty insane.
So in my view, I push very hard to introduce the legislation, what we call
Medicare for all, expanding Medicare to cover every man, woman, and child
without out-of-pocket expenses.
We could do that without spending, to your point, not a nickel more than we're
currently spending.
Yeah.
How can we get that move forward, though?
Why is this, why does this just continue to be this thing, you know?
Why does it continue to feel like nobody really wants to take care of us, you
know?
Ah, now you're getting into another issue.
Yeah.
All right, you want to go there?
I mean, yeah, I think we can go to a couple of these places.
All right, let's do it.
All right, look, in one respect, the healthcare system is working extremely
well.
Not for ordinary people, not for you, not for me.
It is working very well for the insurance companies who make zillions of
dollars in profit,
the drug companies who charge us the highest prices in the world for
prescription drugs.
And that's the function of the current healthcare system.
Right.
Okay.
So again, you know, running a healthcare system, whether it's in Canada, Europe,
wherever it
is, it ain't easy.
And they all make mistakes.
They all have problems.
But if your goal is, if you and I sit down and say, okay, how do we provide a
healthcare
to all people and how do we do it in a cost-effective way?
All right.
Will we come up with a perfect system?
No, but that's our goal.
Right.
But if we sit here and say, okay, hmm, how can we charge the highest prices in
the world
for prescription drugs and make $38 billion next year?
Yeah.
How can we deny people the insurance that they paid for, right?
The benefits that they pay for.
That's a whole other scam.
And that's the scam we're working on.
Yeah.
It is an effort to make huge profits for the drug companies and the insurance
companies.
And that's why we've got to end this broken system.
And again, I will tell you, I've been all over this country.
Nobody or very few people think this healthcare system is working.
We've got to expand Medicare over a four-year period to cover every man, woman,
and child.
But is there a real way to get there, do you think?
Yeah, there is.
Look, it's – the goal is – and then that takes us to another area.
You know, you ask the question, why?
Why are we, you know, perhaps the only country on earth not to guarantee
healthcare to all people?
Why are the Canadians – you are in Canada right now.
I live 50 miles away from the border there.
You get seriously ill.
You're in the hospital for a month.
You know what the bill is when you come out?
Zero.
Yeah.
Okay.
And they spend half as much per person on healthcare.
And they have good posture, too.
You been over there?
Yeah.
Sure.
Of course I've been.
Nick, will you bring up those CEOs one more time?
I just want to see the faces of those good gentlemen who have made $15 million,
allegedly,
I believe, and $26 million, allegedly, as well.
Not allegedly.
I think that's a fact.
Oh, there you go, Bernie.
I'll take that.
While nurses – nurses are trying to make sure that their healthcare doesn't
get discontinued at certain points.
And just real quick, people can get involved by donating to the NYSNA Hardship
Fund.
And we'll put the link to that and where you can show up to support the strike.
It's going on every day right now.
Thank you.