Name: The Real Reason Politicians Won't Vote on Healthcare For All
Uploaded: 2025-06-21T18:00:49.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Real Reason Politicians Won't Vote on Healthcare For All' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-06-21. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Real Reason Politicians Won't Vote on Healthcare For All' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-06-21. Transcript available.

pharma lobbyists, right? Just big pharma. There are about 1,200 big pharma
lobbyists. So it's about
two and a half to one for every member of Congress. I'm sure you know people
who want to get some
drug, prescription drugs I'm talking about, and it's too much money, right? And
they skip it. Do
you know folks? Oh yeah, totally I do. So Donald Trump, one of the good things
he does is he puts
out an executive order and he says, Americans shouldn't pay more for any of
these prescription
drugs than people in other parts of the world. Right. You know, I've had people
who like go to a
foreign country to get the drug because they don't want to pay them. They can't
afford to pay the drugs.
Oh yeah. One night I'm hanging out with the girl and I, you know, we had, we've
been on a couple
dates. I thought I was, we're going to maybe smooch a little. It's 11 PM. She's
like, she's like, I have
to go drive to Mexico. Are you serious? I'm not even joking. She's like, I have
to drive to
Mexico to get Olympic. And she's like, if I leave now, the hours are best for
driving there and back.
And I was like, Oh God. So the way to her heart was like getting her this drug.
I don't, I'm not
riding with her, you know, but I definitely, I gave her a little bit of gas
money, you know,
because I hope to see her again. But anyway, it's crazy, right? I mean, we're,
we're, we're paying
for all these drugs to be developed. You and I pay the NIH to develop all these
drugs. Then the big
pharma sells them at a profit to Americans. And basically the rest of the world
gets these
drugs at a fraction of the cost. Right. So we're subsidizing their cost over
there.
We're subsidizing their costs. Now one, someone could say, okay, Mexico or some
of these developing
countries, fine. You, they, they should have these drugs cheaper, but we're
subsidizing
Great Britain. We're subsidizing Japan. We're subsidizing Europe. These are
rich countries.
We're subsidizing Switzerland. So Donald Trump, one thing that I agree with, he
comes out and
he says, Americans shouldn't pay a higher price than any other industrialized
country.
Yeah. I'm the first Congress person actually, uh, to introduce his executive
order as a law.
I said, okay, cause the executive order, you know, the pharma just will sue it
and tie it
up in court and nothing's going to happen. Yeah. Because he had another one
with price
transparency. Right. Exactly. Where it was like all the, all the prices of, um,
of, of if
you go get an MRI, whatever it is, it needs to be like a menu. Like you go to
McDonald's,
you know how much it costs. Right. Because without a menu, they can just charge
you later,
whatever they want. Right. Which is part of the whole, uh, bait and switch of
the insurance
system as part of the whole, uh, shell game. Um, that was another executive
order, but that
hasn't been enacted. Like, how do you, we get these things to actually happen?
Like why,
why do they stop at an executive order? Cause there's always this pomp and
circumstance.
Right. It's an executive order, but it never gets followed through.
Because they, it gets tied up in courts and they get sued and they say, well,
Congress didn't authorize
it. So I, look, I actually give Trump some credit for putting it out there, but
he knows, everyone
knows it can't actually make a difference until it becomes a law. And who sues
it? The pharma
companies? The pharma companies sue it. They, they've, they've got a whole
industry of lawyers,
of lobbyists, and they, they come out and they, they sue them. And they're, by
the way,
they're making record profits and, and, and they say, oh, we need this money to
do research
and innovation. Give me a break. They're there. They have those profits. They're
buying back
their stock. They're giving out dividends. Their executives are making tons of
money.
Oh yeah. They're buying fricking Corvettes, dude. They're doing it, but they
are, they're all
probably all have Corvettes and they don't care. That's the thing. They don't
care. But how,
so how do we stop that system? Right. First of all, do you believe that system
can actually
be stopped? I do. And I, I, I, I do. And I'll give you two examples why,
because we did it with
big tobacco. You remember that when tobacco basically had Washington DC bought,
and then
there was a campaign that said free kids from tobacco and bring that up. I want
to see a picture
that some kid would have smoked if they let them, they used to, uh, there it is.
Yeah. Campaign for
the campaign for tobacco, free kids, an American nonprofit membership
organization
established in 1995 with Bill Novelli as its first president. Okay. So that
happened in 1995
and that had an effect. Well, it was them. It was grassroots organizing. There
was a hearing
in front of Congress. They brought in all these tobacco executives and
basically the tobacco executives
are seen lying to the American public saying, yeah, we know that this stuff is
addictive. And that had
a huge impact. There was laws that got passed that said, you can't sell tobacco
cigarettes to kids.
You have to disclose the addictive, uh, quality. So we stood up to a big
tobacco. We also did it one
other time in this country famously. I don't know if you know what DDT is. DDT.
Yeah, definitely. It's in
the yard, brother. Yeah. They say it's in the grass, right? You know, it's the
fertilizers. Yeah. And
there was this woman, Rachel Carson, she exposed that it was hurting your
health. It was hurting,
uh, or, uh, the birds. It was hurting the ecosystem. And that led to Congress
saying, no,
we're going to ban DDT for a lot of different uses. We got to do the same thing
in standing up
with pharma. How much money does pharma spend? $380 million a year. In lobbying?
In lobbying. Or in
commercials, you mean? In just in lobbying. Now, does lobbying include
commercials? That means
paying to congressmen and reps. That's paying to congresspeople and reps. That's
like money that is
going to congressmen, to representatives, to state legislators. So I introduced
this bill, right?
Saying, okay, let's do what Donald Trump wants. Let's do what Bernie Sanders
wants. Like, how can we
disagree on this? Let's take it to pharma so Americans don't pay more. I get
two Republicans who
co-sponsor it. Representative Luna and Representative Biggs. Bring them up.
Bring up Luna and Biggs. First
of all, and if that's not a animated series, I don't even know. Um, it sounds
also like it could
be a rap group, Luna and Biggs. We got a shot of them. So that's Andy Biggs. He's
a legitimate guy.
He's a legitimate guy. I mean, look, I mean, disagree on things, but like he's
willing to stand up for
what he believes. Representative Luna, she's willing to stand up. Uh, oh dude,
I was just looking at her
online yesterday. I like her. I mean, she has her, I like what she says. You
know what I'm saying? I
like her energy. She's, she's, she, she has an independence and I got a few of
the Democrats to be
on board with this. Obviously they, they don't want Americans being overcharged
for prescription
drugs. I mean, this was part of Bernie's whole campaign. And now people are,
are there also people
telling you that they got on board or, or did it come down to a vote? How did
it end up? So right
now we don't even have a, we don't have a vote. We, we should have every single
person in Congress
co-sponsoring this. The way Congress works is you got to get it to about a
hundred people to
co-sponsor it. And then the speaker calls up a vote on the issue. But because
you got big pharma's
lobbying money, well, they, they're so cynical. They don't say, they don't try
to stop, convince people
to vote against it. They try to stop the Congress people from the speaker from
bringing it for a
vote. So they would like, they would invest in Mike Johnson. They'll invest,
not just in Mike
Johnson. They'll invest. Is that libel or slander for saying that? No, I mean,
it's just, they would
lobby with, they would try to lobby Mike Johnson. They'll try to lobby Mike
Johnson. But you know,
there's this, this quote that I love from Dr. King. He said, attack the evil
system, not the
individuals who happen to be caught up in the evil system. Okay. Got it. So
yeah, there's some
egregious cases. The problem is the system is rotten. Okay. And the, the, they
are pouring money
into different campaigns, into different lobbyists, and basically are not going
to allow a vote on this
because they don't, because they know if there's a vote and someone votes
against Donald Trump and
against lowering prescription drugs, the American people will be furious. Are
going to know who they
are. Are going to know who they are. Right. And then we can call them out by
name. So they just
don't want anyone to do it. And this is how, this is the game. This is why we
don't get Medicare for
all, why we don't have health insurance. Health insurance is not that we have,
we haven't had a
vote on Medicare for all. This is why we still have fossil fuel subsidies. We
haven't had a vote to get
rid of fossil fuel subsidies. This is why we still have a defense budget that
is over a trillion dollars.
We don't get votes on cutting out the excessive contracts. I mean, it's the
game is to stop the
vote. But the second thing is we've got to demand that people have a vote on
getting lower prescription
drug prices. Who do we ask that for? From Mike Johnson? Mike Johnson. Okay. We
got to say. He's
from Louisiana. He's from Louisiana and he's. So I'll say it right now, Mike
Johnson, why don't you put
the vote up? I mean, everybody wants this. Everybody is tired of paying, of
watching people.
Medical debt's the number one cause of bankruptcy in America. We know that. It's
bipartisan, right? It
means both partisans like it. Yeah. I mean, Trump, it's Trump's bill. I mean,
Trump's executive bill.
Just help us, dude. Give us something. You know what I'm saying?
Two things he could do a vote on. One is stopping the war in Iran. I mean, that
he can, Massey and
my bill, he has to give us a vote on it unless he plays games. And then two,
let's just focus on
big pharma, getting, getting big pharma. Yeah. Let's start with one lobby. Let's
start with one
big lobby. I think it's just the, it's like, give us something, man. I was like,
cause you know what
I'm saying? He's from Louisiana. So like that, Louisiana is a state where it's
like, it's mostly
about like people, right? Peer to peer. It's like, it's like the state, it
doesn't have a lot of,
um, I don't think we have one top, um, we don't have one fortune 500 company. I
don't think in the
whole state, maybe energy, but I think that they left. So we're a low income
state. But the one thing
that we do have is each other's backs. Right. And I just can't imagine that Mr.
Johnson wouldn't bring
this to the floor, to the floor. Is that it? To the floor. Bring it to the
floor, Mike. You know
what I'm saying, bro? Like if it, people are sick, people are, people are sick,
man. People are dying.
You don't want to bring it to the floor. I think that's fucking bullshit. Now,
if you are bringing
it to the floor and Rose not telling me the truth, then I'm sorry, Mike. Right.
I'm sorry, dude.
And I, I got a good relationship with Mike Johnson, but, but someone has just
got to say,
he's a cool guy, but he's got keys to the janitor's closet and it's time to
fucking get the,
it's time to get the broom out and, and sweep this shit out from under the rug.
That's
what I feel.