John Oliver has already made his feelings about U.S. health secretary RFK Jr. abundantly clear, but on Sunday’s episode of Last Week Tonight he targeted the Make America Health Again (MAHA) movement in general, from the people behind it to the scientifically questionable ideas they espouse.
“It is maddening that for the first time in recent memory, there has been a genuine ground swell of support for a cleaner, healthier, less corporately-controlled America — but it’s taken this fucking form,” says Oliver in the clip above. “Because for the final time, it is absolutely legitimate to want America to be healthier, and there are clearly systemic problems when it comes to America’s health. But these just aren’t the solutions.”
Oliver goes on to mention a recently published report in the Journal of the American Medical Association on child mortality and illness, conducted by researchers from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of California’s Center for Healthier Children. The authors wrote a list of policy recommendations, including “investing in anti-poverty measures, broadening health insurance coverage, investing in primary care, and passing firearm safety laws”, which Oliver says is “clearly pretty fucking far from what this administration is doing.”
“Instead they are shredding the social safety net while elevating voices that push the responsibility for health down to the individual,” the host concludes. “But I guess what I’m really saying here is, in its current form, MAHA is not about making America healthy again. At best, it is about laundering the reputation of an administration that is doing the exact opposite.”
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Health
Last Week Tonight
