Overtime - Episode #361 (Originally aired 8/21/15)

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Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late Month series, Real Time with Bill Maher.

Hey, here we are with the questions from America.

Senator McCaskill, what was your reasoning behind supporting the Iran deal?

Oh, that's news today?

Yesterday.

Yesterday.

Good for you.

I said last week it was a no-brainer.

Yeah.

Well, you know, I called the countries that are part of the deal.

More importantly, I call the countries that are holding Iran's money.

Everybody thinks that we control this money.

We don't.

It's in South Korea, Japan, China,

India.

Yeah.

So I call those countries

and asked them, hey, are you going to respect unilateral sanctions to the United States if we walk away from this deal?

And I got an uneasy feeling that this sanction regime was going to fray if we don't do this deal, which means they could get the $60 billion without cementing down their centrifuges.

Now, that would be a bad outcome.

That would be a bad outcome.

Right.

And that's why it was an overrider.

Mark Maron, did sitting down with President Obama in such a casual setting change how you viewed him?

Yeah.

Yeah, he's just a guy.

It's true.

No,

it was pretty astounding.

I was very nervous to have the.

It's weird when the president comes to your house and.

Right, because you do your podcast for me.

I have a two-bedroom house with one bathroom, and the door of my bathroom doesn't even work.

And we do it in the garage.

And I had to, I literally had to ask my neighbor, I said, you know, Dennis, would it be okay if we put snipers on the roof?

And he's retired.

So he was like, yeah, yeah, you fucking kidding me?

That's terrific.

But it was pretty fascinating because I was nervous because, as you know, you talk to

some politicians,

you want to get past

their talking points and have that experience.

And very quickly,

he put me at ease.

He walked into the garage, he looked around.

There's a lot of artwork that my fans send of me, and he immediately said, wow, you're pretty narcissistic.

So there was a moment where he literally grounded himself in the environment, and it was very connected.

And I felt, I had a lot of respect for him as a person because I felt like I was able to talk to the person.

He's a very thoughtful.

It was a terrific interview.

Oh, thank you very much.

Thanks a lot.

It was amazing.

Donna Edwards, what differentiates you from your opponent in the upcoming Senate race?

Wow, such a good question.

Yeah, softball.

Yeah, softball question.

Actually, there are a lot of things that differentiate us.

I mean, first of all,

it goes without saying I'm an African-American woman running for the United States Senate when there hasn't been one in 23 years.

Who was the last one?

Carol Mosley-Braun, 23 years ago.

One in our 239-year history.

And I think I bring a perspective to the Senate that will be different and that will be added to the voices of the women in the Senate.

And on some public policy issues, we talked earlier, we talked about Social Security, and I have been a very strong proponent of strengthening, expanding Social Security and Medicare, their earned benefits that we pay into.

And unfortunately, my opponent has said in a number of occasions that he would consider cutting Social Security and Medicare, and I wouldn't do that.

Right.

And, you know,

a lot of that money, of course, is used to put old people at homes.

And I know in your book you say that's something that the people who live a long life just, they wouldn't even know what that was,

to put parents in a

family.

Yeah.

Yeah, you and you're

I'm sorry, did I not end that with a question there?

Your thoughts, Dan.

Ask me the question again.

Well, I was just going to, I read it in your book that the people in the blue zones,

they do not know this concept that we have in America,

old age homes where people go visit their parents once a week.

And it's just a different way of looking at things.

And why does that contribute to living so long?

Well, it's more, if you put your aging parent in a retirement home, it'll shade between two and six years off of their life expectancy.

I think part of it is that if you're aging parents in the home, they're still in blue zones anyway, they're continuing to help cook, help take care of kids, run the garden.

They're not only feeling a sense of purpose or a sense of responsibility, they have a reason to get up in the morning, they have a reason to stay active, a reason to take their meds.

And when you put people in a retirement home, it's like, well, they wake up, well, what do I do today?

You know, go play

shuffle board.

So it's an important idea, I think.

Maybe they wouldn't need meds.

Certainly not as much.

You know, in none of these.

Do they have meds in these places?

They all have

good public health systems.

Costa Rica, for example, you're a...

Do they have these Viagra pills that we were talking about?

Is that something they need, or do they have good natural erection?

Well,

and

I think he said public health systems, didn't he?

Yes, I said public specific.

I want to make sure I heard that right.

Yes.

So this is interesting.

In Costa Rica,

a 50-year-old is about three times more likely to reach a healthy age 90 than an American is, and they spend 1/15th the amount we do on health care, but it's almost all on public health.

In every little village, they have a Puesta de Salud where

where a pregnant mother is taught how to feed their child.

Kids get vaccinations, and it makes a big difference in the long run.

Speaking of that, will the GOP admit that Obamacare is working, or will they continue to campaign on its demise?

Good question.

Maybe that's for you, Charles.

Well, that's a...

There's no numbers in that.

No.

There are a lot of numbers.

Well, there are a lot of numbers.

I could give you some.

That's a very big topic.

I think there have been certainly some gains in terms of the uninsurance rate going down.

Having said that, a lot of it is Medicaid, which is less than ideal.

A lot of it is what has essentially become high-deductible plans the wrong way round.

Conservatives want high-deductible plans that don't cover quotidian

everyday things.

Oh, quotidian.

Yeah.

I know that birthday.

Q-U-O-T-I-D-I-A-N.

Very quotidian.

But that will be there

there's a serious problem.

What we have is the opposite at the moment, and that's largely because it's so prescriptive.

I mean, there's a federal regulator and it tells you what you need in it.

And, you know, there was an interesting piece in Harper's magazine.

It didn't come from my perspective, but saying that

in combination with the Cadillac tax, which is probably more of a sort of Toyota-Corolla tax, it's not really just the top of the market.

This is going to cause people a lot of problems.

So, this is a very complicated topic.

First, the question for the presidential candidates, the Republican presidential candidates.

Has anyone seen replace?

Have you ever seen it?

Because I've been hearing about replace for about six years.

I got the bloodhounds out.

I don't know if you have, Donna.

In Washington, I've gone up and down the halls.

I've searched in hearing rooms.

You can't find replace.

There is no legislation.

There is no debate of anything.

It's repeal and replace.

But when you ask them what replace is, it is crickets.

So I'm actually not sure.

I'm not sure that's true.

For two reasons.

Firstly,

we haven't debated debated anything.

I've not seen the legislation.

I've been there the whole time.

With respect, Senator, I think you may need better bloodhounds, because this week, Marco Rubia put out a plan.

This week, Scott Walker put out a plan.

If you go to where Obama was when he was elected, there was no published plan.

At the point at which there was a Democratic Congress and a Democratic president, the party picked up what was essentially Clinton Cabot with a few changes, and then it ran with it.

You have the Coburn plan, you have a prize plan.

There's a lot of plans out there.

They haven't coalesced around one.

You know why?

Because they haven't won the presidency.

I just know that we have the Republicans in charge of Congress.

I know they have voted thousands of times to repeal Obamacare.

I have never had an opportunity on any piece of legislation to replace it.

And they're in charge.

So don't tell me that it's there somewhere and we just don't know it.

They have not put it forward.

Because it's hard.

Sorry.

Can I respond to that?

I think that the point is asked with when Obama became president.

and he didn't pick up the Bush plan.

I mean, there was a George W.

Bush healthcare plan in 2006 that went nowhere because there was a Democratic Congress.

When you have divided government, there is not going to be a big change to the health care system.

Republicans know that.

And if there's a unified government in 2016, which seems unlikely, but if there is, then you're going to see maybe the Rubio plan, maybe the Walker plan, maybe the Coburn plan.

One of those will be picked up as it was with Obama.

I think it's an unfair criticism.

Let's hear it for Charles for standing against all of us.

Yeah, really, Charles.

And having a question.

Here you go.

All right, thank you, panel.

Thank you, audience.

We'll see you next week.

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