“Not true. Not true,” a clearly-thrown Sanders fired back. “What I’m saying is there have been articles out there that have been really unfair and wrong. For example, what they are suggesting is that if we move to a Medicare-for-all single-payer program, which guarantees healthcare to all people, it would cost a lot of money. That’s true. But what they forget to tell you is it would be much more cost-effective than this dysfunctional system we have right now, which is the most expensive per capita on earth.”

“But it couldn’t even work in your home state of Vermont!” Maher said. “They were going to institute it, and the governor said it’s going to cost too much money. We just can’t do it. It would be the entire budget. That’s true.”

“No… Well, it’s not…,” a shaken Sanders replied. “I’m not the governor from the state of Vermont, I’m the senator from the state of Vermont…”

Sanders asked Maher—Maher?!—to explain why he feels his universal healthcare plan wouldn’t work. And Maher obliged him.

“Because they control both ends of it,” said Maher. “If you’re saying that the government is going to pick up the tab but not make the insurance companies, the hospitals, and the doctors not gouge people, then we are going to break the budget. It has to work both ways. So you’re going to make the hospitals do that? Because that is socialism.”