Politics & Power Quote by Matthew Lesko

Lesko’s line lands like a late-night punchline with a sting: the “health care system” isn’t a shared safety net so much as a rigged arcade game, and most people don’t know where the hidden buttons are. Coming from an entertainer best known for turning bureaucracy into showmanship, the intent isn’t policy nuance. It’s a nudge-and-wink indictment of how American health care rewards insider literacy over need.

“Take advantage” is the tell. In everyday speech it implies opportunism, even mild con artistry. Lesko flips it into a survival skill: if the system is labyrinthine, then “advantage” becomes code for finding loopholes, subsidies, patient-assistance programs, billing appeals, network hacks, and the endless paperwork maneuvers that the well-resourced (or well-coached) can pull off. The subtext is a class critique without the lecture. If only “few” can work the system, then competence is being measured by time, education, English fluency, and the confidence to argue with institutions on the phone for hours. That’s not health; that’s administrative endurance.

The cultural context is decades of Americans treating coverage like a scavenger hunt: employer plans, marketplace tiers, surprise bills, prior authorizations, “not medically necessary” letters. Lesko’s persona makes the cynicism feel approachable, even comic, which is exactly why it works. He’s selling the idea that the real product in U.S. health care isn’t care - it’s know-how, parceled out unevenly, with the most vulnerable least able to shop, negotiate, and “win.”