Maher supports the establishment of a Medicare-for-All universal single-payer health care system, and has consistently agreed with the proposal since 2011. Maher has stated that the American Medical Association is a powerful lobbying group and one of the primary reasons why the United States had failed to enact health care reform in the decades prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act. On the topic of getting the Affordable Care Act passed, in 2009 Maher stated that Obama should forget about trying to get 60 votes for it because "he only needs 51.": "Forget getting the sixty votes or sixty percent—sixty percent of people don't believe in evolution in this country—he just needs to drag them to it, like I said, they're stupid; get health care done, with or without them." On Fox News in a televised debate with Bill O'Reilly, Maher said that "if Jesus was in charge of the country we'd probably have health care for everybody."