Comedians Joe Rogan and Shane Gillis trashed communism on Rogan’s podcast Thursday — then argued in the same breath that Americans should get free healthcare, with Rogan calling billionaire wealth “the problem with capitalism.”
Gillis said free healthcare “would be a good move” during the episode — and argued that supporting it does not make someone a communist. Rogan agreed. The two were joined by fellow comedians Mark Normand and Ari Shaffir.
“Communism is the gayest sh*t ever,” Gillis said. “Somebody needs to look into how gay communism is.”
“But isn’t it crazy that it’s making a comeback?” Rogan asked. “It always does. It’s a cycle.”
“The problem is if we could not call it communism if we get free healthcare,” Gillis added. “That would be a good move. We’re calling everybody communists. Free healthcare is cool. We should have that. That’s not communism. Communism is no private property.”
Rogan agreed, saying, “We should treat the whole country like it’s a community. If you have a community, would you want the sickest person to f*cking die, who could be very valuable if you could take care of them, if you have the resources to take care of them? You should take care of them.”
“This is the problem with capitalism, this is the reason people turn on all these billionaires,” Rogan added. “They turn on them because [they say], ‘Why do you have so much when people have so little?’ But it’s because it’s the game, it’s the game that they’re playing, and you’re playing the game to — you’re just not playing it at that level.”
Normand then pushed back a little on Rogan’s statement.
“But again, these rich people pay a lot [in taxes] and give a lot of services,” Normand said.
“There’s that, but also the services, the amount of money they get, is all going to corrupt people that are funneling it into their own bank accounts. That’s the problem with it all,” Rogan replied.
Free healthcare of the sort Rogan and Gillis described already exists across the developed world, with mixed results. In Canada, where taxpayers fund the system, the median wait for a family doctor’s referral to treatment was 28.6 weeks in 2025 — the second longest on record — according to the Fraser Institute. Nearly 6 million Canadian adults have no regular family doctor at all, a survey by St. Michael’s Hospital and the Canadian Medical Association found. In England, the National Health Service backlog stood at roughly 7.1 million cases this spring, and the health service has not met its 18-week treatment standard since 2016.
Rogan, who describes himself as politically independent, endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in the 2020 Democratic primary and endorsed President Donald Trump on the eve of the 2024 election. Sanders even endorsed one of Rogan’s healthcare takes last year.
“I think healthcare 100% should be socially funded. I think that Medicare and Medicaid — having programs where people who are hurt can get an operation, and it’s not going to bankrupt them for the rest of their life,” Rogan said in March 2025, adding, “It should be a part of our agreement to take care of each other as a community, that we chip in money for what people would think of as socialist positions.”
“Joe Rogan is absolutely right about this,” Sanders said.
Joe Rogan is absolutely right about this. https://t.co/xIvMSjARWD
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) March 30, 2025
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