December 20, 2024 • 34 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ess or Charles Hilbery as our guest. He's a professor
at the University of Texas School of Law, which I
happened to believe is fantastic because I'm a graduate of same.
His book is Overcharged, Why Americans pay too much for healthcare.
You mentioned that the problem began with Medicare Medicaid in
the sixties, part of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, which turned.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Out not to be.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
It was two point zero of FDR's taking over of
the American economy, and it's hard to strip that back
out of life when Medicare got involved. So, my dad's
eighty four, my mom recently passed, and I go in
and review every expense, everything that comes in, and all
that this whole Medicare thing. I have a show sponsor
(00:49):
called Senior Health Services dot Com, and he and his
team help people who are trying to navigate Medicare. And
every day I get someone who emails me says can
you connect me with them? And I forward it and
sometimes I stay involved for a little while just to see,
you know, kind of what.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
They're working through.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
It's amazing to people that all of a sudden, I
guess when you turn sixty five, You're getting robo calls
and junk mail and all this Medicare, Medicare, Medicare, and
people had no idea, And now all of a sudden,
I've been, you know, dumped into the Medicare playground, and
I don't know why. How does this even work?
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Well? Not too well. I just I recently hit that
age myself, so I can sympathize with those whose mailbox
are crammed with Medicare advantage flyers and things of that sort.
I'm sick of seeing them. And I'm not even using Medicare.
I'm still working, so I'm staying on my employer's healthcare
system or healthcare insurance, although that is very expensive and
(01:53):
far too comprehensive. You know, it's because of the mandates
regarding what employers ansored coverage has to include that I
wind up paying, you know, way too much. Everybody does
pay way too much for insurance. But you know, Medicare,
what can I say. It's a program that was designed
(02:13):
to succeed by massively inflating the deficit. You know, everybody
thinks that Medicare is something that you earn over the
course of your lifetime. We don't think of it as welfare,
and politicians who refer to it as welfare are excoriated.
But the amount that people pay into Medicare is way, way,
way smaller than the amount that they get out for
(02:36):
most people. Now they're obviously exceptions to that, but for
most people, the way that the program succeeds is by
charging them less than the benefits that they will get
out of the system. Well, you know, that's a nice arrangement.
I'd like to have that, But the problem is somebody.
The money to pay for all those benefits has to
(02:57):
come from somewhere, and it only only two sources. One
is general tax revenue, so they use money in addition
tax revenue in addition to the employee tax to fund
the program. And the other is deficit spending. And every
one of these expansions of the Medicare program is funded
through the deficit. So you know, back when Bush two
(03:21):
was president, right, he created Medicare Part D, the Prescription
Drug Benefit Program. Well, the premiums even initially for that program,
we're only set at fifty percent of the estimated cost.
Now they're down to twenty five percent of the estimated cost,
which means everybody loves Medicare Part D because it's a
great deal, right, I'm only paying twenty five percent of
(03:43):
the cost. But what you're really doing is taking the
cost of prescription drugs and rolling them into the deficit.
And the same thing goes for Obamacare with all these
premium subsidies. Everything that the government does is designed to
be popular by being priced below its actual cost, and
the result of that in the long run has to
(04:06):
be deficit increases and inflation increases. There's just no getting
around that.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
It's frustrating because then Medicare, the government is telling you
which doctors you can go to and which you can't,
which procedures you can do and which you can't, and
so you know, and look, it sounds like you and
I are relatively aligned.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
I was an.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Acolyte of Professor Leino Graias. He probably understand where my
views are with regard to politics and the role of
the government and the individual. I'm probably more libertarian certainly
than he was. I'm over on the Rand and Ron
Paul end of things. But what I find frustrating is
that people seem to think that somehow government is protecting
(04:52):
you and aiding you, but in fact, what goes with
that is, you know why you don't feed the bears
at the zoo is they're controlling you, and any government
powerful enough to pay for your medical surgery or medical procedures,
powerful enough to take it away, and then they start
making decisions for you. And that's where we get into
the civil liberties. And that's where I get very frustrated,
(05:15):
because we've now moved beyond healthcare and we've moved into
a sort of totalitarian authoritarian control of the individual.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Well, you're you're certainly singing my song, because you know
you're you're a libertarian. I'm an adjunct scholar at the
Cato Institute. I don't think it gets much more libertarian
than that, I would say, so, so we're on the
same page as far as, you know, being very very
concerned about the governmental control. I think that governmental control
(05:52):
is part of the story, but I think governmental ineptitude
is probably a much bigger part of the story. You know,
I'm willing to say, oh, some of those you know,
bureaucrats who run these programs actually want to want to
help people, and may even believe they are helping people,
but it's actually very difficult to run the healthcare system. Well,
(06:16):
that's why market forces are so important, because market forces
are constantly rewarding providers for figuring out how to serve
patients better. Right, that's how you can get business. If
you can figure out how to serve your customers better,
then you'll get more customers. And that's just something that
requires people who know the nuts and bolts really well
(06:40):
to be constantly reflecting on how they're doing their jobs.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
Right.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
The government bureaucrats, they don't do that. They don't even
know how the jobs work. They just exist mainly to
pay bills and to enact regulations that enable them to
deal with the bird and that all this imposes on
the federal government, and the results for consumers are just terrible.
You know, all these problems that everybody complains about, prior
(07:08):
authorization requirements, surprise bills, these things called facility fees that
you know, you go to an emergency room, the doctor says, oh,
you've got a fever, take some aster and go home,
and then you get a build for ten thousand dollars
because you literally because you walked in the front doors.
It's just like a cover charge at a bar or
something like that, except a lot bigger. You know, none
(07:31):
of that stuff exists in the direct payment system. It
all exists because the government regulates the way healthcare is delivered,
and it does it in stupid ways because.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
It's hard to do it right and government's not in
the business of efficiency. Professor Charles Silver is our guest.
The book is Overcharged, Why you Americans pay too much
for healthcare?
Speaker 4 (07:59):
Bar Michael Berry, change in the system? Back to.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Professor Charles Silver of the University of Texas School of
Law is our guest. He was I have come to
learn in the course of our conversation at ut Law
almost ten years before I was there and still is.
I did not know him, but I happened to think
the world of that law school, and I gained a
(08:33):
lot from from being there, both associations and education. And
this book has been highly recommended to me by numerous
folks as to how to gain a better understanding of
why the healthcare system costs you so much? Overcharged, Why
Americans pay too much for healthcare? Professor Charles Silver is
(08:55):
our guest. Professor, let's talk about young people.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
By young I'm.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Fifty three, so I'm gonna throw myself into there. You know,
I've read that something like half the healthcare costs in
this country are expended on people within the last two
years of their lives. And you know, we see this
where it's just constant, it's just one thing after another
after another, and then they pass and then you kick
in the funeral industry, and I mean it's these are
all industries, like the bridle industry and the birthing industry.
(09:26):
When you look at a person who is relatively healthy
without a chronic condition, and you're looking at the cost
to them that they're bearing, which really is the risk
you're willing to assume. Right, if you're never going to
need a doctor, then you don't need insurance. We just
(09:49):
don't know which one of us is going to be
in a car wreck or have a heart attack. So
we're trying the same way we leverage the risk on
if our house burns down. We're trying to kind of
to keep that at bay and to make a good
financial decision. Where is that going wrong today? Because my
guess is most people are overpaying for insurance coverage that
(10:13):
they won't need until much later. That's going toward people
at their end of life.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Oh, I agree that I think that story is right.
There are a bunch of thoughts that it prompts. One
of them is, you know, I've never been a fan
of taxing people who are relatively young to provide benefits
to people who are relatively old. That strikes me is
wrong on a variety of levels. You know. One is,
(10:41):
every moral theory that I know of says you move
money from richer people to poorer people. Well, older people
are wealthier than younger people. That shouldn't be surprising to anybody.
They've had their whole lives to work, right and save.
They've paid off their cars, they've paid off their homes.
You know, they have other assets. Right, They're on average,
(11:04):
much wealthier than younger people who are struggling, you know,
raising families, you know, just getting jobs, dealing with college
debt and all that stuff. So my moral view is,
if we were going to move money in any direction,
we should move it from older people to younger people.
But our system does the reverse. We're robbing the poor
to pay the rich. I don't understand that. Another thing is,
(11:32):
excuse me, the system really deserves people because it eliminates
all caps on spending. You were talking about end of
life care and how we spend so much money in
the last year or two of people's lives. Well, if
people had to spend their own money, nobody would spend
(11:54):
an infinite amount in their last two years on healthcare.
They would have to make hard decisions. Right, These are
not pleasant decisions, but they would make decisions about how
much healthcare they want. Is it worth spending a million
dollars to extend my life by a month, Right, that's
the kind of decision they would have to make. Well, today,
(12:17):
because we removed all caps from the system, nobody has
to make those decisions. Instead, we just spend literally an
infinite amount of money on people who are in the
final stages of their illness. We get no bang for
the buck. You know, we have people, literally we have
people who are receiving cancer treatments, new cancer treatments that
(12:39):
cost a million dollars, and all those treatments do is
extend their lives by about a month. And it's not
even a good month. It's not a month when you're
going to be out there on the golf course playing
with your buddies and drinking beer. It's a month like
you're in the hospital, right for the whole month which
(13:00):
things just make no sense. But the government, the government
cannot make those decisions. Literally, it cannot because the moment
the government starts talking about rationing care, everybody loses their minds.
And you don't want to be the politician that they're
rallying against. Right, So the government simply ignores the need
(13:25):
to make these decisions and just spends endless amounts of
money because it's other people's money. So why does the
government care? Right, And and you know, we just have
to come back to the world in which people are
responsible for their own end of life's care. You know,
(13:46):
it's it's it's a sad thing, but it's true. We
will all die at some point. And the fact that
we will all die at some point affects a thousand
decisions that each of us makes. Right, When am I
going to stop working? Well, if I'm thinking I don't
have much longer to live, I probably will stop working
(14:07):
so I can spend my last you know, a couple
of years with my family or traveling or whatever it is, right,
I mean, if you start to think about it, knowing
that at some point we will all die, it affects,
as I said, thousands of decisions that we make. You know,
do I want to live in this house that I'm
in now until the end of my life, or do
(14:28):
I want to move to a house that's more handicap
equipped and things of that sort. Right, this is just
another decision. It's a tough decision. I'm not trying to
say otherwise, but it's a decision that needs to be made,
and it needs to be made not by the government,
but by the people who are directly involved and who
can think hard about all these tough problems. There's no
(14:52):
way the government's going to make a good decision. Their
incentives are wrong, their knowledge is too limited. They don't
have access of the counselors that individuals will talk to
and making these kinds of decisions. So, you know, we
just have to get the government out of this business.
What I have proposed is that we you know, there
(15:14):
is one other problem though that we haven't discussed, which
we do need to discuss, which is there are some
people who are too poor to afford fundamental healthcare. We
do need to come up with a way of dealing
with those people, because when they show up at the
hospital needing healthcare, they're not going to be turned away, right,
We're not going to be having sick people dying in
(15:37):
the streets because they can't afford healthcare. So we need
to come up with a way to deal with that.
But the obvious way to deal with that is through
a negative income text, the sort of thing that Milton
Friedman proposed. You know, you provide everybody with a kind
of amount of sustenance that they can use for this purpose.
You could put it into a restricted medical account if
(16:00):
you wanted, But the idea is once you give it
to them, it's hands off for the rest of it.
The government doesn't get involved in the delivery of healthcare.
Just people make decisions on themselves with their own money,
and life goes forward. And I think if we did that,
the healthcare system would operate much more efficiently. Well.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
The great frustration, as you know, is that everybody gets
a vote, even people that make bad decisions, and that
many people make bad decisions. You know that we will
have a lot of people who say I can't afford
medical care because they don't save money.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
But they've got a big screen TV in every room.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
And they've got, you know, a car they can't afford
that they're driving.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
They end up with the car that they can't afford,
and we end up paying for the health care that
they can't afford.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
The book is Overcharged, Why Americans Pay Too Much for Healthcare?
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Professor Charles Silverman.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
We're gonna add a little bit about these whorehouses.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
I know all Ramon wants to know what around the
world is.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Whistling bunghole spleen splitters, whisker biscuits, honkey riders, whoskerdoos, whosker
don'ts nips and dazers with it without the scooter stick
or one single whistling kiddy. Jason Michael.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Professor Charles silver is our guest. It's a subject of
great interest to me into many of you.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
The book is.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Called Overcharged, Why Americans Pay Too Much for Healthcare. He
is a law professor at the University of Texas.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
At Austin School of Law.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
And we ended the last segment with the discussion that
at the end of the day, the allocation of scarce
resources and who will make that decision. We're back at
that point again in every family, you know, you got
eight kids and you got one chicken. Mom says you're
not getting a second piece. So there's some cartilage left
(17:53):
on that leg. If you're hungry, you'll eat that. And
there comes a point where we have to decide, with
scarce resources, who will make the decision as to where
those resources will be deployed. Will it be the government
or will it be the individual? And if it's the individual,
there will be those who say, well, I want as
(18:14):
much as my neighbor has, Okay, we'll earn the money
to purchase that. Well, I don't earn as much. I
want to use the power of the gun through at
the direction of the government that I either more of
me than there are of the rich people I vote for.
I want them well. The only alternative is for the
government to do it. Professor I harken back to a study,
and it's been a while since I read this book.
(18:37):
It's interesting because I'm a believer and let the marketplace decide.
You know, healthcare is the one area where we think
everybody gets all the healthcare they want, but we all
end up paying for that. We don't say everybody gets
all the food they want, or all the cars they want,
or all the houses they want, or all the clothes
they want, but for some reason, everybody gets all the
healthcare they want even at the point that it's throwing
good money after bad so socialist system the opposite of
(18:59):
what I propose. In Sweden, they did a study and
it was a multi decade study you may be aware
of it, on prostate cancer in men, and they determined
that out of I think it was three thousand men
who had prostate cancer who were diagnosed with prostate cancer
and they chose not to treat the prostate cancer. And
(19:22):
they did about a twenty five year study and the
number of men who died of untreated prostate cancer was
something like thirty out of three thousand. So they came
to the conclusion with a government completely government run system
that with scarce resources, it does not make sense for
us to treat prostate cancer per se because nobody, very
(19:44):
few people are going to die of prostate cancer. Let's
spend our money on other things that if we don't
spend it there you die. And it strikes me that
while that's the opposite of the capitalist system, there does
need to be an understanding that we're wasting a lot
of money on studies because and this gets to the
second point of what you've written a lot about medical
(20:05):
malpractice and the fear of medical malpractice. I don't think
everybody needs a glaucoma test every time they go for
their license, but God forbid one person not be diagnosed
with glaucoma. We're practicing defensive medicine. We're over ordering tests,
which is a waste of our time and energy but
also money, and we're not actually doing We're not engaged
(20:27):
in what I would consider smart effective healing because everyone
is afraid of being sued. And that has we get
back to our point. The book is overcharged. Why Americans
pay too much for healthcare? I think that's a big
portion of what we spend.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Your thought, well, I'm going to disagree with part of that,
but I agree with a lot of it as well.
In my world, when you have a self interested explanation
for something, you probably don't have to look very far
for any other explanation. Self interest usually is a pretty
good explanation. And the reason, you know, some people say, oh,
(21:04):
the reason that doctors overtreat is because they're afraid of
being sued. Well, there's a simpler self interested explanation, which
is every time they treat somebody, they make money, and
until you take the profit out of these services, which
will never happen. It's very hard to determine that they're
actually engaging in any real defensive medicine at all. There
(21:27):
are lots of studies that are out there now that
have found that, I mean, defensive medicine is kind of
hard to define because it can be both. It can
be both the provision of services that aren't needed and
the avoidance of services that are needed, because you get
sued when you do deliver services as well as when
you withhold them. So it's hard to figure out exactly
(21:50):
what's going on with defensive medicine. But as I said,
I don't think we really need to worry about it
very much because we have a self interested explanation, which
is that the services are profitable. And there's also you know,
doctors have a lot of confidence in their ability to
help people, and they have a very strong desire to
help people.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Right at least that's what it should be.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
You know.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
You remind me of another great document written in seventeen
seventy six, and that from a Scotsman named Adam Smith,
who famously said, it is not from the benevolence of
the butcher, or the brewer or the baker, that we
expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own
self interest exactly. Self interest drives so many things. That
(22:31):
guy is not standing on his feet behind the counter
at the donut shop for so many hours and didn't
get there at two thirty this morning because he's a
nice guy. He wants to make a profit off the donuts.
I get to enjoy the donuts in exchange for the
currency that I was given for the sweat of my brow.
It works, and I think we have to return.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
That to the process. And I think that's where you
and I can agree.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
I think we do agree on that, but we also
agree that I mean, these social programs have fundamentally undermined
the incentive to save and to be self reliant, you know,
the I think you know. I constantly read articles about
how many people are retiring and all they have to
(23:15):
live on is social security and medicare. They don't have
much in the way of savings. And people say, well,
how could you possibly, you know, let that happen? Right?
Why are you buying, as you put it, those you know,
big screen TVs for every room when you should be
saving for your later years. I think the answer is
that most people naively think, oh, the government's just going
to take care of me in my later years, so
(23:37):
I don't have to save, and they, you know, the
temptation to spend money now rather than later, it's always there.
Who wants to save? Saving is boring right? Consuming today
is fun. So you know, I think that as long
as we have these paygo programs where you know, you
can keep getting money out above what you put in,
(24:00):
that the incentives to save will forever be undermined. And
that's a terrible thing, I think, because, as you said,
you know, we're just getting ourselves into this world where
each of us expects everybody else to pay for everything
that we need. If it's only healthcare, they still expect
to pay for everything that they want, and that just
drives costs through the roof without really any offsetting benefits
(24:23):
that make sense of it.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Zoologists will tell you you are doing great harm by
domesticating certain breeds of animals, particularly if you intend at
some point to release them into the wild.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
You make them slaves.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
They lose the very abilities, and we've seen with evolutionary
studies that teeth are not as sharpenning longer, claws are
not as sharp anymore. They can no longer run as fast.
They grow to be like prison inmates, dependent on someone
else to provide for them.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
And I think that has to be understood by people.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Our guest is Professor Charles Silver, who will be with
us for one more seay.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
The book is Overcharged? Why Americans pay too much?
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Professor Charles Silver of the University of Texas School of Law,
my alma mater, has graciously spent quite a bit of
time with us discussing an area of his academic expertise
and prowess, The book is Overcharged, Why Americans pay too
much for healthcare?
Speaker 2 (25:29):
And folks, I have to say, as as.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
You've heard me say many times, politics is interesting, you know,
the rooting for your team versus that team, the Trump Dance,
the reds and Blues and who shows up and on.
But my primary interest at the end of the day
is not my team winning and your team losing. My
primary interest is creating a structure where the individual can thrive,
(25:54):
where there is opportunity and fairness, safeguard's rule of law,
and that will, at the end of the day, advance humanity.
It always has.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
It's the only thing that does not Government and.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
So these sort of policy discussions, I understand are probably
less thrilling than my usual screaming and hollering about this
or that indignity.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Of the day. But this is what matters.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
This is why we get involved in campaigns, is to
take control of the government and get it out of
our lives and create safeguards and reduce regulation and promote
the rule of law so that hardworking people can create
enough John Gault style for the rest of us to prosper.
And this stuff matters. So that's why we have these conversations.
(26:41):
Professor Charles Silver, overcharged, why Americans pay too much for healthcare?
Professor Silver, I want you to be.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
King for a day. You have no.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
As this benevolent monarch, you have no political concerns. Reconstruct
our health care facility to provide an opportunity for the
most healing to occur and the individuals to take control
of their own healthcare.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
What does that look like?
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Wow, I'm nervous about being king for a day because
I don't believe in kings, I know, but I'll try.
I think we basically wipe away everything in terms of
these programs and the restrictive regulations. You know, have you
ever heard of a certificate of need law? I don't know.
(27:32):
They're called con laws by for short, but con laws
regulate how many new healthcare providers can set up shops.
So if you want to open a hospital, you got
to get permission. But guess what the way the con
laws work, the existing hospitals have a vote and whether
(27:53):
you can open a new hospital or not, like giving
McDonald's a vote on whether Burger King can open restaurant
right across the street. It just doesn't make any sense.
But that's the way I would get rid of all
of those supply constraining regulations, and I would get rid
of all of these programs Obamacare, Medicare, whatever, and I
(28:16):
would go to a very simple wealth distribution program. I'm
not sure exactly how much money it should be. That's
something that has to have some work done. But you
know we're currently spending if you put all the healthcare
programs together, you know we're spending like seven eight ten
thousand dollars a person per you know, per American through
(28:39):
these programs. If we just took some of that money
and started plunking it into restricted healthcare savings accounts for people,
so every year. You know, there's just a little bit
more that's put in. Pretty soon, everybody would have enough
money to pay for their basic needs and to buy
catastrophic insurance. And I would let people buy just as
(29:00):
much catastrophic insurance as they want. I wouldn't have coverage mandates.
You know, right now, if you want to buy a
policy on one of the exchanges and you're a young man,
you know you have to pay for annual mammograms, right,
but you're not getting mamograms because you're a man, right right,
(29:22):
So you know, I wouldn't force people to buy any
particular amount of coverage, and I would let insurance companies
limit the total payouts, which you know, that's really where
things are screwed up right now. It's one of the areas,
right they have to spend unlimited amounts of money on people.
I would let people let design their own insurance programs.
(29:45):
And I think that you know, it's not going to
work perfectly. Nothing ever works perfectly, right, but it would
work so much better and be so much more efficient
than the existing system, and it'd be way more consumer friendly.
And that's a huge improvement because I don't know anybody
who is happy with the existing healthcare system. I mean,
(30:05):
this terrible murder that just occurred has brought to the
surface the extraordinary hatred that people have toward insurance companies.
You know, that's just one symptom. We're spending twice as
much as any other country on healthcare, and we're getting
less and less healthy every year. You know, our life
(30:29):
expectancy is declining. We're just doing everything wrong that we
possibly can do. So wipe the slate, get rid of
all this stuff. Start out with a really simple direct
payment system and a cash transfer system to deal with
people who are so poor that they can't even afford
the basics, and just be satisfied with that. I said,
(30:51):
It's not gonna be perfect, but it'd be hard to
improve on all. Right.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Yeah, and to get outside the purview of what we've discussed,
but just speak more to the process that lands us
where we are. Our criminal justice system. We spend more
on imprisoning and prosecuting and chasing down bad guys in
any other country in the world, and yet I think
we do a far worse job, at less effective job
(31:17):
than most countries in the world. And I think meant
much of that. You can see some similarities in patterns
that pervade those two industries. And by the way, then
we could move over into public education and education generally.
I mean, there are a number of different applications for
where this process has gone wrong, and it is frustrating.
(31:42):
I very much appreciate your time, Professor. I feel the
better for it. The book is overcharged Why Americans pay
too much for healthcare? Professor Charles Silver of the University
of Texas School of Law.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Thank you, sir, Thank you, Michael pleasure.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
And with that, might I suggest to each and every
one of you that while politics is an interesting undertaking,
and it is you know, winning elections, and he said this,
and we're going to show him, and.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
You know, it's a battle royale.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
And you know I argued with my cousin at the
Thanksgiving table. At the end of it all, the reason
for the arguments, the reason for the elections should be
very redemptive, very practical, not just existential, not just ideological.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
They're real to your.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Life, and that is creating a governmental system where individuals
are free to thrive. Government is not just. Government is
not merciful. Government is not protective, It is not good.
(33:02):
Government is clunky, it's inefficient. If you've stood in line
at the DPS office to get your driver's license and
thought to yourself, you could move this thing along. If
you've seen someone who is on the clock and doesn't
care about results, if you've seen the worst of government
in every aspect, whether it's the inspector who doesn't seem
(33:24):
to care that they're coming back and adding these these
regulations that are going to cost this much more for
you to build this, and now you're going to walk
away from the project and lead the property vacant, and
that's not good for anybody. These are the things that
we should spend our time on. And I say this
because politics has become sport and it's become for many
(33:45):
people their favorite hobby. But let's not lose track of
what we're trying to do here, which is literally not
to exaggerated, save our
Speaker 4 (33:52):
Countrys am Els has left for you, Thank you, and
good night.
Ess or Charles Hilbery as our guest. He's a professor
at the University of Texas School of Law, which I
happened to believe is fantastic because I'm a graduate of same.
His book is Overcharged, Why Americans pay too much for healthcare.
You mentioned that the problem began with Medicare Medicaid in
the sixties, part of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, which turned.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Out not to be.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
It was two point zero of FDR's taking over of
the American economy, and it's hard to strip that back
out of life when Medicare got involved. So, my dad's
eighty four, my mom recently passed, and I go in
and review every expense, everything that comes in, and all
that this whole Medicare thing. I have a show sponsor
(00:49):
called Senior Health Services dot Com, and he and his
team help people who are trying to navigate Medicare. And
every day I get someone who emails me says can
you connect me with them? And I forward it and
sometimes I stay involved for a little while just to see,
you know, kind of what.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
They're working through.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
It's amazing to people that all of a sudden, I
guess when you turn sixty five, You're getting robo calls
and junk mail and all this Medicare, Medicare, Medicare, and
people had no idea, And now all of a sudden,
I've been, you know, dumped into the Medicare playground, and
I don't know why. How does this even work?
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Well? Not too well. I just I recently hit that
age myself, so I can sympathize with those whose mailbox
are crammed with Medicare advantage flyers and things of that sort.
I'm sick of seeing them. And I'm not even using Medicare.
I'm still working, so I'm staying on my employer's healthcare
system or healthcare insurance, although that is very expensive and
(01:53):
far too comprehensive. You know, it's because of the mandates
regarding what employers ansored coverage has to include that I
wind up paying, you know, way too much. Everybody does
pay way too much for insurance. But you know, Medicare,
what can I say. It's a program that was designed
(02:13):
to succeed by massively inflating the deficit. You know, everybody
thinks that Medicare is something that you earn over the
course of your lifetime. We don't think of it as welfare,
and politicians who refer to it as welfare are excoriated.
But the amount that people pay into Medicare is way, way,
way smaller than the amount that they get out for
(02:36):
most people. Now they're obviously exceptions to that, but for
most people, the way that the program succeeds is by
charging them less than the benefits that they will get
out of the system. Well, you know, that's a nice arrangement.
I'd like to have that, But the problem is somebody.
The money to pay for all those benefits has to
(02:57):
come from somewhere, and it only only two sources. One
is general tax revenue, so they use money in addition
tax revenue in addition to the employee tax to fund
the program. And the other is deficit spending. And every
one of these expansions of the Medicare program is funded
through the deficit. So you know, back when Bush two
(03:21):
was president, right, he created Medicare Part D, the Prescription
Drug Benefit Program. Well, the premiums even initially for that program,
we're only set at fifty percent of the estimated cost.
Now they're down to twenty five percent of the estimated cost,
which means everybody loves Medicare Part D because it's a
great deal, right, I'm only paying twenty five percent of
(03:43):
the cost. But what you're really doing is taking the
cost of prescription drugs and rolling them into the deficit.
And the same thing goes for Obamacare with all these
premium subsidies. Everything that the government does is designed to
be popular by being priced below its actual cost, and
the result of that in the long run has to
(04:06):
be deficit increases and inflation increases. There's just no getting
around that.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
It's frustrating because then Medicare, the government is telling you
which doctors you can go to and which you can't,
which procedures you can do and which you can't, and
so you know, and look, it sounds like you and
I are relatively aligned.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
I was an.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Acolyte of Professor Leino Graias. He probably understand where my
views are with regard to politics and the role of
the government and the individual. I'm probably more libertarian certainly
than he was. I'm over on the Rand and Ron
Paul end of things. But what I find frustrating is
that people seem to think that somehow government is protecting
(04:52):
you and aiding you, but in fact, what goes with
that is, you know why you don't feed the bears
at the zoo is they're controlling you, and any government
powerful enough to pay for your medical surgery or medical procedures,
powerful enough to take it away, and then they start
making decisions for you. And that's where we get into
the civil liberties. And that's where I get very frustrated,
(05:15):
because we've now moved beyond healthcare and we've moved into
a sort of totalitarian authoritarian control of the individual.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Well, you're you're certainly singing my song, because you know
you're you're a libertarian. I'm an adjunct scholar at the
Cato Institute. I don't think it gets much more libertarian
than that, I would say, so, so we're on the
same page as far as, you know, being very very
concerned about the governmental control. I think that governmental control
(05:52):
is part of the story, but I think governmental ineptitude
is probably a much bigger part of the story. You know,
I'm willing to say, oh, some of those you know,
bureaucrats who run these programs actually want to want to
help people, and may even believe they are helping people,
but it's actually very difficult to run the healthcare system. Well,
(06:16):
that's why market forces are so important, because market forces
are constantly rewarding providers for figuring out how to serve
patients better. Right, that's how you can get business. If
you can figure out how to serve your customers better,
then you'll get more customers. And that's just something that
requires people who know the nuts and bolts really well
(06:40):
to be constantly reflecting on how they're doing their jobs.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
Right.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
The government bureaucrats, they don't do that. They don't even
know how the jobs work. They just exist mainly to
pay bills and to enact regulations that enable them to
deal with the bird and that all this imposes on
the federal government, and the results for consumers are just terrible.
You know, all these problems that everybody complains about, prior
(07:08):
authorization requirements, surprise bills, these things called facility fees that
you know, you go to an emergency room, the doctor says, oh,
you've got a fever, take some aster and go home,
and then you get a build for ten thousand dollars
because you literally because you walked in the front doors.
It's just like a cover charge at a bar or
something like that, except a lot bigger. You know, none
(07:31):
of that stuff exists in the direct payment system. It
all exists because the government regulates the way healthcare is delivered,
and it does it in stupid ways because.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
It's hard to do it right and government's not in
the business of efficiency. Professor Charles Silver is our guest.
The book is Overcharged, Why you Americans pay too much
for healthcare?
Speaker 4 (07:59):
Bar Michael Berry, change in the system? Back to.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Professor Charles Silver of the University of Texas School of
Law is our guest. He was I have come to
learn in the course of our conversation at ut Law
almost ten years before I was there and still is.
I did not know him, but I happened to think
the world of that law school, and I gained a
(08:33):
lot from from being there, both associations and education. And
this book has been highly recommended to me by numerous
folks as to how to gain a better understanding of
why the healthcare system costs you so much? Overcharged, Why
Americans pay too much for healthcare? Professor Charles Silver is
(08:55):
our guest. Professor, let's talk about young people.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
By young I'm.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Fifty three, so I'm gonna throw myself into there. You know,
I've read that something like half the healthcare costs in
this country are expended on people within the last two
years of their lives. And you know, we see this
where it's just constant, it's just one thing after another
after another, and then they pass and then you kick
in the funeral industry, and I mean it's these are
all industries, like the bridle industry and the birthing industry.
(09:26):
When you look at a person who is relatively healthy
without a chronic condition, and you're looking at the cost
to them that they're bearing, which really is the risk
you're willing to assume. Right, if you're never going to
need a doctor, then you don't need insurance. We just
(09:49):
don't know which one of us is going to be
in a car wreck or have a heart attack. So
we're trying the same way we leverage the risk on
if our house burns down. We're trying to kind of
to keep that at bay and to make a good
financial decision. Where is that going wrong today? Because my
guess is most people are overpaying for insurance coverage that
(10:13):
they won't need until much later. That's going toward people
at their end of life.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Oh, I agree that I think that story is right.
There are a bunch of thoughts that it prompts. One
of them is, you know, I've never been a fan
of taxing people who are relatively young to provide benefits
to people who are relatively old. That strikes me is
wrong on a variety of levels. You know. One is,
(10:41):
every moral theory that I know of says you move
money from richer people to poorer people. Well, older people
are wealthier than younger people. That shouldn't be surprising to anybody.
They've had their whole lives to work, right and save.
They've paid off their cars, they've paid off their homes.
You know, they have other assets. Right, They're on average,
(11:04):
much wealthier than younger people who are struggling, you know,
raising families, you know, just getting jobs, dealing with college
debt and all that stuff. So my moral view is,
if we were going to move money in any direction,
we should move it from older people to younger people.
But our system does the reverse. We're robbing the poor
to pay the rich. I don't understand that. Another thing is,
(11:32):
excuse me, the system really deserves people because it eliminates
all caps on spending. You were talking about end of
life care and how we spend so much money in
the last year or two of people's lives. Well, if
people had to spend their own money, nobody would spend
(11:54):
an infinite amount in their last two years on healthcare.
They would have to make hard decisions. Right, These are
not pleasant decisions, but they would make decisions about how
much healthcare they want. Is it worth spending a million
dollars to extend my life by a month, Right, that's
the kind of decision they would have to make. Well, today,
(12:17):
because we removed all caps from the system, nobody has
to make those decisions. Instead, we just spend literally an
infinite amount of money on people who are in the
final stages of their illness. We get no bang for
the buck. You know, we have people, literally we have
people who are receiving cancer treatments, new cancer treatments that
(12:39):
cost a million dollars, and all those treatments do is
extend their lives by about a month. And it's not
even a good month. It's not a month when you're
going to be out there on the golf course playing
with your buddies and drinking beer. It's a month like
you're in the hospital, right for the whole month which
(13:00):
things just make no sense. But the government, the government
cannot make those decisions. Literally, it cannot because the moment
the government starts talking about rationing care, everybody loses their minds.
And you don't want to be the politician that they're
rallying against. Right, So the government simply ignores the need
(13:25):
to make these decisions and just spends endless amounts of
money because it's other people's money. So why does the
government care? Right, And and you know, we just have
to come back to the world in which people are
responsible for their own end of life's care. You know,
(13:46):
it's it's it's a sad thing, but it's true. We
will all die at some point. And the fact that
we will all die at some point affects a thousand
decisions that each of us makes. Right, When am I
going to stop working? Well, if I'm thinking I don't
have much longer to live, I probably will stop working
(14:07):
so I can spend my last you know, a couple
of years with my family or traveling or whatever it is, right,
I mean, if you start to think about it, knowing
that at some point we will all die, it affects,
as I said, thousands of decisions that we make. You know,
do I want to live in this house that I'm
in now until the end of my life, or do
(14:28):
I want to move to a house that's more handicap
equipped and things of that sort. Right, this is just
another decision. It's a tough decision. I'm not trying to
say otherwise, but it's a decision that needs to be made,
and it needs to be made not by the government,
but by the people who are directly involved and who
can think hard about all these tough problems. There's no
(14:52):
way the government's going to make a good decision. Their
incentives are wrong, their knowledge is too limited. They don't
have access of the counselors that individuals will talk to
and making these kinds of decisions. So, you know, we
just have to get the government out of this business.
What I have proposed is that we you know, there
(15:14):
is one other problem though that we haven't discussed, which
we do need to discuss, which is there are some
people who are too poor to afford fundamental healthcare. We
do need to come up with a way of dealing
with those people, because when they show up at the
hospital needing healthcare, they're not going to be turned away, right,
We're not going to be having sick people dying in
(15:37):
the streets because they can't afford healthcare. So we need
to come up with a way to deal with that.
But the obvious way to deal with that is through
a negative income text, the sort of thing that Milton
Friedman proposed. You know, you provide everybody with a kind
of amount of sustenance that they can use for this purpose.
You could put it into a restricted medical account if
(16:00):
you wanted, But the idea is once you give it
to them, it's hands off for the rest of it.
The government doesn't get involved in the delivery of healthcare.
Just people make decisions on themselves with their own money,
and life goes forward. And I think if we did that,
the healthcare system would operate much more efficiently. Well.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
The great frustration, as you know, is that everybody gets
a vote, even people that make bad decisions, and that
many people make bad decisions. You know that we will
have a lot of people who say I can't afford
medical care because they don't save money.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
But they've got a big screen TV in every room.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
And they've got, you know, a car they can't afford
that they're driving.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
They end up with the car that they can't afford,
and we end up paying for the health care that
they can't afford.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
The book is Overcharged, Why Americans Pay Too Much for Healthcare?
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Professor Charles Silverman.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
We're gonna add a little bit about these whorehouses.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
I know all Ramon wants to know what around the
world is.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Whistling bunghole spleen splitters, whisker biscuits, honkey riders, whoskerdoos, whosker
don'ts nips and dazers with it without the scooter stick
or one single whistling kiddy. Jason Michael.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Professor Charles silver is our guest. It's a subject of
great interest to me into many of you.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
The book is.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Called Overcharged, Why Americans Pay Too Much for Healthcare. He
is a law professor at the University of Texas.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
At Austin School of Law.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
And we ended the last segment with the discussion that
at the end of the day, the allocation of scarce
resources and who will make that decision. We're back at
that point again in every family, you know, you got
eight kids and you got one chicken. Mom says you're
not getting a second piece. So there's some cartilage left
(17:53):
on that leg. If you're hungry, you'll eat that. And
there comes a point where we have to decide, with
scarce resources, who will make the decision as to where
those resources will be deployed. Will it be the government
or will it be the individual? And if it's the individual,
there will be those who say, well, I want as
(18:14):
much as my neighbor has, Okay, we'll earn the money
to purchase that. Well, I don't earn as much. I
want to use the power of the gun through at
the direction of the government that I either more of
me than there are of the rich people I vote for.
I want them well. The only alternative is for the
government to do it. Professor I harken back to a study,
and it's been a while since I read this book.
(18:37):
It's interesting because I'm a believer and let the marketplace decide.
You know, healthcare is the one area where we think
everybody gets all the healthcare they want, but we all
end up paying for that. We don't say everybody gets
all the food they want, or all the cars they want,
or all the houses they want, or all the clothes
they want, but for some reason, everybody gets all the
healthcare they want even at the point that it's throwing
good money after bad so socialist system the opposite of
(18:59):
what I propose. In Sweden, they did a study and
it was a multi decade study you may be aware
of it, on prostate cancer in men, and they determined
that out of I think it was three thousand men
who had prostate cancer who were diagnosed with prostate cancer
and they chose not to treat the prostate cancer. And
(19:22):
they did about a twenty five year study and the
number of men who died of untreated prostate cancer was
something like thirty out of three thousand. So they came
to the conclusion with a government completely government run system
that with scarce resources, it does not make sense for
us to treat prostate cancer per se because nobody, very
(19:44):
few people are going to die of prostate cancer. Let's
spend our money on other things that if we don't
spend it there you die. And it strikes me that
while that's the opposite of the capitalist system, there does
need to be an understanding that we're wasting a lot
of money on studies because and this gets to the
second point of what you've written a lot about medical
(20:05):
malpractice and the fear of medical malpractice. I don't think
everybody needs a glaucoma test every time they go for
their license, but God forbid one person not be diagnosed
with glaucoma. We're practicing defensive medicine. We're over ordering tests,
which is a waste of our time and energy but
also money, and we're not actually doing We're not engaged
(20:27):
in what I would consider smart effective healing because everyone
is afraid of being sued. And that has we get
back to our point. The book is overcharged. Why Americans
pay too much for healthcare? I think that's a big
portion of what we spend.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Your thought, well, I'm going to disagree with part of that,
but I agree with a lot of it as well.
In my world, when you have a self interested explanation
for something, you probably don't have to look very far
for any other explanation. Self interest usually is a pretty
good explanation. And the reason, you know, some people say, oh,
(21:04):
the reason that doctors overtreat is because they're afraid of
being sued. Well, there's a simpler self interested explanation, which
is every time they treat somebody, they make money, and
until you take the profit out of these services, which
will never happen. It's very hard to determine that they're
actually engaging in any real defensive medicine at all. There
(21:27):
are lots of studies that are out there now that
have found that, I mean, defensive medicine is kind of
hard to define because it can be both. It can
be both the provision of services that aren't needed and
the avoidance of services that are needed, because you get
sued when you do deliver services as well as when
you withhold them. So it's hard to figure out exactly
(21:50):
what's going on with defensive medicine. But as I said,
I don't think we really need to worry about it
very much because we have a self interested explanation, which
is that the services are profitable. And there's also you know,
doctors have a lot of confidence in their ability to
help people, and they have a very strong desire to
help people.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Right at least that's what it should be.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
You know.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
You remind me of another great document written in seventeen
seventy six, and that from a Scotsman named Adam Smith,
who famously said, it is not from the benevolence of
the butcher, or the brewer or the baker, that we
expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own
self interest exactly. Self interest drives so many things. That
(22:31):
guy is not standing on his feet behind the counter
at the donut shop for so many hours and didn't
get there at two thirty this morning because he's a
nice guy. He wants to make a profit off the donuts.
I get to enjoy the donuts in exchange for the
currency that I was given for the sweat of my brow.
It works, and I think we have to return.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
That to the process. And I think that's where you
and I can agree.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
I think we do agree on that, but we also
agree that I mean, these social programs have fundamentally undermined
the incentive to save and to be self reliant, you know,
the I think you know. I constantly read articles about
how many people are retiring and all they have to
(23:15):
live on is social security and medicare. They don't have
much in the way of savings. And people say, well,
how could you possibly, you know, let that happen? Right?
Why are you buying, as you put it, those you know,
big screen TVs for every room when you should be
saving for your later years. I think the answer is
that most people naively think, oh, the government's just going
to take care of me in my later years, so
(23:37):
I don't have to save, and they, you know, the
temptation to spend money now rather than later, it's always there.
Who wants to save? Saving is boring right? Consuming today
is fun. So you know, I think that as long
as we have these paygo programs where you know, you
can keep getting money out above what you put in,
(24:00):
that the incentives to save will forever be undermined. And
that's a terrible thing, I think, because, as you said,
you know, we're just getting ourselves into this world where
each of us expects everybody else to pay for everything
that we need. If it's only healthcare, they still expect
to pay for everything that they want, and that just
drives costs through the roof without really any offsetting benefits
(24:23):
that make sense of it.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Zoologists will tell you you are doing great harm by
domesticating certain breeds of animals, particularly if you intend at
some point to release them into the wild.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
You make them slaves.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
They lose the very abilities, and we've seen with evolutionary
studies that teeth are not as sharpenning longer, claws are
not as sharp anymore. They can no longer run as fast.
They grow to be like prison inmates, dependent on someone
else to provide for them.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
And I think that has to be understood by people.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Our guest is Professor Charles Silver, who will be with
us for one more seay.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
The book is Overcharged? Why Americans pay too much?
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Professor Charles Silver of the University of Texas School of Law,
my alma mater, has graciously spent quite a bit of
time with us discussing an area of his academic expertise
and prowess, The book is Overcharged, Why Americans pay too
much for healthcare?
Speaker 2 (25:29):
And folks, I have to say, as as.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
You've heard me say many times, politics is interesting, you know,
the rooting for your team versus that team, the Trump Dance,
the reds and Blues and who shows up and on.
But my primary interest at the end of the day
is not my team winning and your team losing. My
primary interest is creating a structure where the individual can thrive,
(25:54):
where there is opportunity and fairness, safeguard's rule of law,
and that will, at the end of the day, advance humanity.
It always has.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
It's the only thing that does not Government and.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
So these sort of policy discussions, I understand are probably
less thrilling than my usual screaming and hollering about this
or that indignity.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Of the day. But this is what matters.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
This is why we get involved in campaigns, is to
take control of the government and get it out of
our lives and create safeguards and reduce regulation and promote
the rule of law so that hardworking people can create
enough John Gault style for the rest of us to prosper.
And this stuff matters. So that's why we have these conversations.
(26:41):
Professor Charles Silver, overcharged, why Americans pay too much for healthcare?
Professor Silver, I want you to be.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
King for a day. You have no.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
As this benevolent monarch, you have no political concerns. Reconstruct
our health care facility to provide an opportunity for the
most healing to occur and the individuals to take control
of their own healthcare.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
What does that look like?
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Wow, I'm nervous about being king for a day because
I don't believe in kings, I know, but I'll try.
I think we basically wipe away everything in terms of
these programs and the restrictive regulations. You know, have you
ever heard of a certificate of need law? I don't know.
(27:32):
They're called con laws by for short, but con laws
regulate how many new healthcare providers can set up shops.
So if you want to open a hospital, you got
to get permission. But guess what the way the con
laws work, the existing hospitals have a vote and whether
(27:53):
you can open a new hospital or not, like giving
McDonald's a vote on whether Burger King can open restaurant
right across the street. It just doesn't make any sense.
But that's the way I would get rid of all
of those supply constraining regulations, and I would get rid
of all of these programs Obamacare, Medicare, whatever, and I
(28:16):
would go to a very simple wealth distribution program. I'm
not sure exactly how much money it should be. That's
something that has to have some work done. But you
know we're currently spending if you put all the healthcare
programs together, you know we're spending like seven eight ten
thousand dollars a person per you know, per American through
(28:39):
these programs. If we just took some of that money
and started plunking it into restricted healthcare savings accounts for people,
so every year. You know, there's just a little bit
more that's put in. Pretty soon, everybody would have enough
money to pay for their basic needs and to buy
catastrophic insurance. And I would let people buy just as
(29:00):
much catastrophic insurance as they want. I wouldn't have coverage mandates.
You know, right now, if you want to buy a
policy on one of the exchanges and you're a young man,
you know you have to pay for annual mammograms, right,
but you're not getting mamograms because you're a man, right right,
(29:22):
So you know, I wouldn't force people to buy any
particular amount of coverage, and I would let insurance companies
limit the total payouts, which you know, that's really where
things are screwed up right now. It's one of the areas,
right they have to spend unlimited amounts of money on people.
I would let people let design their own insurance programs.
(29:45):
And I think that you know, it's not going to
work perfectly. Nothing ever works perfectly, right, but it would
work so much better and be so much more efficient
than the existing system, and it'd be way more consumer friendly.
And that's a huge improvement because I don't know anybody
who is happy with the existing healthcare system. I mean,
(30:05):
this terrible murder that just occurred has brought to the
surface the extraordinary hatred that people have toward insurance companies.
You know, that's just one symptom. We're spending twice as
much as any other country on healthcare, and we're getting
less and less healthy every year. You know, our life
(30:29):
expectancy is declining. We're just doing everything wrong that we
possibly can do. So wipe the slate, get rid of
all this stuff. Start out with a really simple direct
payment system and a cash transfer system to deal with
people who are so poor that they can't even afford
the basics, and just be satisfied with that. I said,
(30:51):
It's not gonna be perfect, but it'd be hard to
improve on all. Right.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Yeah, and to get outside the purview of what we've discussed,
but just speak more to the process that lands us
where we are. Our criminal justice system. We spend more
on imprisoning and prosecuting and chasing down bad guys in
any other country in the world, and yet I think
we do a far worse job, at less effective job
(31:17):
than most countries in the world. And I think meant
much of that. You can see some similarities in patterns
that pervade those two industries. And by the way, then
we could move over into public education and education generally.
I mean, there are a number of different applications for
where this process has gone wrong, and it is frustrating.
(31:42):
I very much appreciate your time, Professor. I feel the
better for it. The book is overcharged Why Americans pay
too much for healthcare? Professor Charles Silver of the University
of Texas School of Law.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Thank you, sir, Thank you, Michael pleasure.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
And with that, might I suggest to each and every
one of you that while politics is an interesting undertaking,
and it is you know, winning elections, and he said this,
and we're going to show him, and.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
You know, it's a battle royale.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
And you know I argued with my cousin at the
Thanksgiving table. At the end of it all, the reason
for the arguments, the reason for the elections should be
very redemptive, very practical, not just existential, not just ideological.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
They're real to your.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Life, and that is creating a governmental system where individuals
are free to thrive. Government is not just. Government is
not merciful. Government is not protective, It is not good.
(33:02):
Government is clunky, it's inefficient. If you've stood in line
at the DPS office to get your driver's license and
thought to yourself, you could move this thing along. If
you've seen someone who is on the clock and doesn't
care about results, if you've seen the worst of government
in every aspect, whether it's the inspector who doesn't seem
(33:24):
to care that they're coming back and adding these these
regulations that are going to cost this much more for
you to build this, and now you're going to walk
away from the project and lead the property vacant, and
that's not good for anybody. These are the things that
we should spend our time on. And I say this
because politics has become sport and it's become for many
(33:45):
people their favorite hobby. But let's not lose track of
what we're trying to do here, which is literally not
to exaggerated, save our
Speaker 4 (33:52):
Countrys am Els has left for you, Thank you, and
good night.
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