Who Brokers the Debt Ceiling Deal?

Today on the Jimmy Barrett Show:

• Heritage Foundation's Richard Stern on the debt ceiling deal
• Dr. Dean Waldman on big pharma

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
What we need is more common sense. Common We got the youth plane breaking
down the world's nonsense about how Americancommon sense. We'll see us through with
the common sense of Houston. I'mjust pro common sense for Houston from Houston
is talking about. This is theJimmy Barrett Show, brought to you by

(00:27):
viewin dot Com. Now here's JimmyBarrett. All right, welcome to the
show. It's Wednesday. Nice havingit feels like Tuesday. So it's nice
having a Wednesday. It feels likea Tuesday thanks to the holiday. So
nice. Short work week for everybodythis week, well most everybody except for
our first responders and other people whoprobably had to work on Monday. And
if that you thank you from thebottom of my heart and from all of

(00:50):
our listeners hearts for being out thereand being available to everybody on the day
when the rest of us were takingthe day off. I want to start
with this today because I'm a personwho has been a variety of differentes in
life. I'm six foot two.That much hasn't changed, so that would
put me on the tall side ofaverage, I would say, but pretty

(01:11):
average. I think six foot tallaverage these days, so six two,
slightly above average, certainly not whatI would consider to be tall, but
certainly not short. Nobody's ever goingto confuse me for being short, so
I've never had to deal with hypediscrimination. And hype discrimination comes in a
variety of different ways, I guess, for especially for people who are really

(01:32):
really super short. Now, personally, I have a thing for short women.
My wife is only five foot two, and I'm not sure I can
believe that she's five ft two ona good day with some you know,
at least medium sized heels. Maybe, so she's on the shorter side.
I like, you know, littleand cute. Little and cute works for

(01:55):
me anyway, I digress. Wait, however, is something that we all
have to suffer with? I sawthis? Is this true? That they
say that your height comes from yourfather's side of the family and that your
weight comes from your mother's side ofthe family. I don't know if that's
completely true or not, but forthe sake of argument, I guess you

(02:17):
can blame your mama if you're nothappy with your weight, or if you
are really happy with your weight.We all know people right who can as
much as they want. They're thin. There's not a lot of those people,
but there's a few, and weall know people who can eat as
much as they want in their fat, and that's more likely to be the
case. I've never really thought muchabout it. I don't think the height

(02:38):
thing shows up very much as faras whether or not you are considering somebody
for work. It's hard for meto fathom in most jobs that your height
in your weight make a whole lotof difference. Now. Now, clearly,
if you are trying to become apolice officer, your weight in particular

(03:00):
should be of concern. Right,you're supposed to be in shape, although
there are many a police officer who'sstarted off going through the whole rookie thing
and they were in shape and thenultimately they got fat. You know,
for whatever you certain cop don't jokehere they get fat, and they shouldn't
because that is a job that requiresa certain level a level or should consider

(03:23):
a certain level of physical fitness.But there's not a lot of jobs I
don't think where weight has a wholelot to do with it. So it's
hard for me to imagine that welive in a day and age where there's
a lot of height and weight discrimination. Left so to me, this feels
more about feeling good or sending aparticular message virtue signaling, if you will,

(03:46):
for people who are overweight. NewYork City has instituted a height and
weight antidiscrimination law. In other words, it's illegal in New York City to
consider height and weight as a partof the hiring process. And of course
I have a lot of questions aboutthat. We'll get to those in a
moment. But this was celebrated byat least one i'll call her a fat

(04:09):
activist for lack of a better term. One fat activist and the Mayor of
New York City, Eric Adams,he weighed in. And then Jimmy Fayla,
who's a New York City resident anda comedian, brings his own little
approach at the end of all this. But here it is as the chair
of the National Association to Advance FatAcceptance and a co founder of the Campaign

(04:30):
for Sized Freedom. I am sothrilled at the example that New York City
is setting today. When you talkabout not discriminating against someone because of the
body type, is not fighting againstobesity, it's just being fair. Probably
be on their side because I looklike I get paid in mozzarella sticks.
But to be clear, where you'renot a protected class as against illness,

(04:53):
Okay, you're going to incur higherrates of diabetes and heart disease and everything
in between. So this is aweird battle to fight because you're actually putting
these people in more harm's way byencouraging obesity, are you not. I
mean, we think back to COVID. Do you remember when they were incentivizing
the vaccine by giving you a CrispyKreme donut, but the number one cause

(05:13):
of COVID death was obesity. Yes, it's like, I know, these
symbolic gestures sound like they mean well, but come on, man, it's
it's it's actually not good. Andyou can say, all right, we're
not going to discriminate in a workplaceand that's fine, but you know where
they're still going to discriminate on Likethe boss of the train. No one's
happy to see it coming. No, I don't mean to say, you
know what I mean, nobody wantsto hear that, but no one.
You never get onto the train andgo If only somebody four hundred and twenty

(05:35):
five pounds could sit down next tome, only someone whose shadow once killed
a dog could sit next to meon this coach flight would be great.
There's no you know, when itgets down to the practicality of obesity here.
I mean, we can get intothis a little bit more later,
but at the end of the day, obesity is not good. There's nothing

(05:55):
about obesity is good. And there'sand think that what the New York City
Police Department and Fire Department are theygonna have to take that out of their
regulations now they'll have to hire anybody, regardless of size, regardless of their
ability to respond in an emergency.What about all the rides like Coney Island
can the shortest person, Now you'renot tall enough to get on the roller

(06:18):
coaster, They're gonna let you onthe roller coaster anyway? Now, how
is that going to work in NewYork City? If the airline they at
a New York City airport ask youto buy an extra see because you wait
for dred fifty pounds, are theyno longer allowed to do that? Anyway?
Back with more in a moment,Jimmy Barrett show here at AM nine
fifty KPRC. All right, well, we've talked the last couple of days

(06:47):
a little bit about the federal budgetand the deal that the Speaker of the
House came up with, and thePresident of the United States more than the
Speaker of the House, I thinkthan the President of the United States at
the or actually no, maybe it'sjust the staff. We're both to get
mine down to it. I reallywonder at this point, and our next
guest probably knows, by the way, I really wonder at this point how
much time is actually put in bythe President and the Speaker when it comes

(07:10):
to negotiations, and how much ofit is done actually by staff meeting the
two sides meeting. Who actually broker'sthis deal? Does the Speaker actually broker
this deal? Or people working forthe speaker broker this deal. The reason
why I'm going to ask our nextguest is because, in addition to being
director the Grover Herman Center for theFederal Budget of the Heritage Foundation, he
was a congressional staffer for over sevenyears. His name is Richard Stern.

(07:33):
Richard, welcome to AM nine tofifty KPRC. Who do you think negotiated
this budget deal? This death seeing? Yeah, thanks for so much for
having me on the show today.I'm excited to talk with you. About
it. Yeah, so, youknow, I think you hit the nail
on the head. It's mostly staffthat do kind of the legwork of it.
That being said, though, certainlythe members of Congress, the members

(07:54):
of Congress, not just McCarthy,but the ones as the lead negotiators on
both sides. Biden himself too,fair to the extent that Biden's aware of
his own existence at all, thoughthey do have a real say, you
know, they do shape a lotof the conversation. What I would say
in anyways, you know, iseffectively the options that on the table usually
are staff ideas. These are policythings that you know a lot times,

(08:16):
frankly started as white papers that thinkthinks like heritage. They started as bills
that random members of Congress put togetherwith their staff. But in some ways
it's really a group effort, exactlythe kind of background deal you think happens
if you say, okay, let'slet's talk a little bit about this deal
itself. It's interesting that most ofthe comments right after the deal was brokered
were relatively positive, even on theRepublican side. But over the last day

(08:39):
or so, the last twenty fourhours or so, is I get the
impression that more and more members ofCongress have actually read this thing and right
into this we seem to be gettingmore and more objection to it. Why
do you think that is? Oh, You're absolutely correct. The more and
more the people have read into it, the more that they've been left confused
about what exactly was in it.I'll give you one vigny, but I

(09:00):
think it tells a lot of thestory of what happened here, which is
the work requirements that there were inLimits Save Grow. So that was the
plan that just Republicans put together asa flag in the ground, gold standard
of what conservatives and Republicans want.The work requirement increases in that bill,
that we're supposed to put people backto work, cut government spending to people

(09:20):
that don't work, and be progrowth. We're going to cut spending by
one hundred and twenty billion dollars overten years. The quote unquote work requirement
increases in the deal will actually manageto increase federal spending by two billion dollars,
So, you know, and thatreally tells the story. I think
of a lot of the parts ofthis bill. The original bill Limits Save

(09:41):
Grow was going to cut discretionary spendingby one hundred and thirty billion dollars in
the first year. The deal onlycuts it by twelve billion dollars, nine
percent of the cut. So thoseare just two of the parts of this,
but it's a vignette on exactly howmuch of a shadow of the promised
leadership made in Limits Save Grow hasremained in this new deal. Well,
the whole thing was sold us onthe idea that we're going to do something

(10:03):
that hasn't ever been done. We'regoing to cut the budget. And really
what ultimately happens in these cases iswe don't really cut the budget. We
cut a little bit of the growth. Is. That's what's going on here.
That's about ninety percent of what's happeninghere. The thing that was so
unprecedented about Limits Save of Growth wasabout half, frankly, a little path

(10:24):
of that we're real cuts to realspending levels. The other about half of
it was also these cuts implicitly rightto that future growth path of spending that
you're talking about in this bill.Maybe ten percent of it, frankly,
it might be less than ten percentof it is actually cuts to current spending.
Most of it is in that sensefluff. It cuts to you know,

(10:46):
the CBO's projections of the growth rightsof it. It's nothing tangible,
concrete. And the other point I'llmake on that is, you know,
we did cut spending in the past. The last time that can Oervatives sent
their elected represents the DC to cutspending to control the debt, we got
the Budget Control add which cut morethan ten times as much proportionately as the

(11:11):
deal in front of us. Infact, limits save grow as a proportion
of spending is closer to the realthing we got in the law eleven years
ago. So in that respect,there is no excuse now to not get
something equally as bold, if notbetter. The economy is in worse position.
Biden is less charismag than a Bombleis. So I think that's why
conservative confusus. All right, Well, certainly the Biden administration began with we're

(11:33):
not negotiating, we're not cutting anything. We just want to straight raise the
debt ceiling deal, no no attachmentswhatsoever. So they already have lost from
the standpoint off they're not getting whatthey want. Or was that just a
line in the sand to end upgetting what it is that we ended up
with in this particular Bill, Whatdo you think? So, I think

(11:56):
the sad thing about this, atleast from my perspective, is that they
have juice steps spending so much inthe last three years, they have just
forked more of your money over totheir friends to brand new programs. The
rate of expansion of the government spendingand scope has been breathtaking over the last
few years. And so frankly,the situation is so bad for conservatives because

(12:18):
we've given up so much that theycould put such a ridiculous line in the
sand and call it their red line. So you know, at some level
you could say it's a victory thatwe pushed them off of that. But
that line they put down wasn't nearthe middle of the spectrum. It was
almost all the way over to theleft side of the spectrum. So the
fact that we got them off ofthat by a smidge isn't really that much

(12:41):
of a credit to us. Imean, keep in mind, when you
Paul Americans, CMM has a pollthat they did. We're sixty percent of
respondents of the American public said thatthey wanted cuts to spending, real cuts
to spending, or no depths inthe increase whatsoever. When faced for the
concept of the poll of default.They said, I would take that if

(13:01):
we can't get a spending cut.So with that top of power, why
would we let the left win somuch? Well, you know the other
thing about the default, Richards,and you can explain this to our listeners.
But from what I understand, Imean, it really is not a
default in the way that people arethinking. It would be a default where
it's not like the revenue source drivesup and we have the indability to pay

(13:22):
any of our bills. That isnot what happens if we don't raise the
debt sailing. I'm glad you broughtthis up that You're absolutely correct. The
government would still have tax revenue,and in fact, most of government spending
is paid for by tax revenue.This just means they can't borrow more money.
And so yeah, so security,medicare, VA, defense, the

(13:43):
core function of the government. Beyondthat would all have plenty of money to
pay paid for, including paying offinterest on the old debt, paying off
people that have mature debt. Infact, the constitution requires the government as
the first check it rights to bethat to pay off people that holding bomb.
So that kind of default where wejust are dead beak. We don't
pay our bills, people lose confidencein our bonds. That was never on

(14:09):
the table, and everyone knows Iwas never on the table. But that
shows you some of the you know, what the left is trying to do
in their propaganda to fear mongerant tomanipulate the situation. Yeah, we're several
hours from this segment airing actually airingon on AM nine fifty KPRC. So
what time we expecting a vote today? There's talk of having a vote today
in the dead ceiling on this dealthat are they going to have it?

(14:31):
Yeah? Absolutely, So they're they'reexpecting first votes at three thirty. They're
expecting last votes at eight thirty.The cells you a little bit of the
fund that congressional staffers have to dealwith. So right, So yeah,
So what I would say is you'regoing to start seeing action on the on
the floor, and so the Houseis going to reconvene at two o'clock and
the gap between the reconvenient two andthe first votes at three thirty is mostly

(14:56):
going to be floor speeches. Sothat's going to be the get popcorn.
Watch everybody's talking points for a goodhour and a half. Then you got
votes. You can have a lotof million around. You're gonna have a
lot of leadership running through the chamber, you know, trying to grab people
and saying, how are you reallyvoting? You told me last night,
you know, two in the morning, you're going to vote for this,
so you're really still voting for it. You can have a lot of that
going on, and a lot oflittle votes of procedural things, but the

(15:20):
big vote should be around it athirty or so, all right, So
everything is kind of a test upuntil then, and to see do we
have the votes in order to makethis happen. If they make a determination
this afternoon that they are not goingto have enough votes in order to be
able to pass this thing and takinga vote later tonight, what will they
do. Will they go ahead andtake the vote anyway? Will they postpone
it and go back, go backand try to renegotiate with members of Congress.

(15:43):
Could they actually say, Okay,we've got to go back and we've
got to renegotiate this entire deal.What do you think happens? Well,
the first year that they were doingI've been there on the hill for these
kind of events. Is what theywill do is they will leave the vote
open, which is exactly what itsounds like. And in fact, there
was no time limit on how longthey can leave the vote open. So
the very first thing would happen.And this is betther to tell if you're

(16:04):
watching at home, you know whenthe vote goes on. Later is that
if they don't really have votity,there's an hour where nothing seems to be
happening. Well, that's telling youis that they don't think they've got the
vote, so they'll hold it open. If they have to hold it open
for twenty hours, they'll do it. But what they're going to try to
do is put the pressure on asmany members as they can to force them

(16:26):
in the vote for it. Ifat that point there's enough people that say
no, I just simply won't votefor it, then they're gonna have to
pull the vote, and then they'regonna have to renegotiate at least some part
of it. You have a predictionon what you think is going to happen.
Well, predictions are hard, especiallywhen it comes to these sorts of
things. But but I will tellyou this, and I think this,
this underlies the tragedy of the presentmoment. We're hearing rumors that may be

(16:49):
as many as a hundred Democrats arein the tank ready to vote for this
thing if they need to, Whichreally shows the point, right, which
is that you know what happened,and at the Rules committee all last night
the bill passed by one vote.Right, It gives the impression that the
bill barely made it out of committee, But the truth is what happened here

(17:11):
is you have Democrats saying, youknow, if you need our votes,
you've got our votes. So enoughRepublicans were able to make up the difference
enough Democrats they got it out.But Democrats know that this largely locks in
their wins. Frankly, the Ithink it's the deput director of the National
Economic Council for the President said thatliterally on CNN I think yesterday that this
bill locks in their remarkable progressive wins. So you know, at the end

(17:34):
of the day, they're trying topretend like this is a much of victory,
but there's a lot of them waitingin the wings or replaced Republicans to
take the right vote. Almost interesting, Okay, we shall see what happens.
Richard Stern, thank you so muchfor joining me today. Good to
talk to you. Appreciate it.Thank you so much again. You bet
Richard Stern, director of the GroverHerman Center for the Federal Budget at the
Heritage Foundation. Back with Bare ina moment, Jimmy Barrett Show, AM

(17:57):
nine fifty KPRC. So we wewere just getting into a really good conversation
about big pharma in the middleman andnow it's jacking up prices and how we

(18:18):
need to deregulate but there's too muchmoney going to the federal government. That's
what we were talking about this morningwith doctor Dean Waldman. He's joining us
now here on a nine fifty kpresee wrote a very interesting piece in The
American Thinker on this particular story,and we want to get into a little
bit a little more detailed. Wehave a little more time to do it.
He's more awake, although unfortunately I'mmore sleepy because that's how it works.

(18:41):
I'm used to getting up early,unlike you, sir. But thanks
for coming on the afternoon show today. We're sure to appreciate it. Let's
get into this because the is theAmerican is the American system when it relates
to pharmaceuticals. Is it different thanany other country? Are we unique in
how we buy pharmaceuticals, how weregulate farmamaceuticals. How does that work compared
to the rest of the country,the best of the world, I should

(19:03):
say, Well, the rest ofthe answer is we are almost infinitely more
bureaucratic, with more middlemen than anybodyelse, And so comparisons I think are
a bit odious, largely because mostof the innovation and I have to give

(19:27):
credit much as I'm going to attackform and a second, I have to
give credit. Most of the innovationin drugs in the world comes from the
United States. So that's something thatwe have to keep in mind that they
need profit. I didn't say howmuch they need profit in order to invest

(19:49):
in all of those miracle drugs thatwe enjoy. But what I was getting
at in the pieces of following toanswer this question is the whole PBM thing
is an example of what I'm aboutto say, which is the question that

(20:11):
people have around the whole country,and certainly you do and I do.
Is the following. The United Statesis spending more money than anybody else in
the world on healthcare, double whatmost developed countries spend on healthcare. I
mean an enormous amount of four pointthree trillion dollars last year on healthcare,

(20:33):
which is more than the entire GDPof Japan, third largest, third most
productive nation on earth. Anyway,So we're spending all this money and yet
people can't get care. And soI asked the question, which is why
I'm writing all this stuff. Iasked the question, and published papers and
so forth. Well where's the moneygoing? You know, excuse me.

(20:57):
We're spending all this money, butpeople aren't getting care. They have to
wait forever to get in and seethe doctor. The price of drugs is
just enormous, and yet we can'tget care. What's going on? So
PBMs are a great example. Ifyou look at the whole system between a

(21:21):
manufacturer of a drug and the patientwho needs the drug, there are one,
two, three, four or fivesix, seven people's seven entities involved
in that process when they're really ina sense to just be two. The

(21:41):
guy who manufactures the thing and thepatient who needs it and can buy it
Directly. In between them are wholesalers, pharmacies, insurance companies, health plans,
and most important PBM. And thereason I picked on PBMs, which

(22:02):
stands for a pharmacy benefit management company. It's a whole. There are three
of them to control essentially all ofthe drugs in the United States. The
reason I picked on them is theyadd no value whatsoever to either the patient

(22:23):
if you want to call them,the buyer at the end of this market,
or the seller at the front endof this market. They don't provide
value to either one. And whenyou look at the money flow, you
know, I've got a chart herewhich I won't try to describe. I'll
just give you the endpoint. Thereis between the manufacturer and the PBM A

(22:48):
seventy what they call a rebate.Now, the truth is, the manufacturer
pays the PBM to buy his particularas opposed to another person's product. And
you know what you and I wouldcall that. It's a bribe. Okay,
except for the minor problem that thereare strict laws, and there's a

(23:11):
whole series of laws called the antikickback laws, so that for example,
as a physician, I can't refera patient to another doctor and then get
a kickback or a bribe from thatdoctor for that referral. But the PBM
can get that bribe that kickback thatrebate why because Congress pass rules exempting PBMs

(23:41):
from the anti kickback laws. Sohere we have here we have an entity
within healthcare that is providing no valueto the patients that is getting in.
And if you look at for example, inful in which I did a study
of seventy four percent of the priceof insulin, what the money the four

(24:07):
hundred dollars safe for a violence.Seventy four percent of that goes to the
PBM. They did nothing for thatmoney. They didn't help the manufacturer make
it or invent it. They didn'thelp the distributor give it to the patient
and give them instructions. And assure as l didn't provide it to the

(24:30):
patient, so they didn't no value. They are a middleman that do nothing
good for patients. I think doctorWaldban, I think in our naivita,
I think most of us think thatwhat happens is is that you go to
a doctor, they prescribe a particularmedication because that's the medication you need.
It is sent to the pharmacy.It comes directly from the manufacturer to the

(24:52):
pharmacy, and the pharmacy is theonly middleman in between. Most people probably
don't even realize that there are allthese different layers and regular elations you have
to go through. Not only areyou right, but there is something he
says that I have to correct,and that is the doctor says, oh,
well, you need drug decks whateverit is, that's the best drug

(25:15):
for your condition, your arthritis,or your infection or you whatever, and
that's the drug I'm going to prescribe. Books No, according to your health
plan PBM, because the PBM isthe one who creates the pharmacy list for

(25:36):
your health plan. It's the BBM, not even the health plan. According
to the PBM's list, that drugsnot on the list, and so I
can't give it to you. Soliterally, the PBM is practicing medicine,
and the way they make money.Another way they make money is by starting
with the cheapest, not the best, the cheapest rug and making that available

(26:02):
to the doctor. So the doctorisn't even prescribing what you really need.
He's prescribing what the PBM lets himprescribe. Which here, here's here's the
big question. Here's the big questionhere, um, and that is who
is the fault for the way theserules work. Now you mentioned the fact

(26:22):
that that these PBMs get an exemptionthat other businesses would not get. I
assume we can thank the federal governmentfor that. The FDA is the fact,
right, the FDA is responsible forthis. At the end of the
day. At the end of theday, all of this is Congress.
What Congress does is it simply says, well, we're gonna do I'll give

(26:47):
you an even better example, whichis the Affordable Care Act. We're going
to do this, and it's patientswill love it because you know, we'll
provide them affordable care. And theypass legislation. By the way, the
Affordable Care Act was two thousand pagesin the Federal Register of ten point fontu.

(27:11):
And all of those regulations, detailsand so forth are then taken up
by the agencies, the Center forMedicare and Medicaid, the FDA, to
the CDC, etc. And theytake these these rules. No, they
take these legislative acts and turn theminto rules. And the rules say,

(27:37):
well, you can doctor X,doctor dean, you can prescribe this drug
and the price that the PBM willbe allowed to charge his X. And
no, you can't prescribe that drug, or you want to do an operation
on so and so well, it'sgonna take a six month or a nine
month preauthorization process before you can doit. And all by the way,

(28:03):
you can't do it at that hospital, which is the one you wanted to
do it at, because we havecontracted with this hospital. Medicaid or Medicare
has contracted with this hospital. Sothe government, the government tells the agencies,
and the agencies tell the insurance companieswhat the doctors can do and what

(28:26):
the patients can get or not get, and how long it takes to get
them. So you were getting atand I'm just going to say it out
right, at the end of theday, the buck stops with Washington.
So the bottom line is is whenyou go to get prescription refilled and they
want three hundred dollars for the prescription, your complaint is not with Big Pharma.
Your complaint is with Washington DC atthe end of the day. That's

(28:51):
correct. If Big Pharma will workedunder it. Forgive the phrase market rules,
the patient and the doctor would say, you need this drug. Whatever'll
give you a chemical name. Youneed insulin. Okay. Now the patient
can turn around and say, okay, here are the three manufacturers of insulin,

(29:17):
and this one costs twenty dollars,and this one costs forty two dollars,
and this one costs sixty dollars.Doctor Waldman, which one is the
best drug for me? Not thebest value? Yet we're getting there in
the second, which is the bestfor me? And the doctor will say,
you know, I think whomologue isthe best for you? All that's

(29:38):
the most expensive. But there arethree companies that are competing for making that
drug because now it's no longer underpatent rules, and so I'm going to
go to the cheapest one. Youknow. I know it sounds ridiculously simple,

(30:02):
but that's the truth that if wehad a real free markets suddenly patience
with doctors advice to go round andshop for whatever the hell they need,
and you would watch the prices ofeverything plummet. A great example, I
don't know if you if you havetime to discuss this. A great example

(30:26):
is the direct pay sturgy centers thathave been cropping up around the country,
and a matter of fact, Texashas four of them that I know,
although there may be more since thelast time I look. And basically what
they're doing is they're saying, hey, we want cash on a barrelhead.
And in return, we will dotwo things for you Patient X. Number

(30:49):
one we will give you service,no. Three things. Number one we
will give you service, including tellingyou how many of those procedures we did
and what our results were. Andnumber two thing we will do for you
is we will do everything soup tonuts. And the price no insurance forms,

(31:15):
none of that. The price iswhatever it is. Example, I
had a patient. You can lovethis. I learned this on a radio
talk show because a lady called inwhen they were interviewing me about the Affordable
Care Act and she said, well, I have to tell you the story.
And she's a vet. To makea long story short, he was

(31:37):
a veteran who needed spine surgery.She went to her local DA and they
said, yeah, we can doit. It's risky, but we can
do it. She asked for theirresults. They didn't give them to her.
The sorry, we don't keep thoserecords. We can do the procedure
in about nine months to a year. Of the price to the surgery is

(32:00):
one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars, but Trycare picks up sixty percent of
that there for the government. Therefthe price to you is only fifty thousand
dollars. So she goes and looksaround and found the Oklahoma Surgical Center,
which is a direct pays actually Ithink the first one direct pay surgery center,

(32:24):
and called them up. Keith Smithis a wonderful of surgeon who started
this thing. I don't know,ten twelve years ago something like that.
Anyway, and she got their results. She said, they said, yes,
we can do it. We canschedule it in about ten eleven days.
You need to come here, weneed to check your X rays and

(32:46):
so forth and such. We'll doit. You'll be in the hospital about
twenty four hours and the price iseleven thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars.
Yeah, it's pretty amazing, sir. I wish we had more time,
but I mean, we could talkabout this all day. We will
definitely have you back, if that'sokay. Doctor Dean Waldman joining us here

(33:06):
on AM nine fifty KPRC. Youwant to know what the problem is with
medicine regulations and government and red tape. Yep, if you can afford to
pay cash, pay cash. Thankyou again, sir, good to talk
to you. Hope to get youback soon. My pleasure doctor Dean Waldman
joining us here on AM nine fiftykPr seeing the Jimmy Barrett Show. All

(33:37):
right, final segment coming up here. We haven't talked about Target gets today,
right, Target, of course,is the new bud Light, soon
to be followed by Coals, whichis also you know, like Target,
same thing. You know. Thething with Target is they put the Pride
display. Their CEO is all about, you know, the whole Wolke agenda
regarding transgender and LGBTQ, and andputting up these pride displays, including children's

(34:04):
clothes and baby clothes with rainbows onthem and in all kinds of messages.
And conservatives are complaining conservatives who shopthere, and so in some of these
areas they've been moving these displays atthe back of the store, in which
case the liberals the parressives are complaining. And here's a perfect example of this.
This woman is an actress. Iguess she was on her name.

(34:28):
I'm not sure how to pronounce herlast name. Soon it won't even try.
That she was on Twilight. Iguess she's one of the Twilight actresses.
She was in a Target store.Here's what she had to say on
Target moving the Pride stuff to theback. So I just walked into Target,
and the right behind me here wherehe's still these lovely swimsuits. That's

(34:50):
where the Pride displays used to be. And I came in here two days
ago and my seven year old,who's non binary, saw it and said,
look, com is Look they're goingto celebrate me. And because some
people complained and throw some stuff tothe ground or I don't know what happened,
they have moved to the Pride sectionto the back of the store.

(35:14):
So the next time my seven yearold comes to Target, or rather,
I can't bring them here anymore,at least the entire month of June,
because if they walk in and allthe other people who walk in and go
where'd it go? Are going torealize that they are being successful in trying

(35:34):
to erase them. We could doso much better than this. We're not
supposed to negotiate with terrorists. Hangon, terrorists, people who don't want
that stuff in the front of thestore. Terrorists. That's number one.
Number two, you have a sevenyear old who's non binary, who has
made that determination, mom, youbased on what exactly. This is a

(36:01):
pretty good example of what part ofthe problem is here is we're noctridating seven
year old kids and believing that youknow, they've already assumed certain sex rules
and the seven year old's gonna benon binary. How do we know what
a seven year old is going tobe when they're seventeen. It's really quite
crazy. Michael Knowles of The DailyWire had a little few things to say

(36:23):
about this activist and about targeting targetto part me moving those displays at the
back of the store again. MichaelKnowles from the Daily Wire, the premise
of LGB is that men and womenare pretty much interchangeable, and two men
is the same thing as two womenis the same thing as a man and
a woman. And so if youif you accept that premise when it comes
to parenting and family, you mean, yes, exactly when it comes to

(36:45):
the definition of marriage. Let's say, so, if you accept that premise
in society, then it's not ahuge leap to say that a man can
basically be a woman or a womancan basically be a man. And it
doesn't mean you're hateful if you pointthis out, it mean you don't like
people or anything like that, butyou cannot in society simultaneously have mutually contradictory

(37:07):
ideas, so you can't establish themas a fact of our law. You
see this especially with the bathrooms.Either women get their own bathroom or they
don't get their own bathroom, andyou kind of got to pick one.
This is why I think that thePride Month celebrations have become so mandatory.
Is either our society is going toaccept all of the ideology that goes along

(37:30):
with the modern rainbow, or it'snot. But if we do accept it,
then we're going to have it foreverybody. It's going to be in
every store. It's not just Target. It's going to be in coals,
it's going to be on your budlight can it's going to be everywhere for
a month and maybe two months andmaybe three months. And it's not just
going to be for the adults.It's going to be for the onesies.
And so the common people, thevast majority of Americans don't like this stuff,

(37:53):
including plenty of people who would identifyas gay, and they say,
okay, the onesies, we're takingit a little bit far here, get
it out of my Target store.But the problem is that the elites,
the people who control the corporations,the people who control the political order,
and the universities and the media andall the rest of this. They're totally
bought in on this liberalizing ideology,and so that's where the tension's going to

(38:13):
come. And right now, theelites still have most of the political power.
Yeah, they do. Evidently theymust, because it's everywhere you go.
It's in virtually ever stored. Didyou see, by the way,
that now that chick Fila has aDiversity, Equity and Inclusion officer, Now
they're not implementing the same kinds ofpolicies as the coals or targeters of these

(38:35):
other places. But Burger King is. In fact, Burger King made a
big deal of the trolling the folksat Chickila for having a DI officer,
but they're still closed on Sundays.Yeah, and by the way, they're
contributing to LGBTQ charities, So comeby your chicken sandwich from them, they
say at Burger King's seemingly everywhere everywhere, whether you want it to be or

(39:00):
not, there's no such thing asneutral, and there's very few that are
buying into it at this point.It would seem all right. Effort today
y'all have a great day. We'llsee tomorrow morning, bright and early,
starting at five AM on Houston's morningNews news Radio seven forty KTRH. We
are back here at four on AMnine to fifty KPRC.