Lack of Trust in the Media

Today on the Jimmy Barrett Show:

• We don't watch television the way we used to

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Well, what we need is more common sense, the common
breaking down the world's nonsense about how American common sense.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Will see us through with the common sense of Houston.
I'm just pro common sense for Houston. From Houston. This
is the Jimmy Barrett Show, brought to you by viewind
dot Com.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Now here's Jimmy Barrett.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Well in an addition to being Monday, Happy Monday. By
the way, an addition to being Monday today is National
Chocolate Chip Cookie Day. Please notice I don't mention what
days are every day, just when it's a day that
I appreciate. And I do appreciate chocolate chip cookies, maybe
because that's one of the more fond memories. Not that

(00:52):
I don't have plenty of fond memories of my mother.
I do, well, maybe one of my favorite memories memories
is that the home baked chocolate chip cookies, the way
the house would smell, and you know, just eating those
things like there's no tomorrow. Chocolate chip cookies are a
beautiful thing. Do you know that when they were invented?
In wearing all that I do, They're invented in nineteen
thirty seven. Let's think about that for a second, now,

(01:14):
for I mean, that's what better part ninety years ago,
eighty some odd years ago. But before that, there was
no such thing as a chocolate chip cookie. Before nineteen
thirty seven, a baker at the toll House Inn. That's
why the original recipe is called toll House Chocolate Chip cookies.
The baker at the toll House Inn in Massachusetts had

(01:39):
a cookie recipe that she did. They had a completely
different name. I forget what the name was, but her
recipe was like a butter cookie, and then she put
the chocolate chips in the cookie. And she came up
with her chocolate chip cookie recipe started serving it at
this toll House in and everybody loved it and the
rest of his history. Of course, now they make chocolate

(01:59):
chips specififically called the toll House chips, right for the
chocolate chip cookie. And I think it's it's a favorite
of a lot of people. If you had, I think
just about everybody who likes cookies, if you were to,
you know, ask them to vote what their favorite cookie is,
I think chocolate chip would win with most people. I
think it's probably certainly top top two or three with

(02:22):
just about everybody. I don't know, anybody who doesn't like
a chocolate chip cookie. You may prefer it with or
without nuts, or you may prefer it thick or thin
or whatever. But but everybody has their own idea of
what makes a great chocolate chip cookie. By the way,
maybe maybe some of you know this, what determines how

(02:45):
thick you're going to make your chocolate chip cookie. I
there's got to be a trick to this, because if
you go to a professional store, bakery or whatever, and
you get a chocolate chip cookie there, you're perfectly around.
They're they're they're generally they're not thin, they're fairly thick.
How do they do that? Because no matter how much
dough I put into a chocolate chip cookie, and eventually

(03:08):
it gets to the point where it's virtually flat, not
completely flat, but almost flat. So what's the secret? Somebody
told you? I don't know if is it refrigerating the
dough before you put it in the oven? What's the
secret to getting a thick chili chocolate chip cookie? Because
that would be my preference. Now, we had some suggestions

(03:29):
on the show this morning about best places to get
chocolate chip cookies here in Houston, and just about everybody
I think was thinking slightly outside of the box. I
did have one rule. Don't say your mom's house. That's
that's the rule. You can't. You can't. First of all,
my mom's not around anymore. I can't go to my
mom's house to get her chocolate chip cookie. And number two,

(03:51):
that's home baked, and home baked is different. Where's the
best place to go to get a mass produced chocolate
chip cookie in Houston. It's a grocery store that you
particularly like, or a local bakery. And some of the
suggestions were actually kind of interesting.

Speaker 4 (04:07):
Good morning, Jimmy. The absolute best chocolate chip cookie in
Houston is from Milk and Cookies. Try it out delicious.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
Okay, Now, as it turns out I did. I did
a little research on that because I put in milk
and cookies near me, and the closest one that came
up was California. She left out one word. The one
here is called Tinies Milk and Cookies. There's three or
four locations. The West View one is probably the closest
to where we are, and they have a lot of

(04:42):
they have a lot of different cookies on there. They
have brownies, which I understand you know from Cliff and
our news department. The brownies are.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
Just like.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
Super sweet and rich but really crazy good. But that
wasn't the only suggestion that came in. There's a couple
more that came in as well.

Speaker 5 (05:00):
Favorite chocolate chip cookie is from Whole Foods.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
They're brown butter chocolate chip cookie.

Speaker 5 (05:06):
Hey, Jimmy's David Willis Man. Yeah, Kyber's famous famous chocolate
chip cookies. Man, they're good, but man, you could beat
my mama's homemade chocolate chip cookies.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
The only thing I'll say about Famous Amos is they're little.
They're kind of little. Who is the other one? What's
the other name that I always think of it? And
I think of Famous Amos Missus Fields. Missus Fields has
good chocolate chip cookies, you know, as far as mass produced.
But you know what the most popular number one mass
produced coming out of you know, coming out of the

(05:40):
supermarket cookie is chips Ahoy, which I don't get that one.
I Pepperidge Farm, Pepperich Farm. I think they make a
really good mass produced cookie. It's a little bit more expensive.
But the difference to me between the ones that are

(06:01):
you know, they come off the assembly line and the
ones that are made in the bakery, the ones that
come off the assembly line. There's something in the taste
I feed a chips Ahoy or you know, a Keebler
cookie or something like that. I feel like I'm tasting
some sort of a chemical or something in there. Maybe
it's the preservative they use, because they obviously have to

(06:23):
have a much longer shelf life than a whole made
chocolate chip cookie. Maybe that's maybe that's what I'm tasting.
But they to me, it's kind of it throws my
taste off a little bit, so it confuses my taste buds.
To me, that doesn't taste quite as good.

Speaker 6 (06:38):
One more, Hey, Jimmy Rick from the east Side Central
Market on West tom Ray has the best cookie selection
I think I've ever seen, and their chocolate chunk cookie
is by far the best chocolate chip cookie I've ever had.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
You guys, have a good days.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
I'm writing that down Central Market, Okay, that that might
be well worth trying. All right, I'll tell you what's
going to be trying today. The state legislature will talk
a little bit about it here in just a moment,
But you know, this afternoon, the governor was supposed to
come down hard I don't know if he's come down
hard yet or not, because we take the show a

(07:15):
little bit at a time, So I don't know if
the governor's going to make good on his threat. His
threat was if the Democrats who headed to Illinois, the
ones that took off for Illinois, if they weren't back
in Austin by three o'clock this afternoon, which was over
an hour ago, then he was going to, you know,
invoke the ruling that says that he can remove them

(07:38):
from office. I don't know if he's willing to do
that or not. We'll see back with morn of them
on a Jimmy Baird show. You're on a nine fifty KPRC.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
All right, So the.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
Government pulls out an ultimating, and I have no idea
if he's making good on this ultimatum or not. This
whole thing with redistringing is going to end up in
court anyway. It's all gonna end up court. What the
Democrats are doing is they're just trying to bring national
attention to themselves and they want to paint Texas as
a racist state. We are a bunch of racist here

(08:27):
in Texas. We want to turn the clock back fifty
plus years. We want to we want to segregate the
schools again. We want to draw lines so black people
cannot serve in Congress. And it's not going to work.
But I get to a certain extent, I get why
they're doing what they're doing. And I'll tell you why
I get it. And here's a couple of prime examples.

(08:51):
The way the law the lines have been drawn. It's
clearly retaliation to several black Democrats who've been particularly outspoken
against President Trump. Al Green, who's attempted to impeach him
in the past and has threatened to impeach him again.

(09:11):
He doesn't have the power of the ability right now
to do that, but I think they want to send
a message we don't need any more al Greens. So
they have redrawn the line where al Green's district is
so they'd be majority Republican. So chances are good that
would be a seat that would flip from Democrat. Imagine
going from Democrat al Green to a conservative Republican. That's

(09:34):
pretty amazing. That's the first one that comes to mind.
The second one that comes to mind is Jasmine Crockett.
There's somebody else who's been way over the top just insane.
Her home where she now lives anyway would not be
in her district. Her district would move, so she would

(09:55):
have to move as well. She wanted to try to
maintain that district. So that's just that's a couple of
areas where they've redrawn the lines the way the lines
have been redrawn. And by the way, this is all
gonna end up in court anyway, So why don't we
just take the vote, let the vote come out as
it does, let it go to court, and let you

(10:17):
the judicial system is going to decide whether not these
lines are fair or not fair, legal or not legal.
But here's a report from our television partner KPRC two
as of yesterday, where the Democrats all flew to Chicago
the rewards of JB. Pritzker, the ultra liberal governor of Illinois,

(10:39):
a map.

Speaker 7 (10:40):
That seeks to use racial lines to divide hard working
communities who have spent decades building up their power and
strengthening their voices. And Governor Abbott is doing this in
submission to Donald Trump, so that Donald Trump could steal

(11:06):
these communities power and voice.

Speaker 8 (11:11):
Meanwhile, Republicans are calling on the arrest of any legislature
who has left the state. That includes Attorney General Ken Paxton,
posting on x Today, quote, Democrats in the Texas House
who try and run away like coward should be found,
arrested and brought back to the capital immediately. Here's Texas
State Representative Brian Harrison calling on the House speaker to

(11:31):
arrest anyone who.

Speaker 1 (11:32):
Left the state ahead of the redistricting vote.

Speaker 9 (11:35):
He should convene immediately a session of the Texas House,
get him or somebody else to go preside over the
body and immediately move for what's called a call of
the House. The call of the House, and what would
authorize law enforcements to immediately be dispatched to arrest, detain,
and bring back to the capital for the purposes of
establishing a quorum.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
These democrats and.

Speaker 8 (11:58):
Governor Greg Abbad just responded saying, in part, the absent
Democrats must be back in Texas by three o'clock on Monday.
If they do not, Governor Abbott says he will use
Texas law to remove them from office for freaking quorum.

Speaker 3 (12:12):
Okay, we'll see what happens with that. By the way,
we had Representative Harrison on our morning show at the
end of our morning show today. But I've just felt
like replaying that for you this afternoon. I mean, too
many things will have happened by this time for me
to appropriately update the story. So we'll see, we'll see
how this whole thing ends out. Like I said, it's

(12:34):
all going to end up in court anyway, So why
don't we just get to it. But one of the
points that the representative made this morning on our morning
program on kt our Age is a great one. You know,
once again, the Speaker of the House, Dustin Burroughs, had
an opportunity to force those Democrats to stay. They could

(12:55):
have he could have gone ahead and had Texas law
and enforcement, you know, bar the doors, prevent them from leaving,
prevent them from breaking the corum, and he completely cooperated
with their ability to get out of dodge. He's he's
obviously working for the Democrats. We're in no better shape
in the Texas House now than we were before he

(13:18):
took over the speakership. It's the same old, same old.
You know, how this ends up, who knows, We know
it ends up in court. So let's just get to it, right,
Let's just get to it now. None of this I
think helps Democrats, I don't think. You know, it may
work with the base for Democrats, I don't know, it
doesn't work with the rest of us. I don't think

(13:39):
any of us really are believing a whole lot of
what's coming out of their mouths these days. I don't
think a lot of American citizens are doing that. You know,
CNN keeps doing these keeps doing these polls with their
polster over there. He never has good news for them.
I'm surprised they're bringing Come on, they're chief data analysis,

(14:04):
Harvey Enton, you know, keeps bringing these poll numbers in
front of them that just look horrible. They were talking
about that on the Fox Weekend Show. So here's a
little audio from CNN's chief data analyst, you know, providing
some data that would make you think that things might
be good for Republicans come the midterms, the midterm election.

(14:26):
So here's that with some response from Joey Jones on
the weekend morning show, The Big Weekend Show.

Speaker 10 (14:31):
It is a complete and utter mess. It is messier
than a hoarder's basement. What are we talking about here?
The national early poll leader twenty five percent plus. Normally
that's where Democrats are Biden was twenty five percent plus
and twenty twenty. Hillary Clinton wasn't O eight and sixteen.
Core was an and O four. At this particular point,
there is no one, no one in the Democratic race

(14:52):
for president who's polling at twenty five percent plus.

Speaker 11 (14:55):
Messier than a hoarder's basement.

Speaker 1 (14:57):
I love that.

Speaker 11 (14:58):
And DNC Chairman Ken Martin is worried too. Despite projecting
confidence the Democrats will win next year's elections, he's already
laying the groundwork to excuse a poor midterm performance.

Speaker 12 (15:09):
Listen, the only thing they can do, of course, is
read the system is to cheat, to do a mid
cycle redistricting in states to steal more seats, which is
essentially what they're doing in Texas.

Speaker 11 (15:20):
And jolly tell me what you make of this. I mean, seriously,
these people are delusional.

Speaker 13 (15:25):
Number One, I love that guy. We play socts on
all the time. I've never seen him bring good news
to CNN, and so I just love the fact that
that you know, even when you're trying to sugarcoat it,
you can't think that. I think that when we look
at the midterms, we have to understand that midterms are
the most interesting part of our election process. When you
have a presidential election, you can adhere to a personality

(15:48):
as much as a policy. Midterms are more of an
indictment on policy. And I don't think that Trump's idea
on the economy in the direction he's moving it, and
the fact that it isn't at light speed like it
wasn't twenty sixteen, I don't think that that's unpopular enough
to make up for the fact Democrats don't have one.
And the last version of a Democrat idea on the
economy is what Trump's trying to fix. And I think

(16:10):
it's real easy to connect those dots, but it'll be
up to individuals in Congress to go home and sell
the big beautiful bill in Trump's economic vision, not just
President Trump. And that's why midterms generally go against the president.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
I don't know that'll happen this time. Well, there's a
lot of people who don't think it will happen this time.
Who knows. Certainly, that's part of what this redistricting movement
is about, especially the state like Texas. As much as
we've grown to be able to flip five seats in
the US House of Representatives that are Democrat to Republican man.

(16:43):
You want to talk about getting a little breathing room, right,
that certainly helps. I mean, that's no guarantee that they
don't lose seats in other places, though, and that's usually
what happens in the midterms. But the left has no vision,
the progressive left has no vision at least don't have
a vision that your average American is interested in. So

(17:05):
unless that changes, unless they unless unless the economy goes
completely in the crapper or and maybe that's part of
why we're not getting any interest rate cuts, right, Maybe
that's part of the reason why you know things are
happening at that level as well.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
We'll see, all.

Speaker 3 (17:19):
Right, quick little break back with morning Moment Jimmy Bartt
show here, I think M nine fifty KTR six.

Speaker 1 (17:42):
Well, I thought i'd share.

Speaker 3 (17:44):
We had a little interview the date earlier this morning
on kat r H on our morning show with a
guy by the name of Nicholas Fondacaro. He's associate editor
at NewsBusters, and I do these segments all the time.
Seems like I do him all the time anyway, about
the media and our lack of trust in the media

(18:05):
and the lack of people watching the media. Uh, we've
just seen the cancellation of Stephen Colbert on his late
night program, you know, super liberal, not particularly entertaining or funny. Uh,
that's been canceled starting what May in maya. Yeah, that's

(18:25):
the old late show with David Letterman, which will no
longer exist. I mean, the world has changed. We don't
watch late light television the way we used to. Uh,
we don't watch television in general the way we used to.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
I mean, do you.

Speaker 3 (18:38):
I don't know about you. I've spent very very little
time on either CBS or NBC or ABC. I just don't.
I just don't watch it. There's nothing. There's nothing there
that I want to watch.

Speaker 14 (18:50):
You know.

Speaker 3 (18:50):
I do a lot of History Channel, you know, HGTV
when when I'm not when I'm not you know, doing
Fox and News and those kinds of things. You know,
I'm I'm I'm I'm not interested in obviously, in watching
the view that's you know, that's one of the few
ultraliberal programs that may ultimately, you know, hang around for

(19:11):
a while because I guess I hear the ratings are good.
I don't know why they're good, but I guess their
ratings are fairly good compared to a lot of shows.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
But we had we.

Speaker 3 (19:18):
Had a guy on by the name of Nicholas Fonda
carroga and associate editor of NewsBusters, to talk about this.
How how is it that these shows, some of them,
continue to survive, you know, without people watching them. Here's
here's our conversation with Nicholas Fonta Caro. If you know
what this song is, then you're listening to the wrong
radio station.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (19:40):
Theme from The View six twenty two is our time
here in Houston's boring news. Nicholas Fonda Caro joins us
associate editor at Newsbuster this story about how they've had
zero conservatives so far in twenty twenty five. And quite honestly, Nicholas,
that's okay because if they any conservative they have on,
they're just gonna beat them up anyway, aren't they.

Speaker 14 (20:01):
Yeah, And thank you for like traumatizing me with the music.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
Get in and me on, Sorry about that. It's all good.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
So we know what the View is. We also know
that there are other shows Stephen Colbert was among them,
who were pretty much the same way. Stephen Colbert has
been canceled. How long before the View gets canceled. They
can't have big ratings numbers at this point, do they.

Speaker 1 (20:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 14 (20:28):
Here, here's the thing, They actually are fairly popular. They
they routinely become the number one daytime talk show. They
are actually fairly popular, which is why we focus so
hard on them here at NewsBusters and study them and
make and try to do these studies and try to
cover them every day because they are They're part of

(20:48):
the Abacy news umbrella, and this type of bias is
not becoming of a newsroom.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
They try to.

Speaker 14 (20:55):
Call themselves like the editorial side of a newspaper, but
even editorials have like editorial standards, they still have to
not say the craziest things, and they do get people
of different opinions, just not on the view.

Speaker 3 (21:08):
Okay, when did it get this bad as far as
not offering up any opposing viewpoints on the view? Is
it always been this bad? Or is it is it
just got worse over time?

Speaker 1 (21:20):
It really is.

Speaker 14 (21:21):
Something that we've seen like this past season, because last season,
basically their twenty seventh season, they did have some conservatives
on there. They ended the season with I believe Johnson Unu,
who was actually the last Republican that they had on.
It was like early August before they went on their
their summer hiatus too, and he was the only he
was the last one they had to defend Republicans defend Trump.

(21:43):
And then before that, I believe it was like September
of twenty three where they had a Nancy Mason. So
basically there are these rare instances that they'll have somebody
on and there have been some Republicans like people like
the account is really about the types of narrators that
they allowed to get pushed and all those guests. It's

(22:05):
one hundred and two guests that politics came up and
was discussed that they allowed to have this type of
discussion because they did have Kelsey Grammar on, a actor
with some Republican tied, but they only talked with him
about a book he was discussed that he was there
to pitch with that was about his sister, her untimely
passing in her life. So it was like this a

(22:27):
topic that was in politics, And basically the study is
really showing like what type of political discussions and who
they have them with.

Speaker 3 (22:36):
You know, you're describing Kelsey Grammar conversation and that is
editorializing by omission and all the major network newsrooms are
guilty of doing that. The Big three are constantly guilty
of doing it. None of the three major broadcast networks
did a report on that Heinus brawl in Cincinnati. I
doubt if any of them are covering what's going on
with the Russian hoax right now, because you know that

(22:59):
if that investigation continues, we could very well see a
former president of the United States and a former presidential
candidate being dieted on charges by the Department of Justice.
But they're not going to report on that. Yeah, absolutely not.

Speaker 14 (23:12):
With the the Cincinnati brawl, basically none of the flagship
NewsCap morning and evening newscasts though CBS, NBC and CBS,
none of them covered it. With NBC, they basically tried
to say that they covered it and sort of give
themselves like a little check mark on the box because
they covered it in CBS Early Today, which is their
show that runs like after midnight and in the very

(23:35):
very early morning when nobody's really up, and in that
on the first day after, like the Monday after the
weekend brawl, they did nineteen seconds on it, and then
the following Tuesday they had a a two minute and
twenty five second report that they re aired a few
times on their streaming network, and their streaming network is
not that not that widely watched either, so they do

(23:58):
at least with NBC, they're doing just enough to just
sort of check the box off of like we put
up reports about it, but they're not showing them in
any of their flagship newscasts that have like the big ratings.

Speaker 3 (24:09):
Yeah, I've talked about so much almost making myself sick,
but I need to ask you about this one last
question as well, Nicholas. Then that is, at what point
in time did the networks say to themselves, well, we
have no ratings, we've lost advertisers, we're heverrhaging money. CNN
seems to have finally gotten to that point where they
feel like they have to do something about it. When

(24:30):
does ABC, CBS and NBC decide they have to do
something about it or is it never going to happen.

Speaker 14 (24:36):
I feel like they're at least with ABC, they realize
that something needs to change, because just a few weeks
ago we had them fire Terry Moran for some of
the wild statements he was saying as a journalist for them,
And I feel like at some point, stuff like this
is going to, like that Terry Moran standard that they've said,
is going to have to get applied further down the
line with other.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
People, maybe the View and maybe it.

Speaker 14 (24:58):
Maybe they'll keep the View around because it does get
the ratings for them, but perhaps it's like we're going
to start swapping out cast members when they're with the
term Moraine incident. Basically his contract was up, so they
didn't want to renew it. So perhaps when contracts come
up for some of the View stars, we'll get some
of them dropping as well.

Speaker 3 (25:15):
All right, Nicholas, thanks for your time. Appreciate it. That's
the associated editor at NewsBusters, Nicholas Fonda Caro. I guess
that's the only way you get rid of joy behar huh,
wait for a contract to expire.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
But again, they evidently have ratings.

Speaker 3 (25:31):
But you know what, it's female and it makes sense
when you think about it. It's female centric. I don't
think there's a lot of men that watched the View.
For one thing, it's on at a time slot when
most men are working, not that a lot of women
are working at the same time. Maybe they're taping it
and watching it later. I'm not sure. But the thing
about the view is it's very it's very female centric,

(25:53):
it's very ultraliberal. But a lot of women are liberal.
We live in a we live in a device did
society by sex at the moment where a lot of
the men are conservative and a lot of the women
are liberal, which of course has led to all kinds
of problems that we've talked about before. In the dating
pool there there are there are a lot of women

(26:13):
out there if if you voted for Trump, they won't
they won't date you. They we have no interest in
dating it what happened? Opposites attract didn't That used to
be a thing. Although I will say this, it's one thing.
Here's here's why I think opposites attract is a good thing. Uh,
you have a good skill set some things, and your

(26:35):
partner has a good skill set and the things you're
not good at. That kind of makes you opposites. But
that's a that's a good thing. You compliment each other.
But if you don't are not on the same page
as far as things like morality and kids and rules
for kids and and those types of things. And yes,

(26:59):
to a certain extent, poulolitics, I'm not saying a Democrat
and a Republican can't be married to each other. They
obviously have been before. But I think it depends if
you're if you're a per ultra progressive liberal and you're
a very conservative man, that it just doesn't work. Your
value system is just completely different. I think you have

(27:20):
to share values as a couple to be successful, don't you.
You have to share the same value system. You can
be different on some things, but if your values are
just polar opposite of each other, that that just doesn't work.
That just does not work. All right, We're gonna take
a break. We're talking a little economy and maybe drug
prices too. I saw doctor Ozm face the nation talking

(27:41):
about having a having a very serious conversation where the
pharmaceutical companies about getting drug prices under control. Back with
more in a moment Jimmy Barrett Show, You're an am
nine fifty kight PRCU drug prices. We've been talking about

(28:09):
drug prices for quite some time, how bad they are,
but they have not gotten any better. And I get
a reminder every now and again. You know, there's ways
you can kind of shop around to get better prices
on the normal prescription medications, but there are some things
that are just in such demand that they can get
almost whatever they want for them. My wife was looking

(28:33):
at getting a subscription to was It Rebelsis something like that,
one of those one of those medications like uh trzepetide
and some of these other ones and I'm not even
pronouncing those right that you can use to kind of
help with weight loss in those kinds of things, those
are in high demand. And I want to say the

(28:55):
Rebelses because insurance wasn't going to cover it, and and
I want to say, the monthly full price, no discount,
it was like eight hundred. It was almost one thousand
dollars a month. And what was really what really cracked
me up was that the pharmacy, even though the health

(29:19):
insurance had turned it down, the pharmacy had filled the
prescription and they were going to give it to us
for what close to one thousand dollars a month. I'm going,
are you crazy? We're not buying that? Who would spend
that kind of money on that? I mean, I don't
know how anybody could afford to do that. Now, there's

(29:40):
no way that medication costs that much to produce. I
would love to know what it cost in other foreign countries.
I agree, we've been taking advantage of for a long
long time. You know, we are, I guess by world
standards we're considered a rich country, but that doesn't mean
that we should be overcharged on all this stuff continually.

(30:01):
And by the way, if it really costs that much
to produced the drug, then why are you wasting all
that money on advertising? I remain it drives me crazy
how many drug commercials. It used to be just in
the evenings. Now it's all day, all day, and a
lot of these channels it is one pharmaceutical commercial after

(30:23):
another for one product after another. It'll drive you in
crazy watching those things. So doctor Oz, he's on Face
the Nation and he's getting asked about Medicare and Medicaid
and preserving that. And you know how the high price
of drugs is playing into making it difficult to keep

(30:44):
those programs solvent. Here he is on Face the Nation,
doctor memet Oz.

Speaker 1 (30:49):
There's many a.

Speaker 15 (30:49):
Fifty percent increase in the cost of Medicaid over the
last five years. So I'm trying to save this beautiful program,
this noble effort to help folks, giving them a hand up.
And as you probably gather Medicaid isn't able to take
care of the people for.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
Whom it was designed.

Speaker 15 (31:03):
The young children the dawn of their life, those are
the twilight of their life to seniors and those who
are disabled living in the shadows. As Hubert Humphrey said,
then we're not satisfying the fundamental obligation of a moral government.
And this president has said over and over that he
believes that it is the wise thing and the noble
thing to help those who are vulnerable, and every great
society does that. We're going to as well. So we're

(31:24):
going to invest in medicate as is required, but we
want an appropriate return on that investment. One thing that
medicaid patients should not face are drug prices they can't afford.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
Then how do you enforce this, Well, the pharmaceutical.

Speaker 15 (31:35):
Companies if you sit them down quietly, Margaret, and we've
done that, and say you went into this business at
some point because you cared about people. I know there's
many out there shaking their heads, but that is actually
the truth. People go into healthcare, whether the pharmaceutical companies
are insurance companies or the PBMs are anybody in space evident,
the cms, the most impressive thing to me in my
new task, and the President's appointed me to is the
remarkable quality that people within the organization just unbelievably talented.

(31:59):
They went into this job because they care about healthcare,
about people. Somewhere along the lines, people forget they put
numbers ahead of patients, and when that happens, then you
started running problem. So we went to the pharmaceutical companies
and we said, you appreciate this is not a fair system.
We should not be paying more in America three times
more for your products than you charge in Europe. They
get the joke, They understand the reality of this problem.

(32:21):
They are engaging with us. We're in the middle of
those negotiations. The president has a unique power to convene.
We've done it with dealing with prior authorization, this heinous
process where patients feel like they're trying to get care
from a doctor. Everything's being done, except all of a sudden,
the arm of insurance comes in and stops the whole
process for unknown reasons for.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
Weeks, sometimes months.

Speaker 15 (32:40):
The insurance companies representing eighty percent of the American public
got together and they said, because we pushed them, we're
going to deal with this, we can do the same,
I believe with the pharmaceutical industry with most favoredation price.

Speaker 3 (32:51):
Well, not to burst your balloon, doctor Oz, but do
you feel like the insurance companies have changed? Do you
health insurance companies? You think they've changed? Insurance doesn't seem
like it to me. If they're changing, they may give
it you a lip service. But if they're changing, I
haven't seen any changes yet. It's going to be the

(33:12):
same thing with the drug manufacturers. The only way pharmaceutical
companies change is if they are somehow forced to change,
which is not me saying that we need to have,
you know, price limits that are set by the government.
I don't believe in. If I believed in government and intervention,
I guess i'd be more of a socialist. I'm a capitalist.
I have no problem with drug companies making money, but

(33:33):
gouging people on life saving medications doesn't strike me as
the way to make money. You know, if you want
to charge ridiculous amounts for some of these some of
these things you're making, you know, for weight loss, for example,
they weren't really intended initially for weight loss, but seemed
to work for that. Just like Biager was not really intended,
you know, to give you, you know, to cure erectile dysfunction,

(33:55):
doesn't cure it, but to treat directile dysfunction. But it
ended up being the side benefit of it. I don't
care if you want to charge for those things that
that's not a keeping somebody alive kind of a thing,
that's not a take this medication die situation. But you know,
as we all get older, we and hopefully we all
continue to get older, we all need medication for a

(34:16):
variety of things. You know, I take lessinipro, which is
a high blood pressure medication. I take another medication most
of the names I can't remember it because they're too
long and complicated. But I take two or three different
medications that involve, you know, controlling high blood pressure and
stomach acid and a few things like that, which you know,

(34:39):
while not necessarily I think the high blood pressure medication
could be life saving in some cases, certainly stroke saving.
So you know, those are the things that they have
to find a way to make them affordable, more affordable
for for just about everybody. I don't care if you,
you know, if you want to make viagrant more affordable
or not there's one those things get knockoffs. The prices

(35:02):
have a tendency to come down anyway. But I agree
there's no rhyme or reason for how we get charged
in the United States for certain drugs, why they get
charged in Europe a different price in different countries. It's
kind of like a well, you know, we charge the
people what we think they can afford to pay. It's
not based on the cost. It's based on what they
think they can get people to pay for something. So

(35:23):
maybe part of the problem is is that we fall
victim to these commercials all the time, and we seem
to be willing to pay way too much for some
of the things that we use. All right, we're not
going to solve that problem today, either, are we. All Right, listen, y'all,
have a great day. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow morning,
bright and early, starting at five AM over our news
radio seven forty KTRH.

Speaker 1 (35:41):
We are back here at four on AM nine fifty KPRC.