December 30, 2025 • 33 mins
Michael Berry uncovers how cultural flashpoints—from drag‑queen visibility to controversial academic claims—intersect with institutional failures. Plus, a compelling expert breakdown of America’s healthcare crisis and the hidden forces driving runaway costs.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load. So
Michael Very Show is on the air. I talked about
this a couple of weeks ago, and I don't know how.
(00:24):
I guess I didn't go deep enough into it, but
I knew it was only a matter of time, and
so did you. We all knew when the Democrats and
the mainstream media started to promote drag queens. You knew
what was coming next. Drag queens everywhere because it sort
(00:45):
of induces others. It becomes, in an odd way, a
bandwagon effect. Now you may say to yourself, I don't
understand that, because it doesn't make me want to be
a drag queen. But it was never intended to appeal
to you. It was intended to appeal to a certain
amount of a certain type of person. So when tattoos
became more commonplace, it was a rebel thing to do.
(01:08):
It's a crazy thing to do, it was it was
a it was a rebellion and it showed it you
were different. And so people would get tattoos as a
way of making a statement, piss off mom and dad.
And when you saw them, you knew that's a person
who doesn't care what you think, and it's it's as
much a uniform as any other uniform. But that's what
(01:31):
it was until everybody started getting tattoos. It got to
the point where people in their seventies are getting tattoos.
Little ladies are getting tattoos because their granddaughter comes home
from college. As grandma, let's go get a tattoo, you
and me, we'll get it on our ankle. It'll be
a butterfly. All right, maybe I'll do Your grandmother do
(01:51):
anything for the grandkids, you know that. And so now
you walk into a tattoo parlor and there's grandma over there,
sweet as she can be. He's been voting Republicans since Eisenhower,
and she's getting a tattoo. So they had to go right,
they ruined it for us. It's like hipsters. It's very
much like hipsters. It's like hipsters who you know, they
(02:14):
want the hot new thing, the craft beer or this
brand of clothing, or vacationing in this particular place. And
then when the normies do it, when the rest of
us do it, it ruins it. Or if you have teenagers,
your teenagers will use words that are teen vocabulary jargon,
(02:35):
and so what you do is you learn about it
and you throw it in real casually as if you
think you're super cool, and they hear it, and it,
I mean, destroys that term for them, and in my
house like dad, no, no, But what will happen is
Michael or Crockett one or the other, whichever one reacts
(02:57):
the most harshly to it, which is usually Michael t
my oldest crocodile. Go, I gotta tell you that props.
You did use it, right, I mean you did, you
did actually use it, right, I mean, I gotta give
you credit.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
You did so.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Anyway, So when the when normalizing the drag queens became
the deal, it started making more popular drag queens reading
to kids in school. They didn't they didn't just want
to be left alone and not beaten up. See that
was the originals. It always starts there, leave them alone,
they're victims of crime. Okay, leave them alone, don't pick
(03:31):
on them. Okay, they're coming to read to your kid
in school. Whoa, whoa. That escalated quickly. Drag Queen's Story
Hour in the public library turned into drag Queen's Story
Hour in the school. And you were a bigot if
you balked at it. Okay, I'm a bigot if that's
what that means, because that's no place for that. Then
they put pornography in the school library. Then they said
(03:55):
that we wanted to ban books, and so the FBI
started investigating parents that went to school board meetings to protest,
bullying them, intimidating them gestapo tactics exactly what it is,
no different. We call them rumors because that's what they are.
They're grooming young children so that they can be objects
of their sexual enjoyment. It's sick and it's real. That's
(04:21):
what pedophiles do, and that's why it's so important for
all these people to do what they do in the school.
They don't want to be left alone. Used to they'd say,
just leave us alone, to leave our line. We're just
like you. We just want to be left alone. They
don't want to be left alone anymore. Now they want
to come and smirit in your face and they want
to dare you to have a problem with it so
that they can destroy you. That's their goal. You have
(04:44):
to fight back in the same way they're fighting. Well,
we now have liberal white women, which is the source
of most problems in this country in academia trying to
tell us that pedophilia is a sexual orientation. Listen to this.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Most of us show this comfort when we think about pedophiles.
But just like pedophiles, we are not responsible for our feelings.
We do not choose them, but we are responsible for
our actions, and we must make a decision. It is
(05:19):
in our responsibility to reflect and to overcome our negative
feelings about pedophiles and to treat them with the same
respect we treat other people with. We should accept that
pedophiles are people who have not chosen their sexuality and who,
(05:39):
unlike most of us, will never be able to live
it out freely. If they want to lead an upright life.
We should accept that pedophilia is a sexual preference.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
Statistics indicate that there will be one or two of
you who are struggling with some form of pedophilic interest.
These people can't talk about their feelings because they know
that they will be hated for it. I truly do
believe that every person is longing for love at some
point in their life.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
And what if this.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
Love that you really wish for will forever be impossible.
That must be a really lonely situation.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
To be in.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
Yes, from an emotional point of view, I can kind
of understand that you would want to eliminate these people
from society. However, it doesn't make sense, and that's because
we're talking about biology. We're talking about a sexual orientation,
something that we simply cannot change. And on top of that,
(06:43):
every day new people are born with the same difficulty.
So it's not practical to eliminate these people from society.
They haven't done anything wrong.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
This should not be a surprise. How many high profile
people flu to epstein out. Nobody made them. They didn't
arrive and find out later. I had no idea what
was going to happen. These people wanted to do this.
They're being protected. There is a powerful cabal protecting them,
and I think, by the way, blackmailing them. Joe Biden
(07:17):
had been smelling the hair of young girls for a
long time. His daughter wrote in her diary, which has
now been verified she did write it. It is her
diary that he would shower with her when she was
a teenager and it was creepy and she wished he
would stop. Do you know any other grown men who
get button naked in the shower with their teenage daughter, honestly,
and a guy that already has it, has a whole history.
(07:41):
But he's not the only creature. Est guers.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Sweat comes to the phar Sesso gasserplexed.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
With he's got restraining orders from the middle schools.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
From where to Mexican.
Speaker 5 (08:21):
It's Tracy Bird.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Hey, y'all, if you drink, don't drive, do the watermelon
crawl and listen to the tsar of talk. My buddy
Michael Berry.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
You know.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
I got an email doing the break from our fellows.
I'm a Vietnam veteran. I'm not listening anymore. Your service
in Vietnam is appreciated, but I'm not sure how that's
relevant to where we're going. Let me see why he's
not listening anymore. He's not listening because I said that
(08:54):
if you get COVID or die of COVID after having
taking the vacts, and that is poetic justice. It's not
what I said. I said those who pushed the vacts,
that is Fauci and Biden. I do hope they get COVID.
(09:16):
I do hope it takes them down. You don't need
to tell me that's evil or devilish or not Christian.
I understand I have family members who died from taking
that shot. I feel pretty passionately about it. You're free
to have your opinion. You're free to forgive, forget, justify, judge,
but I'm not changing my position. My wife and kids
(09:39):
took that stupid thing. You think I want people to
die from that. But the bigger issue is not the
COVID shot. The bigger issue is this. As I wrote
to the guy, you misunderstood what I said. Here's what
I said, Here's what I intended. But if you say
you're not listening ever again because I said something with
(10:04):
which you disagree, I want to be as clear as
I possibly can. If I'm left with three people listening,
but there are three honest to goodness, truth seeking, honorable, honest,
open minded, thoughtful people, I consider that better. I don't
(10:25):
listen to other shows. But we've all heard it. We've
all heard the pandering, the jingoistic patriotism, the jingoistic manhood.
We've all heard it. If the only reason you listen
(10:45):
to our show is you agree one hundred percent with
what I say, why are you listening honestly for an
affirmation of what you already believe? That feels weird. The
old line, if we agree on everything, one of us
isn't necessary to me. The interesting parts are where we disagree,
(11:10):
Why I disagree and show I'm not gonna listen. Look,
I know this sounds arrogant, but why not be honest?
You not listening is not enough to make a difference.
Our show is not sold on ratings. Our ratings are great.
Our show is sold on the basis that people who
(11:33):
sponsor the show spend a lot of money on it
because they know that our listener it's a qualitative not
a quantitative buy. They don't want everybody groupon didn't end
Groupon didn't fall apart because nobody came to the restaurant.
Groupon fell apart because everybody came to the restaurant. It
(11:57):
was just all the wrong kind of people. Houston Week
is not a bust because people don't come out to
eat at a restaurant that would normally be one hundred
dollars per person for twenty dollars that goes to charity.
Houston Restaurant Week is a bust because you find out
that those people coming out there that you're not going
(12:17):
to make any money on, they're not samplers. That you
want to come back. They're the deal seekers. They eat
half their meal and send it back. They show up drunk,
they stand up and stagger through the aisles. They argue
with your staff, they humiliate your staff. They don't tip,
They spill things. They piss all over the floor in
(12:39):
the bathroom. The only thing worse than groupon not or
the Houston Restaurant week, or groupon not delivering people to
your restaurant is they delivered too many of all the
wrong kind. What makes our show special is that companies
(13:00):
partner with us because they get the kind of people
that you you would seek out that special person. How
often is it during a transaction that you enjoy the experience.
How often is it that you are providing air conditioning
(13:24):
services or plumbing or roofing or whatever else and you
feel the need when you're done to send me an
email because you just talked to the most interesting guy ever.
That's where our listener is. You passed up nine houses
to get there, and eight of those nine you don't
want to do that roof. You do not want to
(13:46):
have to argue. You do not want to worry he's
going to sue you. You do not want to know
where he's going to threaten. You don't where he's gonna
call the cops, you don't know, worry he's going to
show up or not show up tomorrow. So if you're
that person, you got me fed up. You don't get me,
And that's okay. I say this all the time. Not
(14:06):
every marriage works. Hey, we're not meant to be together.
I'm not offering what you're wanting in your wanting what
I'm not offering what I am offering you don't want,
which is to have your opinions challenged. I'm gonna say
things on the air that you might not agree with.
(14:30):
I'm gonna say things that you might agree with but
don't realize it and can't give voice to it. I'm
gonna say things that are gonna upset your wife or
your mother, or your secretary or your boss. Know that
in advance. That shouldn't come as a surprise. Even though
(14:51):
I haven't done it in a little while, because I've
gone soft of late. I'm gonna do that and I'm
gonna keep doing it, not to provoke, not because I'm
a shock job, because I believe the truth is more
important than people's feelings. If you can't tell the truth.
(15:12):
You can't be honest. If you can't offend, you can't
be honest. That was the essence of Thomas Paine's statements.
A series of them being completely honest is going to
upset people. And if you respond by saying, but I'm
going to not listen anymore, good, But I need you
(15:35):
to know I'm not listening. Okay, remote, can you redo
the role and not call out Bob tomorrow so we
don't have him as absent. We just we already know
he's moved school district. You're not with us anymore.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
I grew up seeing and hearing about the horrors that
this kind of ideology can break upon a civilization.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Michael Gerry. As some of you know, because I talk
about my personal life on the air, it's all I
got to talk about, and I share how I interact
with the policies and politics that we talk about, because
at the end of the day, these aren't academic discussions.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Right.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
If the government takes over our health care, that's going
to affect you. And just because you're young and healthy
and haven't needed health care yet or recently, you don't
realize that, and you see it as some sort of
arcane or ethereal existential discussion. But that's not where it
(16:41):
is for me. I have a brother who died of
the clot shot, A perfectly able bodied law enforcement officer
with over thirty years who died of the clock shot
January twenty fifth, twenty twenty two. My father, since he
was twenty years old and had to be discharged for
the Coastguard on his deathbed with a severe case of diabetes,
(17:05):
and they didn't know how to treat it back then.
They sent him home to die, and he read and experimented,
and here we are. He's eighty four and still alive,
still battling diabetes by the day.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
He is.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
In constant contact with doctors, and many of them have
told me your dad knows more about diabetes than diabetes
doctors do, because in an era before we had proper insulin,
he was managing his blood sugar that's unheard of. And
he still has his vision in all ten of his
fingers and toes well. He's a man of great self
discipline and the willingness to experiment on himself and get
(17:41):
enough sleep and not drink and you know, do the
things that are necessary. And then of course my mother
five years younger than him. My father was supposed to
go first, and my mother would nurse him until the
end of his life. And she up and passes on us.
And she ended up having als that basically just eventually
(18:03):
took over her body and left her unable to breathe.
Her lungs just wouldn't function, and it was a horrible,
horrible way to go. She died in hospice at our home.
I have been in and out of hospitals just with
these things so many times over the last few years
(18:24):
that I have come to learn a lot about the
medical care system. You know, I had a minor stroke
on August first, twenty sixteen. I you know, we've all
had our medical issues. I'm much better now about taking
care of my health and getting my checkups and all that.
(18:44):
But the policy issue of how we deliver healthcare in
a marketplace of people trying to heal you and provide
wellness and prevent all these things, it's gotten. It's all
messed up, and I don't think people really even understand
why it's all messed up. And so today I would
(19:08):
like to step back from the news of the day
and address this. There is a fellow who has been
highly recommended when I bring these questions up, named Charles Silver.
He is the McDonald Endowed Chair of Civil Procedure at
the University of Texas at Austin School of Law. I
(19:30):
don't know if he was there when I was there
in the mid nineties. I don't know him, but his
work has been widely widely discussed, particularly his book Overcharged,
Why Americans pay too much for healthcare.
Speaker 5 (19:48):
Professor Silver, welcome to the program. Thank you, Michael, pleasure
to be here.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
I must first ask you if you were on faculty
from ninety three to ninety six when I was there.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I was.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
I started teaching at Texas in nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Oh wow, okay, Well, I was Aleno Graula acolyte and
I was the first crop. There were two of us
that were sent to England to get an LLM degree,
So I was kind of checked out after my second year.
Once I had my offer, I was kind of checked out.
But I'm sorry that I never met you. I had
(20:30):
a wonderful experience at the University of Texas School of Law.
It's a great university law school, and I am the
better for it. So I think a lot of you
for being on factory there. It's a great institution. Let's
thank you.
Speaker 5 (20:44):
I'm sorry I didn't get to meet you when you
were a student.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Indeed, the book overcharged why Americans pay too much for healthcare?
If somebody says, Michael, I'm going to come back and
listen on the podcast later, but give me one minute answer,
and then let's get granular and dig into this, what's
the one minute answer as to why we pay too
much for healthcare?
Speaker 5 (21:11):
The one minute answer, we rely far too heavily on
third party payment arrangements, which means insurance companies, Medicare, Medicaid,
trycare Va, whatever they happen to be, instead of paying
for healthcare directly the same way we pay for pretty
(21:31):
much everything else, food, cars, housing. You know, we we
pay for the vast majority of things directly, meaning we
pay for them ourselves, and we don't have the problem
of excessive spending or inflation or costs or hidden bills
or surprise bills or phony charges.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
All that works really well.
Speaker 5 (21:54):
The one exception is the healthcare sector, where we rely
very very extensively on third parties to pay for things,
and that just screws everything up.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Now, the other thing is we have way.
Speaker 5 (22:06):
Too much governmental involvement in the healthcare sector. There are
lots and lots of regulations that make things worse for consumers.
By and large, the regulations have the purpose of protecting
the producers, not the consumers, So we should do a
lot less in that way.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
You did that. You were technically finished at fifty eight seconds.
You added an addendum to the end that I will
admit I will it is admissible in this case. But
you achieved the fifty eight seconds. I'm quite impressed that
you did that. So let's start drilling down on these things.
(22:49):
I got a minute left in this segment, but I
have dedicated some time to talk about this because I
think a lot of people are frustrated, especially when they
start getting all these bills and they go to emergency
room and the place is packed, and then they can't
get in to see a doctor, and then they wonder,
(23:10):
you know, why does something cost ten thousand dollars that
took twenty minutes. It just there's nothing else that requires this.
It all seems so frustrating to people, and I would
like to drill down and get into the actual reasons
why this works. Let me start by prefacing, and we'll
(23:34):
get to this in the next segment. Because I don't
want to have to cut you off. I want to
first talk about what if we were to do a
zero based budget, we were to go back to John
Locke's state of nature, and let's start all over and
have a cash only health delivery system. Let's do away
with insurance, and let's talk about who the winners and
(23:56):
losers out of that would be. And more important, if
I'm a consumer of health services, because I don't believe
that healthcare is a right. If I'm a consumer of
health services, would this be better or worse for me?
So hang tight right there. Our guest is Professor Charles Silver.
I encourage you to read the book Overcharged, Why Americans
(24:20):
Pay Too Much for Healthcare? Coming up? This is the
Michael Berry Show, Locked and Loaded, Loaded. Professor Charles Silver
is our guest, and as promised at the end, I
(24:41):
given him a moment to consider. Professor, what if we
go back the book is Overcharged, Why Americans Pay too
Much for healthcare? What if we did away with all
insurance and we went cash only? How would that change things?
Speaker 5 (24:56):
It would change a lot of things for the better,
but some things for the worse, So a lot of
things would be better, you know, we wouldn't have to
worry about things like surprise medical bills where you don't
even know what something is going to cost when you
get the service delivered. There's actually a very large retail
health sector. So if you want to get laser by surgery,
(25:19):
for example, you have to pay for that yourself because
it's not covered by insurance typically, But you know what,
it's actually very affordable and the price for laser surgery.
Are you ready for this? The price has substantially declined
since LASIK was developed, and it's gotten much better too.
There are new forms of LASIK and all that has
(25:41):
happened because there is no overlay of insurance. Where in
the healthcare sector, except in the private payment sector, can
one find prices that have declined now. There are no
hospital services that I'm aware of that cost less now
than they used to. But in the private sector where
(26:02):
we purchase cosmetic surgery, I mentioned LASC. There's also the
Surgery Center of Oklahoma, which operates on a cash basis.
But there are lots of services that people can buy directly,
and those things that part of the market works incredibly well.
As I said, we don't have surprise bills. Everybody knows
what they're going to pay before the service is delivered,
(26:24):
and nobody gets billed for more than the price.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
The prices are posted. We don't have to have you.
Speaker 5 (26:30):
In the hospital sector, we have this federal Transparenty rule
transparency rule that hospitals routinely ignore that's supposed to require
them to post their prices. But in the retail sector
we don't have that, and everybody posts their prices anyway.
So a lot of things would work better if we
did that, But the one thing that would work worse
(26:50):
would be emergencies where you're facing a risk of a
catastrophic cost that you know people just can't afford to
bear on their own. That's where insurance has a role
to play. Catastrophic costs.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Yeah, Professor, I have long advocated that we should if
people would understand, for instance, I only have liability insurance
on my vehicles, and people say you have to No, No,
I pay cash for my vehicles. The only reason people
are over insured in most cases is because the person
holding the loan wants you to have insurance for more
(27:28):
than the value of what they're of what they've loaned
you money for in case the thing gets burned down
or trash, they want their money once. You don't have
to do that. In my opinion, I'm a safe driver.
I've never met an insurance claim. In my opinion, it's
a bad business deal. So what I tell people to
do is get catastrophic health insurance so when it hits
(27:51):
fifteen thousand and up, it's good. And then pay cash
and you'll be shocked how many doctors will discount what
you get and they're happy to have the cash. I
go to a doctor named Mary Tally Boden for all
my upper respiratory stuff, and she's a cash only doctor,
which is you know a lot of people are going
to and you go in and you make your payment
(28:11):
and it's insanely cheap, and then there's no documentation. Later
there's no you know, insurance letter arrives. Do we pay this? No,
we wait to pay this. She's happier, she doesn't have
to have a bunch of billion clerks. You literally pay
the same way if you bought yogurt there. I think
this is the answer.
Speaker 5 (28:27):
Professor, Well, I agree with you because I go to
a doctor who works on the same basis. So my doctor,
I pay a monthly subscription fee too, but I can
go as many times as I want.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
You know, I don't need to go.
Speaker 5 (28:43):
All the time, fortunately, but if I need to go,
she usually can see me either that day or the
next day, and I get some tests performed in house
at no charge. And it's a great working arrangement.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Like you, I don't get it.
Speaker 5 (29:00):
Don't worry about my insurance company, you know, not paying
for something. So I think I agree with you. The
cash payment is a very good approach for basic healthcare.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
So let's have a little history lesson. Professor Charles Silver
is our guest. The book is called Overcharged, Why Americans
paid too much for healthcare. Let's go back to wherever
the starting point is. You want it to be, nineteen
fifty or nineteen seventy. Where did it start going wrong?
Because we all know it's wrong. Now, where did it
(29:32):
start going wrong?
Speaker 5 (29:35):
Oh, that's easy. It started going wrong in the mid
nineteen sixties when Medicare and Medicaid came online. In my book,
I show how doctors and hospitals fees changed after Medicare
and Medicaid took effect in nineteen sixty five, and basically
both of those statutes initially let doctors and hospitals charged
(29:58):
whatever they wanted services, and so not surprisingly, they started.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Raising their rates immediately.
Speaker 5 (30:06):
I mean, really immediately after the enactment of those programs,
we were to set with health care inflation that exceeded
the real growth rate of the GDP, and we have
been struggling with healthcare inflation ever since. But everything about
the arrangement is wrong. I mean, who in their right
minds let's people who are selling things set their own
(30:29):
prices without any market constraints. I mean, that's a recipe
for disaster, right, And then, of course that couldn't last forever.
So the government eventually did get into the price setting
business in Medicare and Medicaid. But of course we all
know that government price setting is terrible. It never works properly.
It's really hard to set good prices, to set prices accurately,
(30:53):
and moreover the government really doesn't have the right set
of interests. You know, I want it's not just the
price that matters to me, it's the convenience. Right, How
long do I have to wait to see my doctor?
How friendly is my doctor? How good is my doctor.
There are all these things. Different doctors should have different prices,
and markets can work all that stuff out, but governments
(31:15):
just are notoriously unable to do that, and so as
a result, we've had this terrible system, and because it's
so terrible, it's constantly in need of patching. I mean,
every time I turn around, there's a new bill, a
new proposal being put on the table for some kind
of regulation to fix a problem that only exists because
(31:38):
the government created it. It's never going to be fixed.
It's impossible to fix it. We really need to just
scrap these arrangements and go back to a simple cash
based system for fundamental care, and then things will start.
It will immediately be out of the spending crisis. The
(31:58):
prices will moderate because hospitals and doctors and drug companies
and all that will have to deal with the realities
of the limited budgets of consumers. They'll also have to
face competition. That's hugely important. You know, one I mentioned
the retail health sector. You know, one of the reasons
lasik is cheap is because there are a lot of
(32:19):
laser providers and any ophthalmologists can enter the field who
wants to so there's a lot of competition, and competition
is good for consumers. So we need to get rid
of these competition frustrating regulations. Let's increase the supply. Let
you know, foreign doctors who can pass American exams come
(32:39):
in and treat people. We need to just open the
floodgates for providers because we have this artificially created shortage.
You know, that's one of the waves that doctors and
hospitals have increased their revenues. It's by preventing new entrants
from coming in and you know, outcompete. So we have
(32:59):
to get of all that.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Professor Charles Silver at the University of Texas School of Law,
my alma mater, is our guest. His book is Overcharged.
Why Americans pay to dang much for healthcare? I added
the dang, but I think we all feel it more
with Professor Silver coming up
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load. So
Michael Very Show is on the air. I talked about
this a couple of weeks ago, and I don't know how.
(00:24):
I guess I didn't go deep enough into it, but
I knew it was only a matter of time, and
so did you. We all knew when the Democrats and
the mainstream media started to promote drag queens. You knew
what was coming next. Drag queens everywhere because it sort
(00:45):
of induces others. It becomes, in an odd way, a
bandwagon effect. Now you may say to yourself, I don't
understand that, because it doesn't make me want to be
a drag queen. But it was never intended to appeal
to you. It was intended to appeal to a certain
amount of a certain type of person. So when tattoos
became more commonplace, it was a rebel thing to do.
(01:08):
It's a crazy thing to do, it was it was
a it was a rebellion and it showed it you
were different. And so people would get tattoos as a
way of making a statement, piss off mom and dad.
And when you saw them, you knew that's a person
who doesn't care what you think, and it's it's as
much a uniform as any other uniform. But that's what
(01:31):
it was until everybody started getting tattoos. It got to
the point where people in their seventies are getting tattoos.
Little ladies are getting tattoos because their granddaughter comes home
from college. As grandma, let's go get a tattoo, you
and me, we'll get it on our ankle. It'll be
a butterfly. All right, maybe I'll do Your grandmother do
(01:51):
anything for the grandkids, you know that. And so now
you walk into a tattoo parlor and there's grandma over there,
sweet as she can be. He's been voting Republicans since Eisenhower,
and she's getting a tattoo. So they had to go right,
they ruined it for us. It's like hipsters. It's very
much like hipsters. It's like hipsters who you know, they
(02:14):
want the hot new thing, the craft beer or this
brand of clothing, or vacationing in this particular place. And
then when the normies do it, when the rest of
us do it, it ruins it. Or if you have teenagers,
your teenagers will use words that are teen vocabulary jargon,
(02:35):
and so what you do is you learn about it
and you throw it in real casually as if you
think you're super cool, and they hear it, and it,
I mean, destroys that term for them, and in my
house like dad, no, no, But what will happen is
Michael or Crockett one or the other, whichever one reacts
(02:57):
the most harshly to it, which is usually Michael t
my oldest crocodile. Go, I gotta tell you that props.
You did use it, right, I mean you did, you
did actually use it, right, I mean, I gotta give
you credit.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
You did so.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Anyway, So when the when normalizing the drag queens became
the deal, it started making more popular drag queens reading
to kids in school. They didn't they didn't just want
to be left alone and not beaten up. See that
was the originals. It always starts there, leave them alone,
they're victims of crime. Okay, leave them alone, don't pick
(03:31):
on them. Okay, they're coming to read to your kid
in school. Whoa, whoa. That escalated quickly. Drag Queen's Story
Hour in the public library turned into drag Queen's Story
Hour in the school. And you were a bigot if
you balked at it. Okay, I'm a bigot if that's
what that means, because that's no place for that. Then
they put pornography in the school library. Then they said
(03:55):
that we wanted to ban books, and so the FBI
started investigating parents that went to school board meetings to protest,
bullying them, intimidating them gestapo tactics exactly what it is,
no different. We call them rumors because that's what they are.
They're grooming young children so that they can be objects
of their sexual enjoyment. It's sick and it's real. That's
(04:21):
what pedophiles do, and that's why it's so important for
all these people to do what they do in the school.
They don't want to be left alone. Used to they'd say,
just leave us alone, to leave our line. We're just
like you. We just want to be left alone. They
don't want to be left alone anymore. Now they want
to come and smirit in your face and they want
to dare you to have a problem with it so
that they can destroy you. That's their goal. You have
(04:44):
to fight back in the same way they're fighting. Well,
we now have liberal white women, which is the source
of most problems in this country in academia trying to
tell us that pedophilia is a sexual orientation. Listen to this.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Most of us show this comfort when we think about pedophiles.
But just like pedophiles, we are not responsible for our feelings.
We do not choose them, but we are responsible for
our actions, and we must make a decision. It is
(05:19):
in our responsibility to reflect and to overcome our negative
feelings about pedophiles and to treat them with the same
respect we treat other people with. We should accept that
pedophiles are people who have not chosen their sexuality and who,
(05:39):
unlike most of us, will never be able to live
it out freely. If they want to lead an upright life.
We should accept that pedophilia is a sexual preference.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
Statistics indicate that there will be one or two of
you who are struggling with some form of pedophilic interest.
These people can't talk about their feelings because they know
that they will be hated for it. I truly do
believe that every person is longing for love at some
point in their life.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
And what if this.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
Love that you really wish for will forever be impossible.
That must be a really lonely situation.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
To be in.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
Yes, from an emotional point of view, I can kind
of understand that you would want to eliminate these people
from society. However, it doesn't make sense, and that's because
we're talking about biology. We're talking about a sexual orientation,
something that we simply cannot change. And on top of that,
(06:43):
every day new people are born with the same difficulty.
So it's not practical to eliminate these people from society.
They haven't done anything wrong.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
This should not be a surprise. How many high profile
people flu to epstein out. Nobody made them. They didn't
arrive and find out later. I had no idea what
was going to happen. These people wanted to do this.
They're being protected. There is a powerful cabal protecting them,
and I think, by the way, blackmailing them. Joe Biden
(07:17):
had been smelling the hair of young girls for a
long time. His daughter wrote in her diary, which has
now been verified she did write it. It is her
diary that he would shower with her when she was
a teenager and it was creepy and she wished he
would stop. Do you know any other grown men who
get button naked in the shower with their teenage daughter, honestly,
and a guy that already has it, has a whole history.
(07:41):
But he's not the only creature. Est guers.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Sweat comes to the phar Sesso gasserplexed.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
With he's got restraining orders from the middle schools.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
From where to Mexican.
Speaker 5 (08:21):
It's Tracy Bird.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Hey, y'all, if you drink, don't drive, do the watermelon
crawl and listen to the tsar of talk. My buddy
Michael Berry.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
You know.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
I got an email doing the break from our fellows.
I'm a Vietnam veteran. I'm not listening anymore. Your service
in Vietnam is appreciated, but I'm not sure how that's
relevant to where we're going. Let me see why he's
not listening anymore. He's not listening because I said that
(08:54):
if you get COVID or die of COVID after having
taking the vacts, and that is poetic justice. It's not
what I said. I said those who pushed the vacts,
that is Fauci and Biden. I do hope they get COVID.
(09:16):
I do hope it takes them down. You don't need
to tell me that's evil or devilish or not Christian.
I understand I have family members who died from taking
that shot. I feel pretty passionately about it. You're free
to have your opinion. You're free to forgive, forget, justify, judge,
but I'm not changing my position. My wife and kids
(09:39):
took that stupid thing. You think I want people to
die from that. But the bigger issue is not the
COVID shot. The bigger issue is this. As I wrote
to the guy, you misunderstood what I said. Here's what
I said, Here's what I intended. But if you say
you're not listening ever again because I said something with
(10:04):
which you disagree, I want to be as clear as
I possibly can. If I'm left with three people listening,
but there are three honest to goodness, truth seeking, honorable, honest,
open minded, thoughtful people, I consider that better. I don't
(10:25):
listen to other shows. But we've all heard it. We've
all heard the pandering, the jingoistic patriotism, the jingoistic manhood.
We've all heard it. If the only reason you listen
(10:45):
to our show is you agree one hundred percent with
what I say, why are you listening honestly for an
affirmation of what you already believe? That feels weird. The
old line, if we agree on everything, one of us
isn't necessary to me. The interesting parts are where we disagree,
(11:10):
Why I disagree and show I'm not gonna listen. Look,
I know this sounds arrogant, but why not be honest?
You not listening is not enough to make a difference.
Our show is not sold on ratings. Our ratings are great.
Our show is sold on the basis that people who
(11:33):
sponsor the show spend a lot of money on it
because they know that our listener it's a qualitative not
a quantitative buy. They don't want everybody groupon didn't end
Groupon didn't fall apart because nobody came to the restaurant.
Groupon fell apart because everybody came to the restaurant. It
(11:57):
was just all the wrong kind of people. Houston Week
is not a bust because people don't come out to
eat at a restaurant that would normally be one hundred
dollars per person for twenty dollars that goes to charity.
Houston Restaurant Week is a bust because you find out
that those people coming out there that you're not going
(12:17):
to make any money on, they're not samplers. That you
want to come back. They're the deal seekers. They eat
half their meal and send it back. They show up drunk,
they stand up and stagger through the aisles. They argue
with your staff, they humiliate your staff. They don't tip,
They spill things. They piss all over the floor in
(12:39):
the bathroom. The only thing worse than groupon not or
the Houston Restaurant week, or groupon not delivering people to
your restaurant is they delivered too many of all the
wrong kind. What makes our show special is that companies
(13:00):
partner with us because they get the kind of people
that you you would seek out that special person. How
often is it during a transaction that you enjoy the experience.
How often is it that you are providing air conditioning
(13:24):
services or plumbing or roofing or whatever else and you
feel the need when you're done to send me an
email because you just talked to the most interesting guy ever.
That's where our listener is. You passed up nine houses
to get there, and eight of those nine you don't
want to do that roof. You do not want to
(13:46):
have to argue. You do not want to worry he's
going to sue you. You do not want to know
where he's going to threaten. You don't where he's gonna
call the cops, you don't know, worry he's going to
show up or not show up tomorrow. So if you're
that person, you got me fed up. You don't get me,
And that's okay. I say this all the time. Not
(14:06):
every marriage works. Hey, we're not meant to be together.
I'm not offering what you're wanting in your wanting what
I'm not offering what I am offering you don't want,
which is to have your opinions challenged. I'm gonna say
things on the air that you might not agree with.
(14:30):
I'm gonna say things that you might agree with but
don't realize it and can't give voice to it. I'm
gonna say things that are gonna upset your wife or
your mother, or your secretary or your boss. Know that
in advance. That shouldn't come as a surprise. Even though
(14:51):
I haven't done it in a little while, because I've
gone soft of late. I'm gonna do that and I'm
gonna keep doing it, not to provoke, not because I'm
a shock job, because I believe the truth is more
important than people's feelings. If you can't tell the truth.
(15:12):
You can't be honest. If you can't offend, you can't
be honest. That was the essence of Thomas Paine's statements.
A series of them being completely honest is going to
upset people. And if you respond by saying, but I'm
going to not listen anymore, good, But I need you
(15:35):
to know I'm not listening. Okay, remote, can you redo
the role and not call out Bob tomorrow so we
don't have him as absent. We just we already know
he's moved school district. You're not with us anymore.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
I grew up seeing and hearing about the horrors that
this kind of ideology can break upon a civilization.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Michael Gerry. As some of you know, because I talk
about my personal life on the air, it's all I
got to talk about, and I share how I interact
with the policies and politics that we talk about, because
at the end of the day, these aren't academic discussions.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Right.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
If the government takes over our health care, that's going
to affect you. And just because you're young and healthy
and haven't needed health care yet or recently, you don't
realize that, and you see it as some sort of
arcane or ethereal existential discussion. But that's not where it
(16:41):
is for me. I have a brother who died of
the clot shot, A perfectly able bodied law enforcement officer
with over thirty years who died of the clock shot
January twenty fifth, twenty twenty two. My father, since he
was twenty years old and had to be discharged for
the Coastguard on his deathbed with a severe case of diabetes,
(17:05):
and they didn't know how to treat it back then.
They sent him home to die, and he read and experimented,
and here we are. He's eighty four and still alive,
still battling diabetes by the day.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
He is.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
In constant contact with doctors, and many of them have
told me your dad knows more about diabetes than diabetes
doctors do, because in an era before we had proper insulin,
he was managing his blood sugar that's unheard of. And
he still has his vision in all ten of his
fingers and toes well. He's a man of great self
discipline and the willingness to experiment on himself and get
(17:41):
enough sleep and not drink and you know, do the
things that are necessary. And then of course my mother
five years younger than him. My father was supposed to
go first, and my mother would nurse him until the
end of his life. And she up and passes on us.
And she ended up having als that basically just eventually
(18:03):
took over her body and left her unable to breathe.
Her lungs just wouldn't function, and it was a horrible,
horrible way to go. She died in hospice at our home.
I have been in and out of hospitals just with
these things so many times over the last few years
(18:24):
that I have come to learn a lot about the
medical care system. You know, I had a minor stroke
on August first, twenty sixteen. I you know, we've all
had our medical issues. I'm much better now about taking
care of my health and getting my checkups and all that.
(18:44):
But the policy issue of how we deliver healthcare in
a marketplace of people trying to heal you and provide
wellness and prevent all these things, it's gotten. It's all
messed up, and I don't think people really even understand
why it's all messed up. And so today I would
(19:08):
like to step back from the news of the day
and address this. There is a fellow who has been
highly recommended when I bring these questions up, named Charles Silver.
He is the McDonald Endowed Chair of Civil Procedure at
the University of Texas at Austin School of Law. I
(19:30):
don't know if he was there when I was there
in the mid nineties. I don't know him, but his
work has been widely widely discussed, particularly his book Overcharged,
Why Americans pay too much for healthcare.
Speaker 5 (19:48):
Professor Silver, welcome to the program. Thank you, Michael, pleasure
to be here.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
I must first ask you if you were on faculty
from ninety three to ninety six when I was there.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I was.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
I started teaching at Texas in nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Oh wow, okay, Well, I was Aleno Graula acolyte and
I was the first crop. There were two of us
that were sent to England to get an LLM degree,
So I was kind of checked out after my second year.
Once I had my offer, I was kind of checked out.
But I'm sorry that I never met you. I had
(20:30):
a wonderful experience at the University of Texas School of Law.
It's a great university law school, and I am the
better for it. So I think a lot of you
for being on factory there. It's a great institution. Let's
thank you.
Speaker 5 (20:44):
I'm sorry I didn't get to meet you when you
were a student.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Indeed, the book overcharged why Americans pay too much for healthcare?
If somebody says, Michael, I'm going to come back and
listen on the podcast later, but give me one minute answer,
and then let's get granular and dig into this, what's
the one minute answer as to why we pay too
much for healthcare?
Speaker 5 (21:11):
The one minute answer, we rely far too heavily on
third party payment arrangements, which means insurance companies, Medicare, Medicaid,
trycare Va, whatever they happen to be, instead of paying
for healthcare directly the same way we pay for pretty
(21:31):
much everything else, food, cars, housing. You know, we we
pay for the vast majority of things directly, meaning we
pay for them ourselves, and we don't have the problem
of excessive spending or inflation or costs or hidden bills
or surprise bills or phony charges.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
All that works really well.
Speaker 5 (21:54):
The one exception is the healthcare sector, where we rely
very very extensively on third parties to pay for things,
and that just screws everything up.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Now, the other thing is we have way.
Speaker 5 (22:06):
Too much governmental involvement in the healthcare sector. There are
lots and lots of regulations that make things worse for consumers.
By and large, the regulations have the purpose of protecting
the producers, not the consumers, So we should do a
lot less in that way.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
You did that. You were technically finished at fifty eight seconds.
You added an addendum to the end that I will
admit I will it is admissible in this case. But
you achieved the fifty eight seconds. I'm quite impressed that
you did that. So let's start drilling down on these things.
(22:49):
I got a minute left in this segment, but I
have dedicated some time to talk about this because I
think a lot of people are frustrated, especially when they
start getting all these bills and they go to emergency
room and the place is packed, and then they can't
get in to see a doctor, and then they wonder,
(23:10):
you know, why does something cost ten thousand dollars that
took twenty minutes. It just there's nothing else that requires this.
It all seems so frustrating to people, and I would
like to drill down and get into the actual reasons
why this works. Let me start by prefacing, and we'll
(23:34):
get to this in the next segment. Because I don't
want to have to cut you off. I want to
first talk about what if we were to do a
zero based budget, we were to go back to John
Locke's state of nature, and let's start all over and
have a cash only health delivery system. Let's do away
with insurance, and let's talk about who the winners and
(23:56):
losers out of that would be. And more important, if
I'm a consumer of health services, because I don't believe
that healthcare is a right. If I'm a consumer of
health services, would this be better or worse for me?
So hang tight right there. Our guest is Professor Charles Silver.
I encourage you to read the book Overcharged, Why Americans
(24:20):
Pay Too Much for Healthcare? Coming up? This is the
Michael Berry Show, Locked and Loaded, Loaded. Professor Charles Silver
is our guest, and as promised at the end, I
(24:41):
given him a moment to consider. Professor, what if we
go back the book is Overcharged, Why Americans Pay too
Much for healthcare? What if we did away with all
insurance and we went cash only? How would that change things?
Speaker 5 (24:56):
It would change a lot of things for the better,
but some things for the worse, So a lot of
things would be better, you know, we wouldn't have to
worry about things like surprise medical bills where you don't
even know what something is going to cost when you
get the service delivered. There's actually a very large retail
health sector. So if you want to get laser by surgery,
(25:19):
for example, you have to pay for that yourself because
it's not covered by insurance typically, But you know what,
it's actually very affordable and the price for laser surgery.
Are you ready for this? The price has substantially declined
since LASIK was developed, and it's gotten much better too.
There are new forms of LASIK and all that has
(25:41):
happened because there is no overlay of insurance. Where in
the healthcare sector, except in the private payment sector, can
one find prices that have declined now. There are no
hospital services that I'm aware of that cost less now
than they used to. But in the private sector where
(26:02):
we purchase cosmetic surgery, I mentioned LASC. There's also the
Surgery Center of Oklahoma, which operates on a cash basis.
But there are lots of services that people can buy directly,
and those things that part of the market works incredibly well.
As I said, we don't have surprise bills. Everybody knows
what they're going to pay before the service is delivered,
(26:24):
and nobody gets billed for more than the price.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
The prices are posted. We don't have to have you.
Speaker 5 (26:30):
In the hospital sector, we have this federal Transparenty rule
transparency rule that hospitals routinely ignore that's supposed to require
them to post their prices. But in the retail sector
we don't have that, and everybody posts their prices anyway.
So a lot of things would work better if we
did that, But the one thing that would work worse
(26:50):
would be emergencies where you're facing a risk of a
catastrophic cost that you know people just can't afford to
bear on their own. That's where insurance has a role
to play. Catastrophic costs.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Yeah, Professor, I have long advocated that we should if
people would understand, for instance, I only have liability insurance
on my vehicles, and people say you have to No, No,
I pay cash for my vehicles. The only reason people
are over insured in most cases is because the person
holding the loan wants you to have insurance for more
(27:28):
than the value of what they're of what they've loaned
you money for in case the thing gets burned down
or trash, they want their money once. You don't have
to do that. In my opinion, I'm a safe driver.
I've never met an insurance claim. In my opinion, it's
a bad business deal. So what I tell people to
do is get catastrophic health insurance so when it hits
(27:51):
fifteen thousand and up, it's good. And then pay cash
and you'll be shocked how many doctors will discount what
you get and they're happy to have the cash. I
go to a doctor named Mary Tally Boden for all
my upper respiratory stuff, and she's a cash only doctor,
which is you know a lot of people are going
to and you go in and you make your payment
(28:11):
and it's insanely cheap, and then there's no documentation. Later
there's no you know, insurance letter arrives. Do we pay this? No,
we wait to pay this. She's happier, she doesn't have
to have a bunch of billion clerks. You literally pay
the same way if you bought yogurt there. I think
this is the answer.
Speaker 5 (28:27):
Professor, Well, I agree with you because I go to
a doctor who works on the same basis. So my doctor,
I pay a monthly subscription fee too, but I can
go as many times as I want.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
You know, I don't need to go.
Speaker 5 (28:43):
All the time, fortunately, but if I need to go,
she usually can see me either that day or the
next day, and I get some tests performed in house
at no charge. And it's a great working arrangement.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Like you, I don't get it.
Speaker 5 (29:00):
Don't worry about my insurance company, you know, not paying
for something. So I think I agree with you. The
cash payment is a very good approach for basic healthcare.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
So let's have a little history lesson. Professor Charles Silver
is our guest. The book is called Overcharged, Why Americans
paid too much for healthcare. Let's go back to wherever
the starting point is. You want it to be, nineteen
fifty or nineteen seventy. Where did it start going wrong?
Because we all know it's wrong. Now, where did it
(29:32):
start going wrong?
Speaker 5 (29:35):
Oh, that's easy. It started going wrong in the mid
nineteen sixties when Medicare and Medicaid came online. In my book,
I show how doctors and hospitals fees changed after Medicare
and Medicaid took effect in nineteen sixty five, and basically
both of those statutes initially let doctors and hospitals charged
(29:58):
whatever they wanted services, and so not surprisingly, they started.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Raising their rates immediately.
Speaker 5 (30:06):
I mean, really immediately after the enactment of those programs,
we were to set with health care inflation that exceeded
the real growth rate of the GDP, and we have
been struggling with healthcare inflation ever since. But everything about
the arrangement is wrong. I mean, who in their right
minds let's people who are selling things set their own
(30:29):
prices without any market constraints. I mean, that's a recipe
for disaster, right, And then, of course that couldn't last forever.
So the government eventually did get into the price setting
business in Medicare and Medicaid. But of course we all
know that government price setting is terrible. It never works properly.
It's really hard to set good prices, to set prices accurately,
(30:53):
and moreover the government really doesn't have the right set
of interests. You know, I want it's not just the
price that matters to me, it's the convenience. Right, How
long do I have to wait to see my doctor?
How friendly is my doctor? How good is my doctor.
There are all these things. Different doctors should have different prices,
and markets can work all that stuff out, but governments
(31:15):
just are notoriously unable to do that, and so as
a result, we've had this terrible system, and because it's
so terrible, it's constantly in need of patching. I mean,
every time I turn around, there's a new bill, a
new proposal being put on the table for some kind
of regulation to fix a problem that only exists because
(31:38):
the government created it. It's never going to be fixed.
It's impossible to fix it. We really need to just
scrap these arrangements and go back to a simple cash
based system for fundamental care, and then things will start.
It will immediately be out of the spending crisis. The
(31:58):
prices will moderate because hospitals and doctors and drug companies
and all that will have to deal with the realities
of the limited budgets of consumers. They'll also have to
face competition. That's hugely important. You know, one I mentioned
the retail health sector. You know, one of the reasons
lasik is cheap is because there are a lot of
(32:19):
laser providers and any ophthalmologists can enter the field who
wants to so there's a lot of competition, and competition
is good for consumers. So we need to get rid
of these competition frustrating regulations. Let's increase the supply. Let
you know, foreign doctors who can pass American exams come
(32:39):
in and treat people. We need to just open the
floodgates for providers because we have this artificially created shortage.
You know, that's one of the waves that doctors and
hospitals have increased their revenues. It's by preventing new entrants
from coming in and you know, outcompete. So we have
(32:59):
to get of all that.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Professor Charles Silver at the University of Texas School of Law,
my alma mater, is our guest. His book is Overcharged.
Why Americans pay to dang much for healthcare? I added
the dang, but I think we all feel it more
with Professor Silver coming up
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