Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Michael, it seems to me that these folks who are
lauding the murder of the Light Healthcare CEO are a
portrait of the doctrine of total depravity. They might not
be the killer, but their souls are just as dark
as the killer. In my mind, that's total depravity.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah, I think it's a I think your spots pop.
Your point is spot on. It is depravity, and I
think you know, I wanted to say a few more
things about the manifesto and his premise, but before I do,
(00:47):
I want to comment about your comment about depravity. I
think that all of this the the whole issue about
transgenderism and the shooters, the shooter in Nashville, I think
(01:08):
the whole abortion issue. I think all of these things
represent a depravity in our entire society and into depravity that.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Is.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
And I could go on for that. This is the
kind of discussion that I have with friends a lot.
It's a moral decay and a moral decline where there
are no guardrails, there is no respect for life, there
is no longer. I mean, you think about this is
(01:46):
gonna be like a head jerk here, But think about
the Constitution. The Constitution requires that we have some common
understanding of not just what the world words mean, but
why those words were written. Why did the founding fathers think,
(02:08):
for example, that we could govern ourselves and we could
step outside that box of darkness and tyranny and govern
ourselves in a country that would be ruled by liberty
and individual freedom. It took a people that had a
(02:28):
moral code, a moral basis. Same truth capitalism. Capitalism without
any sort of morality is not capitalism. It's just sheer profiteering,
profit gathering, that's all it is. So when you divorce
(02:50):
life from any sort of moral basis, and I'm not
talking necessarily about religion. In fact, I'm not talking about
religion or the religion is a basis for a moral society,
and religion, with the exception of say, radical Islamism, provides
(03:10):
a moral basis for living your life. It's just that
the Judeo Christian form of religion provides that each individual
is unique, each individual is made in the image of God,
and that we that we respect the life and the
(03:32):
freedom and the rights of others, and they respect our
life and our rights and our freedoms. And so that
moral basis allows us to live in this chaotic thing
that is called a free society. You strip away the
moral aspect of that. And that's where, for example, in
(03:57):
my notes for today, one of the things that I
may or may not get to today is censorship, which
you know is one of my first amendments, one of
my bugaboos. And I've done a lot of reading and
thinking and making notes about how the left Democrats use
(04:17):
censorship as a means to control and they think and
they thought that they could continue to do that and
win a presidential election, and they lost everything because there
is a I do still think that the majority of
Americans live a moral based life, I really do, and
(04:43):
I think that's one reason why that the left lost
so battling this last election. But those who live a
depraved life without any respect for the rights and privileges
of others, without any respect for life itself, end up
(05:06):
thinking that they can be vigilantes just like Luigi, and
he can just take the life of the CEO, and
in his mind that solves the problem. Well, it doesn't
solve the problem. It does show and give us a
glimpse into the depravity that exists everywhere. I think there
is depravity. For example, in the idea that we're going
(05:31):
to allow the kind of human trafficking, child trafficking, sex
trafficking that is going on at our borders, both southern
and northern borders, and for that matter, in the ports,
but that we're allowing to take place under our noses
and there is not just this outright discussed and outrage
(05:56):
and demand for action, which I think is part of
the reason why Trump one because there are a group
of people that see that and they and they will
not They will not allow it. They know it's morally wrong.
They're still though, while we've won an election, we've taken
(06:20):
control of the of the leavers of government, and we
expect these changes. That does not mean that those who
don't believe like us, who believe in open borders and
everything that comes along with it, the sex trafficking, the
child trafficking. Can you imagine if if we could see
the faces of remember when they caught one, the little girl.
(06:46):
She was five or six years old. All she had
was a piece of paper with the phone number on it,
and it it bugged me that every news outlet, print
or broadcast pixelated that little girl's face. Why let's see
(07:07):
her eyes, Let's look into her soul. Let's see the confusion,
the fear, Let's see all of that. We try to
sanitize everything. Whatever the issue is, we try to sanitize it.
I want the Alexandria A Costa Cortez and the Dick Durbins,
and the Joe Biden's and the Kamala Harrises and all
(07:30):
the Nancy Pelosi's and all of these left wing radicals,
these communists. I want them to see the human face
of the people that, under their guise of somehow being compassionate,
we're allowing into this country.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
Shame on us. And when we start losing our moral compass.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
And again I'm not necessarily talking about religion, I'm talking
about morality. When we start losing that morality, we lose
the republic. And I think that's the backlash that we
saw in the election. Now, what you to think about
(08:15):
the reaction of those And I keep saying the left
only because I don't know, and I haven't read of
or found any examples or any evidence of people that
I would consider to be conservative or libertarian or to
the right on the political spectrum. I haven't seen anybody cheering. Well,
(08:36):
I take that back, I have to I've seen them
on my Facebook page and I've deleted their posts. They
as as angry as you may be in your particular situation.
And right now i'm talking to the two people I
(08:59):
think they may have been the same people that posted
on Michael Brown Unplugged on Facebook, the posts that, in
my reading, reading them at face value, advocated not only
and supported not only the killing of the United CEO,
(09:21):
but said that it's time to take off the others,
and even in a broader spectrum of just the elitists.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
I don't like the elitists.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Anymore than you do, but I want to beat them politically,
I want to beat them culturally. And you're never going
to beat them by murdering them. You just become as
bad or worse than they might be. And I'm not
saying that the CEO of United health Care was an
evil person, but United health Care as an entity might
(09:55):
itself be completely uncaring in some cases, might actually be evil.
But that gets to a company like United Healthcare is
as bureaucratic now that culture is set by the c suite,
and that c suite probably demands that you what what
(10:15):
was the name of the book that they that Luigi
engraved on the on the shelcasings defend, deposed, deny or deny,
depose and defend whatever. The order of the title of
the book was to ten year old plus book about
how the health insurance industry denies and defends the denial
(10:38):
of claims and they do so because that's their business model.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
Well that isn't if.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
That's their business model, that's because a culture has been
established that is immoral, that says, we're going to provide
you a service. We're going to vide you a product
health insurance and exchange for your premiums. Here's what we're
going to Now, you can argue on the margins. You
can argue in particular circumstances that a claim is justified
(11:07):
or a claim is unjustified. That's on a case by
case basis. But if you establish a culture that says
you first deny just to you know, because maybe they'll
just go away and you'll never have to defend the denial,
that to me is immoral. But that immorality does not
justify the killing of the CEO. Again, as I said
(11:31):
in the last hour, maybe he was actually out there
trying to change the cult. I don't know, but Maybe
he was trying to change the culture of United Healthcare.
Maybe he saw that metric that said that we are
the worst in the entire country when it comes to
claim denial. We are double the national average. We got
to change that. Maybe he thought that was the right
thing to do. I hope that he did. But killing
(11:54):
him doesn't solve the problem. Now, those who seek scapegoats,
which is what Luigi was doing in assassinating Brian Thompson, scapegoats,
whether they are individuals, executives, or the corporation themselves, they
(12:16):
failed to grasp the fundamental architecture of the healthcare economy.
And this is where this is where I'm probably gonna
lose some of you. Don't kill the messenger. I'm just
telling you the facts, the fundamentals basis of the health
(12:36):
care economy at large. I'm not talking only about health insurance.
I'm talking about health care delivery. I'm talking about the
pharmaceutical industry, talking about the insurance industry. I'm talking about
doctors in private practices, doctors in group practices, doctors whose
practices have been sold to conglomerates who then basically instruct
(12:59):
them how to practice medicine. That's not really been totally
crafted by the companies, the organizations, the doctors, the CEOs.
It's been constructed by Congress and the bureaucracy and all
the mandates that they that they require. You know, the
(13:23):
minute I said the word mandate, it reminded me of
a text message earlier. I'm not going to try to
find the text message about don't forget that health insurance premiums,
whether you know, and particularly at post Obamacare, your premiums
go up because you're paying for things that, let's say,
at the age of seventy two or seventy five or eighty,
(13:45):
you're never going to use. Do you need maternity coverage?
Do you want maternity coverage? But you have to pay
for it because it's mandated that a carrier that operates
in the state of Colorado carry that. Or puberty blockers
or transgender surgery, all of those things are mandated. So
(14:08):
start with his premise, the killer's premise that those who
profit from the suffering of millions must face accountability. Now
that might to you emotionally resonate, but let's analyze it
because it does not withstand analysis. Because the manifesto that
(14:33):
you can find online, you can read it yourself.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
I read it. I read it. It's short.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
If that is the entirety of the manifesto, it is
just one ramning paragraph, and you can read it yourself.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
But it.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Reveals his belief that targeting a CEO, a particular CEO,
which I'm going to make an assumption here that somehow
he Luigi was using United Healthcare. Somehow United Healthcare denied
a claim or did something regarding his back or his
(15:08):
fusion or whatever he had done, and that's why he
targeted them. I'm going to make that assumption from now. Well,
that reveals the manifesto reveals the shooters believe that targeting
the CEO is somehow retribution against a system that prioritizes
profit over patient care. You target the corporate profits in
(15:32):
isolation from all the regulatory context is what would be
as one person I saw right, that's like railing against
the ocean's tides while ignoring the moon's gravitational pull. To me,
that's a great comparison. United Healthcare operates with a profit
(15:54):
margin of three point six percent. As I said, that's
about thirty two thousand dollars per employee. Apple their profit
margin hovers around twenty five percent per employee earnings exceed
six hundred.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Thousand dollars, Google a profit.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Margin of twenty one percent a employee productivity contributing upwards
of two hundred and seventy thousand dollars per employee annually.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
Yeah, I know. Does Apple hurt you cause you pain Google?
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Well, let us not forget that Luigi was an educated person,
and the lefties keep telling us that it was the
uneducated that voted for Donald Trump?
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Did he did he vote for Trump? Did he vote
for years?
Speaker 3 (16:51):
I'm with you here, buddy, I'm not quite sure i'd
get the correlation.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah, I don't. I don't know who he voted for.
I don't know, you know, let me rephrase that, I
don't know that even voted. How about that? So I'm
not again, I'm not sure what the point is. But
let's let's go back to the manifesto. The premise was
that quote those who profit from the suffering of millions
must face accountabilt must face accountability. Well, the American healthcare
(17:23):
system is not based on a free market.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Shocker, right.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
We essentially have government controlled socialized medicine in this country,
and it's been exacerbated by Obamacare. You can ask anybody
how they're insurance. Remember what were the two things? If
you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, and
you know your health insurance. Premiums are going to go down,
(17:53):
and a family of four is going to pay what
was it twenty five hundred dollars a year, fifteen hundred
dollars a year. That was the promise made by Obamacare.
Now you tell me what's happened since then. Most people
haven't kept their doctor, Most people haven't even kept their
own their insurance policies. Everything has been upended, and everything
(18:14):
has been regulated. We've Obamacare was the first proverbial step,
the foot in the door towards socialized medicine. We just
haven't gone full national health service. We haven't gone what
Bernie Sanders and the others want, which is Medicare for all.
That's the pure, unadulterated socialized medicine, and that's the path
that we are on. So healthcare in America is not
(18:38):
free market. The executives don't set premiums just based on
what they want. That's all regulated. Government edicts, all of
the protocols and regulations about reimbursement and how much do
you get reimbursing for what you get reimbursed protection these
(19:00):
policies established by lobbyists for the healthcare industry that strangle
any competition. Go start your own healthcare insurance company. See
how that works out for you. And United Healthcare, like
all of the others, work in that complex system, and
(19:21):
they're constrained as much as they are enabled in some
cases by the very rules under which they flourish. Look
at Medicare. I just got a from my and again
I never can remember whether it's called a Medicare gap
or a Medicare advantage, but from my supplemental insurance policy.
(19:45):
I just got a statement about my last doctor visit
in which I did, you know, all of my annual
wellness exams and tests and everything.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
And I look at what now.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
I look at just what Medicare pays, and it's like,
one example, one of the codes was built by the
doctor at two hundred and fifty dollars. You know what
the Medicare benefit allowance was thirty five dollars.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
Now that's going to get made up by the supplement,
so that.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
My ultimate financial responsibility because of the plan I have
is going to be zero.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
Now. But go behind that document that I got.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
That meant that somebody in that doctor's office had to
code every single thing the doctor did. Check my temperature coded,
looked down my throat coded, check my prostate coded, check
(20:50):
my reflexes.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Coded, other things I'm not going to tell you coded.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
So somebody had to track all of that and coded,
and then they had to some it, and then there
may have been questions and they had to provide additional documentation.
And then once they find out what Medicare is going
to provide, then they have to go back and submit
the same thing to go to the supplement to get
the delta between what Medicare's reimbursement is and what the
(21:19):
supplement is going to pay, and then they have to calculate, now,
does Brown know anything in addition to that based on
what we've been reimbursed, or it may be that they've
reimbursed everything and they're not allowed to go charge anymore
to collect the difference. You ever thought about that. All
(21:39):
of that takes people both in the clinic and in
the insurance company and in the government offices, so that
distorts everything in terms of a free market, and a
CEO like Brian Thompson They're just a cog in that
(22:04):
Kafka esque theater. They're just trying to navigate laws designed
by Congress to prioritize shareholder profit. And then so to
assign culpability for that fiasco that I just described to
you to one individual is to confuse the puppets with
the puppeteers. The puppeteers are the elitist politicians and the
(22:27):
deep state that regulate everything. So where does all that
regulation get us? Now here's something that I can probably
agree with the shooter on, and that is that the
sheer scale of our expenditures on healthcare four point three
trillion dollars annually four point you know what used to
(22:52):
be the normal federal budget, about four point three trillion dollars.
That eclipses the healthcare spending of other country in the world.
And it's compounded with inefficiencies created by democratic policies that
incentivize dependency and reward bureaucratic bloat. And yes, I believe
(23:15):
that the outcomes often failed to justify the costs, but
I recognize that the costs are what they are not
because somebody's overcharging, but because of regulations mandate that that's what
the cost is going to be. You know what the
true the true culprits are in this scenario, government imposed
(23:38):
monopolies such as you everything about the certificate of need
that is required. That thrombles competition when it comes to
things like hospitals or surgical centers or urgent care centers.
A certificate of need. Wait a minute, what if there
were certificates of need for smartphones, certificate of needs for laptops,
(24:07):
certificates of need for autos, or my always my favorite example,
bottled water. There's a bazillion choices of bottled water. How
about a certificate of need for that in every one
of those? You know what it does? It limits my choice,
It limits the free market.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Nobody.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Do you think this Yahoo shooter? Do you think Luigi
has a clue? You'd think he would, as smart as
he's supposed to be about a certificate of a need.
You think you know about this stuff, but he doesn't.
And if he does, he doesn't care. Then you have
the cultural factors. And boy, am I aware of this?
(24:51):
You know I used to represent doctors in my legal practice.
Not I didn't represent them in malpractice claims. I represented
them in their businesses. You know, like contracts with vendors,
employee relations, things like hospital staffing privileges. You add onto
(25:14):
that they're the sheer litigation incentives that cause them to
practice defensive medicine. And again, well you've got one more
factor that increases the cost of whatever service they're going
to deliver to you. When you blame insurers for systemic inefficiencies,
(25:39):
that ignores the broader social political dynamics, including the Democratic
parties continued push for government underreach or government overreach under
the guise of universal care. Universal care stifles competition, inflates costs.
You don't believe me, Go look at the National Health Service,
Go look at the health care healthcare system in Austria,
(26:02):
Go look at the healthcare system in Italy or Japan,
over that matter, even a small country like Taiwan. Luigi
and people like him who want to look and again,
maybe it's a good point to throw in a little footnote.
(26:23):
Remember I despise this system. I have family members who
are a part of this system, and Tamer's dad used
to warn me about this system all the time. So
don't think that I'm trying to defend the system. I'm
simply telling you what the system is which leads us
(26:49):
to Luigi's are over the revenue of United Healthcare and
Thompson's twenty million dollar compensation package. That is so shortsighted
(27:10):
why I'll tell you.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Next international universal healthcare coverage day.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
And if I were a CEO, I'd be as nervous.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
As a cat and a room full of rackers just saying.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
So.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
I've seen different figures anywhere from three hundred and fifty
billion to almost four hundred billion dollars an annual revenue
for United Healthcare. Thompson's compensation package was around twenty million dollars.
I don't know how much of that a salary of
stock options or anything else, but the figure I find
(27:48):
generally reported is about twenty million dollars. Well, Luigi's iire
over those dollar amounts is as predictable as it is misguided.
But those figures, even among people like us who should
understand free markets, will still be outraged. But those figures
(28:14):
are and that outrage is more of a symptom than
it is a cause, because the real disease is where
profit maximization is tied to regulatory compliance rather than competition
and innovation. This is the one thing that we should
(28:34):
learn from this incident is this is a result of
the administrative state that we live in. And it's not
just the federal administrative state, although that's the primary driver.
It's also state regulatory agencies and maybe even to some degree,
(28:57):
things like local zoning laws, who might determine that you know,
somebody wants to build an urgent care at one particular location,
but they can't, even though that's probably the best place
in terms of market that you could draw from, and
instead they won't zone that way, so you got to
go somewhere else, and the market's not as good. And
(29:20):
I think the contrary to what most people believe, and
ensures profit margins are modest as a proportion of total
health care spending. Remember four point three trillion dollars, and
I know that when you say three hundred and sixty
billion dollars versus four point three trillion dollars, people don't
really understand the magnitude of difference in those two numbers,
(29:42):
particularly if you're a useful idiot that doesn't understand anything
about economics, or even even if you're a dofist when
it comes to math, like I am. Hospitals the pharmaceuticals
device manufacturers. They often claim far larger slices of the
pie than do the actual providers themselves. The pay that
(30:09):
Thompson got it might seem ostentatious. I don't know. I
really don't know what all the others make, but I
do know this. It probably reflects the market rate for
navigating a business and a system that is so arcane
that even seasoned policy makers, the very people who make
(30:33):
the laws probably struggle to comprehend the system. Now, let's
say we reduce Thompson's salary to zero. Would that move
the needle at all? On premiums? Would that change? You're deductible?
But executive compensation, writ large in the all over the country,
(30:54):
has become a lightning rod for public frustration because it
symbolizes these perceived inequities. And I think it does reflect
inefficiencies within whatever system you might be the CEO might
be a part of. So addressing those compensation levels, even symbolically,
(31:16):
might might restore public trust by demonstrating a commitment to
systemic reform as opposed to just perpetuating the status quote
high premiums and deductibles. You know one thing we haven't
talked about is the cost of illegal immigration. They don't
(31:38):
contribute anything. They simply suck out the system. They simply
feed off the system. They're not paying any premiums done
at all. And speaking of the administrative state, who perpetuates
that corporate lobbing, corporate influence, United Healthcare spent eight million
(32:04):
dollars lobby the one because they want the administrative state
to help them make more profit and to ease some
regulations where they can make more profit.
Michael, it seems to me that these folks who are
lauding the murder of the Light Healthcare CEO are a
portrait of the doctrine of total depravity. They might not
be the killer, but their souls are just as dark
as the killer. In my mind, that's total depravity.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah, I think it's a I think your spots pop.
Your point is spot on. It is depravity, and I
think you know, I wanted to say a few more
things about the manifesto and his premise, but before I do,
(00:47):
I want to comment about your comment about depravity. I
think that all of this the the whole issue about
transgenderism and the shooters, the shooter in Nashville, I think
(01:08):
the whole abortion issue. I think all of these things
represent a depravity in our entire society and into depravity that.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Is.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
And I could go on for that. This is the
kind of discussion that I have with friends a lot.
It's a moral decay and a moral decline where there
are no guardrails, there is no respect for life, there
is no longer. I mean, you think about this is
(01:46):
gonna be like a head jerk here, But think about
the Constitution. The Constitution requires that we have some common
understanding of not just what the world words mean, but
why those words were written. Why did the founding fathers think,
(02:08):
for example, that we could govern ourselves and we could
step outside that box of darkness and tyranny and govern
ourselves in a country that would be ruled by liberty
and individual freedom. It took a people that had a
(02:28):
moral code, a moral basis. Same truth capitalism. Capitalism without
any sort of morality is not capitalism. It's just sheer profiteering,
profit gathering, that's all it is. So when you divorce
(02:50):
life from any sort of moral basis, and I'm not
talking necessarily about religion. In fact, I'm not talking about
religion or the religion is a basis for a moral society,
and religion, with the exception of say, radical Islamism, provides
(03:10):
a moral basis for living your life. It's just that
the Judeo Christian form of religion provides that each individual
is unique, each individual is made in the image of God,
and that we that we respect the life and the
(03:32):
freedom and the rights of others, and they respect our
life and our rights and our freedoms. And so that
moral basis allows us to live in this chaotic thing
that is called a free society. You strip away the
moral aspect of that. And that's where, for example, in
(03:57):
my notes for today, one of the things that I
may or may not get to today is censorship, which
you know is one of my first amendments, one of
my bugaboos. And I've done a lot of reading and
thinking and making notes about how the left Democrats use
(04:17):
censorship as a means to control and they think and
they thought that they could continue to do that and
win a presidential election, and they lost everything because there
is a I do still think that the majority of
Americans live a moral based life, I really do, and
(04:43):
I think that's one reason why that the left lost
so battling this last election. But those who live a
depraved life without any respect for the rights and privileges
of others, without any respect for life itself, end up
(05:06):
thinking that they can be vigilantes just like Luigi, and
he can just take the life of the CEO, and
in his mind that solves the problem. Well, it doesn't
solve the problem. It does show and give us a
glimpse into the depravity that exists everywhere. I think there
is depravity. For example, in the idea that we're going
(05:31):
to allow the kind of human trafficking, child trafficking, sex
trafficking that is going on at our borders, both southern
and northern borders, and for that matter, in the ports,
but that we're allowing to take place under our noses
and there is not just this outright discussed and outrage
(05:56):
and demand for action, which I think is part of
the reason why Trump one because there are a group
of people that see that and they and they will
not They will not allow it. They know it's morally wrong.
They're still though, while we've won an election, we've taken
(06:20):
control of the of the leavers of government, and we
expect these changes. That does not mean that those who
don't believe like us, who believe in open borders and
everything that comes along with it, the sex trafficking, the
child trafficking. Can you imagine if if we could see
the faces of remember when they caught one, the little girl.
(06:46):
She was five or six years old. All she had
was a piece of paper with the phone number on it,
and it it bugged me that every news outlet, print
or broadcast pixelated that little girl's face. Why let's see
(07:07):
her eyes, Let's look into her soul. Let's see the confusion,
the fear, Let's see all of that. We try to
sanitize everything. Whatever the issue is, we try to sanitize it.
I want the Alexandria A Costa Cortez and the Dick Durbins,
and the Joe Biden's and the Kamala Harrises and all
(07:30):
the Nancy Pelosi's and all of these left wing radicals,
these communists. I want them to see the human face
of the people that, under their guise of somehow being compassionate,
we're allowing into this country.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
Shame on us. And when we start losing our moral compass.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
And again I'm not necessarily talking about religion, I'm talking
about morality. When we start losing that morality, we lose
the republic. And I think that's the backlash that we
saw in the election. Now, what you to think about
(08:15):
the reaction of those And I keep saying the left
only because I don't know, and I haven't read of
or found any examples or any evidence of people that
I would consider to be conservative or libertarian or to
the right on the political spectrum. I haven't seen anybody cheering. Well,
(08:36):
I take that back, I have to I've seen them
on my Facebook page and I've deleted their posts. They
as as angry as you may be in your particular situation.
And right now i'm talking to the two people I
(08:59):
think they may have been the same people that posted
on Michael Brown Unplugged on Facebook, the posts that, in
my reading, reading them at face value, advocated not only
and supported not only the killing of the United CEO,
(09:21):
but said that it's time to take off the others,
and even in a broader spectrum of just the elitists.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
I don't like the elitists.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Anymore than you do, but I want to beat them politically,
I want to beat them culturally. And you're never going
to beat them by murdering them. You just become as
bad or worse than they might be. And I'm not
saying that the CEO of United health Care was an
evil person, but United health Care as an entity might
(09:55):
itself be completely uncaring in some cases, might actually be evil.
But that gets to a company like United Healthcare is
as bureaucratic now that culture is set by the c suite,
and that c suite probably demands that you what what
(10:15):
was the name of the book that they that Luigi
engraved on the on the shelcasings defend, deposed, deny or deny,
depose and defend whatever. The order of the title of
the book was to ten year old plus book about
how the health insurance industry denies and defends the denial
(10:38):
of claims and they do so because that's their business model.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
Well that isn't if.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
That's their business model, that's because a culture has been
established that is immoral, that says, we're going to provide
you a service. We're going to vide you a product
health insurance and exchange for your premiums. Here's what we're
going to Now, you can argue on the margins. You
can argue in particular circumstances that a claim is justified
(11:07):
or a claim is unjustified. That's on a case by
case basis. But if you establish a culture that says
you first deny just to you know, because maybe they'll
just go away and you'll never have to defend the denial,
that to me is immoral. But that immorality does not
justify the killing of the CEO. Again, as I said
(11:31):
in the last hour, maybe he was actually out there
trying to change the cult. I don't know, but Maybe
he was trying to change the culture of United Healthcare.
Maybe he saw that metric that said that we are
the worst in the entire country when it comes to
claim denial. We are double the national average. We got
to change that. Maybe he thought that was the right
thing to do. I hope that he did. But killing
(11:54):
him doesn't solve the problem. Now, those who seek scapegoats,
which is what Luigi was doing in assassinating Brian Thompson, scapegoats,
whether they are individuals, executives, or the corporation themselves, they
(12:16):
failed to grasp the fundamental architecture of the healthcare economy.
And this is where this is where I'm probably gonna
lose some of you. Don't kill the messenger. I'm just
telling you the facts, the fundamentals basis of the health
(12:36):
care economy at large. I'm not talking only about health insurance.
I'm talking about health care delivery. I'm talking about the
pharmaceutical industry, talking about the insurance industry. I'm talking about
doctors in private practices, doctors in group practices, doctors whose
practices have been sold to conglomerates who then basically instruct
(12:59):
them how to practice medicine. That's not really been totally
crafted by the companies, the organizations, the doctors, the CEOs.
It's been constructed by Congress and the bureaucracy and all
the mandates that they that they require. You know, the
(13:23):
minute I said the word mandate, it reminded me of
a text message earlier. I'm not going to try to
find the text message about don't forget that health insurance premiums,
whether you know, and particularly at post Obamacare, your premiums
go up because you're paying for things that, let's say,
at the age of seventy two or seventy five or eighty,
(13:45):
you're never going to use. Do you need maternity coverage?
Do you want maternity coverage? But you have to pay
for it because it's mandated that a carrier that operates
in the state of Colorado carry that. Or puberty blockers
or transgender surgery, all of those things are mandated. So
(14:08):
start with his premise, the killer's premise that those who
profit from the suffering of millions must face accountability. Now
that might to you emotionally resonate, but let's analyze it
because it does not withstand analysis. Because the manifesto that
(14:33):
you can find online, you can read it yourself.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
I read it. I read it. It's short.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
If that is the entirety of the manifesto, it is
just one ramning paragraph, and you can read it yourself.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
But it.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Reveals his belief that targeting a CEO, a particular CEO,
which I'm going to make an assumption here that somehow
he Luigi was using United Healthcare. Somehow United Healthcare denied
a claim or did something regarding his back or his
(15:08):
fusion or whatever he had done, and that's why he
targeted them. I'm going to make that assumption from now. Well,
that reveals the manifesto reveals the shooters believe that targeting
the CEO is somehow retribution against a system that prioritizes
profit over patient care. You target the corporate profits in
(15:32):
isolation from all the regulatory context is what would be
as one person I saw right, that's like railing against
the ocean's tides while ignoring the moon's gravitational pull. To me,
that's a great comparison. United Healthcare operates with a profit
(15:54):
margin of three point six percent. As I said, that's
about thirty two thousand dollars per employee. Apple their profit
margin hovers around twenty five percent per employee earnings exceed
six hundred.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Thousand dollars, Google a profit.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Margin of twenty one percent a employee productivity contributing upwards
of two hundred and seventy thousand dollars per employee annually.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
Yeah, I know. Does Apple hurt you cause you pain Google?
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Well, let us not forget that Luigi was an educated person,
and the lefties keep telling us that it was the
uneducated that voted for Donald Trump?
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Did he did he vote for Trump? Did he vote
for years?
Speaker 3 (16:51):
I'm with you here, buddy, I'm not quite sure i'd
get the correlation.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah, I don't. I don't know who he voted for.
I don't know, you know, let me rephrase that, I
don't know that even voted. How about that? So I'm
not again, I'm not sure what the point is. But
let's let's go back to the manifesto. The premise was
that quote those who profit from the suffering of millions
must face accountabilt must face accountability. Well, the American healthcare
(17:23):
system is not based on a free market.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Shocker, right.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
We essentially have government controlled socialized medicine in this country,
and it's been exacerbated by Obamacare. You can ask anybody
how they're insurance. Remember what were the two things? If
you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, and
you know your health insurance. Premiums are going to go down,
(17:53):
and a family of four is going to pay what
was it twenty five hundred dollars a year, fifteen hundred
dollars a year. That was the promise made by Obamacare.
Now you tell me what's happened since then. Most people
haven't kept their doctor, Most people haven't even kept their
own their insurance policies. Everything has been upended, and everything
(18:14):
has been regulated. We've Obamacare was the first proverbial step,
the foot in the door towards socialized medicine. We just
haven't gone full national health service. We haven't gone what
Bernie Sanders and the others want, which is Medicare for all.
That's the pure, unadulterated socialized medicine, and that's the path
that we are on. So healthcare in America is not
(18:38):
free market. The executives don't set premiums just based on
what they want. That's all regulated. Government edicts, all of
the protocols and regulations about reimbursement and how much do
you get reimbursing for what you get reimbursed protection these
(19:00):
policies established by lobbyists for the healthcare industry that strangle
any competition. Go start your own healthcare insurance company. See
how that works out for you. And United Healthcare, like
all of the others, work in that complex system, and
(19:21):
they're constrained as much as they are enabled in some
cases by the very rules under which they flourish. Look
at Medicare. I just got a from my and again
I never can remember whether it's called a Medicare gap
or a Medicare advantage, but from my supplemental insurance policy.
(19:45):
I just got a statement about my last doctor visit
in which I did, you know, all of my annual
wellness exams and tests and everything.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
And I look at what now.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
I look at just what Medicare pays, and it's like,
one example, one of the codes was built by the
doctor at two hundred and fifty dollars. You know what
the Medicare benefit allowance was thirty five dollars.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
Now that's going to get made up by the supplement,
so that.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
My ultimate financial responsibility because of the plan I have
is going to be zero.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
Now. But go behind that document that I got.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
That meant that somebody in that doctor's office had to
code every single thing the doctor did. Check my temperature coded,
looked down my throat coded, check my prostate coded, check
(20:50):
my reflexes.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Coded, other things I'm not going to tell you coded.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
So somebody had to track all of that and coded,
and then they had to some it, and then there
may have been questions and they had to provide additional documentation.
And then once they find out what Medicare is going
to provide, then they have to go back and submit
the same thing to go to the supplement to get
the delta between what Medicare's reimbursement is and what the
(21:19):
supplement is going to pay, and then they have to calculate, now,
does Brown know anything in addition to that based on
what we've been reimbursed, or it may be that they've
reimbursed everything and they're not allowed to go charge anymore
to collect the difference. You ever thought about that. All
(21:39):
of that takes people both in the clinic and in
the insurance company and in the government offices, so that
distorts everything in terms of a free market, and a
CEO like Brian Thompson They're just a cog in that
(22:04):
Kafka esque theater. They're just trying to navigate laws designed
by Congress to prioritize shareholder profit. And then so to
assign culpability for that fiasco that I just described to
you to one individual is to confuse the puppets with
the puppeteers. The puppeteers are the elitist politicians and the
(22:27):
deep state that regulate everything. So where does all that
regulation get us? Now here's something that I can probably
agree with the shooter on, and that is that the
sheer scale of our expenditures on healthcare four point three
trillion dollars annually four point you know what used to
(22:52):
be the normal federal budget, about four point three trillion dollars.
That eclipses the healthcare spending of other country in the world.
And it's compounded with inefficiencies created by democratic policies that
incentivize dependency and reward bureaucratic bloat. And yes, I believe
(23:15):
that the outcomes often failed to justify the costs, but
I recognize that the costs are what they are not
because somebody's overcharging, but because of regulations mandate that that's what
the cost is going to be. You know what the
true the true culprits are in this scenario, government imposed
(23:38):
monopolies such as you everything about the certificate of need
that is required. That thrombles competition when it comes to
things like hospitals or surgical centers or urgent care centers.
A certificate of need. Wait a minute, what if there
were certificates of need for smartphones, certificate of needs for laptops,
(24:07):
certificates of need for autos, or my always my favorite example,
bottled water. There's a bazillion choices of bottled water. How
about a certificate of need for that in every one
of those? You know what it does? It limits my choice,
It limits the free market.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Nobody.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Do you think this Yahoo shooter? Do you think Luigi
has a clue? You'd think he would, as smart as
he's supposed to be about a certificate of a need.
You think you know about this stuff, but he doesn't.
And if he does, he doesn't care. Then you have
the cultural factors. And boy, am I aware of this?
(24:51):
You know I used to represent doctors in my legal practice.
Not I didn't represent them in malpractice claims. I represented
them in their businesses. You know, like contracts with vendors,
employee relations, things like hospital staffing privileges. You add onto
(25:14):
that they're the sheer litigation incentives that cause them to
practice defensive medicine. And again, well you've got one more
factor that increases the cost of whatever service they're going
to deliver to you. When you blame insurers for systemic inefficiencies,
(25:39):
that ignores the broader social political dynamics, including the Democratic
parties continued push for government underreach or government overreach under
the guise of universal care. Universal care stifles competition, inflates costs.
You don't believe me, Go look at the National Health Service,
Go look at the health care healthcare system in Austria,
(26:02):
Go look at the healthcare system in Italy or Japan,
over that matter, even a small country like Taiwan. Luigi
and people like him who want to look and again,
maybe it's a good point to throw in a little footnote.
(26:23):
Remember I despise this system. I have family members who
are a part of this system, and Tamer's dad used
to warn me about this system all the time. So
don't think that I'm trying to defend the system. I'm
simply telling you what the system is which leads us
(26:49):
to Luigi's are over the revenue of United Healthcare and
Thompson's twenty million dollar compensation package. That is so shortsighted
(27:10):
why I'll tell you.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Next international universal healthcare coverage day.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
And if I were a CEO, I'd be as nervous.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
As a cat and a room full of rackers just saying.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
So.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
I've seen different figures anywhere from three hundred and fifty
billion to almost four hundred billion dollars an annual revenue
for United Healthcare. Thompson's compensation package was around twenty million dollars.
I don't know how much of that a salary of
stock options or anything else, but the figure I find
(27:48):
generally reported is about twenty million dollars. Well, Luigi's iire
over those dollar amounts is as predictable as it is misguided.
But those figures, even among people like us who should
understand free markets, will still be outraged. But those figures
(28:14):
are and that outrage is more of a symptom than
it is a cause, because the real disease is where
profit maximization is tied to regulatory compliance rather than competition
and innovation. This is the one thing that we should
(28:34):
learn from this incident is this is a result of
the administrative state that we live in. And it's not
just the federal administrative state, although that's the primary driver.
It's also state regulatory agencies and maybe even to some degree,
(28:57):
things like local zoning laws, who might determine that you know,
somebody wants to build an urgent care at one particular location,
but they can't, even though that's probably the best place
in terms of market that you could draw from, and
instead they won't zone that way, so you got to
go somewhere else, and the market's not as good. And
(29:20):
I think the contrary to what most people believe, and
ensures profit margins are modest as a proportion of total
health care spending. Remember four point three trillion dollars, and
I know that when you say three hundred and sixty
billion dollars versus four point three trillion dollars, people don't
really understand the magnitude of difference in those two numbers,
(29:42):
particularly if you're a useful idiot that doesn't understand anything
about economics, or even even if you're a dofist when
it comes to math, like I am. Hospitals the pharmaceuticals
device manufacturers. They often claim far larger slices of the
pie than do the actual providers themselves. The pay that
(30:09):
Thompson got it might seem ostentatious. I don't know. I
really don't know what all the others make, but I
do know this. It probably reflects the market rate for
navigating a business and a system that is so arcane
that even seasoned policy makers, the very people who make
(30:33):
the laws probably struggle to comprehend the system. Now, let's
say we reduce Thompson's salary to zero. Would that move
the needle at all? On premiums? Would that change? You're deductible?
But executive compensation, writ large in the all over the country,
(30:54):
has become a lightning rod for public frustration because it
symbolizes these perceived inequities. And I think it does reflect
inefficiencies within whatever system you might be the CEO might
be a part of. So addressing those compensation levels, even symbolically,
(31:16):
might might restore public trust by demonstrating a commitment to
systemic reform as opposed to just perpetuating the status quote
high premiums and deductibles. You know one thing we haven't
talked about is the cost of illegal immigration. They don't
(31:38):
contribute anything. They simply suck out the system. They simply
feed off the system. They're not paying any premiums done
at all. And speaking of the administrative state, who perpetuates
that corporate lobbing, corporate influence, United Healthcare spent eight million
(32:04):
dollars lobby the one because they want the administrative state
to help them make more profit and to ease some
regulations where they can make more profit.
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