December 17, 2025 • 25 mins
On this Salcedo Storm Podcast:
Merrill Mathews, is a former resident scholar at the Institute for Policy Innovation. He’s one of the few men who has read Obamacare. He’s the author of the new book, "On the Edge: America Faces the Entitlements Cliff".
Merrill Mathews, is a former resident scholar at the Institute for Policy Innovation. He’s one of the few men who has read Obamacare. He’s the author of the new book, "On the Edge: America Faces the Entitlements Cliff".
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello, are you happy? Keep book? Neil Smith? And old
Buck Buddy? Are you hearing Neil?
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Neil?
Speaker 3 (00:09):
I miss you, man, I have a question we respect
for me.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Downs were breaking a major story, Chris, Congratulations score podcast
(00:42):
as you guys were probably here. I picked up a
cold heading into the Christmas holiday, and I uh so
not feeling so hot, but I you know, the show
must go on. So I'm gonna be talking about Obamacare
with an interview I did last week with a guy
by the named of Merril Matthews.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Something you need to know about Merrill.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
He's a guy who has read Obamacare cover to cover.
Do you know anybody who's done that? Do you know
anybody who has read every page of Obamacare?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Well, he did.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
He knows why it's lousy, he knows how to fix it,
and he's been basically shouting from the rooftops ever since
this thing was crammed down our throats to try to
rescue us from said Obamacare. So I didn't want to
do a lot of talking a because the voice is
strained as it is. Going to make sure that I
make the radio show and the TV show. Because I'm
(01:33):
this close to the Christmas holiday, I don't want to
take any time off because I'm sick. Right, It's just
it's not fair of the audience, and I do my best.
If I can talk, I will try to be there
for the audience, folks. But I did find something that's
kind of funny. This is a random guy I found
on x and it's about two minutes of Pearls of Wisdom.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Makes you think. I wanted you guys to hear it.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
And what better time as we roar towardsmiths to start
thinking thinking about things, things that make you say, hmmm, that's.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Good, thank you. So the Pope says you can't vote
for Trump because he has a strict immigration policy.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
You know who else has.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
A strict immigration policy?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Heaven?
Speaker 4 (02:17):
If twenty million illegal aliens can help our economy, why
didn't they help their own economy. So it costs four
hundred and fifty billion dollars to care for the migrants
who invaded our country, and yet they told us ten
billion dollars for a wall was too expensive.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Got it.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
If requiring an ID to vote is racist, is boarding
an airplane and driving a car and buying alcohol also racist?
So the left banned prayer in public schools because it's offensive,
but they won't let us ban drag Queen's Story Hour
because free speech.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
I wonder what's worse for So in.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
America, if you cheat to get into college, you can
go to jail, But if you cheat to get into America,
you can go to college for free. Los Angeles is
run exclusively by Democrats, and they're the ones that say
they're going to clean up the environment. If America really
is the most racist, unbearable place on earth, why does
(03:23):
everyone want to move here. The difference between the government
and robbers is that robbers don't pretend they're helping it.
Just so, you know, calling someone privileged because they're white
is judging someone by the color of their skin. So
a man who doesn't want to take care of his
kid is a deadbee dad, But a woman who doesn't
(03:43):
want to is pro choice done so. A mother can
abort her baby if she doesn't want the responsibility, but
a father will go to prison if he doesn't.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Want the responsibility.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Interesting, we live in a time where intelligent people are
being silenced so that stupid people won't be offended.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
That's so true. That is so true, folks. My conversation
with Merrill Matthews about Obamacare. How do we get rid
of it? How do we get rid of this cancer
that is eating away at one sixth already destroyed, actually
one sixth of the US economy. It's all coming up
on the Salsado Storm podcast.
Speaker 5 (04:26):
And now a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Oh jeez, if I hear another Obamacare commercial telling me
how great it is, I think I'm going to vomit.
In reality, folks are paying out the nose for crappy insurance,
meaning those commercials are just as much bs as Obamacare is.
What if you're under sixty five ineed quality affordable health coverage?
American Medical Plans specializes in under sixty five health insurance
plans that have zero copays at the doctor and no
(04:48):
deductible on all outpatient services.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Including surgeries.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
You pick your doctors and hospitals. There are private plans
in roll any time, and there are thirty to sixty
percent less than Obamacare. If you're thank too much for
your own health insurance, call American Medical Plans. They are
the answer to the cancer that is Obamacare.
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Speaker 2 (06:46):
Chris Celcato, have you been growing frustrated that all your
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Speaker 1 (08:04):
Meryl Matthews.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
He's one of the few men on planet Earth who
has read Obamacare from page one to the end. He's
the author of the book on the Edge America Faces
the Entitlements. Cliff, Meryl, welcome back and Merry Christmas.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
Thank you, Chris. Good to be with you all right.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
GOP is rolling out its healthcare plan this week.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
What do we know about it?
Speaker 5 (08:26):
We don't know much about it. And this has been
part of the problem because even though there's been a
lot of Republican healthcare plans, there hasn't been a Republican
healthcare plan. And this is one of the reasons why
we still have Obamacare, because Republicans tried to come up
with something in twenty seventeen when Trump got in office,
and by the time they were able to come up
(08:46):
with something in August of twenty seventeen, the maverick John
McCain came in and gave it a thumbs down. So
what I think they're going to try to do is
I think they're going to try to expand health savings accounts.
This is something that's been Republican ideas since nineteen ninety three.
I helped draft the first legislation for it for Senator
Phil Graham back in ninety three. They want to make
(09:08):
them large hsas, so that instead of just using being
able to use them with health insurance. They'd like people
to be able to, like your employer, to be able
to just deposit your money your employer, the money the
employer are spending on health insurance into your HSA and
then let you decide do I want to buy health
insurance from my employer. Do I want to go out
and buy my own health insurance policy? Do I want
(09:28):
to pay for health care directly? So large HSA's has
been a Republican plan for some time, so I think
that's one aspect of it. They also want to deregulate
some of the insurance regulations that Obamacare put in place,
so that insurance could start offering health insurance plans again
that people won't remember Obama said, if you like your
health plan, you can keep your health plan. That one
(09:51):
politifacts lie of the year in twenty thirteen. So you
need some deregulation in health insurance industry so people can
go out and buy something that they want. And something
that's really new out here, which I think is going
to actually I think could be have very good potential
is trump Rix. That's President Trump's notion of having a
website where people can go find the drugs they need,
(10:14):
buy them directly from the drug companies, bypassing the middleman.
And that is that's looking like it's going to save
people in an awful lot of money.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yeah, well that's good too.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
And now, look I'm going to get into Obamacare in
great detail. But what I've been looking at is. Government's
involvement in health care and the insurance in companies involvement
in healthcare has been disastrous for American health care. So
my gold standard is kicking insurance companies out of our
health care. There should be only one role that insurance
(10:46):
companies have that are tangentially related to health care, and
that's catastrophic loss. I believe the Republican should be focusing
on resurrecting which once was a vital and might I say,
inexpensive mechanism to stop the proverbial cancer diagnosis or the
proverbial car accident from bankrupting anybody with a catastrophic loss policy,
(11:10):
which really is meeting the true definition of what insurance
ought to be, and basically expand the health savors accounts
and allow us to deduct our health care expenses off
of our taxes.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
To me, that would be a complete win.
Speaker 5 (11:25):
What do you say, Well, I think you're going moving
in the right direction. We get back in the nineteen
nineties and two thousands, when we talked about a high
deductible health insurance policy, Democrats said, well, you're in this
the pocket of the insurance industry. You want them to
people to pay all these healthcare bills and then the
insurance company doesn't come in. That was always wrong, and
(11:46):
now under Obamacare, under the Bronze Plan, you could be
looking at a seven thousand dollars deductive one and double
that for a husband and wife. So I'd like to
see us move back to high deductible health insurance policies,
as you suggest. However, I'd add one aspect of that.
Prior to Obamacare, some of the insurance companies were offering
what we called limited benefit plans for young, healthy people
(12:09):
who didn't want to spend a lot of money on
health insurance. California, Colorado, and some of them had these.
They were run by Blue Cross, and it would cost
you maybe fifty sixty dollars a month, and you got
you had maybe insurance to cover you up to twenty
five hundred, five thousand dollars. You've got discounts on generic drugs,
you got to see the doctor five or six times
a year. Young people tend not to want to spend
(12:32):
money on health insurance, so you've got to make something
really affordable for them because they're healthy and they don't
feel like they won't spend much. So I would allow
insurers to do that, I would allow insurance just to
come back in and start offering pot products people want
and are willing to pay for out of their large HSA.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Yeah, get government out. And you know how I feel
about the traitorous insurance companies. They were the ones who
sold us out for this payday. And as you know,
and this is where we're going to get into two
Obamacare here, merrill. The policies have been complete turned into
complete garbage. The government has taken all of our tax
payer money and floated it into these insurance companies who
(13:10):
are making literally trillions of dollars since Obamacare's passage. Their
stocks are through the roof, and we get worse coverage
and we've never been paying more out of pocket. So
let's focus on Obamacare. Because you mentioned the lie of
the year, like your doctor, keep your doctor, like your plan,
keep your plan was another lie? And oh yes, the
(13:30):
average family or four will save twenty five hundred dollars
a year on healthcare costs. None of the promises of
Obamacare were kept. It was all a law of lies.
And because of the Obamacare failure, that's why I want
to kick government out of health care.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
What's wrong with that I agree with you completely.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
And now just your little background information that most people
don't know. When the Clintons were pushing the Clinton health
care plan back in ninety three and ninety four, the
head of the Health Insurance Trade Association at the time
was a very good Republican. When Obamacare was in, the
Health Insurance Trade Association is being run by a Democrat,
and she signed off on all that, and the insurance
(14:12):
they got some good things, but they also got some
problems with that. But you know it's I gotta tell
you it's hard. If you run a major company and
you've got the opposite party in control, you've got to
live by their rules. And you saw this with the
car companies. I mean, they were making SUVs and trucks
back in the twenty tens, and then Obama comes in.
(14:33):
They got to raise the car the cafe efficiency standards.
You've got to make more EV's and Biden comes in
and makes this sort of a mandate. And if you
don't go along with what Washington wants, they make your
life miserable. So I give a little bit of credit
to the insurance companies. I say a little bit of
a pass because they're living under when they were living
(14:54):
under Democrats, they had their life was miserable if they
didn't want to go along with what they what the
president wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Yes, I know.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
And of course the endgame for Obamacare has been the
consolidation of health care control in government, which would which
would basically enslave an entire population to the whims of government.
And of course Obama conceived that he was so he
believed all of his propaganda that he and the Democrats
would never be out of power again. And they could
(15:23):
have never called Trump. They could have never foreseen that
President Trump would be giving them headaches as he has.
Folks were talking to Merrill Matthews, Resident Scholar for the
Institute of Policy Innovation. The book is on the edge
America faces the entitlements cliff. If you were king for
a day and you could fix our health care situation
(15:46):
in this country, just to resurrect basically which was once
the envy of the world, a healthcare system that was
the envy of the world, what would you do in
totos as part of the Republican plan. If they sat
down and said, Meryl, we're gonna let you you construct
our Republican plan.
Speaker 5 (16:02):
What would it be I would change insurance to being something.
There are policies out there like that right now, where
you take a life insurance policy and you buy that
life insurance policy. If you have a major accent, major illness,
something of that nature, that life insurance policy will provide
you with the funds to pay for that, but the
money goes to the individual, and then the individual decides
(16:24):
how they want to spend that money. Something like car insurance.
There are those policies out there, but just because of
the regulations and so forth, they're not that widespread. But
would I want people to control the money themselves from
the insurance company and then they decide do I want
to get this surgery? Do I want to go to
this doctor. We don't have any incentive right now as
(16:46):
individuals to go out and be value conscious shoppers in
the healthcare marketplace. If my health insurance policy is going
to pay everything above, say twenty five hundred or three
thousand or five thousand dollars, I don't care if a
doctor charges ten thousand or fifteen or one hundred thousand
for the surgery, because insurance is going to take care
of it. So I want to make sure that individuals.
(17:06):
We are value conscious shoppers in the healthcare marketplace, like
we are every place else in the economy. If we
do that, we will solve almost all of our problem.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Healthcare is a service, folks. It is not a right
to the way the Democrats falsely portray it. Let's get
on to some other things. Look, you and I are
probably on the same page and supporting the president's efforts
to get rid of the income tax and the tariffs
that he's imposing may be a mechanism to do that.
(17:35):
I have always said, and I think you're on the
same page as this merrill that taxing income is stupid
because earning income an honest living is something that's desirable
and the government should not should not be penalizing that.
That being said, there, the president is floating the idea
of a two thousand dollars tariff payment to individuals below
(17:58):
a certain income level. I think the cutoff is one
hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. And you're not
too you're not too keen on this idea.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Why I'm not, And.
Speaker 5 (18:07):
For the same reason I wasn't keen on Biden's American
Rescue Plan, where he handed out fourteen hundred dollars to
people based upon income. So remember we said Republicans and
some democratic economists said at the time, if you start
handing out money to individuals, that becomes inflationary. You need
to be very careful about that. So the president has
(18:29):
floated the two thousand dollars handout. I'm not sure why
we need to do that. If you if you're just
looking at Scott Best had said, well, we're using the
tariffs to pay down the federal debt. If we were
actually doing that, I would be forar it, but we
would have right now we have we have a federal deficit.
This year will be well, the one we just finished
(18:50):
the LEA fiscal year was one point seven trillion dollar
federal deficit. We've gone from we've got about a thirty
eight trillion dollar federal debt. There is no money and
we don't have excess money to be able to hand
out two thousand dollars checks to individuals. And then if
you take if you take a family, a husband and wife,
they both get two thousand dollars. Trump is proposing these well,
(19:13):
he's not proposing We've already passed it in the One Big,
Beautiful Bill, you've got the one thousand dollars what he
was calling Trump accounts. If you had two kids in
the next couple of years, you could be getting six
thousand dollars from the federal government. And Chris, I just
think it's a bad idea for the federal government to
be handing out checks to people. I don't think we
should be doing that. If we've got extra money, we
(19:33):
ought to be lowering the tax rate, yes, instead of
handing it out.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yeah, I've said that too.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
We why don't you just say, take that money, pay
pay down my tax rate for every taxpayer in the
United States. Of course, I understand the politics. It looks
a lot better when you're getting a check and it's
all courtesy of Trump and the Republican Party. I understand
the politics, but the policy just to lower my tax exposure. Now,
(19:58):
you brought up these these Trump accounts, and you and
I are very familiar with the rule of seventy two
and what what I believe the idea behind this is,
and I believe this is the foundations that Trump is
trying to lay is that you know what, why don't
we start off every child that is born with an
(20:19):
account that will that will grow exponentially compound interest over
the life of the child, so by the time the
child reaches retirement age, we're not going to have a
society that is that is reliant on government for its
basic support i e. The failed Social Security system, et cetera.
(20:39):
Give it to the people rather than letting government have
its meat hooks into the people's money. I understand the concept,
but I think there's probably a more a more effective
way to roll out these Trump accounts.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
What do you say, I.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Agree with you.
Speaker 5 (20:54):
I'm I'm one percent for the accounts. And of course
Michael Dale has come up and offered to put in
six point two five billion dollars in the accounts, but
they're starting it out with one thousand dollars each. And
I got to tell you, Chris, it makes me a
little nervous to say, the first thing when you first
take your breath in the world, we're the government's going
(21:15):
to give you one thousand dollars. I love the fact
that you'd have accounts that people that parents could put
money in. We put money aside for our kids when
we were when they were going through high school, so
they would have a little money to start college with.
So I think that's a great idea if you have
organizations that wanted to chip into that. But it's catching on.
(21:35):
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick mentioned last week that he said, well,
this is a great idea. Why doesn't Texas give every
child in Texas a thousand dollars of tax payer money?
And I'm looking he says he thinks it cost about
four hundred million dollars a year. And I'm thinking, well,
if we've got at least we have a surplus here
in Texas. But if we've got four hundred million dollars
to hand out, I would like to see us lower
(21:57):
the tax.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Rate, the property taxes. Yeah, exactly, Well, you know and
the thing yeah, and you know what, and if the
President was using this as a mechanism to declare Social
Security as a failure, which it is, and saying, you
know what, why don't we instead of confiscating the American
taxpayers money and letting the government waste Social Security money
(22:20):
and then you get the pittance back, why don't we
give the the have you be able to set aside
the federal government every taxpayer will set every child up.
Here's one thousand dollars, and then we wipe out, where
we're buying these kids out of the destruction of Social
Security later in their life. I could buy that if
we could use this as a down payment to get
(22:42):
rid of Social Security, I'd be all for it.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
I think that's where he's going. He just can't say
it right now. Politically. What do you think?
Speaker 5 (22:49):
Yeah, I think that may be the case. I mean
when I was looking at this and I thought, you know,
if this is the basis for starting private social Security,
good good for us. We need to be able to
do that. My concern is that once you start doing
the one thousand dollars. The way the bill is written,
it's only done from twenty twenty five to twenty twenty eight,
but there'll be a lot of pressure for Republicans to
(23:11):
say on Republicans to say we got to continue this
after twenty twenty eight. So once you start this account
and Democrats like to handout money, I'm concerned that it
becomes more of, I don't know, a handout for people.
But if this we need to move to a private
social Security account, I like the Trump accounts. If that
(23:32):
becomes the basis for that, it could be a silver
lining to the whole Trump account aspect.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Folks, if pastors prologue, let me just give you an Now,
by the way, Trump doesn't believe that it's just going
to be one thousand dollars and that'll be it. He
wants grandparents and aunts and uncles and everybody to contribute
to these accounts throughout this child's life. Just if it's
stated one thousand dollars, and from your child's birth till
they were sixty five, that thousand dollars turns into eighty
(23:59):
eight thousand, three hundred and fifty dollars. Over that, if
it was just one thousand dollars investment, it would be
eighty eight thousand dollars by the time they retired. So
if that money grows and the principle gets bigger throughout
the child's life, that account could be far bigger. It
Look up the rule of seventy two and you will
know and understand the magic and the power of compound interest.
(24:20):
Meryl Matthews, everybody on the edge America faces the entitlements Cliff,
that's the name of the book. Always a pleasure to
catch up with you, my friend.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Merry Christmas, Thank you, Chris, Merry Christmas.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
That's going to put a wrap on this Salcedo Storm podcast.
Remember pick up the book, folks, speaking of Christmas, The
Rise of the liberty loving Latino, a New American Revolution,
a perfect stocking stuff or a perfect gift for the
liberty lover in your life. And until we visit again,
my friends, remember this. A society's worth isn't measured by
how much power is stolen by an out.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Of control government.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
A society's worth is measured by how much power is
reserved for you and me, we the people. You keep
fighting for freedom out there, my friends,
Hello, are you happy? Keep book? Neil Smith? And old
Buck Buddy? Are you hearing Neil?
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Neil?
Speaker 3 (00:09):
I miss you, man, I have a question we respect
for me.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Downs were breaking a major story, Chris, Congratulations score podcast
(00:42):
as you guys were probably here. I picked up a
cold heading into the Christmas holiday, and I uh so
not feeling so hot, but I you know, the show
must go on. So I'm gonna be talking about Obamacare
with an interview I did last week with a guy
by the named of Merril Matthews.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Something you need to know about Merrill.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
He's a guy who has read Obamacare cover to cover.
Do you know anybody who's done that? Do you know
anybody who has read every page of Obamacare?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Well, he did.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
He knows why it's lousy, he knows how to fix it,
and he's been basically shouting from the rooftops ever since
this thing was crammed down our throats to try to
rescue us from said Obamacare. So I didn't want to
do a lot of talking a because the voice is
strained as it is. Going to make sure that I
make the radio show and the TV show. Because I'm
(01:33):
this close to the Christmas holiday, I don't want to
take any time off because I'm sick. Right, It's just
it's not fair of the audience, and I do my best.
If I can talk, I will try to be there
for the audience, folks. But I did find something that's
kind of funny. This is a random guy I found
on x and it's about two minutes of Pearls of Wisdom.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Makes you think. I wanted you guys to hear it.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
And what better time as we roar towardsmiths to start
thinking thinking about things, things that make you say, hmmm, that's.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Good, thank you. So the Pope says you can't vote
for Trump because he has a strict immigration policy.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
You know who else has.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
A strict immigration policy?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Heaven?
Speaker 4 (02:17):
If twenty million illegal aliens can help our economy, why
didn't they help their own economy. So it costs four
hundred and fifty billion dollars to care for the migrants
who invaded our country, and yet they told us ten
billion dollars for a wall was too expensive.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Got it.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
If requiring an ID to vote is racist, is boarding
an airplane and driving a car and buying alcohol also racist?
So the left banned prayer in public schools because it's offensive,
but they won't let us ban drag Queen's Story Hour
because free speech.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
I wonder what's worse for So in.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
America, if you cheat to get into college, you can
go to jail, But if you cheat to get into America,
you can go to college for free. Los Angeles is
run exclusively by Democrats, and they're the ones that say
they're going to clean up the environment. If America really
is the most racist, unbearable place on earth, why does
(03:23):
everyone want to move here. The difference between the government
and robbers is that robbers don't pretend they're helping it.
Just so, you know, calling someone privileged because they're white
is judging someone by the color of their skin. So
a man who doesn't want to take care of his
kid is a deadbee dad, But a woman who doesn't
(03:43):
want to is pro choice done so. A mother can
abort her baby if she doesn't want the responsibility, but
a father will go to prison if he doesn't.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Want the responsibility.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Interesting, we live in a time where intelligent people are
being silenced so that stupid people won't be offended.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
That's so true. That is so true, folks. My conversation
with Merrill Matthews about Obamacare. How do we get rid
of it? How do we get rid of this cancer
that is eating away at one sixth already destroyed, actually
one sixth of the US economy. It's all coming up
on the Salsado Storm podcast.
Speaker 5 (04:26):
And now a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Oh jeez, if I hear another Obamacare commercial telling me
how great it is, I think I'm going to vomit.
In reality, folks are paying out the nose for crappy insurance,
meaning those commercials are just as much bs as Obamacare is.
What if you're under sixty five ineed quality affordable health coverage?
American Medical Plans specializes in under sixty five health insurance
plans that have zero copays at the doctor and no
(04:48):
deductible on all outpatient services.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Including surgeries.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
You pick your doctors and hospitals. There are private plans
in roll any time, and there are thirty to sixty
percent less than Obamacare. If you're thank too much for
your own health insurance, call American Medical Plans. They are
the answer to the cancer that is Obamacare.
Speaker 6 (05:06):
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you know that as a follower of Chris Salsado, you
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Speaker 2 (05:54):
You know they say, my friends, once you go my pillow,
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And then then I said, well, I gotta have something
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Speaker 2 (06:46):
Chris Celcato, have you been growing frustrated that all your
favorite stuff's getting canceled out there by the woke crowd?
When Fox News, in deference to leftists, got rid of
Tucker Curlson, didn't you say to yourself? Nobody asked me. Folks,
you have power to stop that. Stop funding woke companies.
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Speaker 3 (07:51):
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Speaker 1 (08:04):
Meryl Matthews.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
He's one of the few men on planet Earth who
has read Obamacare from page one to the end. He's
the author of the book on the Edge America Faces
the Entitlements. Cliff, Meryl, welcome back and Merry Christmas.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
Thank you, Chris. Good to be with you all right.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
GOP is rolling out its healthcare plan this week.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
What do we know about it?
Speaker 5 (08:26):
We don't know much about it. And this has been
part of the problem because even though there's been a
lot of Republican healthcare plans, there hasn't been a Republican
healthcare plan. And this is one of the reasons why
we still have Obamacare, because Republicans tried to come up
with something in twenty seventeen when Trump got in office,
and by the time they were able to come up
(08:46):
with something in August of twenty seventeen, the maverick John
McCain came in and gave it a thumbs down. So
what I think they're going to try to do is
I think they're going to try to expand health savings accounts.
This is something that's been Republican ideas since nineteen ninety three.
I helped draft the first legislation for it for Senator
Phil Graham back in ninety three. They want to make
(09:08):
them large hsas, so that instead of just using being
able to use them with health insurance. They'd like people
to be able to, like your employer, to be able
to just deposit your money your employer, the money the
employer are spending on health insurance into your HSA and
then let you decide do I want to buy health
insurance from my employer. Do I want to go out
and buy my own health insurance policy? Do I want
(09:28):
to pay for health care directly? So large HSA's has
been a Republican plan for some time, so I think
that's one aspect of it. They also want to deregulate
some of the insurance regulations that Obamacare put in place,
so that insurance could start offering health insurance plans again
that people won't remember Obama said, if you like your
health plan, you can keep your health plan. That one
(09:51):
politifacts lie of the year in twenty thirteen. So you
need some deregulation in health insurance industry so people can
go out and buy something that they want. And something
that's really new out here, which I think is going
to actually I think could be have very good potential
is trump Rix. That's President Trump's notion of having a
website where people can go find the drugs they need,
(10:14):
buy them directly from the drug companies, bypassing the middleman.
And that is that's looking like it's going to save
people in an awful lot of money.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yeah, well that's good too.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
And now, look I'm going to get into Obamacare in
great detail. But what I've been looking at is. Government's
involvement in health care and the insurance in companies involvement
in healthcare has been disastrous for American health care. So
my gold standard is kicking insurance companies out of our
health care. There should be only one role that insurance
(10:46):
companies have that are tangentially related to health care, and
that's catastrophic loss. I believe the Republican should be focusing
on resurrecting which once was a vital and might I say,
inexpensive mechanism to stop the proverbial cancer diagnosis or the
proverbial car accident from bankrupting anybody with a catastrophic loss policy,
(11:10):
which really is meeting the true definition of what insurance
ought to be, and basically expand the health savors accounts
and allow us to deduct our health care expenses off
of our taxes.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
To me, that would be a complete win.
Speaker 5 (11:25):
What do you say, Well, I think you're going moving
in the right direction. We get back in the nineteen
nineties and two thousands, when we talked about a high
deductible health insurance policy, Democrats said, well, you're in this
the pocket of the insurance industry. You want them to
people to pay all these healthcare bills and then the
insurance company doesn't come in. That was always wrong, and
(11:46):
now under Obamacare, under the Bronze Plan, you could be
looking at a seven thousand dollars deductive one and double
that for a husband and wife. So I'd like to
see us move back to high deductible health insurance policies,
as you suggest. However, I'd add one aspect of that.
Prior to Obamacare, some of the insurance companies were offering
what we called limited benefit plans for young, healthy people
(12:09):
who didn't want to spend a lot of money on
health insurance. California, Colorado, and some of them had these.
They were run by Blue Cross, and it would cost
you maybe fifty sixty dollars a month, and you got
you had maybe insurance to cover you up to twenty
five hundred, five thousand dollars. You've got discounts on generic drugs,
you got to see the doctor five or six times
a year. Young people tend not to want to spend
(12:32):
money on health insurance, so you've got to make something
really affordable for them because they're healthy and they don't
feel like they won't spend much. So I would allow
insurers to do that, I would allow insurance just to
come back in and start offering pot products people want
and are willing to pay for out of their large HSA.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Yeah, get government out. And you know how I feel
about the traitorous insurance companies. They were the ones who
sold us out for this payday. And as you know,
and this is where we're going to get into two
Obamacare here, merrill. The policies have been complete turned into
complete garbage. The government has taken all of our tax
payer money and floated it into these insurance companies who
(13:10):
are making literally trillions of dollars since Obamacare's passage. Their
stocks are through the roof, and we get worse coverage
and we've never been paying more out of pocket. So
let's focus on Obamacare. Because you mentioned the lie of
the year, like your doctor, keep your doctor, like your plan,
keep your plan was another lie? And oh yes, the
(13:30):
average family or four will save twenty five hundred dollars
a year on healthcare costs. None of the promises of
Obamacare were kept. It was all a law of lies.
And because of the Obamacare failure, that's why I want
to kick government out of health care.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
What's wrong with that I agree with you completely.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
And now just your little background information that most people
don't know. When the Clintons were pushing the Clinton health
care plan back in ninety three and ninety four, the
head of the Health Insurance Trade Association at the time
was a very good Republican. When Obamacare was in, the
Health Insurance Trade Association is being run by a Democrat,
and she signed off on all that, and the insurance
(14:12):
they got some good things, but they also got some
problems with that. But you know it's I gotta tell
you it's hard. If you run a major company and
you've got the opposite party in control, you've got to
live by their rules. And you saw this with the
car companies. I mean, they were making SUVs and trucks
back in the twenty tens, and then Obama comes in.
(14:33):
They got to raise the car the cafe efficiency standards.
You've got to make more EV's and Biden comes in
and makes this sort of a mandate. And if you
don't go along with what Washington wants, they make your
life miserable. So I give a little bit of credit
to the insurance companies. I say a little bit of
a pass because they're living under when they were living
(14:54):
under Democrats, they had their life was miserable if they
didn't want to go along with what they what the
president wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Yes, I know.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
And of course the endgame for Obamacare has been the
consolidation of health care control in government, which would which
would basically enslave an entire population to the whims of government.
And of course Obama conceived that he was so he
believed all of his propaganda that he and the Democrats
would never be out of power again. And they could
(15:23):
have never called Trump. They could have never foreseen that
President Trump would be giving them headaches as he has.
Folks were talking to Merrill Matthews, Resident Scholar for the
Institute of Policy Innovation. The book is on the edge
America faces the entitlements cliff. If you were king for
a day and you could fix our health care situation
(15:46):
in this country, just to resurrect basically which was once
the envy of the world, a healthcare system that was
the envy of the world, what would you do in
totos as part of the Republican plan. If they sat
down and said, Meryl, we're gonna let you you construct
our Republican plan.
Speaker 5 (16:02):
What would it be I would change insurance to being something.
There are policies out there like that right now, where
you take a life insurance policy and you buy that
life insurance policy. If you have a major accent, major illness,
something of that nature, that life insurance policy will provide
you with the funds to pay for that, but the
money goes to the individual, and then the individual decides
(16:24):
how they want to spend that money. Something like car insurance.
There are those policies out there, but just because of
the regulations and so forth, they're not that widespread. But
would I want people to control the money themselves from
the insurance company and then they decide do I want
to get this surgery? Do I want to go to
this doctor. We don't have any incentive right now as
(16:46):
individuals to go out and be value conscious shoppers in
the healthcare marketplace. If my health insurance policy is going
to pay everything above, say twenty five hundred or three
thousand or five thousand dollars, I don't care if a
doctor charges ten thousand or fifteen or one hundred thousand
for the surgery, because insurance is going to take care
of it. So I want to make sure that individuals.
(17:06):
We are value conscious shoppers in the healthcare marketplace, like
we are every place else in the economy. If we
do that, we will solve almost all of our problem.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Healthcare is a service, folks. It is not a right
to the way the Democrats falsely portray it. Let's get
on to some other things. Look, you and I are
probably on the same page and supporting the president's efforts
to get rid of the income tax and the tariffs
that he's imposing may be a mechanism to do that.
(17:35):
I have always said, and I think you're on the
same page as this merrill that taxing income is stupid
because earning income an honest living is something that's desirable
and the government should not should not be penalizing that.
That being said, there, the president is floating the idea
of a two thousand dollars tariff payment to individuals below
(17:58):
a certain income level. I think the cutoff is one
hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. And you're not
too you're not too keen on this idea.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Why I'm not, And.
Speaker 5 (18:07):
For the same reason I wasn't keen on Biden's American
Rescue Plan, where he handed out fourteen hundred dollars to
people based upon income. So remember we said Republicans and
some democratic economists said at the time, if you start
handing out money to individuals, that becomes inflationary. You need
to be very careful about that. So the president has
(18:29):
floated the two thousand dollars handout. I'm not sure why
we need to do that. If you if you're just
looking at Scott Best had said, well, we're using the
tariffs to pay down the federal debt. If we were
actually doing that, I would be forar it, but we
would have right now we have we have a federal deficit.
This year will be well, the one we just finished
(18:50):
the LEA fiscal year was one point seven trillion dollar
federal deficit. We've gone from we've got about a thirty
eight trillion dollar federal debt. There is no money and
we don't have excess money to be able to hand
out two thousand dollars checks to individuals. And then if
you take if you take a family, a husband and wife,
they both get two thousand dollars. Trump is proposing these well,
(19:13):
he's not proposing We've already passed it in the One Big,
Beautiful Bill, you've got the one thousand dollars what he
was calling Trump accounts. If you had two kids in
the next couple of years, you could be getting six
thousand dollars from the federal government. And Chris, I just
think it's a bad idea for the federal government to
be handing out checks to people. I don't think we
should be doing that. If we've got extra money, we
(19:33):
ought to be lowering the tax rate, yes, instead of
handing it out.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yeah, I've said that too.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
We why don't you just say, take that money, pay
pay down my tax rate for every taxpayer in the
United States. Of course, I understand the politics. It looks
a lot better when you're getting a check and it's
all courtesy of Trump and the Republican Party. I understand
the politics, but the policy just to lower my tax exposure. Now,
(19:58):
you brought up these these Trump accounts, and you and
I are very familiar with the rule of seventy two
and what what I believe the idea behind this is,
and I believe this is the foundations that Trump is
trying to lay is that you know what, why don't
we start off every child that is born with an
(20:19):
account that will that will grow exponentially compound interest over
the life of the child, so by the time the
child reaches retirement age, we're not going to have a
society that is that is reliant on government for its
basic support i e. The failed Social Security system, et cetera.
(20:39):
Give it to the people rather than letting government have
its meat hooks into the people's money. I understand the concept,
but I think there's probably a more a more effective
way to roll out these Trump accounts.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
What do you say, I.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Agree with you.
Speaker 5 (20:54):
I'm I'm one percent for the accounts. And of course
Michael Dale has come up and offered to put in
six point two five billion dollars in the accounts, but
they're starting it out with one thousand dollars each. And
I got to tell you, Chris, it makes me a
little nervous to say, the first thing when you first
take your breath in the world, we're the government's going
(21:15):
to give you one thousand dollars. I love the fact
that you'd have accounts that people that parents could put
money in. We put money aside for our kids when
we were when they were going through high school, so
they would have a little money to start college with.
So I think that's a great idea if you have
organizations that wanted to chip into that. But it's catching on.
(21:35):
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick mentioned last week that he said, well,
this is a great idea. Why doesn't Texas give every
child in Texas a thousand dollars of tax payer money?
And I'm looking he says he thinks it cost about
four hundred million dollars a year. And I'm thinking, well,
if we've got at least we have a surplus here
in Texas. But if we've got four hundred million dollars
to hand out, I would like to see us lower
(21:57):
the tax.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Rate, the property taxes. Yeah, exactly, Well, you know and
the thing yeah, and you know what, and if the
President was using this as a mechanism to declare Social
Security as a failure, which it is, and saying, you
know what, why don't we instead of confiscating the American
taxpayers money and letting the government waste Social Security money
(22:20):
and then you get the pittance back, why don't we
give the the have you be able to set aside
the federal government every taxpayer will set every child up.
Here's one thousand dollars, and then we wipe out, where
we're buying these kids out of the destruction of Social
Security later in their life. I could buy that if
we could use this as a down payment to get
(22:42):
rid of Social Security, I'd be all for it.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
I think that's where he's going. He just can't say
it right now. Politically. What do you think?
Speaker 5 (22:49):
Yeah, I think that may be the case. I mean
when I was looking at this and I thought, you know,
if this is the basis for starting private social Security,
good good for us. We need to be able to
do that. My concern is that once you start doing
the one thousand dollars. The way the bill is written,
it's only done from twenty twenty five to twenty twenty eight,
but there'll be a lot of pressure for Republicans to
(23:11):
say on Republicans to say we got to continue this
after twenty twenty eight. So once you start this account
and Democrats like to handout money, I'm concerned that it
becomes more of, I don't know, a handout for people.
But if this we need to move to a private
social Security account, I like the Trump accounts. If that
(23:32):
becomes the basis for that, it could be a silver
lining to the whole Trump account aspect.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Folks, if pastors prologue, let me just give you an Now,
by the way, Trump doesn't believe that it's just going
to be one thousand dollars and that'll be it. He
wants grandparents and aunts and uncles and everybody to contribute
to these accounts throughout this child's life. Just if it's
stated one thousand dollars, and from your child's birth till
they were sixty five, that thousand dollars turns into eighty
(23:59):
eight thousand, three hundred and fifty dollars. Over that, if
it was just one thousand dollars investment, it would be
eighty eight thousand dollars by the time they retired. So
if that money grows and the principle gets bigger throughout
the child's life, that account could be far bigger. It
Look up the rule of seventy two and you will
know and understand the magic and the power of compound interest.
(24:20):
Meryl Matthews, everybody on the edge America faces the entitlements Cliff,
that's the name of the book. Always a pleasure to
catch up with you, my friend.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Merry Christmas, Thank you, Chris, Merry Christmas.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
That's going to put a wrap on this Salcedo Storm podcast.
Remember pick up the book, folks, speaking of Christmas, The
Rise of the liberty loving Latino, a New American Revolution,
a perfect stocking stuff or a perfect gift for the
liberty lover in your life. And until we visit again,
my friends, remember this. A society's worth isn't measured by
how much power is stolen by an out.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Of control government.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
A society's worth is measured by how much power is
reserved for you and me, we the people. You keep
fighting for freedom out there, my friends,
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