Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Washington Broadcast Center. Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Arm Strong and Jetty and No He Armstrong and Eddy.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Go back with breaking news in our politics lead and
a brand new excerpt from my upcoming book with Axios
is Alex Thompson. It's called Original Sin. I'm not sure
if you've heard of it. It's on Biden's Decline. It's
called Original Sin. I'm sure you've heard on May twentieth.
That's Tuesday. Original Sin that's coming out in three week,
comes out Tuesday. You will not believe what we found out.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Don't news people have to tell you what they know
when they find it out. Isn't that the difference between
news and the secret? You won't believe when we found out.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
No, That's why I'm watching it. Breaking news in a week.
Speaker 5 (01:13):
John Stuart always been good at cutting through to the
obvious with things like that, like one of his quotes
John Stewart last night on the Daily Show. He does
it once a week. And we're about to talk about
the Jake Tapper book, which I don't know the title
Love and it doesn't matter. I'm not looking it up
and I refuse to mention it. But John Stewart says,
forget about the fact of how effing weird it is
(01:35):
that the News is selling you a book about news
that should have told.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
You was news a year ago, for free.
Speaker 5 (01:41):
He's selling you a book full of information he should
have told you last.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Year for free, which is a pretty good.
Speaker 6 (01:49):
Point, right, I mean, that's what you do for living well.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
Tapper is claiming that these people weren't willing to say
this stuff out loud, a lot of them until after
the election, which is true. But the the ultimate point
of Biden's brain didn't work. Everybody already knew, so whatever. So,
as I mentioned, it's unintentionally hilarious.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
This book.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
I bought it like a month or so ago. I
don't know, I wasn't drunk. I don't know what made
me do it, but I bought it and so it
showed up in my uh my kindle last night and
I started reading it, and I'm kind of angry that
I put money in their pocket because of all the
stuff we've said, and it's it's it's it's hard to
believe it even exists.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
I mean, like, like John.
Speaker 5 (02:37):
Stewart said, it's effing weird, yeah, that it even exists
as a thing.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
But so they took themselves so seriously.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
I believe they would they would do this differently if
they knew how it was going to land after all
the criticism and Mark Halprin last week, taking apart his
explanations of how tough he was and all that sort
of stuff, because they go way over the top with
the seriousness of this. The whatever page it is before
the book starts, I don't know what you call that page.
(03:06):
It has a couple of quotes, one from Ulysses, a
poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson. Though much has taken much
abides and though we are not now. I won't read
the whole thing. It's very long, but some long complicated poem,
and then also a quote from King Lear William Shakespeare.
They told me everything they told me I was everything
'tis a lie. I am not og proof, which I
(03:29):
had to look up with some disease back in the day.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
But to.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
Have these like heavy literary quotes before you start to
tell us something we already knew is weird. And you
were nearly the only class of people on earth who
were either blind to it or pretending otherwise. I'll read
some more from the like the the intro before they
get to the book. The lessons from this book go
(03:57):
beyond one man and one political party. They speak to
or universal questions about cognitive dissonance, group think, courage, cowardice,
and patriotism. Yeah toward you, Yeah, with you being like
the main you and your friends, right, not off you.
We knew, we knew, and we're reacting that way. That's
what drove him out of office, the polls showing you
(04:18):
couldn't win because we knew you're the one. This paragraph
is about you, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 6 (04:25):
It's funny you were talking about John Stewart cutting through
the clutter to get to the simple truth of it.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Just occurred to me.
Speaker 6 (04:31):
The simple truth of this is the tone of this is.
Listen to this, and we expect your gratitude.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
You should be grateful.
Speaker 6 (04:42):
To us for exposing these truths, all this smugness of it.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
No, Jake, No, you're the one group of people on
earth who can't be smug about this and can't let
sure anybody.
Speaker 5 (04:59):
Hey, let's go with this long orwell quote which we
usually read part of but not the whole thing, And
I will just because it's so damn interesting, and he
puts this in there also. Georgia Orwell once wrote that
we are all capable of believing things which we know
to be untrue, and then when we are finally proved wrong,
impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we
(05:20):
were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this
process for an indefinite time. The only check on it
is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up
against solid reality, usually on a battlefield. He was writing
about World War Two, but he could have been writing
about anytime, any era. The Germans in the back to
the quote from Orwell, the Germans and the Japanese lost
(05:41):
the war quite largely because their rulers were unable to
see facts which were plane to any dispassionate eye. To
see what is in fronv one's nose needs a constant struggle.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Uh. Which is very very interesting.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
And I doubt that Jake, when he put that quote
in there, was thinking about himself, the being able to
believe something we know to be untrue, and then when
we are approved wrong, twisting.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Facts to show we were right. That is exactly the
Jake Tapper story of the last week.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
Yeah, and then Jake writes, Jake and Alex, we should
throw in Alex Thompson's name, who gets a lot of
credit from a bunch of people for actually being kind
of tough on the Biden people, but he was not
as big a star, so didn't get mentioned as much.
Here was what is in front of our noses? Yeah,
your nose. You're the one with the sources.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (06:39):
This is one of the most stunning examples of a
lack of self awareness I've ever observed.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
As I mentioned earlier in the show, one thing that
did come out of the book that I didn't know
was just how much they were lying to their own people,
not just the public or Fox or whoever, or even
the media, but like their own friends. The tightest circle
was lying to people that they are friends with and
(07:06):
have known forever. And that's part of why those people
believed it. I mean, you wouldn't expect, like your own
colleagues that you have a personal relationship with, when you
go to him and say, I saw the President on
the TV last night.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
What is going on? Oh he's fine, he is fine,
trust me, Behind closed doors, he's fine.
Speaker 6 (07:25):
Yeah, he'd had a long day, he didn't sleep all
the night before, but he's sharpest attack.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, I'll just read a little bit from the book.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (07:31):
Publicly and privately defending the president and his acuity. I
spoke with the White House and campaign officials regularly and
received constant reassurance.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
He's fine, he's fine, he's fine.
Speaker 5 (07:40):
They all said, you know, I'm not giving Jake Tapper
a pass because again, the public figured it out without
any sources. But if Jake Tapper is going to people
he trusts and his friends with and goes out for
drinks with and saying what's up, and they're saying, trust me,
he's fine.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
You gotta trust me on this. I'm with him every day. Okay,
I don't know what do you do.
Speaker 5 (08:03):
This was the experience of dozens of officials, from politicians
to donors to left leaning pundits. In the spring of
twenty twenty four. This democrat called top White House officials
every day. I'm defending this guy. The top democrat told him,
someone tell me he's okay. Like it doesn't look great,
the press conferences don't look great. He was reassured every time.
The top democrat told us, I'd love to know which
(08:25):
top Democrat this was. Anita Dunn told me he was fine.
That's one of the inner circles. Jeff told me he's fine.
Jeff Design's chiefest staff told me he was fine. Donaldin said,
I promise he's okay. To their faith, Yeah.
Speaker 6 (08:39):
To the wallow a little longer in orwell though it
sounds like Jake Tapper and these people are being told
by the friends and associates ignore the evidence of your
eyes and ears.
Speaker 5 (08:52):
The President was fond of using the formal family motto
of giving my word as a Biden, but they had another,
more private saying in the Biden family, never call a
fat person fat. It wasn't about politics, It was about
ignoring ugly facts. Don't say mean truths. Is how someone
close to the family put it. The Biden's greatest strength
(09:14):
is living in their own reality, this person told us,
and Biden himself is gifted at creating it. Bo isn't
going to die Hunters, sobriety is stable. Joe always tells
the truth. Joe cares more about his family than his
own ambition.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
They stick to.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
The narrative and repeat it over and over inside and
outside the family.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Wow, that rings true.
Speaker 5 (09:35):
From twenty twenty three, what I've been able to observe
right of their family. Yeah, from twenty twenty to until
twenty twenty four. All this resulted in an almost spiritual
refusal to admit that Biden was declining. I thought that
was interesting, For instance, about lying about health situations. Bo Biden,
(09:56):
who died, the son that he referenced all the time
of cancer, was the sitting Attorney general of Delaware. He
had an important public position in the state. He lied
about his cancer the way his dad has been lying
about his cancer currently. In the summer of twenty thirteen,
Bo collapsed during a family vacation and underwent brain surgery
to remove a tumor. Bo's tumor was definitely stage four.
(10:19):
Biden later wrote about the post operative findings. It was
a death sentence, under wrote Bow began limiting his public
appearance as his fall. He stopped doing media interviews. He
appeared gaunt, but Biden and Bo's team internally debated not
to disclose about vote Bo, the Vice president's son and
state's top law enforcement officer, but ultimately said nothing. In November,
(10:39):
Bo told the local reporter that he'd been given a
clean bill of health. This was not that many months
before he died, So he was lying in his own state.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
In a position where the voters should know, you're dying
and not capable, and they.
Speaker 5 (10:52):
Were flying him all over the country doing these experimental
cancer treatments and everything like that. I mean, on one hand,
you got, like you brought up last hour, you've got
your own personal health and how much do you need
to share with people.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
But on the other hand, you're.
Speaker 5 (11:04):
Not able to do your job that the people put
you in office for at all, and you're you know,
you're looking at people in the face of light. But
the point I think from Jake Tapper and Alec Thompson
in the book by laying that out, is the Biden
family just created their own reality about whatever story they
wanted to and always did to the media. They didn't
(11:24):
they didn't think the telling people honestly what was happening
was necessary at all.
Speaker 6 (11:31):
Right, clearly, which bits interesting. More on this to come,
including some great audio we want to play for you.
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Speaker 2 (12:45):
So I got another example from the book.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
Maybe I'll get to next hour of how early and
how bad Joe Biden's brain was and how people how
worried the Inner Circle was about him.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
He was, he was.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
He shouldn't have run in twenty twenty. Absolutely shouldn't have
run in twenty twenty, let alone twenty four.
Speaker 6 (13:07):
Yeah, that's been my position for a while. Yeah, which
is pretty cover up was in full force early early, early.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yep.
Speaker 5 (13:15):
We're going to talk to our favorite healthcare expert, Craig
Gottwaals this hour to tell you about Medicaid and how
you're getting ripped off, among other things.
Speaker 6 (13:24):
Yeah, how a program designed to cover a tiny few
unfortunate Americans is now covering about a third of us
or more.
Speaker 5 (13:32):
And the reason we're going to be talking about it
is a lot of whether we cut this back or
not is part of the big beautiful bill that the
Republicans are trying to push through, So you should know
more about it, among other things we've got coming up today.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Stay here.
Speaker 7 (13:48):
This is in scale and in scope and embrazen. This
the biggest espionage operation against the US in its history.
Speaker 6 (13:58):
At sixty minutes, talking about the Chinese intelligence efforts against
the US going on right now as we speak. Let's
hear one more clip. Michae Linn will discuss why.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Do China's espionage efforts appear to be growing so big,
so fast under c Jimping.
Speaker 7 (14:16):
Chi Jinping thinks it's China's time to move to the
center of the world stage. Xi Jinping looks at the
West and at the US and says, these people are
feeble minded, and I'm going to be able to beat them.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Hey, I'm standing right here. I can hear you.
Speaker 6 (14:33):
Hey, look at the president for the last four years.
Thanks for feeble minded? Where'd you get that impression?
Speaker 5 (14:38):
Says the United States as a whole, Hey, we can
hear you calling us feeble minded?
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Yeah, I see.
Speaker 5 (14:44):
The problem is I'm afraid they're gonna pull it off,
replacing the United States as being the center of the world.
The only thing stopping them are their own, like internal problems.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
We're not doing a good job of stopping them.
Speaker 6 (14:56):
No, And they have a massive, massive effort to spy
on the United States, both the conventional spying, industrial espionage,
and the rest of it. And I've told this story
many times before, but I was acquainted with some folks
from the FBI counter terrorism I'm sorry, counterintelligence, you know
efforts who went to a prominent college campus and told them, hey,
you've got a bunch of Chinese agents on your campus,
(15:17):
masquerading as researchers and students and the rest of it.
And we're told by the university president get off my campus,
you racists. We are just coming through that part of
the woke mindset, the rejection.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
It's xenophilia.
Speaker 6 (15:33):
If they're foreigners, they must be good because I hate
my own country. And how dare you suggest that these
nice Chinese people might be agents? Well, this is so
interesting from the Free Press, a story about specifically, and
it's not unique to Stanford University, but there's a hell
of a lot of it. The story is how China
(15:55):
turned Stanford students into spies. And again, this is solid
damn journalism. It would take me half an hour to
read this whole thing to you, but it is old school,
many months spent journalism. Last summer, a man calling himself
Charles Chen approached several Stanford University students unsolicited using social media.
There were almost all women, and they were invariably researching
(16:16):
China related topics. One of them was Anna, Stanford undergrad
student working on sensitive subjects linked to Chinese economy and
military developments. At first, Chen's outreach seemed benign. He asked
about networking opportunities, but soon his messages took a strange turn.
He and he requested anonymity. He spoke Mandarin, He spent videos.
He sent videos of Americans who had gained fame in China.
(16:38):
He encouraged Anna to visit Beijing, even offered to cover
travel expenses, on and on, told her how long to
stay in China, short enough to avoid scrutiny by the government.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Then he urged her to communicate exclusively.
Speaker 6 (16:50):
Via the Chinese version of we Chat, a platform heavily
monitored by the Chinese Communist Party. Mentioned things he knew
about her that she had never told him, and he
asked her to delete screenshots after commenting on one of
our social media posts, and on and on it well,
with the help of experts familiar with espionage tactics and
a contacted the FBI, it revealed Charles Chen had posed
(17:11):
as Stanford's student for years, slightly altering his name and
online persona. He was actually an agent of the Chinese
Ministry of State Security the MSS, who the sixty Minutes
folks were talking about, whose job it was to target
Stanford's students sympathetic to China who could be used to
gather intelligence, and for years concerns about Chinese espionage have
(17:32):
quietly persisted at Stanford, yet until now, no attempt has
ever been made to gauge how pervasive it is. The
answer we discovered after a year long investigation is very pervasive.
Everything overwhelming evidence that the CCP is orchestrating a widespread
spying operation at Stanford.
Speaker 5 (17:50):
Dang it, there's so much more to say about this.
We have to bring it back up because we're out
of time. Everyone should know the letters at MSS. Don't
ever throw around KGB or something like that. That's that's
in the past. MSS is what is going to ruin
your life. That's the mount KGB of China. I would
be delighted to go big on this anytime you want.
(18:10):
We'll do it soon. Yeah, we've got a lot off.
You miss a segment. Get the podcast Armstrong and Getty
on demand.
Speaker 6 (18:18):
Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 8 (18:21):
They literally are trying to take healthcare away from millions
of Americans at this very moment in the dead of night.
Speaker 6 (18:33):
Oh my god, Oh my god. It's a party of monsters.
That's why they're having the Republicans. They're monsters.
Speaker 5 (18:40):
That's why they're having the one am vote tonight on
the big beautiful bill to try to slide through in
the darker night, the cutting back on Medicaid.
Speaker 6 (18:52):
And so the Republicans who are actual vampires can come
out to vote too, because you know, the sun is down.
So Craig Gottwalls originally Craig the Obamacare lawyer, because when
Obamacare was in the works and passed, Craig would talk
to us about it, longtime friend of the show, and
everything he said was true, and virtually everything he predicted happened,
in contrast to most of the coverage of it, which
(19:13):
was garbage. Well, Craig is now Craig the healthcare Guru,
and we're going to talk a little bit about Medicaid,
among other things. Craig Gottwaals, how are you, Craig.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
I'm good, How are you, gentlemen?
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Terrific? Thank you very much.
Speaker 6 (19:29):
So what do you make of Hakeem Jeffrey's quote there
and what is the reality of Medicaid?
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Well, it underscores just how we can never give anything
to the government. This is why we can't have nice things.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
So in nineteen sixty five, the federal government passed Medicare
and Medicaid, and specifically with respect to Medicaid, the whole
idea was, man, we need a safety net for like
single moms with disabled children who are falling through the cracks.
We need we need this, this mechanism to just capture
(20:04):
the most disadvantaged among us, to help them out, to
give them, to give them a lift.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Right, so we did.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
And back when this was passed in nineteen sixty five,
it was designed to cover two percent of Americans. Today
it covers one in three Americans and forty one percent
of all babies burst in our country.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Whoa forty babies born?
Speaker 6 (20:31):
So originally forty one line the disabled, the utterly unable
to help themselves, and now it is approaching half of us.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
Is that because we have so many more single moms
with blind babies?
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Or what does happen? Well?
Speaker 1 (20:45):
You know you got you, you know better than I jack.
This is entitlement creep, government creep that its finest. I
mean you When we when this really took took off
and became insane was with Obamacare in the early you know,
twenty teens. When Obamacare came into play, Obamacare was bribing
the states, because you know, the way this thing works,
(21:06):
it's an agreement between the state and the federal government
and they're shared financing, right, So the federal government couldn't
just say to the states, you shall expand Medicaid. But
what the federal government did is said, hey, look if
you expand Medicaid to basically able bodied, working age people
now because we'd already you know, had Medicaid for all
(21:27):
the other categories you just mentioned, Joe, the government said, look,
if you do that, will we the federal government will
pay one hundred percent of it for some time, and
then we'll pay ninety percent of it. So all but
ten states went ahead and said, heck, yeah, we'll take
that deal. And so now with that, with that Medicaid
expansion expansion that occurred with Obamacare, it's it's ninety percent
(21:51):
paid for by federal tax payers, and it covers anywhere
from eight million to fourteen million able bodied working adults
or able bodied adults, some of which are working, some
of which aren't.
Speaker 6 (22:03):
And in a bizarre twist, correct me if I'm wrong,
the federal government compensates the states at a much higher
percentage for able bodied dudes smoking pot on their parents
based on counch than they do for actual like disabled
people in blind babies.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Yeah, no, that's exactly right. So that was the that
was the Obamacare bride because because Medicaid already covered all
those people we were trying to protect, you know, when
we started this thing in the sixties. So it covered
all those people that had disabilities, single moms, et cetera,
the blind, that disabled, but it didn't cover just underemployed
or unemployed, abled bodied adults. And so in order to
(22:41):
get the states to agree to do that, the federal
government had to say, look, we know that we're only
paying you an average of fifty to sixty five cents
on the dollar for your existing Medicaid, and we know
that's not enough to get you the states to agree
to go ahead and cover the adults. So we'll pay
ninety to one hundred percent, starting at one hundred percent,
drop downe to ninety percent. So, yes, that's exactly right.
(23:02):
If you are a twenty eight year old dude smoking
pot in your mom and dad's basement right now, medicaid's
paying ninety percent. The federal government's paying ninety percent of
your medicaid where it's only paying an average of sixty
cents on the dollar in a state like California for
a disabled mother with the child.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
I'm thinking somebody I know specifically who has like a
regular person with the job and is doing it the
normal way, and they're incredible medical bills they got right
now because they've had some health problems. That's very galling
that they have these high medical bills with insurance and everything,
as opposed to if you got on some sort of
government plan, it would all be covered.
Speaker 6 (23:40):
And Craig, I'm going to leave it up to your
judgment how much you want to get into this, But
there are all sorts of other perverse incentives that this
law has caused states, you know, taxing hospitals to raise
the amount spent, but then they get it back from
the federal government.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Then they give it back to the hospitals. I mean,
and it's business team.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Yeah, let's let me just give you a couple of
nuggets on the cost of it, just just because what's
happened is employers pay two to three times the cost
of a hospital visit as Medicare and Medicaid do. So
when you are on Medicare and Medicaid, you go to
the hospital, you pay X. If you're on an employer
sponsored plan, you pay two's the three times X.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Wow the bill as I was just talking about, Thus
the bills.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
But even with that reality, gentlemen, if you're on Medicare,
that cost per taxpayer is about eleven thousand per year,
If you're on Medicaid, it's ninety four hundred per year,
and for employer sponsored people it's eighty seven hundred per year.
So even with that, granted, employer sponsored coverage generally younger,
(24:47):
generally healthier, we get that. But even with this tremendous
cost shift to the hospitals, it just it underscores how
inefficient these government programs are. When they passed meta Care,
now this is Medicare, not Medicaid, but they did all
the financials together when they passed it in nineteen sixty seven,
actually two years in, when they did an analysis on it,
(25:08):
they said, hey, we think this is going to cost
twelve billion by nineteen ninety, when in fact it cost
one hundred billion. They were off by a factor of eight.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
With Medicare the bullet train of medicine.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Yeah, it's the bullet train of medicine. And now that
there are some people making noises that, gee, we ought
to trim back the edges a little bit and get
these able bodied adults off of it. You, of course
get the grand standing of politicians, even those on the right,
screaming that it's murder in the streets.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
So Medicare is the one we all get when we
typnical it will.
Speaker 5 (25:41):
Medicare is the one we all get when we turned
sixty five. But Medicaid is the one that the downtrodden.
Speaker 6 (25:46):
Or folks allegedly yeah, yeah, hey, Craig, I want to
do the numbers you did for Medicaid too. So in
nineteen eighty seven, Congress projected that Medicaid would make special
relief payments to hospitals of life less than a billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
By nineteen ninety two under a billion dollars.
Speaker 6 (26:03):
The actual cost was seventeen billion, So they're seventeen times
as high. I mean, if that doesn't tell you what
you need to know about government entitlement programs and what
they do, inevitably, well you're too stupid to understand it,
and I pity you.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
And that one was in a five year span, Joe.
That was their eighty seven projection for ninety two.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Oh my god, you're right. Yeah, that wasn't well. And
one of the problems.
Speaker 5 (26:29):
One of the problems is, you know, all government programs grow,
and you know the high cost of good intentions and
all that sort of stuff. But in this case you've
got the added part that there's a bunch of people
that want the government to run all of healthcare. So
they love it. They're pushing the expansion. It's not just
like normal bureaucratic creep. They're pushing it. The more people cover,
(26:51):
the more you can make the argument of well or
already government healthcare anyway, let's just flip the switch and
go full on single pair.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
You're absolutely right, and the single payer I'm just here
to tell you the single payer path is a good
thirty to fifty percent more expensive. Now those costs are
hidden because of the way the money slashes around. But
you've only got one payer of healthcare in America that
actually cares what it costs, and that's employers. That's it.
(27:21):
The insurance companies don't care because the way Obamacare is written,
they need more claims to make more money. The government
doesn't care because the more healthcare costs, the more budget
they get to address the issue. The only policy holder,
the only tax the only moneyed interest in this that
actually cares is an employer, and it's dramatically shrinking. Those
(27:41):
of us that get healthcare at work is shrinking every year.
Speaker 5 (27:44):
I don't know how we ever get this fixed, because,
like you've probably been listening, No, I got whooping cough.
So I've been to the doctor, like yeah, four or
five times, eight different medications, all these different bills, most
of them tiny. I don't have the slightest idea what
anything cost.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Or I'll get a bill.
Speaker 5 (28:01):
I know, I'll get a bill in a month for
one hundred and eighty bucks or five hundred and eighty bucks,
I don't know, and then I'll just pay it.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
And nobody has any idea.
Speaker 5 (28:09):
And the randomness of those of us who have employee uh,
you know, insurance.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
We don't know if we're getting ripped off or good
price or whatever. So it's it's complicated. It's certainly discouraging.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Go ahead, Craig, Yeah, and it's it's not helped Jack
by the you know a lot of people think that, hey,
I have Purple Cross as my insurance, and so whether
I go to Stanford or El Camino or Good Sam
for this particular shoulder surgery should be about the same
price because I have a Purple Cross Ppo contract. Right,
(28:43):
It's not you can pay ten thousand for that shoulder
surgery or fifty thousand for that shoulder surgery with the
same exact insurance card. It's utterly insane what's happening in
the commercial market because government has crept into this unholy
a lineions with the commercial payers, and so you have this,
you have a situation where it's crony capitalism at its
(29:06):
absolute worst. You know we're talking about and we can
tease for a future visit, but there are ways to
get around this. But relying on the government or this
large commercial sector is going to kill us. And when
I say the commercial sector, I mean the fully insured carriers.
Employer sponsored plans, self funded employer sponsored plans are the
(29:27):
way to go. It's the only way to beat this
and beat it back.
Speaker 6 (29:30):
Yeah, we're talking to Craig Gottwal's Craig the healthcare guru.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Craig.
Speaker 6 (29:33):
I feel like at this point in the interview, we
ought to give people the local suicide hotline number.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
I mean, because it's so discouraging.
Speaker 6 (29:40):
So we've you know, described this incredible, mountainous, wasteful, enormously
expensive government program out of control. And if you, as
say a Republican, a Chip Roy, for instance, say hey,
can we have thirty five year old guy smoking pawn
on his parents couch, please pay a thirty five dollars
(30:01):
copay when he goes to the doctor, you have Hakeeen
Jeffrey screaming. You're literally taking healthcare away from millions of Americans.
Speaker 5 (30:09):
Yeah, that's that's one problem, though, the other problem is
you that's a Democrat. You got Josh Holley, a Republican
writing an option, and Molly has lost his soul. I
hope he gets hit by a car abhorror violence.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Josh Holly.
Speaker 5 (30:25):
Right. So I think in the New York Times last week,
you know, Republicans, hey, do not cut any of this.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
It's a bad political move. So where does that leave you? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (30:34):
It you. At this point, gentlemen, I put my head down.
I don't even listen to the big the big picture anymore.
And I just try and help one employer at a time.
It's just and and I get individuals to contact me,
and they asked me, what do I do, and I say,
buy is little difference, check in by the highest deductible.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Go ahead, don't get sick is your recommendation.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Don't get sick, but find a doctor, find a doctor
who's left the system, and engage in something called direct
prime mary care, where you give them anywhere from seventy
five to two hundred dollars a month, you treat, you
work with them, and then God forbid you have something
giant happen. You have the highest deductible you can stomach
to go deal with that issue. But you've got to
(31:13):
cut insurance and government payments out as much as you
can and work directly with doctors. And the good news
is that system is growing. Gentlemen, I talk to doctors
every week that are leaving the system and going direct
pay with individuals and not the three hundred and fifty
dollars concierge model, but like doing this for one hundred
dollars a month. Literally.
Speaker 6 (31:34):
Well, I love the idea of starting at that point
in our next conversation with you, Craig, and talking about that,
because one of the things I was going to bring
up if we have time, and we don't unfortunately, but
some of the unholy vertical integration of the giant healthcare
companies where they own the doctor, they own the hospital,
they own the pharmacy, they own the pharmacy benefit manager,
(31:56):
which is an unholy, murky cesspool of God knows where
the money goes. And so yeah, the idea of checking
out of that system, I love it. Let's let's let's
talk off the air. Will schedule you to come back
because I think it'd be great for the good folks.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Sounds great, gentlemen, have a wonderful day.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Yeah, thanks, Craig. Appreciate the time you have to come
on all the time and bear bad news.
Speaker 6 (32:18):
I mean it's like, yeah, I just you know, as
a realist, you've unlike the Biden family, the one thing
you must do is understand reality or or you're you're houseless.
Speaker 5 (32:29):
I've been saying to Craig and he usually agrees for years.
I think the realist view is we're going to end
up single payer healthcare. Uh it's just when when does
that fight?
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Yeah? I suppose so.
Speaker 6 (32:39):
But in every single health single payer healthcare system, people
who can afford.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
It go outside, right right, got to learn those ropes.
Speaker 6 (32:50):
Yeah, wait, hang it don't folks, it'll be okay, don't
get sick.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Just don't get sick or break anything. That's the answer.
Stay here.
Speaker 9 (33:00):
Hey, Deth and inmates tonight are still at large. These
are dangerous inmates. They have serious charges. At least for
are charged with murder or attempted murder. Sheriff's office says
there was no guard assigned to the pod, only a technician,
who officials say stepped away to get food when this happened.
Authority is now investigating whether this was an inside job.
(33:23):
So far, three staff members have been suspended without pay.
The district attorney says there was a complete breakdown in
jail protocol.
Speaker 4 (33:32):
Any family member who was scared or frustrated, they have
every right to be sould.
Speaker 5 (33:36):
A breakdown in jail protocol. If it turns out as
the breaking news is that uh, one dude there helped
them get out. Somebody worked there, is that a breakdown
in protocol? The people who work there aren't supposed to
help people escape. Yeah, the protocol is keep them in. Yes,
there was a breakdown in that product. The maintenance guy
helped them escape. Louisiana so corrupt, unbelievable.
Speaker 6 (33:58):
May before we move on after the conversation with Craig
gott Waltz in the last segment about medicaid and how
bloated and horrible it is and how Obamacare exploded it.
Here's your breaking news. Trump moved to end the quarreling
among various GOP factions. Quote, tell them don't f around
with Medicaid. So the orders came from Trump to the
(34:21):
GOP don't do anything to reform Medicaid.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Wow, Okay, I give up.
Speaker 5 (34:26):
So I just got a text from a friend of
mine who he's on the older end, but he said, Uh,
just got the Medicare statement for a cardiac ablation one
hundred and eighty eight thousand dollars for an over at
night's stay.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
And he's gonna pay fifty two dollars. But that one
hundred and eighty eight thousand dollars.
Speaker 5 (34:49):
Nobody has the slightest idea if that's anywhere close to reasonable?
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Right?
Speaker 6 (34:55):
No, who gets it? I don't know how'd you come
up with? Where's it coming from?
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Exactly? Now? That is no system anyway.
Speaker 5 (35:04):
The other breaking news we've got around the conference that's
going on right now with Trump meeting with Republicans trying
to get the big beautiful bill. Thing is he has
completely flipped on salt for whatever reason. That is the
whole getting deduct your state taxes in the Blue.
Speaker 6 (35:21):
States state and local tax right exactly deduction. Uh.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Trump has flipped.
Speaker 5 (35:28):
He says raising the cap benefits with raising the cap
would benefit democratic governors. We don't want to benefit democrats.
So he is against the salt thing now, having been
for it pretty strongly for.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
The last week. I don't know what was going on there.
Speaker 5 (35:48):
And this just in he just said to one congress person,
I know your district better than you do. If you
lose because assault, you were going to lose anyway, So
there you go. But anyway, that's the right thing happening,
the assaults of the crime against nature. I mean, it's
just horrible, even though it would benefit me personally.
Speaker 6 (36:07):
What cap are they going with thirty grand or I
don't know, I don't not or because the Blue state guys,
we're trying to raise it to like fifty or unlimited,
right well, so that all the red states could pay
for the Blue states, you know, income.
Speaker 5 (36:20):
TAXI Trump's actually at a microphone now, so maybe we'll
hear that. And they have a meeting at one am
for some reason tonight.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
I don't know what's going on. LA getting tough on immigration.
You're not going to believe it. Stay with us,