June 3, 2025 • 25 mins
(June 03,2025)
China’s grip on the global pharmaceuticals industry is exposed by the Trump administration’s tariff threat. Mosquitos could be driven to extinction with gene editing, but is that a good thing?
China’s grip on the global pharmaceuticals industry is exposed by the Trump administration’s tariff threat. Mosquitos could be driven to extinction with gene editing, but is that a good thing?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listenings KFI AM six forty the Bill Handle Show
on demand on the iHeartRadio f.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Bill Handle. Here he is a taco.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Tuesday, June third, I put up a Instagram post. I
don't know if you guys seen it. I went to
Trader Joe's and buy a mistake. I bought a vegan dish.
It was devastating, absolutely devastating. I've never bought a vegan
(00:31):
anything in my life. You gotta look closely. I know,
I know it's at bill Handle Show. You can see
how upset I am on buying. Oh, and then let
me tell you how I ate it.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I ate the rice that was it on that tofu
For God's sake, all.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Right, I want to share with you a story and
give you just a little background for a moment.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
And that is.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
The issue of Greenland for us. Why Donald Trump is
making a huge deal out of Greenland, both of which
are big deals. One is for national security. Greenland is
where we have this massive base to stop an invasion,
or at least to tell us there's an invasion coming
in from mainly Russia. The other is rare earth that
(01:28):
Greenland has in copious measure. They have a lot.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
We need rare earths.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Rare earths are minerals that are used in the manufacture
of phones and computers, etc. And we don't have any
in the United States, or almost none. You know who
has rare earth China? That's the other country. Now I
want to talk about you getting sick. How many of
you have gotten a prescription for a marxicillin, right, penicillin
(01:59):
type drugs. I have a moxicillin. My doctor gave me
a maxicillin because of my foot. You know it wasn't
an infection to prohibit or to stop an infection. Okay,
A maxicillin is in chronic short supply. There is one
manufacturer in the US. China controls eighty percent of the
(02:24):
raw materials of a boxicillin in the world.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Eighty percent. You think that's a problem.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Rick Jackson, founder and CEO of Jackson the Healthcare which
owns the one amoxicillin manufacturing facility in the United States, says,
increasing trade hostility or more protracted conflicts we're talking about
between China and the US could devastate our access to
a maxicilin Why because they control effectively the world market
(03:00):
for the ingredients. How about hydrocordisone cream, you know, the
anti itch cream that everybody uses, anti itch, that sort
of thing. Ninety six percent of the imports controlled by
China of the raw material, how about ibuprofen. Who doesn't
(03:22):
take ibuprofen? And it took some this morning because the
swelling of my toe is still there. Ninety percent of
the raw material is China. Aceta meenafin. Seventy three percent
is controlled by China. I mean, that's scary stuff. So far,
(03:44):
China has not stopped exportation or exporting of these raw products.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Is they've kept it close to the vest.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
But man, what is going on. There is a trade
war going on with China. And we are at a
real crossroads. When we talk about bringing manufacturing of steel,
when we talk about bringing manufacturing of chips, computer parts, phones,
that's one thing. Okay, as tough as it would be,
(04:15):
it's one thing. It would take four or five years
to start manufacturing drugs and raw products.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
That is a problem.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
That's years and years to switch over, which the major
people involved in drugs say it can't be done.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
It just can't be done. And we are at war.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
And so the argument is pharmaceuticals we're paying too much
for pharmaceuticals.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
We are, and that.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Is what we're paying for is too much for brand
name drugs.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
And over fifty percent.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
As a matter of fact, what's the actual number I'm
looking at this story. It's really a stunning number. Where
you've got seventy percent of drugs are generic in this country,
seventy percent of what we buy and ninety percent of
(05:16):
the ingredients to make generics are in Chinese hands. I
mean we and we have a shortage right now of
certain drugs. If China pulls the trigger on the exportation
of the raw material, we and the world are in
(05:36):
deep trouble.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Now. The good news is that India is the.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
World's biggest manufacturer of generics and we get a lot
of our generics for India. Oh wait a minute, the
raw products that go into the Indian manufacture are all
controlled by China, and so this trade war gets a
lot more complicated. Where we are at a we're at
(06:03):
a dilemma here and in the world of.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Trade.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Has been said, China is going to suffer more than
we will, which is probably true globally in the world
of pharmaceuticals, we are screwed. If China starts throwing in
raw products as part of their war and their ammunition.
So be prepared for pharma pharmaceutical costs to go down
(06:30):
among patented drugs that are manufactured in the United States.
When it comes to generics, that's just a commodity. And
now we're talking about how cheaply can you make it?
And the United States will never make generics as cheaply
as they can in China.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
It's impossible, just can't.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
And if China goes to town and says, okay, that's part
of our trade war, we're throwing that in the mix. Man.
You know, it's a mess. The whole thing is we're
too simplistic with this trade war. Business fifty percent, right,
let's change last week. Was it last week that President
(07:09):
Trump said, you know what, instead of twenty five percent,
I'm going to make it fifty percent And one week
it changed. It changes overnight. Try to build a factory
in a week and bring manufacturing here. Try to convince
China not to have ninety percent of the world market.
Medicaid rules could leave a million Californians without health insurance,
(07:32):
saying yet at the same time, the administration is saying, oh, no,
we're not cutting medicaid. And there's two ways of looking
at this, and I'll explain both right and both wrong.
Quick word about what's going on this Saturday, and that
is our get together at the Anaheim White House, the
entire crew Morning Crew.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
We've never done this.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
We're having dinner together and five of you plus I
guess plus one will be coming with us, and it's
going to be a lot of fun where we're going
to give you the inside baseball what's going on, and
you get to meet all.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Of us, which is for some reason people are interested
in doing that. So here's what you do.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
You go to during the course of the show, the
iHeartRadio app click onto the bill handle show microphone in
the upper right corner. Click onto that fifteen to twenty
seconds to tell us why you either want to go
or you should go on Saturday.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Thursday.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
By the way, will contact the winners, so leave your
information obviously contact info, and we will say you're.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
One of the big ones. Okay.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Now, there's a real issue going on with the federal
government in the state.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
You are going to see that the.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
New budget, the Big Beautiful Bill, cuts Medicaid recipients by millions,
and in California, it could leave a million Californias with
no health insurance. Now the administration is saying we're not
cutting Medicaid. That's not true, and yet the California is saying, yes,
(09:06):
you are. How can they both exist? I mean someone
has to be wrong. It depends on how you look
at it. Because the cut, if you call it a cut,
and there's a moral component to this, according to Mike Johnson,
is if you can work, why don't you work? And
if you're getting medicaid because you can't afford any kind
(09:30):
of healthcare and we're paying for it the taxpayer and
you're not working, that is a problem. So I guess
we're cutting medicaid. But the administration's position, we're only quote
cutting to people who.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Shouldn't have it in the first place.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
And under the Big Beautiful Bill, it simply says that
you had better prove that you're trying to well, actually
you are working, or you're going to school, unless you're
exempted special needs, a pregnant woman, and taking care of family,
being a caregiver. There are a bunch of exemptions. But
if you're nineteen to sixty four and you can work,
and you're not exempted, you're not getting medicaid.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Now that came under Obamacare.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
That's when that started expansion of medicaid. You'll hear that
phrase be thrown about the expansion of medicaid with Republicans
are adamant about stopping it, and certainly we're against it.
There is the issue, are we cutting medicaid well to
(10:33):
the people who don't deserve it in the first place,
they're not going to get it. We don't view that
as a cutting. What we view is taking back which
shouldn't be there. Now you have the states which are
saying you are cutting and people who are eligible who
are going to be made ineligible because of your now
(10:55):
definition of who deserves medicaid. Right now easy to get medicaid.
The problem with the big beautiful bill where they're undoing
this is the reporting that has to be made to
prove that you should be allowed to collect medicaid. No
one knows what that is. The bill doesn't talk about that,
(11:16):
and the fear is that it's going to be so onerous,
it's going to be so difficult to do the reporting
that effectively people who do deserve medicaid are not going
to get Medicaid, there is the problem. So the version
of the Big Beautiful Bill right now as it has
passed by the House, requires adults to log at least
(11:38):
eighty hours a month of community engagement. What does that mean?
What could be employment, school, volunteer work. Anybody nineteen to
sixty four. I don't know what that means, by the way,
nor does anybody else. It's it's a problem because they
haven't come up with the rules of how you do it.
And that is the argument that's being used by the states,
(12:01):
California specifically, and what California says that Medicaid if it's
taken away from these people, going back to before the
Affordable Care Act, where Medicaid was in existence, what was
not was expanded then and has not been cut curtailed.
About a million Californians would be with no health insurance.
(12:24):
And Medicaid is a federal program which then reverts back
to medical in which the state picks up all of
the costs for the poor people, poor being and those
unable to meet the requirements in terms of just accounting purposes,
in terms of meeting the requirements for recognizing having the
(12:49):
Feds or the state recognize that they are in that.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Position because no one knows how do you do it?
Who do you report to? And I volunteer? What does
that mean? You can?
Speaker 1 (13:03):
It's crazy? It is I'm at the shelter. You know,
I'm a volunteer and I do that fifteen hours a week.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Is that enough?
Speaker 1 (13:11):
We don't know you need eighty hours? But how do
we count the eighty hours?
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Okay? Enough of that?
Speaker 1 (13:22):
So it's you're gonna hear expansion, not expansion, cutting not cutting.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
We'll see what happens in the Senate. Mosquitoes.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
There's actually technology out there that can make mosquitoes extinct,
and for some reason, there is an ethical dilemma here.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
You got me on that one.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
But I'll explain what's going on technology versus bioethics. And
that's exactly the problem that I had when I first
started practicing law, and I'll tell you how we dealt
with it. Tolf of the Hour is rich the Moureau's
tech guy, and KTLA's tech guy will be with us
as he does every Thursday or every Tuesday.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yo, do I want to throw something at you.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
When I started practicing law, virtually from the beginning, my
specialty was third party reproductive law. Pretty bizarre stuff, surrogacy,
frozen embryos, sperm freezing, all of that. Sperm freezing is
what you do in Antarctica when you never mind.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
I'm not going to go there in any case.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
So for three years I actually taught a course at
my law school in third party reproductive law. Yeah, I
was Professor Handel. If that isn't scarier as hell, then
nothing is. And that was at the infancy of gene editing.
And there was an ethical dilemma that was part of
(14:53):
the course that we were talking about that I threw
out the students and papers were written on it. And
here is the ethical dilemma. Part of it is not
part of It's pretty easy. Do you edit genes and
edit out which you can do in the embryo stage,
and change the genes and remove the possibility of diseases.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
With gene editing, you can get rid of.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Taste acts, which virtually kills every Yashkenazi Jew that has
tas as.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
It's an inherited it's an inherited syndrome.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
That kids don't go beyond five six years and it's horrible,
or sickle cell anemia, which affects African Americans, which is
a deadly, deadly disease. Do you change the very makeup
of genes to make sure that those are not passed down?
That's an easy one. Who's going to say no to that?
(15:52):
Saving lives? Okay, let's take that same that same science
and take it a step further, and now we get
into bioethics. If we can change genes, how about parents
coming in who are creating children via third party reproduction IVF, etc.
(16:13):
How about making a kid taller, faster, blue eyes, blonde hair,
or black eyes. Where is the ethics of that? Should
we be able to do that? Should we have designer children?
(16:35):
There is an ethical dilemma. Okay, that's step two in
ethical dilemmas. Now I'm going to give you step three
when we come back, and that has to do with
going beyond getting rid of disease. Well, to some extent,
it is making people better, faster, smarter.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
This went well, I'm going to wait.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
And I tell you about that because this has just
started and there's a program going on right now in
which bioethicists are going, Oh, hold on a minute. We
don't want to go there, or do we? This is
a Tuesday morning June thirtieth. All right, great topic.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
I love this stuff. It's my wheelhouse. And this has
to do with some bioethics. As I was saying.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Before the break, when I was teaching third party reproductive law,
we had a real ethical dilemma with the concept of
gene editing, which is now here. Those days it was
what the future going to bring. Gene editing allows you
allows scientists to change the makeup of a creature human
(17:52):
or otherwise changing Darwin's selection concept and theory completely. The
natural order of the things change, for example, removing diseases
that are inherited at the genetic level, making kids are
going to be born faster, better, taller at the genetic level.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Big ethics involved.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
First one, not so big a problem, removing diseases, making
designer kids, that's ethical. That's an ethical dilemma. So here's
a third one. There is something called target malaria in
which genetics are and this is going on right now,
(18:38):
are going to deal introduce a gene mutation to mosquitoes.
Female mosquitoes offspring to be born without their ovaries functional ovaries,
rending them infertile. Male mosquitoes, the offspring can carry the
gene but they remain unaffected physically.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
So here's the concept.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
When female was mosquitos inherit the gene from both their parents,
they will go on to die without producing offspring. Meanwhile,
when males and females carry just one copy of the gene,
they will spread the deene further until there are no
fertile females left and the population crashes. Okay, not bad.
(19:25):
Who's going to say no to that? Where is the
bioethics here? Where is the ethical dilemma? Well, here is.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
What the ethicists are saying.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Researchers and ethicists are warning this may be too dangerous
to tinker with the underpinnings of life itself. We're talking
about scientifically eliminating a species on this earth.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Now, granted it's a species that.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Causes malaria and dingy and West Nile virus and all
kinds of serious diseases. What six hundred thousand people a
year die just because of malaria, not counting other diseases.
But it's an ethical dilemma because let's say we look
at other species cockroaches, which don't do anything good. And
(20:17):
by the way, who makes a decision as to who
wipes out a species, an entire species.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
That is a dilemma.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Not for me.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
I can tell you entire members of my family.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
I would wipe out and make sure that they don't
exist anymore.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
But that's me.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
So we're really in a scientific age now. When I
first started, even with IVF, for some crazy ass reason,
the ethicists said, oh, no, IVF is not the same,
because what you're doing is you're making decisions, a god
like decision, who is going to live, who is going
(21:01):
to die? What embryos you save, you destroy embryos? And
that is an ethical dilemma. Well it isn't It really isn't.
Now n gene tinkering with genes to remove diseases, No,
that's not an ethical dilemma. Making people better, faster, taller, Yeah,
that's an ethical dilemma. This one is scarying bioethicists because
(21:26):
this is eliminating entire species of life. Now, granted, if
you're going to do that, the first group you're going
to wipe out is mosquitoes. But where does it go
and how far? And again it took years, for example,
(21:47):
to come up with a regulatory scheme across the country
to determine how IVF is done, or how many sperm
downers can be used, because there are ethical dilemmas there
the fear of you know, not intermarriage, but you know, brothers, sisters,
et cetera, creating children without knowledge. And they've never been
(22:10):
able to come with a federal law. There are guidelines,
but there is no law. The bioethesists had never been
able to come up. Can you imagine this one? And
then the question is what species do you wipe out?
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Mosquitoes? Absolutely no one cares.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
How about rats that cause diseases, certain kinds of rats
that carry all kinds of diseases.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Well, no, because they're part of the food chain.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
And when you take out a when you take out
one of the elements of a food chain, and what
happens going up and the same thing? You know, there
are bugs, or there are mosquito eating animals. Don't bats
eat mosquitoes? Who eats mosquitoes? I'm trying to think. Don't
(23:05):
they for example in Asia, don't they eat mosquitoes?
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (23:09):
No, they eat crickets, that's right, not mosquitoes. That, by
the way, is a joke.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Mexico, they eat mosquitoes, We eat crickets. Oh Okay.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
So in Korea they eat mosquitoes, No, they don't. No
one eats mosquitoes except you know, bats. And I'm trying
to think of what other creatures, spa.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
And insects like dragonflies, some damn flies. Okay. So with that,
do you get rid of mosquitoes? No, because they have
their place in the circle of life too.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Okay, and their place is giving you dingay fever.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Okay, boy, there's there. There's a place for giving you malaria.
Can't you just splice their jeans to not be able
to do that? That's it?
Speaker 1 (23:57):
No, No, you can't because you would have to do
it individually. The only way you can deal with an
entire population is to make the bugs infertile.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yeah, it's very difficult to do.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Individual gene manipulation. You can do it with people, but
a per mosquito you really can't. I kind of feel like, God, ay,
there's a delate thirties mid forty somebody was trying to
do this stuff. Well, sciences go, well, they didn't do
it to mosquitoes. They no, And it wasn't gene editing,
(24:32):
it was wiping out entire species. By wiping out entire populations,
very different.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Okay, just wanted to bring that up. Rich Tomorrow coming.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Up and we're going to be talking about well Nintendo
and shoplifting, and he's going to talk about shoplifting either
pro or con. Is shoplifting good or bad? I don't
know yet. He's going to come up with the answer.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Kf I am six. You've been listening to the Bill
Handle Show.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Catch My Show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listenings KFI AM six forty the Bill Handle Show
on demand on the iHeartRadio f.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Bill Handle. Here he is a taco.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Tuesday, June third, I put up a Instagram post. I
don't know if you guys seen it. I went to
Trader Joe's and buy a mistake. I bought a vegan dish.
It was devastating, absolutely devastating. I've never bought a vegan
(00:31):
anything in my life. You gotta look closely. I know,
I know it's at bill Handle Show. You can see
how upset I am on buying. Oh, and then let
me tell you how I ate it.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I ate the rice that was it on that tofu
For God's sake, all.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Right, I want to share with you a story and
give you just a little background for a moment.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
And that is.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
The issue of Greenland for us. Why Donald Trump is
making a huge deal out of Greenland, both of which
are big deals. One is for national security. Greenland is
where we have this massive base to stop an invasion,
or at least to tell us there's an invasion coming
in from mainly Russia. The other is rare earth that
(01:28):
Greenland has in copious measure. They have a lot.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
We need rare earths.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Rare earths are minerals that are used in the manufacture
of phones and computers, etc. And we don't have any
in the United States, or almost none. You know who
has rare earth China? That's the other country. Now I
want to talk about you getting sick. How many of
you have gotten a prescription for a marxicillin, right, penicillin
(01:59):
type drugs. I have a moxicillin. My doctor gave me
a maxicillin because of my foot. You know it wasn't
an infection to prohibit or to stop an infection. Okay,
A maxicillin is in chronic short supply. There is one
manufacturer in the US. China controls eighty percent of the
(02:24):
raw materials of a boxicillin in the world.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Eighty percent. You think that's a problem.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Rick Jackson, founder and CEO of Jackson the Healthcare which
owns the one amoxicillin manufacturing facility in the United States, says,
increasing trade hostility or more protracted conflicts we're talking about
between China and the US could devastate our access to
a maxicilin Why because they control effectively the world market
(03:00):
for the ingredients. How about hydrocordisone cream, you know, the
anti itch cream that everybody uses, anti itch, that sort
of thing. Ninety six percent of the imports controlled by
China of the raw material, how about ibuprofen. Who doesn't
(03:22):
take ibuprofen? And it took some this morning because the
swelling of my toe is still there. Ninety percent of
the raw material is China. Aceta meenafin. Seventy three percent
is controlled by China. I mean, that's scary stuff. So far,
(03:44):
China has not stopped exportation or exporting of these raw products.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Is they've kept it close to the vest.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
But man, what is going on. There is a trade
war going on with China. And we are at a
real crossroads. When we talk about bringing manufacturing of steel,
when we talk about bringing manufacturing of chips, computer parts, phones,
that's one thing. Okay, as tough as it would be,
(04:15):
it's one thing. It would take four or five years
to start manufacturing drugs and raw products.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
That is a problem.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
That's years and years to switch over, which the major
people involved in drugs say it can't be done.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
It just can't be done. And we are at war.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
And so the argument is pharmaceuticals we're paying too much
for pharmaceuticals.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
We are, and that.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Is what we're paying for is too much for brand
name drugs.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
And over fifty percent.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
As a matter of fact, what's the actual number I'm
looking at this story. It's really a stunning number. Where
you've got seventy percent of drugs are generic in this country,
seventy percent of what we buy and ninety percent of
(05:16):
the ingredients to make generics are in Chinese hands. I
mean we and we have a shortage right now of
certain drugs. If China pulls the trigger on the exportation
of the raw material, we and the world are in
(05:36):
deep trouble.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Now. The good news is that India is the.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
World's biggest manufacturer of generics and we get a lot
of our generics for India. Oh wait a minute, the
raw products that go into the Indian manufacture are all
controlled by China, and so this trade war gets a
lot more complicated. Where we are at a we're at
(06:03):
a dilemma here and in the world of.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Trade.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Has been said, China is going to suffer more than
we will, which is probably true globally in the world
of pharmaceuticals, we are screwed. If China starts throwing in
raw products as part of their war and their ammunition.
So be prepared for pharma pharmaceutical costs to go down
(06:30):
among patented drugs that are manufactured in the United States.
When it comes to generics, that's just a commodity. And
now we're talking about how cheaply can you make it?
And the United States will never make generics as cheaply
as they can in China.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
It's impossible, just can't.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
And if China goes to town and says, okay, that's part
of our trade war, we're throwing that in the mix. Man.
You know, it's a mess. The whole thing is we're
too simplistic with this trade war. Business fifty percent, right,
let's change last week. Was it last week that President
(07:09):
Trump said, you know what, instead of twenty five percent,
I'm going to make it fifty percent And one week
it changed. It changes overnight. Try to build a factory
in a week and bring manufacturing here. Try to convince
China not to have ninety percent of the world market.
Medicaid rules could leave a million Californians without health insurance,
(07:32):
saying yet at the same time, the administration is saying, oh, no,
we're not cutting medicaid. And there's two ways of looking
at this, and I'll explain both right and both wrong.
Quick word about what's going on this Saturday, and that
is our get together at the Anaheim White House, the
entire crew Morning Crew.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
We've never done this.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
We're having dinner together and five of you plus I
guess plus one will be coming with us, and it's
going to be a lot of fun where we're going
to give you the inside baseball what's going on, and
you get to meet all.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Of us, which is for some reason people are interested
in doing that. So here's what you do.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
You go to during the course of the show, the
iHeartRadio app click onto the bill handle show microphone in
the upper right corner. Click onto that fifteen to twenty
seconds to tell us why you either want to go
or you should go on Saturday.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Thursday.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
By the way, will contact the winners, so leave your
information obviously contact info, and we will say you're.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
One of the big ones. Okay.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Now, there's a real issue going on with the federal
government in the state.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
You are going to see that the.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
New budget, the Big Beautiful Bill, cuts Medicaid recipients by millions,
and in California, it could leave a million Californias with
no health insurance. Now the administration is saying we're not
cutting Medicaid. That's not true, and yet the California is saying, yes,
(09:06):
you are. How can they both exist? I mean someone
has to be wrong. It depends on how you look
at it. Because the cut, if you call it a cut,
and there's a moral component to this, according to Mike Johnson,
is if you can work, why don't you work? And
if you're getting medicaid because you can't afford any kind
(09:30):
of healthcare and we're paying for it the taxpayer and
you're not working, that is a problem. So I guess
we're cutting medicaid. But the administration's position, we're only quote
cutting to people who.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Shouldn't have it in the first place.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
And under the Big Beautiful Bill, it simply says that
you had better prove that you're trying to well, actually
you are working, or you're going to school, unless you're
exempted special needs, a pregnant woman, and taking care of family,
being a caregiver. There are a bunch of exemptions. But
if you're nineteen to sixty four and you can work,
and you're not exempted, you're not getting medicaid.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Now that came under Obamacare.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
That's when that started expansion of medicaid. You'll hear that
phrase be thrown about the expansion of medicaid with Republicans
are adamant about stopping it, and certainly we're against it.
There is the issue, are we cutting medicaid well to
(10:33):
the people who don't deserve it in the first place,
they're not going to get it. We don't view that
as a cutting. What we view is taking back which
shouldn't be there. Now you have the states which are
saying you are cutting and people who are eligible who
are going to be made ineligible because of your now
(10:55):
definition of who deserves medicaid. Right now easy to get medicaid.
The problem with the big beautiful bill where they're undoing
this is the reporting that has to be made to
prove that you should be allowed to collect medicaid. No
one knows what that is. The bill doesn't talk about that,
(11:16):
and the fear is that it's going to be so onerous,
it's going to be so difficult to do the reporting
that effectively people who do deserve medicaid are not going
to get Medicaid, there is the problem. So the version
of the Big Beautiful Bill right now as it has
passed by the House, requires adults to log at least
(11:38):
eighty hours a month of community engagement. What does that mean?
What could be employment, school, volunteer work. Anybody nineteen to
sixty four. I don't know what that means, by the way,
nor does anybody else. It's it's a problem because they
haven't come up with the rules of how you do it.
And that is the argument that's being used by the states,
(12:01):
California specifically, and what California says that Medicaid if it's
taken away from these people, going back to before the
Affordable Care Act, where Medicaid was in existence, what was
not was expanded then and has not been cut curtailed.
About a million Californians would be with no health insurance.
(12:24):
And Medicaid is a federal program which then reverts back
to medical in which the state picks up all of
the costs for the poor people, poor being and those
unable to meet the requirements in terms of just accounting purposes,
in terms of meeting the requirements for recognizing having the
(12:49):
Feds or the state recognize that they are in that.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Position because no one knows how do you do it?
Who do you report to? And I volunteer? What does
that mean? You can?
Speaker 1 (13:03):
It's crazy? It is I'm at the shelter. You know,
I'm a volunteer and I do that fifteen hours a week.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Is that enough?
Speaker 1 (13:11):
We don't know you need eighty hours? But how do
we count the eighty hours?
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Okay? Enough of that?
Speaker 1 (13:22):
So it's you're gonna hear expansion, not expansion, cutting not cutting.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
We'll see what happens in the Senate. Mosquitoes.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
There's actually technology out there that can make mosquitoes extinct,
and for some reason, there is an ethical dilemma here.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
You got me on that one.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
But I'll explain what's going on technology versus bioethics. And
that's exactly the problem that I had when I first
started practicing law, and I'll tell you how we dealt
with it. Tolf of the Hour is rich the Moureau's
tech guy, and KTLA's tech guy will be with us
as he does every Thursday or every Tuesday.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yo, do I want to throw something at you.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
When I started practicing law, virtually from the beginning, my
specialty was third party reproductive law. Pretty bizarre stuff, surrogacy,
frozen embryos, sperm freezing, all of that. Sperm freezing is
what you do in Antarctica when you never mind.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
I'm not going to go there in any case.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
So for three years I actually taught a course at
my law school in third party reproductive law. Yeah, I
was Professor Handel. If that isn't scarier as hell, then
nothing is. And that was at the infancy of gene editing.
And there was an ethical dilemma that was part of
(14:53):
the course that we were talking about that I threw
out the students and papers were written on it. And
here is the ethical dilemma. Part of it is not
part of It's pretty easy. Do you edit genes and
edit out which you can do in the embryo stage,
and change the genes and remove the possibility of diseases.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
With gene editing, you can get rid of.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Taste acts, which virtually kills every Yashkenazi Jew that has
tas as.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
It's an inherited it's an inherited syndrome.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
That kids don't go beyond five six years and it's horrible,
or sickle cell anemia, which affects African Americans, which is
a deadly, deadly disease. Do you change the very makeup
of genes to make sure that those are not passed down?
That's an easy one. Who's going to say no to that?
(15:52):
Saving lives? Okay, let's take that same that same science
and take it a step further, and now we get
into bioethics. If we can change genes, how about parents
coming in who are creating children via third party reproduction IVF, etc.
(16:13):
How about making a kid taller, faster, blue eyes, blonde hair,
or black eyes. Where is the ethics of that? Should
we be able to do that? Should we have designer children?
(16:35):
There is an ethical dilemma. Okay, that's step two in
ethical dilemmas. Now I'm going to give you step three
when we come back, and that has to do with
going beyond getting rid of disease. Well, to some extent,
it is making people better, faster, smarter.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
This went well, I'm going to wait.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
And I tell you about that because this has just
started and there's a program going on right now in
which bioethicists are going, Oh, hold on a minute. We
don't want to go there, or do we? This is
a Tuesday morning June thirtieth. All right, great topic.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
I love this stuff. It's my wheelhouse. And this has
to do with some bioethics. As I was saying.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Before the break, when I was teaching third party reproductive law,
we had a real ethical dilemma with the concept of
gene editing, which is now here. Those days it was
what the future going to bring. Gene editing allows you
allows scientists to change the makeup of a creature human
(17:52):
or otherwise changing Darwin's selection concept and theory completely. The
natural order of the things change, for example, removing diseases
that are inherited at the genetic level, making kids are
going to be born faster, better, taller at the genetic level.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Big ethics involved.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
First one, not so big a problem, removing diseases, making
designer kids, that's ethical. That's an ethical dilemma. So here's
a third one. There is something called target malaria in
which genetics are and this is going on right now,
(18:38):
are going to deal introduce a gene mutation to mosquitoes.
Female mosquitoes offspring to be born without their ovaries functional ovaries,
rending them infertile. Male mosquitoes, the offspring can carry the
gene but they remain unaffected physically.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
So here's the concept.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
When female was mosquitos inherit the gene from both their parents,
they will go on to die without producing offspring. Meanwhile,
when males and females carry just one copy of the gene,
they will spread the deene further until there are no
fertile females left and the population crashes. Okay, not bad.
(19:25):
Who's going to say no to that? Where is the
bioethics here? Where is the ethical dilemma? Well, here is.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
What the ethicists are saying.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Researchers and ethicists are warning this may be too dangerous
to tinker with the underpinnings of life itself. We're talking
about scientifically eliminating a species on this earth.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Now, granted it's a species that.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Causes malaria and dingy and West Nile virus and all
kinds of serious diseases. What six hundred thousand people a
year die just because of malaria, not counting other diseases.
But it's an ethical dilemma because let's say we look
at other species cockroaches, which don't do anything good. And
(20:17):
by the way, who makes a decision as to who
wipes out a species, an entire species.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
That is a dilemma.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Not for me.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
I can tell you entire members of my family.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
I would wipe out and make sure that they don't
exist anymore.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
But that's me.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
So we're really in a scientific age now. When I
first started, even with IVF, for some crazy ass reason,
the ethicists said, oh, no, IVF is not the same,
because what you're doing is you're making decisions, a god
like decision, who is going to live, who is going
(21:01):
to die? What embryos you save, you destroy embryos? And
that is an ethical dilemma. Well it isn't It really isn't.
Now n gene tinkering with genes to remove diseases, No,
that's not an ethical dilemma. Making people better, faster, taller, Yeah,
that's an ethical dilemma. This one is scarying bioethicists because
(21:26):
this is eliminating entire species of life. Now, granted, if
you're going to do that, the first group you're going
to wipe out is mosquitoes. But where does it go
and how far? And again it took years, for example,
(21:47):
to come up with a regulatory scheme across the country
to determine how IVF is done, or how many sperm
downers can be used, because there are ethical dilemmas there
the fear of you know, not intermarriage, but you know, brothers, sisters,
et cetera, creating children without knowledge. And they've never been
(22:10):
able to come with a federal law. There are guidelines,
but there is no law. The bioethesists had never been
able to come up. Can you imagine this one? And
then the question is what species do you wipe out?
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Mosquitoes? Absolutely no one cares.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
How about rats that cause diseases, certain kinds of rats
that carry all kinds of diseases.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Well, no, because they're part of the food chain.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
And when you take out a when you take out
one of the elements of a food chain, and what
happens going up and the same thing? You know, there
are bugs, or there are mosquito eating animals. Don't bats
eat mosquitoes? Who eats mosquitoes? I'm trying to think. Don't
(23:05):
they for example in Asia, don't they eat mosquitoes?
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (23:09):
No, they eat crickets, that's right, not mosquitoes. That, by
the way, is a joke.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Mexico, they eat mosquitoes, We eat crickets. Oh Okay.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
So in Korea they eat mosquitoes, No, they don't. No
one eats mosquitoes except you know, bats. And I'm trying
to think of what other creatures, spa.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
And insects like dragonflies, some damn flies. Okay. So with that,
do you get rid of mosquitoes? No, because they have
their place in the circle of life too.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Okay, and their place is giving you dingay fever.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Okay, boy, there's there. There's a place for giving you malaria.
Can't you just splice their jeans to not be able
to do that? That's it?
Speaker 1 (23:57):
No, No, you can't because you would have to do
it individually. The only way you can deal with an
entire population is to make the bugs infertile.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yeah, it's very difficult to do.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Individual gene manipulation. You can do it with people, but
a per mosquito you really can't. I kind of feel like, God, ay,
there's a delate thirties mid forty somebody was trying to
do this stuff. Well, sciences go, well, they didn't do
it to mosquitoes. They no, And it wasn't gene editing,
(24:32):
it was wiping out entire species. By wiping out entire populations,
very different.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Okay, just wanted to bring that up. Rich Tomorrow coming.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Up and we're going to be talking about well Nintendo
and shoplifting, and he's going to talk about shoplifting either
pro or con. Is shoplifting good or bad? I don't
know yet. He's going to come up with the answer.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Kf I am six. You've been listening to the Bill
Handle Show.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Catch My Show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
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