Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of the
Speaker 1: Weekly Zeitgeist. These are some of our favorite segments from
Speaker 1: this week, all edited together into one NonStop infotainment laugh stravaganza.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, So, without further ado, here is the Weekly Zeitgeist.
Speaker 2: Miles.
Speaker 1: We're thrilled to be joined in our third seat by
Speaker 1: an award winning comedian and co host of the Good Muslim,
Speaker 1: Bad Muslim podcast feature on Oprah Magazine. She is the
Speaker 1: pop Culture Collaborative Senior Fellow on Comedy for Social Change.
Speaker 1: It's the brilliant, the talented Zara Normal.
Speaker 2: I thanky goo god, hi, Hey my god.
Speaker 3: Thanksgiving was delicious.
Speaker 2: We had three wow to hear that.
Speaker 4: I was curious what people eat on Thanksgiving and it
Speaker 4: is turkey.
Speaker 5: It turns out I also had ham for the first time.
Speaker 5: Not for the first time in my life. Oh okay,
Speaker 5: I'm the pork eating Muslim, but ham for the first
Speaker 5: time at Thanksgiving.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: That was like a side meat along with the turkey.
Speaker 7: It was a side meat. Why do we eat turkey?
Speaker 1: I think the turkey pair is better with the savory sides.
Speaker 1: So I do I do two plates. My first plate
Speaker 1: turkey stuffing mashy potatoes and some grave and then on
Speaker 1: the ham one I like to go with like the
Speaker 1: sweet potato casserole on the side there because that like
Speaker 1: has the I feel like ham goes well with the sweet.
Speaker 1: Ham's a little bit of a sweetie.
Speaker 5: It was super sweet. It was all buttery and delicious
Speaker 5: and very salty. And I'm still puffy.
Speaker 8: Are you?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I feel I'm going to be bloated for I don't know,
Speaker 5: a couple of months.
Speaker 4: Staying wedding ring won't come off. That's why, because it's yeah,
Speaker 4: because I'm about to go to the club and ball out.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I feel like for all the guff the
Speaker 1: turkey gets, and we give it a lot of guff
Speaker 1: on this podcast. I'll tell you the dryness, I feel
Speaker 1: like is the thing that made people come out of
Speaker 1: their comfort zone and invent gravy and stuffing and mashed
Speaker 1: potatoes and all those wonderful moist Yeah, it.
Speaker 7: Sounds like you're talking about my vagina.
Speaker 2: Come on, now, you gotta have that with potatoes.
Speaker 5: Do you know what I want to talk about? Clear
Speaker 5: your calendar? Yeah, your agenda. I celebrated this year twenty
Speaker 5: years of marriage with.
Speaker 1: My husbands, even realized alred together that long middle years.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're exactly twenty eight.
Speaker 5: Yeah, canonically right, I mean canonically.
Speaker 7: I don't know what that means because I don't do
Speaker 7: mental math.
Speaker 5: But it's a long time, actual woman, this long monogamously.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the monogues Patrick Monogue.
Speaker 7: Dedicated to one dick. Yeah, wow, And that's what I'm
Speaker 7: gonna go around saying, yeah.
Speaker 4: Just get a T shirt to celebrate your anniversary dedicated
Speaker 4: to one dick for twenty years in counting.
Speaker 5: I'm not one of those people that need to like
Speaker 5: celebrate her husband's dick for everyone. Yeah, yeah, sure, I
Speaker 5: don't need to talk about like how big it is
Speaker 5: and how hard he goes and how I'm just orgasming
Speaker 5: all the time.
Speaker 7: I don't need to do that.
Speaker 4: Isn't like a consolation thing for the penis har to
Speaker 4: like always talk about it.
Speaker 2: It's like, so, thank you so much for talking about how.
Speaker 7: Hard my husband's dick is. Like, uh that.
Speaker 4: You're doing you're doing.
Speaker 7: His dick is so big it's split.
Speaker 4: Wow, I get shockered.
Speaker 7: It's been twenty.
Speaker 1: Years by the one dick.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: That's pretty impressive and strange, but kind of.
Speaker 5: It's also studied with like an STD from like two
Speaker 5: thousand and four that we never investigate.
Speaker 4: Huh yeah, yeah, ruins the marriage to ask questions.
Speaker 7: We had that for Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1: That's just an added feature. Exactly, pretty great. What is
Speaker 1: something from your search history that is revealing about.
Speaker 2: Who you are?
Speaker 7: Okay? Dutch ovens.
Speaker 8: I wanted to know what they were used for Jack
Speaker 8: he Scott, his mom one. It was really sweet and
Speaker 8: so not.
Speaker 1: The one that I was picturing in my mind. Go ahead, nope, okay, no,
Speaker 1: yeah not.
Speaker 2: Is that like a Kentucky woman? What that's a different one?
Speaker 8: Okay, no, just Dutch Ovens.
Speaker 7: I was like, what the hell?
Speaker 9: Oh Crusette, Yeah, yeah, because aren't they like like lock Crousette. Well,
Speaker 9: Lockerusette is one of the brands you get other brands,
Speaker 9: but uh there's like so you can use it for
Speaker 9: so many different things and I didn't know and it's
Speaker 9: very specific.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's the specific?
Speaker 4: I was just making big ass like soups and ship
Speaker 4: in the Dutch oven that I have.
Speaker 8: I think it's I think it's good for like certain
Speaker 8: sauces and stuff, and like if it's porcelain and cast iron,
Speaker 8: like there's different like combinations. I'm not quite sure, but yeah,
Speaker 8: I was like carrying my.
Speaker 1: Cat piss in there. Yeah. It's actually really good because
Speaker 1: nobody sees what you're carrying around in all the questions like.
Speaker 8: Is that your pee Jack has been asking you Christmas?
Speaker 1: You actually don't. You know, somebody tipped you off and
Speaker 1: that's why you're asking.
Speaker 10: Movie you side carrying around your cat biss.
Speaker 2: You're like, oh, I got my famous chili, Like get
Speaker 2: out of here, better put it over.
Speaker 10: Here like sver is like, we can't have him in
Speaker 10: this movie. You're like, what about a wet Frosty? What
Speaker 10: about a wet yellow Frosty?
Speaker 1: Yeah, a wet frost I mean Frosty would be wet
Speaker 1: if he was hot, like you know eventually anyway, melty Frosty.
Speaker 2: That works.
Speaker 1: So anyways, you did you guys get one those things.
Speaker 7: And she was very happy.
Speaker 8: Not the light cruise like a different brand or whatever,
Speaker 8: but he bought one for his mom and she was
Speaker 8: very happy.
Speaker 1: You could just like put him in any yeah, you
Speaker 1: like throw him in the oven. You can put one
Speaker 1: oven in them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's how I make a like a lot of
Speaker 4: meat pots. The meat like a bowling ace. You do
Speaker 4: that real slow cook, a real low in the oven.
Speaker 1: Wait, what so what is a Kentucky woman? By the way,
Speaker 1: it's like a buttercup? Still, I was only familiar with
Speaker 1: what is.
Speaker 2: Going on?
Speaker 7: Do people still use urban dictionary?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think it's out there. I don't know.
Speaker 7: I know he's out there, but like, I've only ever
Speaker 7: heard of millennials using it.
Speaker 8: I feel like, do does gen z use urban dictionary?
Speaker 2: They don't care because they're making everything up.
Speaker 1: They don't care what.
Speaker 7: We're talking about.
Speaker 3: They're too busy silken, yeah.
Speaker 4: Exactly, pound in dirty sods. Uh No, it's a that's
Speaker 4: It's like it's like when you cup a fart and
Speaker 4: you put it to someone's face.
Speaker 7: Oh, is that that's a buttercup?
Speaker 2: Wait?
Speaker 7: Is that a Kentucky woman or a buttercup?
Speaker 1: Two hands or what?
Speaker 2: Interchangeably with some of the what's.
Speaker 1: Your problem with women?
Speaker 2: Man? Some of the I don't know.
Speaker 4: It was just so weird that you're like, what the
Speaker 4: fuck are you talking about?
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: It?
Speaker 7: It's like you're like, it's soda and pop.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is what happens when you the like the
Speaker 4: most technology you had at your fingertips at sixteen years
Speaker 4: old was like a Nokia thirty three ninety phone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I was.
Speaker 1: Although my eleven year old nephew I did hear giving
Speaker 1: one of my sons a Dutch oven recently. He was
Speaker 1: like they were referring to the Dutch oven and it
Speaker 1: made me feel like I was not.
Speaker 2: Like, this country isn't lost.
Speaker 1: This country has a damn future after all, Blair, what
Speaker 1: is something you think is underrated?
Speaker 6: What is Oh my god, thank you for asking me,
Speaker 6: because I gotta say, aliens? Aliens?
Speaker 3: Are you kidding me?
Speaker 6: I'm obsessed with the aliens. I can't stop thinking about
Speaker 6: the aliens. I spent all my time on alien TikTok,
Speaker 6: and you know I have to say, uh for being
Speaker 6: such a whack a doodle. I never thought about aliens
Speaker 6: once in my life until twenty twenty two when the
Speaker 6: government said, like they're real, and now everyone is just
Speaker 6: so uninterested and I can't stop thinking about it. I'm
Speaker 6: amazed and obsessed.
Speaker 4: I mean, everyone thought yesterday or the third was supposed
Speaker 4: to be alien invasion day. I kept reading that on
Speaker 4: the internet.
Speaker 2: Was like or just a fucking time.
Speaker 4: But then there are all those drones flying over like
Speaker 4: New Jersey and all over the US where people like,
Speaker 4: what are these car sized drones that are like hovering around?
Speaker 4: And I'm like, right, I don't know, I don't know,
Speaker 4: but yeah, well I.
Speaker 6: Was always checking out my window on the hour every day,
Speaker 6: on the hour last yesterday, because.
Speaker 1: I was wating that big shadow to come over and
Speaker 1: you to like kind of look up like that, Oh.
Speaker 3: Take me, babe, I'm ready that alien walk me like
Speaker 3: a dog. I'm exhausted.
Speaker 2: Would you be like, you know, an Independence Day.
Speaker 4: They're like those people in downtown LA on the top
Speaker 4: of the at the time was like the first Interstate
Speaker 4: base building and they're like with their signs are like yes,
Speaker 4: you're like, oh my god, you guys.
Speaker 2: Are eating.
Speaker 3: Slagitch.
Speaker 6: No, I'm gonna have I'm gonna have like homemade cookies
Speaker 6: ready for them. You got do you like these are
Speaker 6: alien cookies? You like any study alien?
Speaker 1: It look like when I thought aliens were gonna look like,
Speaker 1: they actually don't look like you. Sorry, you guys are
Speaker 1: real fucked up looking.
Speaker 6: But I am worried about that, genuine genuinely because you know, well,
Speaker 6: I have been perusing all the theories on TikTok, and
Speaker 6: people are like, well, what if the aliens are actually mermaids?
Speaker 6: And then and then I started worrying about that because
Speaker 6: I was like, oh, I don't think they're gonna be
Speaker 6: like the mermaids from Peter Pan. I think I'm worried
Speaker 6: they're gonna look like a goddamn or a eel.
Speaker 1: That's just like yeah, yeah fish, yeah something have like
Speaker 1: the little light and the big nasty jaws.
Speaker 6: Yeah I don't want yeah, yeah, we don't want gross
Speaker 6: faces aliens.
Speaker 1: Uh, we do like your face gross face killer. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it is something that like when we start talking
Speaker 1: about it, I sometimes I'm like, why do we ever
Speaker 1: talk about anything else? But I yeah, it is so
Speaker 1: interesting that like the more disclosure there's been, or the
Speaker 1: more seriously the government takes it, the more people are
Speaker 1: just like, I don't know, man, you guys are saying yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6: To this all leads truly back to my childhood, the
Speaker 6: Warped Tour, because Tom DeLong is responsible for all of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, he definitely put yeah man, he put his
Speaker 1: money where his mouth is.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he was able to infiltrate the one and convince
Speaker 6: it for disclosure.
Speaker 1: Do you think there are messages hidden him blink one
Speaker 1: ay two lyrics that like slowly just like wormed their
Speaker 1: way through the minds of Yeah.
Speaker 6: I would love to talk to Tom DeLong sometime and
Speaker 6: be like, so, were you visited or how did this
Speaker 6: all come about for you? How did you know? How
Speaker 6: did this all happen?
Speaker 1: You want to know why they need to be reminded
Speaker 1: of what their age is again because they've had their
Speaker 1: memory wiped after an alien encounter. Is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yes, such an age again?
Speaker 1: What is something that you think is overrated?
Speaker 11: Okay, I'm gonna say this. People aren't gonna like it.
Speaker 11: Nobody's going to agree with me.
Speaker 3: It's fine.
Speaker 7: I think that Spotify Wrapped is overrated.
Speaker 3: I don't care about Spotify rapped.
Speaker 11: I know what songs I listened to, right, and and
Speaker 11: then I look at people's page and they're posting their
Speaker 11: Spotify rapped and it's just everyone's like I listened to
Speaker 11: Espresso and I'm like, I bet you did.
Speaker 1: Like I'm a pink pony.
Speaker 11: I'm a pink pony, Prince Pilates girl or whatever, and
Speaker 11: I'm like, cool, it seems like everyone I know it
Speaker 11: is a pink pony pilates girl.
Speaker 3: My Spotify rap is actually broken this year for some reason.
Speaker 12: You know what I'm gonna say, at least well, yeah,
Speaker 12: so okay last year, Okayty.
Speaker 11: Did reveal that I had Meghan Trainer on my Spotify rap,
Speaker 11: which was that why she don't like.
Speaker 12: Spotify rap because she had Megan Trainer on her Spotify
Speaker 12: and rapped.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does feel like it's the equivalent of dreams,
Speaker 1: like somebody else's Spotify rap is always like kind of
Speaker 1: uninteresting to me, but like sometimes I learned something I
Speaker 1: don't want to know about myself in the Spotify rap.
Speaker 1: For I'm like, oh really damn damn Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 12: Don't want to unpacked that check or you want to.
Speaker 1: Just move on, Well what Megan Trainer for.
Speaker 11: Instance, Megan was last year and I've come to terms
Speaker 11: with that and I've owned that. But in finding in
Speaker 11: my Spotify raps being broken this year and me feeling
Speaker 11: like no motivation to fix it or figure it out,
Speaker 11: I realized that, like, it just doesn't have a ton
Speaker 11: of meaning for me. Yeah, but if it does for you,
Speaker 11: that's fine, But it is, it's it's overrated for me, Yeah.
Speaker 4: The stuff I learned, I feel like because I'm so
Speaker 4: used to seeing the Spotify rap like through the year,
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, this shit's about to be my number
Speaker 4: one song, like I can like not even in a
Speaker 4: way that's celebratory, or I'm like I already know, like
Speaker 4: I'm playing the shit out of this one album or
Speaker 4: song that sometimes I don't even look because I'm just
Speaker 4: like I already know, I already know I fucking nerd
Speaker 4: it out on like this one song for three straight
Speaker 4: days on a loop, and that's usually how my whole
Speaker 4: thing gets thrown off.
Speaker 2: But yeah, and it was.
Speaker 12: Made You Look by Megan Trainer is what you're saying.
Speaker 4: It was made you Look by Megan Trainer, followed by
Speaker 4: made You Look by nos.
Speaker 1: Yeah you like that title anything?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Your genre is weirdly songs called made you Look.
Speaker 12: Like and put in a random word in Spotify and
Speaker 12: then see all the songs that like roses is a
Speaker 12: good one or crazy or something, and then like seeing
Speaker 12: all the songs that like have that. I also say
Speaker 12: a lot of people at least were hating on Spotify
Speaker 12: rap this year because Spotify laid off all their creatives
Speaker 12: so like the fucking Spotify rap this year was like
Speaker 12: AI and like Whack and Corny were like usually it's
Speaker 12: like here's are your horoscopes or here's Spotify like everyone
Speaker 12: who like the top listeners in your city, or this
Speaker 12: is what people like? Your vibe is like Silverla, can
Speaker 12: you live in like Chicago or something? But because of
Speaker 12: what they laid everyone off. The Spotify Spotify rapped was
Speaker 12: people's mom's dry ass turkey.
Speaker 2: You like Taylor Swift, You're welcome.
Speaker 3: I will say.
Speaker 11: The only person who posted a Spotify raps that intrigued
Speaker 11: me in any way, shape or form is I would
Speaker 11: say that the Prince of New York.
Speaker 3: Posted his, but he blacked.
Speaker 11: Out one of them. And so now I am intrigued.
Speaker 11: How I want to know what was I thought?
Speaker 12: He said it was Rue Paul.
Speaker 3: He was embursed.
Speaker 12: He was embarrassed about liking Rue Paul because as is
Speaker 12: like a city councilman in Bettsty who is like twenty
Speaker 12: six and he's like democratic socialist and yeah, the.
Speaker 3: Same broker fee thing removed.
Speaker 7: He rocks.
Speaker 11: That's great if that's why the mystery look him on
Speaker 11: the right side.
Speaker 4: But like the Rue Paul thing, like Oh, so you
Speaker 4: were fracking And he's like, well.
Speaker 12: Yeah, that's that might be it.
Speaker 4: This is pre fracking, ru Paul. You know, I try
Speaker 4: to separate the artists from the fracking.
Speaker 3: Separate the art from the fracking.
Speaker 1: Well, can't be done.
Speaker 2: Okay, can't be done.
Speaker 1: How about you, MELI, is there something that you think
Speaker 1: is overrated?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 12: As a black woman, I'm gonna go ahead and say
Speaker 12: that I think Andrew Schultz is overrated. I think Chris Corny,
Speaker 12: I don't think he's funny at all. First of all,
Speaker 12: like this, and I'm saying this topically because he did
Speaker 12: this like five minute crash out because Kendrick Lamar. First
Speaker 12: of all, Kendrick Lamari said in a song like no
Speaker 12: white comedians make fun of black women. He didn't say
Speaker 12: Andrew Schultz, but Andrew Schaltz has since been panicking for
Speaker 12: like the past week and then went on like this
Speaker 12: whole diatribe and did like two minutes about how he
Speaker 12: would he could rape Kendrick Lamar. It was really fucking weird.
Speaker 12: We'll probably talk about in the podcast release.
Speaker 3: But I was like, what, I didn't just went there.
Speaker 12: Well, I'm taller than him, so I could you know
Speaker 12: I could physically have sex with him and even if
Speaker 12: he wants to or not, because and it's just like
Speaker 12: and then all his little lackeys are like laughing, and I'm.
Speaker 2: Just like this, this this guy's.
Speaker 12: Corny and it's not He's never been that funny guy.
Speaker 12: Code is like corny. I don't know, it's just all
Speaker 12: like it's all dark, and it's like you have Donald Trump,
Speaker 12: Like also automatically you had Donald Trump on your pod,
Speaker 12: Like you can't be claiming hip hop or whatever. I
Speaker 12: don't know, so that's just that. And then he's like, oh,
Speaker 12: rappers don't respect women either, and it's like, okay, sure,
Speaker 12: but like shut the fuck up.
Speaker 4: I don't know, so, yeah, you're not of yeah exactly.
Speaker 4: He he definitely immediately made that about himself in a
Speaker 4: way or I just saw a clip of that and
Speaker 4: I go, I don't need to see anymore of this shit, right,
Speaker 4: And it's weird to see like all the flagrant pod
Speaker 4: fans be like.
Speaker 2: People don't understand his This is just jokes, bro.
Speaker 4: This is like what he does because he's trying to
Speaker 4: get a rise at everybody, and he clearly succeeding. I'm like,
Speaker 4: what a way to describe you being so unfunny and
Speaker 4: just offensive. They're like it's so funny that y'all are offended, okay,
Speaker 4: and so he has won the argument and yeah, and
Speaker 4: if Kendrick claps back like Andrew's just gonna win, that's
Speaker 4: just like there's no way Kendrick wins this one. And
Speaker 4: you're like, this isn't even about that, this is about
Speaker 4: if anything was about Drake.
Speaker 12: So yeah, just like brain rotted, I'm like, like it's
Speaker 12: not funny, Like what is funny about this? And then
Speaker 12: you're clap back to someone being like, don't talk about
Speaker 12: black women because it's just that like you, it's actually yeah,
Speaker 12: like that's just not I'm just trying to find where
Speaker 12: it's funny and it's not. And it's just like half
Speaker 12: of these and I'm just waiting now that Trump's in president,
Speaker 12: I'm just like, let us be the canceled Like I
Speaker 12: want to be the canceled comedy whatever. Yeah, and get
Speaker 12: all those like reactionary fucking money that these people are
Speaker 12: so rich. It's like all the like the Top ten
Speaker 12: podcast us like stress me Out. It's all these like
Speaker 12: rich white people who are just talking bullshit and I'm
Speaker 12: just like shut up.
Speaker 13: Yeah, So anyway, that was yeah, yeah, yeah, I was
Speaker 13: gonna say that.
Speaker 12: Like that's the worst part of every Andrew Schultz clip
Speaker 12: is that he says the most racist crazy ship on
Speaker 12: his podcast and then there's like no less than five
Speaker 12: men of color like laughing at.
Speaker 4: And signing, and then it's funny too, well, who are
Speaker 4: those like two black dudes from England who like came
Speaker 4: back like well.
Speaker 12: Pod on the pod they got the ships and gigs pod,
Speaker 12: which we know, yeah, like they're fucking they they completely
Speaker 12: fucked their ship up because their their audience was primarily women.
Speaker 12: So yeah, we those guys are they're like, oh, we
Speaker 12: had what did they say, fight or flight? Andrew Schultz
Speaker 12: said that racist thing and we just laughed along because
Speaker 12: we had fight in our flight. Like we didn't know
Speaker 12: like that this was gonna happen. We thought it was
Speaker 12: just gonna be like fun talking. It's like, you didn't
Speaker 12: google Andrew Schultz like once, right, I guess they don't
Speaker 12: have Google. They probably uses something else in England dot
Speaker 12: co dot UK, dot co dot UK. That's how they
Speaker 12: got you.
Speaker 1: All right, let's uh, let's take a quick break. We'll
Speaker 1: come back and we'll get into some news. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back, and we're back, We're back. And yeah, So
Speaker 1: the biggest healthcare insurance provider CEO, was killed in front
Speaker 1: of the hotel that I stayed at like a month
Speaker 1: and a half ago, and that is really part of
Speaker 1: the store.
Speaker 4: It's immediately made about that that you stayed at that
Speaker 4: hot that Hilton.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I noticed that. You didn't write it in the headline.
Speaker 3: Look, I'm just glad you narrowly escaped this.
Speaker 1: Okay, Jack, Yeah, very narrowly. How do we know the
Speaker 1: bullet wasn't meant for me?
Speaker 2: We don't. We don't yet know that.
Speaker 1: We know very little.
Speaker 2: I was there two months prior.
Speaker 1: But this is a company, United Healthcare, that had already
Speaker 1: been getting a little bit of attention. Yeah, because I
Speaker 1: mean people, because they don't pay people's healthcare costs.
Speaker 4: They're the biggest insurance provider, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: The basically what happened was, I'm sure people know, like
Speaker 4: a gunman just pulled up right behind this guy in
Speaker 4: front of the hotel and shot him down with like
Speaker 4: a silenced gun and yeah, and then hopped on a
Speaker 4: city bike and went off into Central Park. And vanished,
Speaker 4: and I think that right now the manhunt is on
Speaker 4: as of the time we were recording this, since it is.
Speaker 2: Later on Wednesday.
Speaker 4: So then basically he was later pronounced dead and the
Speaker 4: cops did say that they this was like a targeted shooting.
Speaker 4: So if was targeted, what could the motive possibly be
Speaker 4: is what immediately I think launched a thousand takes on
Speaker 4: the internet.
Speaker 2: But I think that's what kind of.
Speaker 4: Makes this story very interesting and feels like we're on
Speaker 4: the I don't know, were in the edge of something
Speaker 4: very different. But United again biggest healthcare provider. Most people
Speaker 4: would describe their practices as evil, which I think is
Speaker 4: pretty standard across most health insurance providers. They bring in
Speaker 4: almost six billion dollars a quarter in profits. That's two
Speaker 4: billion a month in profits. Okay, yes, this guy, Brian Thompson.
Speaker 4: His pay was around reported to be around ten million
Speaker 4: a year. So again, this is not a small business
Speaker 4: person as someone who's like at the front of like
Speaker 4: a gigantic behemoth company that again preys on people's need
Speaker 4: for health insurance to extract profits. So the most recent
Speaker 4: headlines just surrounding United in general have to do with
Speaker 4: obviously like they're constant denial of insurance claims, Like they
Speaker 4: by far deny the most insurance claims out of any
Speaker 4: provider they've been using.
Speaker 1: That's what he was about to get on stage and say,
Speaker 1: we're putting up numbers. We are denying so many claims.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're playing ballingay the diplomats, they were using AI
Speaker 4: to deny claims they have. They are like anti trust
Speaker 4: investigations by the Department of Justice and like seriously shady shit,
Speaker 4: like they let their clearinghouse and claims processing system go down,
Speaker 4: which essentially stopped money flowing to the physicians and hospitals
Speaker 4: that are providing the care that they're like, okay, now
Speaker 4: pay me for for dividing the care, you're the insurance company.
Speaker 4: And so that lack of money moving through the system
Speaker 4: has led to a lot of cash strapped practices that
Speaker 4: are being bought up by fucking United Healthcare.
Speaker 1: Well you know what, it's you know who has a
Speaker 1: lot of money now that we're no longer paying you U. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we're, uh, you need to need to buy you exactly.
Speaker 4: Really that So, I mean there's a lot like the
Speaker 4: one thing that I was really reading about, like because
Speaker 4: Thompson was in charge of like Medicare and government programs,
Speaker 4: and that side of United's business is pretty fucked up.
Speaker 4: So for like they're they right now, they're enrollees in
Speaker 4: their Medicare advantage program. They account for like almost thirty
Speaker 4: percent of like the people who are on like on Medicare.
Speaker 4: And again they're doing this whole thing where they lean
Speaker 4: on doctors to put these diagnosis codes into the patient's
Speaker 4: medical records. And then those codes again, those give you
Speaker 4: a score that are like how healthy or sick is
Speaker 4: this person? And if you are more sick, then you
Speaker 4: are able to get more money from the government. So
Speaker 4: they they're telling doctors like you need to put you
Speaker 4: We want these people. It's beneficial for us as a
Speaker 4: company if these people look as sick as possible.
Speaker 2: Can you do this?
Speaker 4: And again this is from this report quote Medicare advantage
Speaker 4: insurers have gained the system by excessively coding their members,
Speaker 4: resulting in massive over payments to the companies. Over payments
Speaker 4: based on coding alone are expected to total fifty billion
Speaker 4: dollars this year, more than the Department of Justice's entire budget.
Speaker 4: Dozens of former doctors and employees at United Health Medical
Speaker 4: Practices told stat how they became enmeshed in United Health
Speaker 4: strategy to make their patients seem as sick as possible.
Speaker 4: Doctors said the company had a fixation with medical coding
Speaker 4: to generate more revenue, encouraging clinicians through bonuses and performance
Speaker 4: reviews to identify more health problems in patients, even if
Speaker 4: those conditions seemed dubious. I mean, I think most people
Speaker 4: know that our healthcare system is not like on the
Speaker 4: up and up. But that's where like you'd hope that
Speaker 4: this event would maybe kick off some kind of reckoning
Speaker 4: with our healthcare system. But I feel like in the
Speaker 4: age we're in, we're more likely to probably see headlines
Speaker 4: saying that it's like it's actually immigrants that are the
Speaker 4: ones that are causing skyrocketing health care costs, and not
Speaker 4: the fact that these insurance companies are basically controlling the
Speaker 4: game from both ends. His wife did say that he
Speaker 4: had been receiving threats prior to this. Uh, this is
Speaker 4: what she told NBC News quote, there had been some threats. Basically,
Speaker 4: I don't know, A lack of coverage was how she described,
Speaker 4: like people's.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, well this Honestly, this story sounds like the
Speaker 6: opening scene of a Batman movie.
Speaker 3: I'm not even kidding.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And these are the most unre This is the
Speaker 6: most unregulated predatory industry in our country and profiting like
Speaker 6: and you know, the the suicides and things that happened
Speaker 6: that go into medical debt and like I'm going through
Speaker 6: this thing. I'm about to have surgery on my head
Speaker 6: to remove a mass in a couple of weeks, and
Speaker 6: it's been a two year long process. I have, Like
Speaker 6: I pay one of my biggest expenses is like private
Speaker 6: health insurance, and it increases dramatically every single year.
Speaker 3: I was having so many, so much trouble getting these
Speaker 3: scans that I almost just gave up.
Speaker 6: I feel like so bad for people who It made
Speaker 6: me realize so much about health insurance in the health
Speaker 6: industry and people who have real cancer and all this stuff,
Speaker 6: what they go through. It is just so sad and like,
Speaker 6: don't I also don't like when people celebrate like bad
Speaker 6: people's deaths, Like I find it barbaric no matter who
Speaker 6: they are, Like I'll never be excited that someone was murdered,
Speaker 6: because then you become just like them.
Speaker 3: But like, this is a true, true issue and it.
Speaker 6: Does mark and maybe I'm wrong and chronically online, but
Speaker 6: it also just feels a general escalation worldwide of things
Speaker 6: like that are happening right now, just just like an
Speaker 6: intensity and escalation of energy that's happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of I feel like a lot of
Speaker 1: the stuff we've been talking about in the aftermath the
Speaker 1: election with regards like people being fed up the system
Speaker 1: and like voting the way they did because they just
Speaker 1: wanted to like go with the side that wasn't like
Speaker 1: the current system is working great, We're killing it over here.
Speaker 1: I think the industry, the version of the current system
Speaker 1: as it currently exists that people that is affecting the
Speaker 1: most people's lives and the most transparently evil and malfunctioning
Speaker 1: way is the healthcare and like health insurance industry, And
Speaker 1: so it makes sense that this would be like a
Speaker 1: place where we would see like something irrupt on this front.
Speaker 6: But well, they have like some demonic practices Like I
Speaker 6: remember when I was like tweeting through I had this
Speaker 6: biopsy denied and the someone wrote me and was like,
Speaker 6: I work in the billing at the health insurance company,
Speaker 6: and just so you know, they make us deny the
Speaker 6: first to requests automatically Yeah. I was like, how is
Speaker 6: that even possible? You try to make people give up
Speaker 6: and then they still.
Speaker 1: It's like sick, yeah, it's come back, come back wing,
Speaker 1: you're really automatically deny, Like how is that even how.
Speaker 3: Is that legal?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: And that's why United has like a lot of healthcare
Speaker 4: or a lot of turnover with people that are dealing
Speaker 4: with claims because they're like what is that Like you're
Speaker 4: telling me like this this person needs care and you're like.
Speaker 1: No, no, no.
Speaker 4: Our apolicies like just to fucking deny it first and
Speaker 4: then if they really want it, then they'll come back.
Speaker 1: Anyone who's ever had to deal with insurance companies, whether
Speaker 1: you have like good insurance or like bad insurance or
Speaker 1: you know, health insurance in the United States, like their
Speaker 1: ultimate goal is to not pay for the thing that
Speaker 1: you need them to pay for. And it's like it's obvious,
Speaker 1: and they do a lot like a lot of the
Speaker 1: we've talked about like people's suspicion around the Democratic parties,
Speaker 1: like you know, having these really complicated programs that people
Speaker 1: that are supposed to like solve the problems that I
Speaker 1: think people are suspicious of that because the you know,
Speaker 1: corporations and like the current system hides behind complexity, and
Speaker 1: like the things that are always hiding behind complexity and
Speaker 1: long contracts or like long bureaucratic processes is always like
Speaker 1: fucking you over and like funneling money upward towards the corporations,
Speaker 1: and like they are the version of that that most
Speaker 1: people are going to you know, theft hiding behind complexity
Speaker 1: is like theirm O and you know, I just feel
Speaker 1: like it makes sense to me that this is going
Speaker 1: to be a place where people are feeling a ton
Speaker 1: of rage and like that there's a big we've talked
Speaker 1: before about this book, The Ministry for the Future. That's
Speaker 1: it's a sci fi novel, but it's about like the
Speaker 1: near future and like how things will start to like
Speaker 1: break apart and could fix themselves. And like one of
Speaker 1: the things that they predict we're going to start seeing
Speaker 1: are these like more class based terror attacks, where like
Speaker 1: the thing that they talk about is like private jets
Speaker 1: start getting like taken down by drones like out of
Speaker 1: the sky, and like that's the only way they can
Speaker 1: get like the wealthy to stop flying in private jets
Speaker 1: and then the wealthy to get on board with like
Speaker 1: a carbon based economy because they're like kidnapped and held
Speaker 1: hostage at Davos. Some like I do feel like we're
Speaker 1: probably going to start seeing something like that at some
Speaker 1: point in the in the coming years.
Speaker 4: It's a it's an it's an inevitability when you have
Speaker 4: such gaps in wealth that people do understand that you
Speaker 4: can harm someone or kidnap someone to get money, like
Speaker 4: it happens everywhere there's massive wealth inequality. I think it's
Speaker 4: just like looking at you know, the whole picture, it is. Yeah,
Speaker 4: Like I'm like, this feels like an for sure an escalation.
Speaker 4: But again, like there's gonna like to your point, Blair,
Speaker 4: there'll be a lot of hand ringing over whether or
Speaker 4: not this person's death was justified. But I think that's
Speaker 4: completely misses the point when the real discussion needs to
Speaker 4: be around whether or not like our greed based system
Speaker 4: of care is justified. That's really like if it's just
Speaker 4: all about who's who's the guy? What were they thinking?
Speaker 4: Why did they use a city bike? It's like the real,
Speaker 4: the real fucking issue is that we have completely normalized
Speaker 4: and we celebrate this system of like squeezing profits out
Speaker 4: of people to the point of financial and emotional bankruptcy,
Speaker 4: and like we that that that is immoral, and I
Speaker 4: know that it'll be much easier to sort of get
Speaker 4: into the minutia of things to avoid those kinds of discussions.
Speaker 4: But that's all of this, Like when you see, like
Speaker 4: to your point, Jack, like the rage and lack of
Speaker 4: sympathy or empathy for this guy, it's all born out
Speaker 4: of the fact that many people have felt They're like, well,
Speaker 4: this guy is profiting off of an industry that quite
Speaker 4: literally puts people to their premature death in the name
Speaker 4: of profits, and that's there's a lot of just that
Speaker 4: anger not being addressed. Yeah, is only I think going
Speaker 4: to increase, especially as people's financial situations get dire and
Speaker 4: like people get like you read all these horses like
Speaker 4: I had, I had a procedure done and they've discovered
Speaker 4: I had cancer, but then they said they were going
Speaker 4: to deny my coverage because there was a pre existing condition.
Speaker 2: Like then what are.
Speaker 4: They Like, you're telling people, Yeah, you're fucked. That's the
Speaker 4: message you're giving people, and that I can manifest in
Speaker 4: a number of ways. And I think it's still early
Speaker 4: right to know what may or may not have happened,
Speaker 4: but the police are definitely like it feels targeted.
Speaker 1: The reason is, yeah, I feel like the story is
Speaker 1: people's reaction and the fact that people are like kind
Speaker 1: of celebratory. It's like, you know that that's a dark
Speaker 1: place we're in, but I feel like that will be
Speaker 1: that that's going to get people's attention. And you know what,
Speaker 1: whether the person is like some assassin who's doing this
Speaker 1: for class based reasons or for like retro or it's
Speaker 1: just you know, like I don't know, but my touch
Speaker 1: point for crimes like this that always like seem like
Speaker 1: they're going to have one you know, story, one like
Speaker 1: shape to them, like a lot of time, like the
Speaker 1: anthrax attacks immediately after nine to eleven, where it just
Speaker 1: seemed like, Okay, this is this is our new reality.
Speaker 1: There's just gonna be widening like anthrax attacks and like
Speaker 1: that's how the terror attacks are going to be happening
Speaker 1: from now on. And then it turned out it was
Speaker 1: like probably a guy who worked in the government anthrax
Speaker 1: labs who investigated the anthrax attacks and was like doing
Speaker 1: it to try and get more funding for his anthrax
Speaker 1: labs because they were like just like, like I get
Speaker 1: the equivalent of that would be like this person, this
Speaker 1: killer is like doing it because he is in the
Speaker 1: industry of like security for wealthy people, and he's like
Speaker 1: trying to get like drum get business for rich people, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, that is going to happen. Then like
Speaker 1: the wealthy are this is boom times for private security companies.
Speaker 1: I have to assume after this.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, but they just need someone I mean, I
Speaker 6: know this has been said forever, but like they need
Speaker 6: to completely overhaul that industry, like someone hardcore passed, put
Speaker 6: the hammer down, make some hardcore laws, like revamp the
Speaker 6: whole thing.
Speaker 4: But I mean, well, I think this is the gridlock
Speaker 4: that we experience right because to most people, you're like,
Speaker 4: this can't keep going. And then to the people on
Speaker 4: the other side of that equation who are reaping the profits,
Speaker 4: like this.
Speaker 2: Shit is never gonna fucking stop. Are you kidding me?
Speaker 4: And we'll put as much money as possible into making
Speaker 4: sure the laws don't change, and even if it is Obamacare,
Speaker 4: we'll find a way to start making money on other ways.
Speaker 4: Even if Obamacare will cap the profits we can make
Speaker 4: on healthcare, then we'll find other like other avenues to
Speaker 4: profit off of which they did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Obamacare was written by private like people from the
Speaker 1: private insurance healthcare, health insurance come uh industry Like that's yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: Because that's what before it is like, well, we pay
Speaker 4: the insurance. And then they're like, so there's a cap
Speaker 4: on what you make from insurance. But then then they
Speaker 4: must have known this in writing it. They're like, but
Speaker 4: there's no cap to what we can make off of
Speaker 4: providing medical care. And that's when things started changing and
Speaker 4: this consolidation began. But yeah, I think that's what like
Speaker 4: that sort of frustration is because a lot of times
Speaker 4: you're like, with climate change and things like this, you're like,
Speaker 4: these people are fucking killing us, and you're like, how
Speaker 4: the fuck is there no recourse? And you always talk
Speaker 4: about like these people aren't afraid of like the proletarians basically, yeah,
Speaker 4: and that's that like, and people always wondering like is
Speaker 4: that what they need they need to be scared or whatever,
Speaker 4: And this is kind of like I think feeding into
Speaker 4: that because that's you see so many people. I think,
Speaker 4: even Jack if it comes out and this the motive
Speaker 4: had nothing to do with like health insurance practices. I
Speaker 4: feel like people because they are so enraged by the system,
Speaker 4: it'll completely memory hole that because it feels like a
Speaker 4: clean cause and effect, Like these people are fucking monsters
Speaker 4: and that's just what fucking happens. I think so many
Speaker 4: people are truly just feel that rage in their bones
Speaker 4: because whether.
Speaker 6: It's a crisis, it's a real crisis. Like and you
Speaker 6: hear those horrific stories that are just so heartbreaking where
Speaker 6: someone will take their own life because they don't want
Speaker 6: to burden their family with the debt or stuff like that.
Speaker 6: It's just so devastating and dystopian.
Speaker 4: Yeah, or get like divorced so then their spouse won't
Speaker 4: have to incur any of like the debt. There's like
Speaker 4: you're like, what kind of maneuvering is this?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that we don't Again, this was.
Speaker 4: Interest because like when shinzo Abe was assassinated and that
Speaker 4: guy shot him with a homemade shotgun. The it's it
Speaker 4: was interesting people and like the news the way the
Speaker 4: country sort of handled that was.
Speaker 2: Sort of like, well why.
Speaker 4: And then it became this larger thing about how political
Speaker 4: parties were entrenched with different organizations and there was like
Speaker 4: a reckoning there. I just don't with something like this.
Speaker 4: I don't will this actually, Like I'm curious how the
Speaker 4: mainstream media covers this. Is it just going to be
Speaker 4: like this is out of control. People have like homemade
Speaker 4: suppressors and are walking around on the streets of New York.
Speaker 2: We need police.
Speaker 4: That's probably the way to go, because that makes existing
Speaker 4: industries more you know, profitable, rather than why and what
Speaker 4: is the big problem here? But I feel like then
Speaker 4: you start getting into universal healthcare, and that seems to be,
Speaker 4: you know, a third rail.
Speaker 1: It's a non starter. Miles, that's a yeah, so you understand, YEAHOX.
Speaker 3: News is going to be like, oh, poor person was mad?
Speaker 1: Yea yeah, right, yeah, well yeah, probably both sides want
Speaker 1: that to be the shape of the story enough that
Speaker 1: like that will become somehow or another of the story
Speaker 1: until they like actually catch the person and they're like
Speaker 1: it was actually numerology, I just picked them at random.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a quick break and we'll come
Speaker 1: back and talk about a new Mickey Mouse slasher film.
Speaker 1: Come on, and we're back. And as mentioned, you might
Speaker 1: be hearing helicopters diving and swooping in the background, and
Speaker 1: you might be thicking Those aren't l A p. D
Speaker 1: helicopters that we normally hear diving and swooping in the
Speaker 1: background of Miles and Jack's recordings. Those helicopters sound like
Speaker 1: they're looking for somebody in New York City. You know,
Speaker 1: it's totally it's a different vibe.
Speaker 3: Those helicopters sound like they answer to Eric Adams.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: They seem is someone drunk driving those helicopters yew York.
Speaker 3: That's a really good Eric Adams.
Speaker 2: When he talked about.
Speaker 1: Twins hours, you talk about what is great about New
Speaker 1: York City. The great thing about New York City. You
Speaker 1: could have planes crash into your twin towers or somebody
Speaker 1: open a business. That's what's great. Wait nine eleven is why.
Speaker 2: Great things? Is that?
Speaker 1: Did that bring you guys to New York City? The
Speaker 1: possibility of another.
Speaker 11: You know, one of the beautiful things about New York is, Yeah,
Speaker 11: anything could happen. You could one day, you could start
Speaker 11: a podcast. The next day you could see that a
Speaker 11: healthcare executive has.
Speaker 3: Been gunned down in the streets.
Speaker 7: Anything can happen anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's been interesting to see the different reactions because
Speaker 1: the mainstream media is like this is not good, and
Speaker 1: we're you know, like talking about it as like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, how how our company is going to react
Speaker 1: to this, and you know, just covering it as a straightforward,
Speaker 1: terrible thing that has happened, right the way that I
Speaker 1: guess we've always reacted to murders. But then there's a
Speaker 1: real upswell of internet sentiment that's just like very celebratory.
Speaker 1: They had to shut down through out the entire r
Speaker 1: medicine thread about the case because doctors were cracking too
Speaker 1: many jokes about this person's murder. But yeah, what are
Speaker 1: we hearing from the New York Times.
Speaker 4: I Mean, there's just different things, right because you know,
Speaker 4: when this thing happened, I was like, this is not.
Speaker 2: Going to spur some conversation about our healthcare system. It's not.
Speaker 4: They're going to focus everything like on the crime itself,
Speaker 4: which I get that's what they're doing as journalists, but
Speaker 4: like to completely miss that dimension of it, I think
Speaker 4: is a little odd if that's the you know, because
Speaker 4: they're still like, what could be the motive, even though
Speaker 4: they just found that on some of the shells or
Speaker 4: the casings and bullets that were at the scene, said denied, defend, depose,
Speaker 4: and you know, some some of some some outlets are
Speaker 4: doing some head scratching, and you're like, this might be
Speaker 4: tied to a phrase used in the insurance industry.
Speaker 1: Some sort of police based batman villain.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 4: And then others did blatantly point out, like there is
Speaker 4: a book called Delayed, Deny Defend whose subtitle is why
Speaker 4: insurance companies don't pay play or pay claims and what
Speaker 4: you can do about it? The New York Times, there's
Speaker 4: just one sentence that's really just glossed over something kind
Speaker 4: of important. This is just one sentence said quote chief
Speaker 4: executive officers of healthcare companies often receive threats because of
Speaker 4: the nature of their work. Moving along, go on, what
Speaker 4: is the nature of that work and how could that
Speaker 4: potentially radicalize someone? So again, a few articles then pointed
Speaker 4: out that United has quote relatively high instances of denying
Speaker 4: coverage when it is in fact like an outlier in
Speaker 4: terms of denying coverage and making massive profits. Then there
Speaker 4: are more articles in paragraph pointing to like what companies
Speaker 4: can and should do to protect their leadership. Another thing
Speaker 4: that like we found out in the last day was
Speaker 4: apparently he was also this guy, the CEO is being
Speaker 4: investigated for insider training because there was a doj Anti
Speaker 4: trust investigation happening that wasn't public yet, but he just
Speaker 4: offloaded a ton of shares like to the tune of
Speaker 4: fifteen million dollars before the before the news became public.
Speaker 4: So again they're still kind of doing the thing where
Speaker 4: they're like, we still we're not sure what is going on,
Speaker 4: but kind of around the margins, pointing at things that
Speaker 4: again may have affected somebody to the point that they
Speaker 4: were motivated to kill this guy. And I don't know
Speaker 4: it just it's a very interesting moment because this is like,
Speaker 4: like you're saying at the top, Jack, like, the the
Speaker 4: sentiment around this guy who killed Brian Thompson is like,
Speaker 4: this guy's fucking bay, you know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 4: we love this dude, he's hot, this is the this
Speaker 4: is the dopest shit we've ever seen. And I think
Speaker 4: that definitely feels different, you know what I mean. We're
Speaker 4: like unanimously people were like, yeah, I don't care that
Speaker 4: this guy got gunned down because I think because this
Speaker 4: CEO happened to be just represent like a physical manifestation
Speaker 4: of all the wrongs that the insurance industry enacts on
Speaker 4: just regular people, and I think for that reason, like all,
Speaker 4: it's like a lightning rod for all of this I
Speaker 4: or that people have for the insurance as a whole
Speaker 4: is just turning into like memes about like.
Speaker 2: This one guy.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I feel like, okay, well number one, I just
Speaker 11: want to say, as we always say on Go Touch Grass,
Speaker 11: that Go Touch Grass is an anti murder podcast.
Speaker 3: Ultimately, I have again.
Speaker 1: That always like it's not cool, but.
Speaker 3: We actually had to say more than you would.
Speaker 12: Think about the woman who was harassing Gypsy Rose. There
Speaker 12: was a girl that was like, you know, making fun
Speaker 12: of Gypsy Rose a lot and harassing her. Uh you know,
Speaker 12: and it's like, okay, well what Gypsy Rose did, it
Speaker 12: wasn't cool, but you know.
Speaker 3: It's not cool, and then then you know the Trump
Speaker 3: assass it.
Speaker 11: Comes up again Anti murder podcast. But I will say
Speaker 11: for my personal self, my hope for my life is
Speaker 11: that I live my life in such a way that
Speaker 11: if someone guns me down in the streets of New York,
Speaker 11: the reaction isn't.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, we know why he did.
Speaker 11: That, right, Oh yeah, no, that's for sure for sure.
Speaker 12: Well, and I'm also just Like, it's interesting because in
Speaker 12: the post election kind of post mortem conversations that people
Speaker 12: are having, you know, the reasons why Democrats fared so
Speaker 12: poorly was because of there wasn't any good solid anti
Speaker 12: popular like our populist policy and all that stuff, and
Speaker 12: people are like, oh, people are you know, are voting
Speaker 12: for Trump because they wanted to say fuck you and
Speaker 12: like they want cheaper eggs and shit like that and
Speaker 12: like that has you know, and there's been pushback on
Speaker 12: you know, by the establishment of like well that's not true.
Speaker 12: It's like basically and all this stuff.
Speaker 2: But like the.
Speaker 12: Reaction to you know, somebody their blood there, like people
Speaker 12: do want to do something and they're doing it. Like
Speaker 12: it's kind of escalating in this way where you know,
Speaker 12: is voting for Trump the solution, No, I don't think so.
Speaker 12: Is gutting someone down in midtown the solution probably not.
Speaker 12: But like people, but there aren't other solutions being presented.
Speaker 12: No one is stopping these healthcare companies, no one is
Speaker 12: making any you know, so people are feeling it and
Speaker 12: everyone's acting like everything's okay and yeah, so I could
Speaker 12: totally see someone being like, yeah, fuck it, like I
Speaker 12: don't give a fuck about. You know, they've denied like
Speaker 12: thousands and thousands of claims and thousands of people have
Speaker 12: to die for this guy's like to afford his fourth
Speaker 12: yacht or something, and for you know, like I could
Speaker 12: kind of understand like the sentiment of like, well, I
Speaker 12: don't give a fuck.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, like when you think when like in
Speaker 4: that thread on Reddit that got taken down because doctors
Speaker 4: were just sort of being very you know, clear on
Speaker 4: how they felt about insurance companies. One person posted quote,
Speaker 4: I cannot even guess how many person years United Healthcare
Speaker 4: has taken from patients and their families through denials. It
Speaker 4: has to be on the order of millions. His death
Speaker 4: won't make that better, But it's hard for me to
Speaker 4: sympathize when so many people have suffered because of his company.
Speaker 4: And yeah, like you, I think to your point too,
Speaker 4: really like it's not even that like they're not offering solutions,
Speaker 4: they're not even acknowledging this is a fucking problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what I mean. I think that's where
Speaker 2: we're at.
Speaker 4: It's like before it's like, yeah, we should maybe we
Speaker 4: can get like prescription drug costs, Like that's the closest
Speaker 4: they get to say, yeah, let's have a reckoning with
Speaker 4: our insurance, because that's like very small potatoes in terms
Speaker 4: of like the profit margins for the companies that they're
Speaker 4: ultimately beholden too. It's like, what if like, okay, we
Speaker 4: weren't selling like insulin at like six sex markups and
Speaker 4: instead like around two or three x kind of thing,
Speaker 4: rather than zooming out and saying we actually don't take
Speaker 4: care of people. And the culture in the United States
Speaker 4: is you have to be able to afford to stay alive,
Speaker 4: and if you cannot, then you know that just you know,
Speaker 4: the American natural selection will do its thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 11: I think it's so interesting to Milly's point about like
Speaker 11: the election contributing to it, Like we are just coming
Speaker 11: off an election where healthcare wasn't like part of it.
Speaker 3: At all, No one was really talk.
Speaker 11: You know, it's so interesting when we compare it to
Speaker 11: like the twenty twenty primaries or even twenty sixteen, where
Speaker 11: like both of those, like healthcare plans were a big
Speaker 11: part of the Democrat the Democrat like policies and stuff
Speaker 11: like what people were putting forward in the primary, and
Speaker 11: this time, I mean, yeah, we didn't have a primary
Speaker 11: and stuff, but it's like no one was talking about it,
Speaker 11: so you can't trust this administration to do anything about it.
Speaker 11: The next innistration is obviously not going to do anything
Speaker 11: about it. People feel, People feel helpless and hopeless, and
Speaker 11: when that happens, they make desperate decisions. That also, you know,
Speaker 11: a company like our entire health insurance system in the
Speaker 11: US contributes to this devaluing of human life at the
Speaker 11: end of the day, Like they're putting dollar amounts on
Speaker 11: what it's worth for you to like survive cancer or
Speaker 11: not survive cancer or whatever. And at the end of
Speaker 11: the day, it's like, yeah, you kind of have contributed
Speaker 11: to an environment in which people see human life in
Speaker 11: terms of dollar signs and like little marginal dividends and
Speaker 11: shit like that. Yeah, like you you helped to create
Speaker 11: that by putting a system in place where you can
Speaker 11: tell somebody, Oh, actually you don't really need insulin, do you?
Speaker 11: Blue Cross Blue Shield, just announce it. Oh, they're only
Speaker 11: going to cover antithes. Yeah, like only up to a
Speaker 11: certain like numb like time limit and then they're not
Speaker 11: going to cover your ants anymore. Like that contributes to
Speaker 11: a world where people feel more comfortable shooting somebody in
Speaker 11: the end of.
Speaker 10: The end of the day.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of hand ringing about like they have
Speaker 4: completely dehumanized the CEO and again broadening, broadening out the
Speaker 4: conversation is every person who has to interact with private
Speaker 4: healthcare and anyone who has to interact with the healthcare
Speaker 4: system in this country already feels dehumanized.
Speaker 2: There's already humanized.
Speaker 4: A spreadsheet, but the empathy can is only going one
Speaker 4: way in a lot of the coverage rather than again
Speaker 4: like because I felt like any any anything constructive that
Speaker 4: would come out of this is some kind of reckoning
Speaker 4: with our for profit healthcare system. But again we have
Speaker 4: more stuff of like why didn't he have a private
Speaker 4: security detail, and like this company is like the one
Speaker 4: that is protecting CEOs in like this part of the world,
Speaker 4: and maybe they can learn something from them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I do think that it It's really a
Speaker 1: good point that you make about the election, because the
Speaker 1: solutions that the Democratic Party put forward that I think
Speaker 1: a lot of the people who are like how could
Speaker 1: they have lost point to are really like technocratic, complicated
Speaker 1: solutions that are tied to companies like this or would
Speaker 1: have to go through companies like this and they end
Speaker 1: up like people are just tired of getting fucked over
Speaker 1: by these super complex systems, and so yeah, I just
Speaker 1: think this is like a perfect vortex of like all
Speaker 1: the things that are frustrating to people and make people
Speaker 1: feel like there's no solution, there's no path forward for
Speaker 1: things to get better.
Speaker 12: I will also say, if you were a doctor on
Speaker 12: the Reddit ur medicine that got your thing deleted and
Speaker 12: your single hit me up like slide in the DMS,
Speaker 12: let's talk about our path for especially if you like
Speaker 12: large Areola is like, let's talk.
Speaker 2: Come through.
Speaker 1: I do wonder like true where like where the mainstream
Speaker 1: media goes from here, there's gonna be like so many
Speaker 1: Pearl clashing articles where they're like looking at people's response
Speaker 1: to this and being if they're not there already, like
Speaker 1: it's gonna be like.
Speaker 2: How could they are?
Speaker 4: There's already criticism, They're like, look at it, look at
Speaker 4: the tolerant left celebrating the death of this person, Like
Speaker 4: you're there's already I'm already seeing takes like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, what I was worried.
Speaker 12: What I'm more like kind of worried about is like
Speaker 12: you know, Eric Adams was investigated for corruption, he did
Speaker 12: all this fucked up shit. Now he's like kind of
Speaker 12: you know, sucking up to Trump and kissing Trump's ass.
Speaker 12: Now I'm worried that like Eric Adams is going to
Speaker 12: take this as an opportunity and try to make it
Speaker 12: his little nine to eleven where he like brings New
Speaker 12: York together and like ups the cop even more and
Speaker 12: shit like that shit hot for everybody, so that he
Speaker 12: could like try to you know, take the heat off
Speaker 12: him going to Turkey seven times and getting his girlfriend
Speaker 12: a job that like is mad money.
Speaker 4: New York is just sta Bull of America exactly exactly.
Speaker 12: We ignore Armenia and Jesus side too.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we love looking away from a genocide. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean like that it is interesting because like I
Speaker 4: feel like what potentially could happen to I mean, I
Speaker 4: don't know, like making that is nine to eleven, I
Speaker 4: think is kind of difficult because so many regular people
Speaker 4: were affected by nine to eleven, whereas this one, everybody's
Speaker 4: like all right, but that's just kind of that's sort
Speaker 4: of the like the sort of response I think of
Speaker 4: American people, because I also see people from like Europe
Speaker 4: asking online they're like, why is everyone celebrating this? And
Speaker 4: they're like, oh, you don't understand how difficult it is
Speaker 4: to exist in this country where we have no recourse
Speaker 4: to get to be treated like people. So these are
Speaker 4: these moments that pop up that act as these like
Speaker 4: stress release valves where they're like, well, I I guess
Speaker 4: that happened, but I do I think, Like, I feel
Speaker 4: like the other way this could start going is like
Speaker 4: people start saying that it's like their human right to
Speaker 4: profit off of suffering and therefore should.
Speaker 2: Be able to be anonymous. You know what I mean?
Speaker 4: Because yea, United Healthcare took down their entire leadership page
Speaker 4: not to like not put again maybe in their minds
Speaker 4: to make people targets or something like that, and you
Speaker 4: can and like this was happening at an investor's day
Speaker 4: that I don't know, Like I can also see some
Speaker 4: weird version where they're like, if they know who we are,
Speaker 4: we're in danger, and like we shouldn't.
Speaker 2: People shouldn't be able to.
Speaker 4: Know who we are, even though we are the people
Speaker 4: profiting and are the architects of things like a terrible
Speaker 4: cruel healthcare system or earth death through climate change.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they just start the billionaire bunkers process early and
Speaker 1: just all move to New Zealand colonize New Viland and
Speaker 1: then they're like, you guys have the rest of the
Speaker 1: world go fuck yourself.
Speaker 2: Look good luck.
Speaker 12: Yeah, but that it's going to be late.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: That's gonna do it for this week's weekly Zeitgeist. Please
Speaker 1: like and review the show if you like. The show
Speaker 1: means the world demiles he he needs your validation.
Speaker 10: Folks.
Speaker 1: I hope you're having a great weekend and I will
Speaker 1: talk to you Monday. Bye.