Speaker 1: And broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the
Speaker 1: George Washington Broadcast Center.
Speaker 2: Jack Armstrong and Joe Gatty arm.
Speaker 3: Strong and get Kid and he.
Speaker 4: Armstrong and Getty Strong and.
Speaker 5: Welcome to a replay of the Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 5: We are on vacation. But boy, do we have some
Speaker 5: good stuff for you?
Speaker 4: Yes, indeed we do.
Speaker 6: And if you want to catch up on your ang
Speaker 6: listening during your travels, remember grabbing the podcast Armstrong and
Speaker 6: Getty on demand.
Speaker 4: You ought to subscribe wherever you like to get podcasts.
Speaker 6: Now on with the infotainment Can you transform your life?
Speaker 3: Maybe you'd like to transform your life?
Speaker 5: Maybe you wouldn't transform your life in just seventy days
Speaker 5: with the seventy five Hard, which I guess has been
Speaker 5: around for a couple of years, but I hadn't heard
Speaker 5: about it till now because one of my nieces said
Speaker 5: she's doing the sixty medium.
Speaker 3: She made up her own list of how she's going
Speaker 3: to do it.
Speaker 5: This is the seventy five Hard, A tactical guide to
Speaker 5: winning the war with your something or other. Before I
Speaker 5: get into some of it, what do you know about it?
Speaker 3: Katie?
Speaker 7: I know it's very difficult, and it requires I think
Speaker 7: two workouts a day. You have to do one inside,
Speaker 7: one outside. You have to diet seventy five here, well
Speaker 7: right right, right, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you scare.
Speaker 5: You skipped right to the one that makes everybody say, well,
Speaker 5: never mind then, because on the list you go through
Speaker 5: some of them and you think I could do that.
Speaker 5: Drink a gallon of water per day. Okay, I'm not
Speaker 5: sure that it's going to do me any good, but whatever.
Speaker 5: Read ten pages of a self improvement book daily. If
Speaker 5: I get to choose the book, I can do that.
Speaker 5: Take a progress picture every day, okay, effortless, come up
Speaker 5: with a diet plan and follow it.
Speaker 3: Okay, kind of trying to do that.
Speaker 5: Two forty five minute workouts daily, one outdoors. Okay, well
Speaker 5: what else can we do? Because that ain't gonna happen.
Speaker 5: That's why none of these fitness resolutions work.
Speaker 3: You take it way too far.
Speaker 5: You're not gonna go to the gym and work out
Speaker 5: for an hour every day. You do it for a
Speaker 5: couple of days and you quit. You get a set
Speaker 5: modest two forty five minute workouts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I got it.
Speaker 5: Even if you've got time, which I don't did be impossible.
Speaker 5: No way you're gonna do that consistently.
Speaker 7: And with the diet there's no cheat meals and no
Speaker 7: alcohol for seventy five days. So forget your month of
Speaker 7: no alcohol, Joe, this is seventy five days.
Speaker 6: You know. One of my good friends has for years
Speaker 6: and years, with almost no exceptions, he has and he's
Speaker 6: a drinking man. He's good at it. We've gone round
Speaker 6: and round. He drinks under Year's Eve. He does not
Speaker 6: have another drink until Saint Patrick's Day in mid March,
Speaker 6: virtually every year. I admire it. I'm not sure I
Speaker 6: want to imitate it, but I admire it.
Speaker 3: Why does he do it?
Speaker 6: Physical health, emotional health, doesn't want to be dependent on alcohol.
Speaker 6: I guess same reason I do it for a little while.
Speaker 6: He just takes it a lot further. He's in good
Speaker 6: shape too, for a guy of his age. And then
Speaker 6: we have another friend, actually a great mutual friend, who
Speaker 6: when confront he's a southern guy. When confronted with that news,
Speaker 6: he said, I haven't taken that long a break since
Speaker 6: I was eleven.
Speaker 4: It's a different way to approach life.
Speaker 6: But interestingly, in contrast to the hard seventy five, and
Speaker 6: the medium sixty and.
Speaker 4: The leisurely thirty. We might have.
Speaker 6: Something to talk about my daughter, my beloved twenty five
Speaker 6: year old who just today headed back to law school.
Speaker 6: Is she's using a nudgeword, which I would have mocked
Speaker 6: were my beloved daughter not doing it. And there's a
Speaker 6: piece in the Washington Post. Then they have a graphic
Speaker 6: that shows people unveiling their nudgeword, which includes.
Speaker 4: Ease, pivot, wonder, pause, and bliss.
Speaker 3: You got to back up a second.
Speaker 5: Is this a term, I know, nudgeword? What does a nudgeword? Well,
Speaker 5: you're about to and I apologize.
Speaker 6: A nudgeword can help you clarify your goals. It can
Speaker 6: symbolize your values, help you set intentions and guide your
Speaker 6: actions in most, if not all, areas of your life.
Speaker 6: How do you want to be or feel? For instance,
Speaker 6: do you want to be more playful? Balanced, or compassionate?
Speaker 3: Playful?
Speaker 4: Yes, I want to be more playful.
Speaker 3: Who starts a new year? You know what I'm going
Speaker 3: to be in twenty five?
Speaker 4: Playful? More playful? You know I would not phrase it
Speaker 4: like that.
Speaker 6: I could definitely see somebody, perhaps me, saying, you know,
Speaker 6: I gotta stop worrying about crap that doesn't matter.
Speaker 4: You got to lighten the hell up about a lot
Speaker 4: of stuff. So I get it.
Speaker 6: Interestingly, though, my daughter's word that she keeps trying remind
Speaker 6: yourself of is sustainable and not like in the environmental
Speaker 6: Grita Tunberg bullcrap way.
Speaker 4: But she's telling.
Speaker 6: Herself, Look, don't start an exercise plan you can't possibly sustain.
Speaker 3: I've always been.
Speaker 4: Doing to diet that you can't live with.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I've always been big on that, and I think
Speaker 5: that is a good idea, or you know, any kind
Speaker 5: of regimen, just yeah, start with something you could actually
Speaker 5: do right, right, Start small, see how it goes.
Speaker 6: Increase a little bit. But and look, I've done the
Speaker 6: iron willed weight loss fitness thing a couple of.
Speaker 4: Times and it's worked.
Speaker 5: But it's not sustainable, right, and it's it's the problem
Speaker 5: with sustainable is it's so slow. You know you're gonna
Speaker 5: lose weight, but it's gonna come off really slow, but
Speaker 5: it'll come off and stay off and people want or.
Speaker 4: It's a very lace you'll maintain.
Speaker 5: Yeah, anymore, or you're gonna you know, you're you're gonna
Speaker 5: build muscle and look more fit. But it's gonna be
Speaker 5: real slow and it's gonna take a while. But once
Speaker 5: you get there, it's a it's certainly nice. That's a
Speaker 5: good one. Pensive will be mine.
Speaker 3: Pensive. Try to be overall more pensive in the new year.
Speaker 6: I think mine's vengeful. I'm gonna I'm gonna give people
Speaker 6: what they've earned.
Speaker 3: A vengeful is your nudgeword.
Speaker 6: People are gonna get what's coming to them.
Speaker 4: Hit June July.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna have not taken vengeance for a couple of weeks,
Speaker 6: and it's gonna be easy to give up. I'm gonna
Speaker 6: remind myself, Hey, this is my nudgework. Find somebody who's
Speaker 6: got it coming.
Speaker 3: Start small. Remember that time in high school when you
Speaker 3: did the thing to me, Well, here's.
Speaker 4: Here's your right.
Speaker 5: Maybe it's just a store cluk clerk who's road And
Speaker 5: as you walk out, your hurl a tomato adam. Start small,
Speaker 5: Start easy, nay, sustainably vengeful.
Speaker 6: You want to hear a good one. It's a little
Speaker 6: heavy speaking of a year ending slash beginning rituals. I
Speaker 6: was reading about this dude. He's like an entrepreneur and investor.
Speaker 6: It doesn't really matter who he is. But every year
Speaker 6: at the end of the year, his birthday happens to
Speaker 6: be December thirtieth, which I think factors. And but he
Speaker 6: does a little vacation over the holidays like many of
Speaker 6: us does. Does do we do? And he does what
Speaker 6: he calls his pre mortem. He imagines being on his deathbed. Wow, yeah,
Speaker 6: I know, I know this is heavy, and he gets
Speaker 6: into it. He really describes, like, I imagine my body
Speaker 6: old and fragile, my breathing shallow, my life energy almost extinguished,
Speaker 6: and I try to evoke the feelings I want to
Speaker 6: have in that moment, a sense of peace, completion, and
Speaker 6: most importantly self respect. Then I asked myself, what am
Speaker 6: I going to do now to ensure that when I
Speaker 6: reach that ultimate destination, I've done what I need to do.
Speaker 6: I will feel those things I want to feel on
Speaker 6: my deathbed.
Speaker 4: And then he sets goals for the year.
Speaker 5: You know, we have a boss who actually has a
Speaker 5: quote on his wall from of all people, Keith Partridge
Speaker 5: David Cassidy, TV star of the seventies. You don't need
Speaker 5: to know, you don't need to know where you're going
Speaker 5: with this. You don't need to know who that is.
Speaker 5: But he was as big a star in America as
Speaker 5: you can get for a while. And on his deathbed
Speaker 5: he said, I think it was his last words, so
Speaker 5: much wasted time, and our boss has that on his wall.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: He was a resentful, bitter, alcoholic. Yeah, clung to the
Speaker 6: past and so much wasted time.
Speaker 3: That's a good one. I don't, I don't. I don't
Speaker 3: think I have that to worry about it at this point.
Speaker 5: Mast that's this guy's philosophy. What would your last words
Speaker 5: be and what do you have to do to make them?
Speaker 4: Wow? You know what, it's been great as he sailed it.
Speaker 3: That's what I want my last words to be.
Speaker 8: Nailed it.
Speaker 6: He wants a sense of peace, completion and that Look,
Speaker 6: my race is run and it was great.
Speaker 4: Good luck y'all.
Speaker 7: Or this is stressing me out, I know, big task.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 5: I'll just summon my breath for one last boo. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I'm gone take one last bit of vengeance, Michael.
Speaker 4: My last words will be pass me that pizza.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one more, one more more pizza.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was you know, reading a book by a songwriter,
Speaker 6: doesn't matter who. But he's he's big on the you know,
Speaker 6: try to create one new thing a day, and how
Speaker 6: to do it. Of course, his job is writing songs,
Speaker 6: so we write songs. But nobody has ever on their
Speaker 6: deathbed said I wish I hadn't written that poem, or
Speaker 6: I wish I hadn't tried to unless it's you know,
Speaker 6: did something horrific, But go ahead and try and fail,
Speaker 6: don't don't you know, be next to this entrepreneur guy
Speaker 6: thinking why didn't I at least try? So there's my
Speaker 6: life affirming death fearing death bed positive philosophy for the year.
Speaker 5: You know, the whatever that thing was with having a
Speaker 5: nudge word grateful would be a really good one to
Speaker 5: to try to stay in.
Speaker 6: But of course for everything there must be a backlash,
Speaker 6: and that's the people who somehow are so swept up
Speaker 6: in crazes they've like taken that to an extreme and
Speaker 6: like refuse to acknowledge things that needed to be fixed
Speaker 6: in their lives.
Speaker 4: What and so I've been reading lately.
Speaker 6: There's the great the pressure to be grateful has now
Speaker 6: become so shut up.
Speaker 3: But some shot up shot.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I go into the office every day in my
Speaker 6: boss balls and I'm it's your work.
Speaker 3: I need a name.
Speaker 4: I'd be grateful.
Speaker 3: I want to I want the name.
Speaker 5: Of where you whoever wrote that, you read that. I'm
Speaker 5: going there today. I'll get on a plane. I don't
Speaker 5: care if the weather's bad. Michael driving, I'm gonna choke.
Speaker 4: Them, and you'll take your vengeance.
Speaker 8: It's healthy.
Speaker 3: I'm going to punch that person right in the throat.
Speaker 5: That is the most annoying fact. That is the single
Speaker 5: most annoying thing I've ever heard, certainly this year. You
Speaker 5: know what people take grateful to the danger of being
Speaker 5: too grateful.
Speaker 3: I can see the headline the cite. Oh shut up,
Speaker 3: you nailed it.
Speaker 6: You nailed it, and Katie I can probably get an
Speaker 6: amen out of you. See what the bitter old man
Speaker 6: doesn't understand is this stuff is so much more a
Speaker 6: part of young women's worlds, Oh yeah, than dudes. It's
Speaker 6: like they tell this anecdote. It's actually pretty funny. I
Speaker 6: don't see if I can find it. Woman's walking through
Speaker 6: the store and they got a display of like dish towels,
Speaker 6: and the dish towels are emblazoned gratitude. And this woman's
Speaker 6: comment is all right, now, even my.
Speaker 4: Dish towels are badgering me. These things become such a craze.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, in ways that you know, I hear stuff
Speaker 6: like that and I think, yeah.
Speaker 4: Whatever, that's for you, goodbye. I'm busy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it's a good idea. But if you
Speaker 5: got it on your towels, I don't know. For whatever,
Speaker 5: that's just a little too much for me.
Speaker 9: Armstrong Heetty, the Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 5: Here's something I realized today, and I think this is
Speaker 5: the first time in twenty fifteen is now ten years ago,
Speaker 5: so probably not in the last nine and a half years.
Speaker 5: The name I heard the most as I went through
Speaker 5: all my different channels on TV and radio was not
Speaker 5: Donald Trump for the first.
Speaker 3: Time in nine and a half years.
Speaker 5: Wow, the Muskmellon Elon Musk everywhere, no matter what you
Speaker 5: flip to Elon Musky, line Musky, Len Musk, the way
Speaker 5: it was, it's always been Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Right,
Speaker 5: that's part of the whole Trump thing.
Speaker 3: So it's Trump adjacent.
Speaker 5: But it's interesting, So does Trump get like thirty percent
Speaker 5: credit for each mention of Elon Musk because you know, it's.
Speaker 6: Like a pyramid scheme. He recruited Elon's exactly share of
Speaker 6: his mentions. And by the way, I'm sorry if you
Speaker 6: have more on that go. I was gonna say that
Speaker 6: I really really wanted to get to our honorary honorary
Speaker 6: general general manager, which was.
Speaker 5: Dudes playing women's sports. Fellas, you had a good run.
Speaker 5: You whooped up on those girls.
Speaker 6: You showed them men are better at everything, including being
Speaker 6: female athletes.
Speaker 4: You won all those medals.
Speaker 6: You stood on the grand stand with your attempt at
Speaker 6: makeup and your manly physique and jaw and the rest
Speaker 6: of it, and really showed those stupid girls.
Speaker 4: But I'm afraid all good things must come to an end.
Speaker 3: It's fun while lest it wasn't.
Speaker 4: Yeah, next, prisons.
Speaker 6: You know fifteen percent of female inmates are dudes.
Speaker 3: No, it is not. Yes, it can't be bad.
Speaker 5: Yes, all the blue stints where all you have to
Speaker 5: do is self identify.
Speaker 3: Just because comes time to go into prison.
Speaker 5: You're a bad You're a bad dude like corn Pop,
Speaker 5: and you have to go to prison. And you think
Speaker 5: you know, I'd rather be in a chick prison than
Speaker 5: a dude prison. I mean, there ain't no girls. I've
Speaker 5: seen those prison movies. This ain't gonna be fun. I
Speaker 5: think I'll go on the prison where the girls are.
Speaker 6: You're much less likely to get your arse kicked or
Speaker 6: get shived or you know, have to get into some
Speaker 6: brutal gang to protect yourself. Sexual opportunities are a little
Speaker 6: better also as well. I was getting there. I was
Speaker 6: getting there, Valentino or what's what was the old lover?
Speaker 4: Uh? What was the the old It doesn't matter, stupid
Speaker 4: old reference. But anyway, Yeah, I was gonna get to
Speaker 4: the love first. I want to make sure my ass
Speaker 4: doesn't get kicked, if you don't mind.
Speaker 3: Fifteen percent, that's crazy.
Speaker 4: Casanova, that's what I was looking for.
Speaker 3: Fifteen percent.
Speaker 4: I'll have to do about a bad dude.
Speaker 6: Those statistics. The Free Press was writing about that. Wow,
Speaker 6: that is something. Wow, it's insanity. And I well, because
Speaker 6: they've been convinced that to be woke is to be
Speaker 6: a good person, and they really want to be a
Speaker 6: good person.
Speaker 4: They really really want to be a good.
Speaker 5: Person, an independent thinker who asserts herself when she sees
Speaker 5: something wrong.
Speaker 6: Not so much. I want to be accepted. I want
Speaker 6: to be told I'm a good person.
Speaker 5: That's a huge percentage of population are desperate for that.
Speaker 5: So I'm not paying close attention to the whole Elon
Speaker 5: Musk thing, but the way it's portrayed by the left.
Speaker 3: Tell me if I'm right or wrong. If I'm I
Speaker 3: could be wrong.
Speaker 4: If I'm wrong, that's fine.
Speaker 5: But this whole unelected bureaucrat attempting to the word they
Speaker 5: used at MSNBC yesterday, got the federal government, which is
Speaker 5: a word I love. I mean you you were using
Speaker 5: it like prejudicially to scare people. I think got away.
Speaker 5: That pfect What a great word, Kenny, Kenny accompliate. Where
Speaker 5: do I set up for him gutting the federal government?
Speaker 5: That sounds awesome. Wait a minute, honey, I need to
Speaker 5: turn this up and listen. Yeah, that sounds fantastic. But
Speaker 5: nobody elected him. He's been given these kingly powers to
Speaker 5: do whatever he wants. Now, am I right or wrong
Speaker 5: about this? He's not signing any pieces of paper that
Speaker 5: can get rid of agencies or employees. He's recommending them
Speaker 5: to Trump's executive branch, and they're signing the pieces of paper.
Speaker 6: Yes, yeah, exactly. He is making recommendations to his boss.
Speaker 6: He is an advisor, so this is just a presidential advisor.
Speaker 5: Fits in with my This is the first time I've
Speaker 5: heard somebody's name more than Trump in nine and a
Speaker 5: half years hearing Elon's name all the time. So they
Speaker 5: must the left must feel like as a political win,
Speaker 5: making Elon.
Speaker 3: Musk a bad guy is better than.
Speaker 5: Making Trump the bad guy, because Trump's the guy who
Speaker 5: wants this done, is ordering it, and is the then
Speaker 5: signing off on the recommendations.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Well, Trump just got elected and not only whooped tiny
Speaker 6: in the Swing States, won the electoral college handily, but
Speaker 6: won the popular vote, which really shocked Democrats. And they've
Speaker 6: been that he's the Antichrist and is going to come
Speaker 6: eat your infant since twenty fifteen or twenty fourteen.
Speaker 4: And so perhaps the.
Speaker 6: Smartest horses over there on the left side of the
Speaker 6: island following me are saying, look, let's go after Elon.
Speaker 6: Maybe we can get people's attention because he's rich and evil,
Speaker 6: and they like the superhero movies where there's a rich,
Speaker 6: evil super villain.
Speaker 4: Maybe we can stir people up with that. They're desperate
Speaker 4: for a message.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I wonder how well it's working. Maybe it's working.
Speaker 5: I don't know what most people think about Elon. I
Speaker 5: know what I think.
Speaker 2: Jack, Armstrong and Joe The Armstrong and Getty Show, The
Speaker 2: Armstrong and Geeddy Show.
Speaker 10: They literally are trying to take healthcare away from millions
Speaker 10: of Americans at this very moment, in the dead of night.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Oh my god.
Speaker 4: It's a party of monsters.
Speaker 3: That's why they're having the Republicans.
Speaker 4: They're monsters.
Speaker 5: That's why they're having the one am vote tonight on
Speaker 5: the big beautiful bill to try to slide through in
Speaker 5: the darker night, the cutting back on Medicaid.
Speaker 6: And so the Republicans who are actual vampires can come
Speaker 6: out to vote too.
Speaker 4: Because you know, the sun is down.
Speaker 6: So Craig Gottwalls originally Craig the Obamacare lawyer, because when
Speaker 6: Obamacare was in the works and passed, Craig would talk
Speaker 6: to us about it, longtime friend of the show, and
Speaker 6: everything he said was true, and virtually everything he predicted happened,
Speaker 6: in contrast to most of the coverage of it, which
Speaker 6: was garbage. Well, Craig is now Craig the healthcare Guru,
Speaker 6: and we're going to talk a little bit about Medicaid,
Speaker 6: among other things.
Speaker 4: Craig Gottwals, how are you, Craig.
Speaker 3: I'm good, how are you, gentlemen, terrific?
Speaker 4: Thank you very much.
Speaker 6: So what do you make of Hakeem Jeffrey's quote there
Speaker 6: and what is the reality of medicaid?
Speaker 8: Well, it underscores just how we can never give anything
Speaker 8: to the government. This is why we can't have nice things. Right. So,
Speaker 8: in nineteen sixty five, the federal government passed Medicare and Medicaid,
Speaker 8: and specifically with respect to Medicaid, the whole idea was, man,
Speaker 8: we need a safety net for like single moms with
Speaker 8: disabled children who are falling through the cracks. We need
Speaker 8: we need this mechanism to just capture the most disadvantaged
Speaker 8: among us, to help them out and to give them
Speaker 8: to give them a lift. Right, So we did. And
Speaker 8: back when this was passed in nineteen sixty five, it
Speaker 8: was designed to cover two percent of Americans. Two percent.
Speaker 8: Today it covers one in three Americans and forty one
Speaker 8: percent of all bab these burst in our country.
Speaker 3: Whoa for babies born?
Speaker 6: So originally forty one line the disabled, the utterly unable
Speaker 6: to help themselves, and now it is approaching half of us.
Speaker 5: Is that because we have so many more single moms
Speaker 5: with blind babies?
Speaker 3: Or what does happen.
Speaker 8: Well, you know you you you know better than I Jack.
Speaker 8: This is entitlement creep, government creep at its finest. I
Speaker 8: mean you when we when this really took off and
Speaker 8: became insane was with Obamacare in you know, the early
Speaker 8: you know, twenty teens. When Obamacare came into play, Obamacare
Speaker 8: was bribing the states because you know, the way this
Speaker 8: thing works, it's a it's an agreement between the state
Speaker 8: and the federal government and they're shared financing, right, So
Speaker 8: the federal government couldn't just stay to the states you
Speaker 8: shall expand Medicaid. But what the federal government did is said, hey,
Speaker 8: look if you expand Medicaid to basically able bodied, working
Speaker 8: age people now because we'd already you know, had Medicaid
Speaker 8: for all the other categories you just mentioned, Joe, the
Speaker 8: government said, look, if you do that, will we the
Speaker 8: federal government will pay one hundred percent of it for
Speaker 8: some time, and then we'll pay ninety percent of it.
Speaker 8: So all but ten states went ahead and said, heck, yeah,
Speaker 8: we'll take that deal. And so now with that, with
Speaker 8: that medicaid expansion expansion that occurred with Obamacare, it's it's
Speaker 8: ninety percent paid for by federal tax payers, and it
Speaker 8: covers anywhere from eight million to fourteen million able bodied
Speaker 8: working adults, or I should say able bodied adults, some
Speaker 8: of which are working, some of which aren't.
Speaker 6: And in a bizarre twist, correct me if I'm wrong,
Speaker 6: the federal government compensates the states at a much higher
Speaker 6: percentage for able bodied dudes smoking pot on their parents'
Speaker 6: base on couch than they do for actual like disabled
Speaker 6: people in blind babies.
Speaker 8: Yeah, no, that's exactly right. So that was the that
Speaker 8: was the Obamacare bride because because Medicaid already covered all
Speaker 8: those people we were trying to protect, you know, when
Speaker 8: we started this thing in the sixties. So it covered
Speaker 8: all those people that had disabilities, single moms, et cetera,
Speaker 8: the blind, the disabled, but it didn't cover just underemployed
Speaker 8: or unemployed abled bodied adults. And so in order to
Speaker 8: get the states to agree to do that, the federal
Speaker 8: government had to say, look, we know that we're only
Speaker 8: paying you an average of fifty to sixty five cents
Speaker 8: on the dollar for your existing Medicaid, and we know
Speaker 8: that's not enough to get you the states to agree
Speaker 8: to go ahead and cover the adults. So we'll pay
Speaker 8: ninety to one hundred percent, starting at one hundred percent
Speaker 8: dropping down to ninety percent. So yes, that's exactly right.
Speaker 8: If you are a twenty eight year old dude's smoking
Speaker 8: pot in your mom and dad's basement right now, medicaid's
Speaker 8: paying ninety percent. The federal government's paying ninety percent of
Speaker 8: your medicaid where it's only paying an average of sixty
Speaker 8: cents on the dollar in a state like California for
Speaker 8: a disabled mother.
Speaker 4: With the child.
Speaker 5: I'm thinking to somebody I know specifically who is like
Speaker 5: a regular person with the job and is doing it
Speaker 5: the normal way, and they're incredible men. Medical bills they
Speaker 5: got right now because they've had some health problems. That's
Speaker 5: very galling that they have these high medical bills with
Speaker 5: insurance and everything, as opposed to if you got on
Speaker 5: some sort of government plan, it'd all be covered.
Speaker 6: And Craig, I'm going to leave it up to your
Speaker 6: judgment how much you want to get into this. But
Speaker 6: there are all sorts of other perverse incentives that this
Speaker 6: law has caused states, you know, taxing hospitals to raise
Speaker 6: the amount spent, but then they get it back from
Speaker 6: the federal government. Then they give it back to the hospitals.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's byzantine.
Speaker 8: Yeah, let me just give you a couple of nuggets
Speaker 8: on the cost of it, just just because what's happened
Speaker 8: is employers pay two to three times the cost of
Speaker 8: a hospital visit, as Medicare and Medicaid do. So when
Speaker 8: you are on Medicare and Medicaid, you go to the hospital,
Speaker 8: you pay X. If you're on an employer sponsored plan,
Speaker 8: you pay two to three times X.
Speaker 3: Wow, the state bill is I was just talking about.
Speaker 8: Thus the bills. But even with that reality, gentlemen, if
Speaker 8: you're on Medicare, that cost per taxpayer is about eleven
Speaker 8: thousand per year, if you're on Medicaid, it's ninety four
Speaker 8: hundred per year, and for employer sponsored people it's eighty
Speaker 8: seven hundred per year. So even with that, granted, employer
Speaker 8: sponsored coverage generally younger, generally healthier. We get that. But
Speaker 8: even with this tremendous cost shift to the hospitals, it
Speaker 8: just it underscores how inefficient these government programs are. When
Speaker 8: they passed Medicare, now this is Medicare, not Medicaid, but
Speaker 8: they did all the financials together when they passed it
Speaker 8: in nineteen sixty seven, actually two years in when they
Speaker 8: did an analysis on it, they said, hey, we think
Speaker 8: this is going to cost twelve billion by nineteen ninety,
Speaker 8: when in fact it cost one hundred billion. They were
Speaker 8: off by a factor of eight.
Speaker 3: With medicare the bullet train of medicine.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's the bullet train of medicine. And now that
Speaker 8: there are some people making noises that, gee, we ought
Speaker 8: to trim back the edges a little bit and get
Speaker 8: these able bodied adults off of it, you of course
Speaker 8: get the grand standing of politicians, even those on the right,
Speaker 8: screaming that it's murder in the streets.
Speaker 3: So Medicare is the one we all get when we
Speaker 3: cy cynical it will.
Speaker 5: Medicare is the one we all get when we turned
Speaker 5: sixty five. But Medicaid is the one at the downtrodden earth.
Speaker 4: Or folks allegedly.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, hey, Craig, I want to do the numbers
Speaker 6: you did for Medicaid too. So in nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 6: Congress projected that Medicaid would make special relief payments to
Speaker 6: hospitals of less than a billion dollars by nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 6: under a billion dollars. The actual cost was seventeen billion,
Speaker 6: so they're seventeen times as high. I mean, if that
Speaker 6: doesn't tell you what you need to know about government
Speaker 6: entitlement programs and what they do, inevitably, well you're too
Speaker 6: stupid to understand it, and't.
Speaker 4: I pity you.
Speaker 8: And that one was in a five year span, Joe,
Speaker 8: that was their eighty seven projection for ninety two.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, you're right.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that wasn't well.
Speaker 3: And one of the problems.
Speaker 5: One of the problems is, you know, all government programs grow,
Speaker 5: and you know the high cost and good intentions and
Speaker 5: all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 3: But in this case, you've got the added.
Speaker 5: Part that there's a bunch of people that want the
Speaker 5: government to run all of healthcare. So they love the
Speaker 5: they're pushing the expansion. It's not just like normal bureaucratic creep.
Speaker 5: They're pushing it. The more people cover, the more you
Speaker 5: can make the argument of well, we're already government healthcare anyway,
Speaker 5: let's just flip the switch and go full on single pair.
Speaker 8: You're absolutely right, and the single payer I'm just here
Speaker 8: to tell you the single payer path is a good
Speaker 8: thirty to fifty percent more expensive now those costs are
Speaker 8: hidden because of the way the money slashes around. But
Speaker 8: you've only got one payer of health care in America
Speaker 8: that actually cares what it costs, and that's employers. That's it.
Speaker 8: The insurance companies don't care because the way Obamacare is written,
Speaker 8: they need more claims to make more money. The government
Speaker 8: doesn't care because the more healthcare costs, the more budget
Speaker 8: they get to address the issue. The only policy holder,
Speaker 8: the only tax, the only moneyed interest in this that
Speaker 8: actually cares, is an employer, and it's dramatically shrinking. Those
Speaker 8: of us that get healthcare at work is shrinking every year.
Speaker 5: I don't know how we ever get this fixed because
Speaker 5: like I, uh, you've probably been listening to know.
Speaker 3: I got whooping cough.
Speaker 5: So I've been to the doctor, like yeah, four or
Speaker 5: five times, eight different medications, all these different bills, most
Speaker 5: of them tiny.
Speaker 3: I don't have the slightest idea what anything cost.
Speaker 5: Or I'll get a bill, I know, I'll get a
Speaker 5: bill in a month for one hundred and eighty bucks
Speaker 5: or five hundred and eighty bucks, I don't know, and
Speaker 5: then I'll just pay it.
Speaker 11: And nobody has any idea, and the randomness of those
Speaker 11: of us who have employee you know, insurance, we don't
Speaker 11: know if we're getting ripped off or good price or whatever.
Speaker 4: So it's it's complicated, no discouraging, Go ahead, Craig.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and it's it's not health jack by the You
Speaker 8: know a lot of people think that, hey, I have
Speaker 8: Purple Cross as my insurance, and so whether I go
Speaker 8: to Stanford or El Camino or good Sam for this
Speaker 8: particular shoulder surgery should be about the same price because
Speaker 8: I have a Purple Cross PPO contract. Right, It's not
Speaker 8: you can pay ten thousand for that shoulder surgery or
Speaker 8: fifty thousand for that shoulder surgery with the same exact
Speaker 8: insurance card. It's utterly insane what's happening in the commercial
Speaker 8: market because government has crept into this unholy alliance with
Speaker 8: the commercial payers, and so you have this, you have
Speaker 8: a situation where it's crony capitalism at its absolute worst.
Speaker 8: You know we're talking about and we can tease for
Speaker 8: a future visit, but there are ways to get around this.
Speaker 8: But relying on the government or this large commercial sector
Speaker 8: is going to kill us. And when I say the
Speaker 8: commercial sector, I mean the fully insured carriers, employer sponsored plans,
Speaker 8: self funded employer sponsored plans are the way to go.
Speaker 8: It's the only way to beat this and beat it back.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we're talking to Craig Gottwaals, Craig the healthcare guru. Craig,
Speaker 6: I feel like at this point in the interview we
Speaker 6: how to give people the local suicide hotline number.
Speaker 4: I mean, because it's so discouraging.
Speaker 6: So we've you know, described this incredible, mountainous, wasteful, enormously
Speaker 6: expensive government program out of control. And if you, as
Speaker 6: say a Republican, a Chip Roy, for instance, say hey,
Speaker 6: can we have thirty five year old guy smoking pawn
Speaker 6: on his parents couch please pay a thirty five dollars
Speaker 6: copay when he goes to the doctor, you have Hakeem
Speaker 6: Jeffrey screaming you're literally taking healthcare away from millions of Americans.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's.
Speaker 5: One problem, though the other problem is that's a Democrat.
Speaker 5: He got Josh Howey, a Republican writing an opera. Holly
Speaker 5: has lost his soul. I hope he gets hit by
Speaker 5: a car abhorror violence. Josh Holley writes, I think in
Speaker 5: the New York Times last week, you know Republicans, hey
Speaker 5: do not cut any of this. It's a bad political move.
Speaker 5: So where does that leave you?
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's you. At this point, gentlemen, I put my
Speaker 8: head down. I don't even listen to the big the
Speaker 8: big picture anymore, and I just try and help one
Speaker 8: employer at a time. It's just and I get individuals
Speaker 8: that contact me and they ask me what do I do?
Speaker 8: And I say, buy as little inferent sick and by
Speaker 8: the highest deductible, go ahead.
Speaker 3: Don't get sick is your recommendation.
Speaker 8: Don't get sick, but find a doctor, find a doctor
Speaker 8: who's left the system, and engage in something called direct
Speaker 8: primary care, where you give them anywhere from seventy five
Speaker 8: to two hundred dollars a month, you treat, you work
Speaker 8: with them, and then God forbid, you have something giant happen.
Speaker 8: You have the highest deductible you can stomach to go
Speaker 8: deal with that issue. But you've got to cut insurance
Speaker 8: and government payments out as much as you can and
Speaker 8: work directly with doctors. And the good news is that
Speaker 8: system is growing, gentlemen. I talk to doctors every week
Speaker 8: that are leaving the system and going direct pay with
Speaker 8: individuals and not the three hundred and fifty dollars concierge model,
Speaker 8: but like doing this for one hundred dollars a month. Literally.
Speaker 6: Well, I love the idea of starting at that point
Speaker 6: in our next conversation with you, Craig, and talking about that,
Speaker 6: because one of the things I was going to bring
Speaker 6: up if we have time, and we don't unfortunately, but
Speaker 6: some of the unholy uh vertical integration of the giant
Speaker 6: healthcare companies where they own the doctor, they own the hospital,
Speaker 6: they own the pharmacy, they own the pharmacy benefit manager,
Speaker 6: which is an unholy, murky cesspool of God knows where
Speaker 6: the money goes. And so yeah, the idea of checking
Speaker 6: out of that system, I love it. Let's let's let's
Speaker 6: talk off the air. Will schedule you to come back
Speaker 6: because I think it'd be great for the good folks.
Speaker 8: Sounds great, gentlemen, have a wonderful day.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks, Craig. Appreciate the time. Craig.
Speaker 3: You have to come on all the time and bear
Speaker 3: bad news.
Speaker 6: I mean it's like, yeah, I just you know, as
Speaker 6: a realist, you've unlike the Biden family, the one thing
Speaker 6: you must do is understand reality or or your your helics.
Speaker 5: I've been saying too, Craig, and he usually agrees. For years.
Speaker 5: I think the realist view is we're going to end
Speaker 5: up single payer healthcare. Uh, it's just when When does Yeah,
Speaker 5: I suppose so.
Speaker 6: But in every single health single payer healthcare system, people
Speaker 6: who can afford it go outside and right right, got
Speaker 6: to learn those ropes, don't folks, It'll be okay.
Speaker 5: Don't get sick. Just don't get sick or break anything.
Speaker 5: That's the answer.
Speaker 3: Stay here.
Speaker 2: It's Jack Armstrong and Joe, the Armstrong.
Speaker 9: And Getty Show. The Armstrong and Getty Show should have.
Speaker 5: Been a couple of great government works, things that got
Speaker 5: out of control and cost gazillions of dollars and never
Speaker 5: got finished. In my lifetime, I remember Boston's big dig,
Speaker 5: hearing about that my whole life, decades and decades and decades,
Speaker 5: wasting tons of money. Uh, Alaska's famous bridge to Nowhere.
Speaker 5: But they're all paling in comparison to California's high speed
Speaker 5: rail project, which goes back to two thousand and eight,
Speaker 5: and if it's not already at the end of the day,
Speaker 5: will be the biggest government sinkhole of bureaucracy and waste.
Speaker 5: As an example of how democracy keys can fail in
Speaker 5: our nation's history, and it's probably.
Speaker 4: Already in Richmond too. I must point out.
Speaker 3: Part of the reason it's getting a bunch of a
Speaker 3: national attention.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 3: New York Times did a.
Speaker 5: Story last Sunday, the Associated presses on it, and The
Speaker 5: Dispatch did a story yesterday. Is the CHSRA. That's the
Speaker 5: California High Speed Rail Authority. They put out new numbers
Speaker 5: just recently, and their own new numbers have now increased
Speaker 5: the total cost to one hundred and thirty five billion dollars.
Speaker 5: When taxpayers agreed to this, it was thirty three billion.
Speaker 5: It's now one hundred and thirty five billion. It's more
Speaker 5: than one hundred billion dollars more than originally proposed.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 5: We were supposed to be writing it five years ago.
Speaker 5: It's supposed to be done in twenty twenty. I have
Speaker 5: not written into view. They're now saying if it.
Speaker 6: Comes anywhere near the original promise, it will be north
Speaker 6: of two hundred billion dollars, mark my words.
Speaker 5: And they said in their most recent statement it may
Speaker 5: take two more decades to complete most of the San
Speaker 5: Francisco to Los Angeles segment, two more decades to complete
Speaker 5: most so they're not even saying in two decades they
Speaker 5: can complete it right. And I don't know if you
Speaker 5: know about travel, but you really need the whole thing.
Speaker 5: Like if I'm going to New York this summer, I
Speaker 5: need to get all the way there. Most of the
Speaker 5: way doesn't do any good.
Speaker 4: It's either get you to Indianapolis.
Speaker 5: It's really an all or nothing proposition whenever you travel somewhere,
Speaker 5: am I going there or not? But I thought this
Speaker 5: was really interesting and I can't believe this hasn't gotten
Speaker 5: more attention. This is from the chsri's own plan. It
Speaker 5: is now going to connect to towns on the outskirts
Speaker 5: of both major metros. It's not going to take you
Speaker 5: from San Francisco to Los Angeles. It's going to take
Speaker 5: you from Gilroy, which if you live in the area,
Speaker 5: you know eight very close to San Francisco, and.
Speaker 4: That is the outskirts of the outskirts of the out.
Speaker 5: It's seventy miles southeast of San Francisco.
Speaker 3: To I just chail.
Speaker 6: It will take you just under two hours to drive
Speaker 6: from Gilroy to San Francisco as we speak.
Speaker 5: To Palmdale, which is thirty seven miles northeast of the
Speaker 5: edge of Los Angeles, and in Los Angeles traffic, it
Speaker 5: would take you several hours to make that drive. So
Speaker 5: instead of the city centers, it's going to take you
Speaker 5: from Gilroy to Palmdale.
Speaker 3: That will save construction time and.
Speaker 5: Money, but it will need mean the writers will need
Speaker 5: another hour or more to get into the cities. That
Speaker 5: is an incredibly generous statement. I would say a minimum
Speaker 5: of three to four hours on a good day, all told, an.
Speaker 6: Hour and a quarter from Palmdale to LA right now
Speaker 6: all told.
Speaker 3: Economist Scott Summer estimates that this.
Speaker 5: New setup would require at least a seven hour series
Speaker 5: of trains or cars for someone to get from downtown
Speaker 5: San Francisco to downtown Los Angeles. Instead of the original
Speaker 5: promised three hour one train trip and seven hours on
Speaker 5: the best, everything broke your way, it would take seven hours.
Speaker 6: It is the greatest failure of democracy I've ever witnessed.
Speaker 8: Arm Strong and