Welcome everybody here, we go Happy Tuesday. I'd almost forgot, as is
often the case, and I'm sure others can relate. I kept thinking it
was Monday earlier. But Happy Tuesday, everybody, welcome back. Hope everybody
had a good Memorial Day weekend. This is Matt Connerton, Leachton. We
are live from the studios of wm N HIM and Glorious Downtown Manchester, New
Hampshire. Also on Comcast ninety seven if you're in Manchester and you can go
to my website Matt Connerton dot com for all of your live streaming options,
social media links, contact info, show archives, etcetera, etcetera. And
I am not alone Monday. Jenny is at the newsdesk Monday. Well not
quiet, that is that is when Monday. Because I'm here, it does,
it does, absolutely yes, and joining us on the couch making his
return to the program. Republican candidate for the presidency, Steve Laffy is here.
Hello, great to be with you guys. A lot of fun,
great show, good music, Thank you, Thank you. Yeah you like
the uh yeah, the uh for everything. Yeah. For anyone who's we
appreciate that. Now for anyone who's wondering that is a new Um what I
opened with that's a parody project is the YouTuber Congress sucks the money down.
Yes, as is uh that is how that is how it works in the
in the big leagues of politics, that's for sure. But welcome back,
everybody, and I do oh wow, we've got a busy chat room already.
Well listen, so Steve Laughy is here with us, and we're gonna
talk about Jenny said, you wanted to talk about healthcare, which, um,
particularly Yeah, well that's one of the things that um, you know,
we had an extensive discussion last time you were here, but we didn't
that that was something we didn't get into. And I'm curious because i mean,
you know, you made a couple of references to healthcare, but we
didn't get a chance to really get into it. So curious to hear your
your thoughts. And Jenny has been doing some activism on that very subject,
as I'm sure you know too. So uh so it's wonderful to have her
here for this as well. And you can be with us if you'd like
to call in six zo three two five six Z seven is the studio line
six three two five six Z seven. You can also text me at six
one seven nine one seven four four seven six. I'm on social media at
Matt Connerton. You can email me Matt at Matt Connerton dot com. And
of course you can interact endo Pine in the Facebook live chat. But the
best thing to do so that we can here and enjoy your dulcet tones is
to give us a call at six O three two five six O seven.
I do see Jenny, You're in the chat room. I'm everywhere. Say
yeah, shalom peezz Also easyg joins us, says happy Taco Tuesday. Isaac
Banks from Greensboro, North Carolina. Also Miriam Banish joins us, Crystal our
friend from the Great state of Illinois. And Joe Friday says Aloha gentleman,
Aloha to uh. To Joe Friday, Helloha, Yes, yes so again.
Six zo three two five zero six Z seven is the studio line if
you would like to discuss anything with us today, If you have any questions
for our guest Steve Laughy and um. Yeah. This is your second time
on the show and you've been busy. It sounds like you've been picking up
some media appearances. You just got done. You were across the street and
you did did the local stuff with the patch with yeah Tony, Tony who
does the New Hampshire rood Island stuff. And then before that I was live
on Newsmax today for the fifth for the fifth time. Oh no, kidding,
um, and we're talking about the debt ceiling and the disaster of both
parties my party too, but anyway we can talk about that too, the
deat ceiling and how bizarre it is. Well, yeah, you had sent
me a m an article and you said you had messaged me that you wanted
to talk about healthcare. I couldn't find anything on your website about what your
position is or what your plans are in relation to national healthcare. Could you
give us a picture of what that looks like? Yes, um, there
isn't. There is a lot, not at the very first page. But
I've talked a lot about healthcare over the years, so there's a lot of
videos and stuff and not that you need to go back in find it.
But yes, the big we have a at least a trillion dollar extra spending
problem in healthcare over any other industrialized country. We spend eighteen percent of gross
domestic product on healthcare in our country, and it is and the average country
takes Switzerland is twelve or eleven. And what is it about? One is
the one seventh of our GDP. Yeah, it's eighteen percent. It's it's
it's ridiculously high. And an extra six percent is a trillion dollars. And
that trillion dollars comes about because of a lot of things. We can get
into anyone you want to, sure, but one would simply be if you
want to take them piece by piece, won't it be? The patent system
and the large lobbying efforts of large drug companies based in America who use America
as their giant cash cow for the rest of the world. People listening to
the show paid on average twelve ice what anybody in Germany pays for the same
drug. Twice I mean, I mean any drug could be different, but
twice well even Isn't that why some people go to Canada for their prescriptive course
and and and of course has been talking about this for years, that people
should be able to buy their drugs, as I believe they should anywhere they
should, they could get them, but we as Americans should not. I
mean, the biggest lobby are in America is visor three hundred million dollars plus
per year spent on lobbying to people that don't have term limits. Many of
the people in Congress go to work for companies like this. When they get
out and the staffers do it's a whole insidious piece of corruption. So this
needs to change. If I were president, we would have to There's a
lot of things we have to do, but one would simply be that we're
not doing that anymore. That that that we're not making Americans pay twice as
much. How are you fixing it? So? The pharmaceutical companies from what
let me just keep up without the flow here. The pharmaceutical companies here,
you're saying they get a corner on the market with their patents and they charge
Americans more money than other people. Am I getting that? Well, not
a corner in the market. A patent is a corner on the market.
What they do with patents is extend patents from many many years past what the
law says, by waiting to the end and then showing them that there's another
use for it, even though they already know there's another use for it.
Then they extend the patent and keep the price up rather than letting it go
off pattent. We have to stop that. That has to be a vote
of Congress, both houses. Again, no more executive orders, by the
way, like, let's stop the executive order thing from from the world,
because it's just like they get revoked after the guy goes or whatever happens.
So that's number one. We have to have a better patent system. People
need to be rewarded for coming up with new drugs, obviously, otherwise people
would I'm sorry, I just want to understand a little bit better. There's
a medication that I'm on that is the patent is owned by the company,
and the company is actually not located in the United States, but they have
the patent ownership in the United States. So as you can imagine, it
makes it practically impossible for people to be able to get the medication because of
exorbitant pricing, and they don't get to make enough money, so they don't
want to make it for everybody. They make it in the money. They
make it in the form that gives them the most money. So like the
form that I take is such a low dose, they don't make a profit,
so they don't make it. So I have to go through a compounding
pharmacy, and insurance companies get a pass on paying for compounding meads, How
can you fix that pattern system for me that that medication becomes more affordable and
more available to me on that one medication, I don't know. I mean,
I don't think anybody knows one medication. Now I'm saying the patent what
do we do to that? We have to fix the patent system so that
it lasts a certain amount of years. And with a patent system, otherwise,
we wouldn't have people if there was no patent system, who would develop
a new drug? Right? So I think most people would agree that we
a patent system. But my problem with the patent system. We look through
drugs and you just read through what happens. By the way, I mean,
pick a drug one that everybody knows about viagraph for example, that one
was extended. I don't know anything one people hear about, right, So
so that's one problem with healthcare. It's just one problem that needs to be
dealt with in your particular case. I don't know the right answer for your
particular drug, Steve, can I ask you, is this why? Um?
Because I'll often hear people say, uh, you know, you should
be able to get generic versions of these drugs, which would make them cheaper.
Is the patent system, the way it is what prevents that from happening.
But after some things go off patent, they go to generic drug makers.
You got big one's called Tiva located in Israel, one of the biggest
generic drug makers in the world. They look for things to go off pat
and they make them and then then the price drops specipitously, which is should
after after the company has had the ability to make a lot of money.
Because remember we don't hear about the drugs that don't that don't make it.
I mean to give Fiser or anybody credit, like Eli Lily, any company.
They try a lot of things and they lose money like a bad like
a bad movie. Right, So like water World, right the day right,
you spend three hundred million dollars, you sell ten million dollars. You
had a big loss. So to recoup their losses, they get to charge
you know what they want. Now, whether insurance companies do or don't accept
this particular drug, that's a whole another story. But the patent thing has
to be made so it doesn't get extended in my humble opinion, it's a
very different opinion than any republic you get to talk to because but but that's
what I think. Has you want to give it a finite annual this many
years and then twelve if it's we could I mean again, I'm not the
expert to argue whether it should be twelve years or nine years something like that.
Yeah, yeah, and then now the other So the other problem would
be an issue for Congress to deal with that the President should put forth in
a lore is that we're not paying more than list prices in industrial realized countries
or any countries. I mean, and that way you're drug not particularly yours.
Again, but people's drug course would drop precipitously and the ones in Germany
would have to go up a little bit. Remember that they wouldn't make these
drugs if they didn't make some money, right, right? But why are
we double and I make the world up double. Sometimes it's three times as
much, sometimes it's the same amount. But you can look at the list
prices in Canada, list prices of the same drug, same patent drug,
not generic drug, same drug sold in industrialized I'm not talking about something off
the shelf and Argentina. I'm talking about Germany, France, United Kingdom,
Canada. People, we know people, we trade with those kind of countries,
So that has to be changed. When that can get changed, we're
gonna have We're gonna have a lowering for the United States residents on their prescription
drugs. Now, that doesn't answer your question about what to do about getting
them to make my drug in a way that's going to help me. That's
not the answer to your question. That's an answer to another question. How
do we lower generally drug prices? Now? Well, yeah, there's another
part of this whole system, and that is I believe that the way this
has to change is that right now we go see a doctor, right and
what happens a lot is that due to the changes and lures in two thousand
and six, Where before two thousand and six or so, it was very
very hard for any of these TV commercials to mention drugs they had to put
in. Now you think that, wow, how can they what do they
have to put in before? Because now they say the side effect is that
it kills you. Oh yeah, there's a whole there's a whole ache exactly.
But it was way more than that, they couldn't even advertise. I
believe that was the right. I believe that allowing drug companies to advertise these
drugs. Jenny says that all the time. Yeah, yeah, how hardly
do I agree? When you talk to doctors people, Now, here's what
happens. People come in and not everybody, but I'm trying to be not
too general. People come and say I need that purple pill I think I
have. If you notice, by the way, the advertisements, and this
is not to make fun of someone has this real element, real ailment that
but notice it's not it's not generally. These drug commercials are not for things
that affect millions and millions of people that you know, everybody. There's sort
of like esoteric drug problems. Yeah, again, they're very bad if someone
has them, I want someone to be cured. But they're driving up all
these questions for doctors. They're driving people into doctors to ask for it.
Interesting. Second, doctors don't get paid to get people better, so they
just give people drugs. That's not true by any stretch of the imagination.
Come on, now, Nope, doctor, your your regular doctor doesn't get
paid if you get better, does he? Well, I get your saying.
I just maybe the way you're saying it, the way you're saying he
wants to get you better. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying thank
you. It was the way you put it right. But they don't get
paid. I love my provider. Okay, A doctor right now or hospital
does not generally get paid at the end of the year by saying, hey,
you know what you had? Make up the numbers. A hundred patients
come in and wow, this patient lost this much weight and is off this
particular drug. This person started on lippertur and you got a mof liperatour because
they started eating notemeal. I'm I'm being very hyperboliicia. Whatever right this person
did that. They don't get paid at the end of the year by like,
wow, what a great job you did with these people. See,
I get what you're saying there. Yeah, so we need a system that
they do in other words, or more that they do, or that's how
people will react to incentives. I mean, I'm come from the investment banking
world, and I could give you story after story how we changed things at
my firm, Morgan Keegan, and how we made people not made people.
We incentivize certain things to the things that we wanted. We didn't want people
to do commissions anymore than nineteen nineties. Too many stock jockeys, too many
people just calling on the phone saying by the stock because they get paid time
you bought a stock. We wanted wealth management. We wanted people just to
get paid on the assets. We had to make a big change, so
we incentivized analysts who were paid on commissions. The guys who said, who
say, we incentivize them just to outperform the stock market with just the ones
they called outperformed and guess what better stock picks. They made more money.
We gathered more assets with a product. But we incentivize what we wanted and
we got it. Not to get off on healthcare, but what we need
in America is the ability so that let's put it this way, and this
is not to make fun of people, but we have a really unhealthy person
and he's forty years old and for whatever reason, he's drinking a gallon of
beer a day and I'm just I'm making it. But we want him not
to do that, right, But we don't want him just to go in
and say at the age of fifty. I've been you know, I've been
caring around too much weight, I've been drinking and my srosses deliver and I
need a newliver, and I need to unique. We can't be doing that
any longer. That's just we need that person to try to get better.
Yeah, people do want to get better, that's the good thing. People
want to be healthy. People don't want to be stuck in this whole thing.
And don't get me started on sugar and all that kind of stuff,
but I will. So we need a system where we can take people and
say, yes, you can be part of that health insurance to come over
there and right now, Joe, you're forty two, you're really unhealthy.
You're actual warily a four hundred thousand dollars a year problem. We want that
insurance company. I mean the fact that you could have a heart attack and
be there. But we want that person two years from now to be a
two hundred thousand dollar problem, not by them, you know, not by
them being healthy, by rewarding them with programs that make them healthy, by
doctors being incentive that. Hey, you know what, Joe came in a
couple of years ago. He's doing pretty well, like he's not perfect.
He didn't get to be an NFL running back at the end of the whole
thing, but now he's doing better. We need a system that rewards these
kind of incentives. We don't have that in America today. There are incentivizing
systems built into healthcare. For example, I'm rewarded with points when I go
to the YMCA and I can turn that in for something. I'm rewarded with
a cash value for meeting my step requirements and it's starting to happen. No,
no, a little bit, a little, a little bit. And
my doctor rewards me often by not by I mean, speaking from my perspective,
I'm rewarded by my doctor when he tells me I don't have to come
into the office again for six months versus six weeks. I'm rewarded by my
doctor when he looks at my lab work and says, wow, look at
your triglycerides a seventy five. Your cholesterol is great. Don't change your thing.
That For me, that's a reward. And I understand you're talking about
this reward system, but I really want to look at this from the patient
level. Well, we have a problem in America. Would you agree.
Our healthcare system is broken. People do not get appropriate healthcare right now,
appropriate healthcare when they get it, don't get it. I mean, that's
a big topic, but we don't. Why is it a big topic,
Well, because a lot of people get very very good healthcare. Health Care
in some senses can be very very good until you have a cancer diagnosis,
lose your job, and lose that healthcare. So yeah, that's what happens.
Well, I have a daughter and I've seen five to eight million dollars
of bills across my desk. I have a daughter with stage four cancer.
For eight years. I've been that lady right there. I got you.
She lived at the children's hospital for two and a half years. I took
over homeschooling the kids. That's why you haven't heard from me. But why
should you have that kind of bill? Shouldn't that shouldn't the child be entitled
as a basic human being to have basic human right of healthcare and be entitled
if she needs this IV she needs this chemo, she needs that treatment,
that she should simply get it. Because the doctor says, so, you
as a family agree with the doctor this is the course of treatment, and
nobody gets in the way and says whether they're going to approve prior up whatever.
It's simply you, the patient, the doctor, the family, and
that care gets done. And this medical system is simply paid through one centralized
system in a national healthcare scheme. And then you're going to have healthcare at
twenty four percent of GDP. No. Actually, I would argue with you
that you would actually see a reduction in the GDP for one thing. Not
Without systems, you get rid of all of the insurance bureaucracy. I know
one provider that could instantly get rid of one job because she has a sole
employee that does nothing but denials from Anthem, just Anthem. That's how bad
the denials are, the paperwork that insurance companies force our doctors and providers to
go through, the hoops that we have to jump through, the fact that
lymphidema patients can't get compression on their leg unless they have an ulcar, costing
way more money. If we invested in our healthcare system, that every human
being was entitled to the healthcare that is available in this great nation of ours,
we should have USA Care, We should have America Care where every human
being in America can go to a healthcare facility with cancer and get full on
treatment. I have a friend that just had to negotiate a three thousand dollars
a month chemo co pay. I'm sure you've seen co pays. Even with
a good insurance. You probably has a government official. You probably had a
heck of a lot more insurance than the average Joe. You know, Mary
who has a TV shows, can only buy six vials of insulin even at
the reducted price, because it's still over two hundred dollars a month for seven.
So we're still rationing. Well, I want to go sorry, I
want I want to stop there, and I want to how you do I
want to know what you don't. I don't. I don't think we should
have natural health insurance like that, where which we would just get it and
get it and get it. I don't think that's worked anywhere. If you
look at the United Kingdom as a great example, you will see that wealthy
people opted out of the national health insurance in the UK. The people left
behind have don't have as good health in cares, and the rich people have
much better. That's what happens. And when I access to healthcare in the
Netherlands. I was quite impressed at the availability and I was extremely impress at
the care that my state for breast cancer male patient has gotten. And he's
still alive today because he has not been denied a single solitary treatment medication nothing.
Doctor said, you need it, you get it. Let's let's get
it. I want to know how America gives better healthcare to everybody. Okay,
well hang on, that's what I was just trying to. I get
excited. I saw, no, you can get it. We'll circle back,
but we do have a call. Shannon is on the line. High
Shannon, Hello, good afternoon. Hello. Um. One thing I wanted
to say is that when you are on state and government insurance, you have
to enroll AH for the prescription plans it's affordable to you, and where your
drugs are on the formulary, because if your drugs aren't on that formulary,
you have to call the doctors off or authorization. Yes there's another pain.
Oh there's always foods. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Uh what else?
I don't know what else else? Well, I've had a bad weekend.
Well sorry, sorry to hear that, shandam thank you all right, but
no, um, it's not it's who you are. To me, it
seems like it's who you are and the insurance you have mm hmm. And
I don't know, it's a wealthy these people who have to think about I
don't know, make a little fund, you know, the pay it forward,
want to pay medical stuff forward and put money into um what am I
trying to say? Just put money into uh agencies? Or no, don't
do that because it'll end up in someone to fuck itt um. Oh yeah,
sh no, we we we take you, We take your point,
and we appreciate the call. And well we'll see what else Steve has to
sale the subject. Well, and hi, Jenny, Hi, how are
you? I'm sorry, we're all good. No, we're all good.
Thanks all right, thanks, thanks for all right bye. I think Jenny
has some good points. I think one of the points though from this call
or it just makes me realize that we need to start in this country for
things that we actually do agree upon. And I think the vast majority of
people. You'll never get Republicans to go for nastural health insurance, you'll never
get Democrats to do blah blah blah. But we do agree that our large
drug companies have far too much power in Washington. So let's start there.
And I think the thing about prescription drugs, I've never met anybody to say,
oh, no, I disagree with that we should pay more than German.
I mean, so there's things that we can start that are lots and
lots of money. The only way you can have sort of everybody insured program,
whatever you want to call it, would be that if we cap what
we spend as a country at a certain percentage. We can't have it at
twenty percent. We would already broke just on the other it on today's numbers,
though you're not basing it on what the numbers would look like under a
system that did get rid of insurance companies and did put it between the like
when you talk to people, all right, they say Medicare. People on
Medicare love their Medicare, right, No, you don't think so, I
don't know. I may I talk to health insurance Medicare the actual people who
actually have medic the Medicare insurance and setup which I am stuck on a disadvantage
plan. Um. They usually say they like it because they don't get denied
access to things doctor says they needed. Can they pay for it though they
pay extra money for all these things. And there's Medicare avantage plans which are
and some of them are about outcomes. So yes, there are some parts
of the system that are working better than others. My point, it would
just be very honest about it, unless you're gonna cap how much we spend
on healthcare in this country. If you want everybody to be insured and they
don't have to do anything but be insured, they don't have to get better,
you you're gonna but we've already busted the system. Oh that's a dangerous
Pandora's box there, sir. If they don't want to get better, if
they don't try to get better, oh my goodness. So I don't have
a death panel here. No, that's that's what I'm saying. No,
I'm not I'm not creating. I'm saying if they don't get if they don't
try, if we do what qualifies that though, well, working with doctors
to do what needs to be done to you want doctors to be in charge
of this this cancel button that says Nope, not trying enough. I'm not
saying, but can we agree in the United States of America when we spend
eighteen percent of gross domestic product on our healthcare, six percentage points more than
says Switzerland, a trillion dollars more. That something needs to change. Yeah,
we need to get rid of insurance companies. The vast majority of this
money you keep in talking about would go away under what I'm saying, because
we would not have to deal with umpteen billing agencies and wrong code crap.
We would have a system in which doctor says patient needs x, X,
goes to medicare and says, YEP, patient needs X. It's paid,
patient gets what they need. We go on about our day. Patient is
getting better. They're not waiting to get approval or a prior authorization. My
doctor's not spending six hours on the phone trying to get that prior authorization.
My other provider doesn't have to have an entire employee just to deal with one
insurance. There's so much money that you're talking about that is all tied up
in this horrific billing system that does its best when it denies people the most.
The only people that benefit under today's system are rich, well the average
would I mean, I just disagree with that. I mean, if you
work for the state government of Rhode, and you have a very good health
insurance and you're not rich until you get cancer and lose your job and hence
lose your insurance. I was an EMT, I owned a house, I
had property, I had multiple jobs. I was even a volunteer for local
ems. I got breast cancer, my second cancer. Life fell apart.
I lost the house, I lost the land. I lost my health insurance.
Why because they couldn't work anymore. So what you're saying doesn't work the
moment somebody gets sick. Tell me what happens to your employee that works under
your great insurance system when they're me and they get cancer and they lose that
great job. Yeah, I mean, I meant I want to hear this
answer. Well, the answer is that we have a very imperfect system,
that's for sure. That's not an answer. No, it is the answer.
The other answer. No, No, I gave you ahead. No.
No. What is the answer for the course that we spent on health
insurance today in America versus other industrialized countries. Well, we could do more
of a Netherlands type style plan where people pay flat rate, that's their insurance.
That's ever. In fact, people are there. Pay a flat rate,
and it's not just their health insurance, it's also their personal insurance,
because you have to have personal insurance in that country. If you hit somebody
with your bicycle, they have to be able to sue you. Like,
that's real, real over there. They pay this one flat fee and they
get access. The doctor calls them the prescriptions to the pharmacy. The pharmacy
delivers them one hundred percent access, no denial, no tie up. No,
I'm waiting six weeks to start chemo because my insurance says it's not medically
necessary under your system. It's wonderful to have that great policy as long as
I work for you. But when I get the cancer and I lose the
job, I lose that great insurance and I don't get to work for you
anymore, and I have no health care left. Well see if I mean,
I think I think you would acknowledge a lot a lot of people do
fall through the crack. No, no, and yes, And that's why
if we have a system, will we find the people who listen. We're
not going to make it perfect overnight. Yeah at all. I think we
all agree again and then we can argue back and forth and this issue back
and forth forever. That's what people do. It's not really what I'm interested
in arguing back and forth and things they're not going to get solved. That's
not my interest. My interest in things that we can solve and solve quickly.
Yeah, and one of them is simply prescription drugs. We can solve
that problem. We can solve the cost of prescription drugs grammatically for people who
take prescription drugs, and we can solve the problem of the patent issue so
things go to generic faster quickly. There's other stuff I mean, I mean,
I'm not into argue with completely different, completely different I want to build
on what you just said. I remember, years ago, we used to
be able to go to Walmart and get the four dollar prescription, right,
the generic of something you could afford it. Why did that change? Why
is it now everybody's spending thirty dollars for the same antibiotic that used to be
generic on the four dollar list. What happened? No, if it was
generic on the fourder list, I don't know. I mean, good,
our rex is a good thing to use in different ways to get things down.
But I do know that many, many drugs that should be generic have
remained on patent because big drug companies lobby to Congress so bad, so hard,
with so much money, that they find other ways to keep them from
becoming generic. It's a big problem. Yeah, that's a that's a giant
problem. And healthcare course today with drugs, that's probably the most powerful lobby
in washing. It is the most powerful. Absolutely, it is the most
powerful. And now again to get at something to do with healthcare tangentially,
we really have to make sure that people have term limits at serving Congress and
these and their staff, and that people cannot go lobby after they work in
Congress. They can't do this anymore because it's a well they love to do
that here in conquered that's all they do. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, well, I mean you can. It's it's you know, on
politics, you can kind of fail upward and that you can. Yeah,
you can lose an election and then go get a bigger right, I'd be
happy, but yes, no, you're right. It's just these are really
hard problems. And listen, I have six children, and I've seen two
really tough illnesses and six children that are unrelated, non hereditary that have gone
on for years. One went on for ten years. It was solved.
I'm very appreciative with the good doctors. This is not an anti doctor thing.
Oh, of course, the ones at the children's hospital with my daughter
eighteen, came down with neuroblastomer still has it stage four. Supposed to given
six months to live. Twice. She lived at the hospital two hundred nights
a year. I started homeschool and little children. She was given one day
to live once one day. She's still with us. She just graduated from
grad school, still has cancer. Getting married Saturday. Wow. So I
totally understand. I mean, listen, the empathy level of you go to
the children's hospital, even if you just go like I go, not you
live there like my beautiful wife live there, live there. Yeah yeah,
sit outside a radiation room for twenty five days. Try try try doing that
and bring in rush. You know, I don't know if you know radiation
rooms. They don't have nurses going every time because they can't get all the
radiation. You can do it once or twice. So my wife sat outside
a radiation room for I don't know a couple of weeks, and my daughter,
Sarah Grace Laughy was in the radiation room, and when you had to
have food, she ran in, gave her the food, and ran out.
It's really true. But on the flip side, really caring doctors,
really beautiful nurses, not physically, I mean whatever, a beautiful insight,
just like really people who care. So we're not talking about like no one
cares about healthcare whatever, we're What we're talking about is a system that we
built up the course level to such a level we can't do it anymore.
We have all the we have all these other things that we've wasted money on
totally from George Bush to today. Wasted so much money with Donald Trump,
eight trillion dollars of disaster, and now we're looking at thirty two trillion dollars
a debt twenty four trillion that we borrow from the public, and now the
rubber meets the road, the financial crisis is happening again. Not to get
off healthcare. This is what I really know about. This is this is
why I'm running for president. I'm just a tangentially person who cares about healthcare.
I'm not an expert on healthcare. I can totally agree with it.
I don't have all the answers for healthcare. I have all the answers for
social security right here to talk about it. I can't respect, and I
don't know, and I just know that people are really crying out for a
different way to look at doing things. And I think that people are also
crying out if I hear, if I get one more email from my Republican
brethren, they start like this, there's a lady in Mississippi, what's her
name, that is a representative whatever who yells at the president, which you
shouldn't do. And it starts like this, the Marxis are taken over to
send me money, and I guess people send her money. Marjorie Green,
Marjorie Green, Marjorie Taylor Green, Marjorie Taylor Green, totally out of control.
But but Ron, the governor, Ron de Santa sends me stuff and
it's about I don't want to say the word Marxist again, but it's basically
the same stuff. Yeah, he's being attacked within for Ron. I'm like,
it's awful that they're feeding into that. Yeah, everybody's feeding into this
attack dog stuff. But that's not the way it can be. We're gonna
have again. One of the things I promise you if I am the President
United States. There will be no executive orders. Yeah, and you can't
get tented into that. I mean, come on, I don't know.
There are situations I get. I don't think we need I think we have
to do it the old fashioned way. We have to go to Congress with
a bill and say I want you to pass this bill. We have a
question for you. And I don't know if the person wants me to identify
who it is us. Somebody in this ram says, my question is what
about our prescription drugs being made in China? Oh, this is a huge
problem. And I tell you I've been talking about this. I've been talking
about China. My movie Fixing America at Amazon is about China primarily. Yeah,
I've been saying since two thousand and five publicly this, hundreds of hours
of me saying this, we shouldn't be trading with China, but specifically too,
because, by the way, there's never been all the bill of goods
people were sold from the year two thousand on about how giving them a trade
deal would make them more of a democratic republic. Blah blah blah was always
a lie. I said it was a lie. I was right by the
way, just so you know when the next presidential candidate comes in and for
the listeners before, this is made in Virginia. This is made I'm pointing
to my tipe. Yes, this is made in New York by I bet
it for three hundred bucks. This is made in Seattle. Massocks were made
in Seattle. The shoes were made a San Antonio shoe company in San Antonio,
sas So, I think we should try to buy things made to America,
but specifically in twenty twenty. The unfortunate part of the people who represent
our country, Republican and Democrat, is that they belonged to the talking nation,
belonging to the Bill nation. They're not the kemp Roth people of years
ago. They belonged to like Tom Cotton, for example, he introduced the
bill and went on TV to promote himself about making pharmaceuticals in America or in
North America or are somewhere close by, right, Yeah, And they talked
and talked back when the virus came and they never did it. And what
they do is they think you the listener right there, forgot about it.
But he didn't or he didn't they didn't forget, they know, and so
what's happening in Mississippi. We know for a fact, my wife's nodding,
there are specific drugs that you cannot get for cancer people in Mississippi because there's
a shortage because the ingredients come out of communist China. So that would be
a bill that I would pass. And by the way, no, this
is the mistake of like bringing semiconductors back, the bill that Senator Biden put
forth, Senator President Biden put forth recently about semiconductors and Intel, the ship
bill. It's about the chip bill, the Anti inflation bill, whatever they
want to call these things anti inflation. But but but those bills happen when
they don't need to happen, when when we give subsidies to giant companies with
lots of money. Seriously, it can just be. It could just be
a simple bill that says by twenty twenty seven, sixty five percent of semiconductors
used by the federal government will be made in North America. Blah blah blah.
This is we are the richest country. They will be made here.
People will do it. They don't need subsidies when they have Navidio doesn't need
subsidies to kind of open up a plan here. Neither just micron technology,
but to drugs, we need to tell we need to pass a lore that
says X percentage of these drugs may either Again I'm not the expert in which
drugs, sure, which ingredients I'm not, but not all of them,
well all of them general law for prescription drugs, all of them would be
great. But if it was like we got ninety percent of it done,
whatever, but they were made in North America, or if not North America
in the UK, you know, in Puerto Rico, which is North America
obviously, but remember Puerto Rico had lots of these facilities. Yes, I
liked your idea that you said earlier. We were about telling them that they
can't charge more here than they're charging in other countries. And that's a different
thing for the drugs themselves, but for the ingredients that are made in China
and other places, they need to be re short now to let people know.
This is what I don't stand about politicians. The theory of globalization.
We invented after Night after the World War Two. We invented as Americans because
we didn't have any consumers outside America. And if the Europe didn't recover and
wasn't protected by the only navy that could protect the transport of these wears back
and forth. Then we wouldn't be able to build these countries and be able
to export to them. So we did fine. But even twenty years ago,
that was ending globalizations totally dead. I can tell you when I was
at Harvard Business School, for example, and I shouldn't have been admitted at
twenty two. I didn't have any work experience. Well so, but I
remember saying the people when the whole thing back then was just in time inventory.
You might have heard of this out of yeah, oh yeah. Everybody
was going to have faster inventory turns, less accounts receivable so they would have
more short term profits. I remember raising my hand in Production Operation management class.
The average ages twenty seven. I'm twenty two, and I raised my
hand and I said something like, so, Professor Bishop, what if you
really need the stuff? Like you know? And that's exactly what's been happening
with pharmaceutical That's why there are medication shortages, that's why they were out of
tailant off, that's why we ran out of children's ivory profit exactly. And
so but here to the answer to the question is just simply this. Tom
Cotton and his buddies in Washington thought you forgot about it. And Maria about
to Romo on ENDBS or whatever channel she's on, and the people that see
and Andrew Fox, they in a half hour news cycle moved to a different
topic and he didn't even pass it. They didn't even try to pass it.
They don't really care. They don't really care whether you get the drug,
and otherwise they would have passed the bills. By the way, go
look up times shortages right now. Yes, I know a friend of mine
has a child that needs a particular medication and they've had to hunt. They
found it once, only in name brand two hundred bucks. It's happening every
everywhere, everywhere, Jenny, and it's ridiculous. There is no reason for
So why not by law past you know, we can get together and do
this. A president needs to do this. This is what has to happen.
Yeah, a president needs to he needs to get around. He used
to visit Jenny one day and said, Jenny, we disagreeing, blah blah
blah, but we agree on this. Help me. And Jenny says,
okay, I'll help you on this. You know, I'll call my congressman
and we'll get that kind of bill passed and help unify the country a little
bit. I'm still waiting for Trump's I'm still waiting for Trump's respirators. We
weren't going to have that problem anymore. We were going to build our own,
our own machines, so we would never run out of events. We're
going to have our own events. That doesn't happen. I think your money
that is all back to normal. Yeah, I know. They just wait
until you don't not you personally, and wait till they think people want paying
attention. They have no intention of passing these bills. So we need a
president. And if I'm only able to change the shooting match so someone actually
does this, I haven't done my job. We've got to change the nature
of the debate. I know we talked just about healthcare, but when it
comes to social security, our young people. Anybody listening to the show who's
under forty or forty or under, just to make up a number. You
make a hundred grand, you make fifty grand, you make twelve grand.
All you know is on your pay stub that they took out six percent and
you may kind of known, you should know that an extra six percent was
taken up by the employer that would have gone to you. Right, So
you go visit, you know, a financial platter. I don't know.
You go wherever. If you're wealthy, you go to somebody. If you're
not wealthy, but that's what the financial planner looks you and say that's great,
that's great, Joe. Thanks, you're making fifty grand, you're doing
well, you're making one hundred grand, making one hundred and twenty fick whatever.
But we're not going to count social Security in your retirement. You really
won't get it. And you're like and everybody listening to the show forty and
I'm just like, okay, this should be like new riot situations. People
should be marching down the street. You make fifty grand, they took six
grand. They never you're never getting it back. Let's not forget the part
of the way that we got there is the fact that politicians dipped into money
they didn't belong in. Well, the money was never set aside, goes
back to the lockbox. Yes, not actually dedicated, never been dedicated.
Uh and and when and when we started social security? Not we but when
it started, there were fifteen workers for one retiree. So at Steve Laughy
dot com you do see Jenny's a complete two page preport. Not just my
idea, but Larry kott Lakoff, the war renown expert on social security,
who who we don't agree with that a lot. I don't agree with a
lot of things. Again, we're great friends, and I just talked to
them, but we agree, and I adopted his plan because see, I'm
not really an inventor. I'm not a guy who comes up with a lot
of like I didn't invent like aspirate or something. Right, I'm a guy
who really knows how to adopt best practices and get really good people to run
them. Unlike what's happening today right where they have been Trump's administration too,
there's not really good people running things who know what they're doing. And I
get people to do that and we get results. I don't I don't know
that this is the purple fixed thing here. I don't have personal security system.
Yes, I explain it to the layman, Okay, yeah, I
want. I wanted to ask you to because I know we talked about this
last time. But if you could refresh our memories, because what you remember
from our previous conversation, what you describe to me sounded like privatization. It
wasn't, but it wasn't, But I don't remember. I'll tell you how
you explain it. So if so, just very quickly, we have a
sixty one trillion dollar problem, nearly double the national debt, justin SO Security
alone. And that is simply the amount of money that we are going to
collect to pay people versus what we said we're going to pay them. So
it's sixty one trillion dollars in arrears. So that's a real problem. In
fact, that's our biggest problem. And so the way to solve it is
to tell everybody who's sixty two and old who's on SO Security, are about
to get it. You got whatever we said, you're gonna get woo.
Tell everybody else whatever you've got in your last Social Security letter, you're gonna
get that. Then let's move quickly to the twenty year old who's not in
any programming, just stots a job, twenty two graduates, college eighteen,
whatever. Stot's a job. That person's in another system. They never get
into the old system. They put away ten percent of their money they actually
own it, and that before the age of sixty two, they die their
ears whatever they have and they will get it. It's social security is an
extremely sexist thing. And I don't know why people don't know it. I
don't know why people don't talk about it. But for example, you have
to be married a certain amount of years. If if let's just say a
man and a woman get married, Let's say the woman makes a hundred grand
and the and the and and the man stays when they have children, but
usually it's the other way around. But the woman's not working. But they
don't be married for four years, she doesn't get any of these social security
of the man. She's been married for four years, he went out and
made a h grant. He keeps it all. Huh, that's it.
That's by the way, that's how it is. Yeah. I remember you
talking about it last time, and I was surprised. I could. There's
the way the way Larry cut look could sit here. You should have him
on, he'll call in, he'll do twenty of these things. Yeah.
But but but what still this very day, nobody knows that but me and
Larry cut look up. But it seems crazy. So so in this system,
you get married, just make it. You get married at thirty,
you're both thirty. You get married for four years, you make a hundred
he or she makes forty. You split whatever you're making. It goes into
your account. It's one hundred and forty times points whatever. And then you
get divorced. Unfortunately, I dont wan anybody get the divorce, but they
get it now. It's very easy. You kept half, if she made
more, he made more, whatever. But remember, you don't touch it.
I want to get to why, by the way, you don't touch
it. I want to get to why it's not privatized. It's extraordinarily important
because what happened in two thousand and eight was disaster for America, and that's
why people don't have money. But you go all the way to sixty two
and we stopped. You could have buy treasury adjusted for inflation, tips,
we could buy you annuities, whatever. And now you get to be seventy
and now because we invested it properly, not giving it away to somebody else.
It's in an account, it's in one giant computer. Charles Schwab,
Merrill Lynch. Never touch it. There are no brokers, there's no four
oh one K plan, there's no privatization. But it's invested in for forty
years in a worldwide basketball stocks, bonds, blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah whatever. Right trees, timber in New Zealand. The whole thing's very
easy to do. It's not hard to do these days, and now by
any means, by any forty year period. I wrote a paper about this
in nineteen eighty three of Bodeen College. I've been thinking about it for a
long time an economics class. You have a lot more money. You have
a lot more money than the two thousand dollars the check says you're going to
get when you turn sixty two. What are you doing with the fifty year
olds? The fifth's this is the question. So the fifty year old,
the forty seven, they go into two program. The fifty year old got
a letter from Social Security. When you get to be sixty two. I'm
just gonna say sixty two now, because that's the first time you can get
it right. Or full of retirement age is sixty five, and you're gonna
get eighteen hundred dollars. You're gonna get that, totally gonna get that.
But you go into the new program. Also at fifty, now you only
have twelve years in a new program. Theoretically, could you get less.
The answer is yes, theoretically you could get less. There could be one
really horrific twelve year program where everything in the world goes down. I haven't
seen that twelve years ever happened, but it could be. Yeah, you
need more time. But my program's really for the twenty year old. And
here's the thing I want to tell people. I want to be very there
is no other way. If someone has a better solution than what I have,
I'm all in. But I'm relying on the guy, the number one
guy in social security in the world. There's nobody like Larry Kotlikoff who's written
more books, more articles, got his PhD. By the ways, the
left of center guy. We are by our give it should be on.
He always tells me, Steve, if you thought about it longer, I
think you'd come up. I said, like, I thought about it,
it's so long. I know twelve. I know you're twelve years older than
me, but I can't think about it any longer. We just disagree,
but See, that's the thing about this country. We should be able to
people disagree. Yeah, you and I disagree on certain things. Right now,
it's totally fine. We can drink a malt milkshake at the end.
Who cares so. But that was the way everybody did. But we got
I know they don't do it anymore than But that's what Larry and I do.
And that's why I adopted his position. Not because it's popular among Republicans,
not because it saves everybody and everybody gets more. The whole theory where
everybody gets more is always wrong things to fix something. That's why, by
the way, nobody's gonna sit here and say I'm gonna fix Social Security without
saying something like I said, because you never fix a collburetor without giving someone
money. When you people say save Green Span in eighty three, I'm gonna
save Social Security. You people say save You forgot about that guy? Yeah,
he said he fixed it and fixed at whatever eighty three. He was
wrong. He did it anyway. I could tell you stories to story.
This is what I really actually know of the boast. So is there a
point where a forty seven year old could get theoretically less than yes, but
I'm not here for everybody. I'm here for the middle class because that's where
I come from. And I'm here for younger people because we've totally hosed them.
That's all our money for president, for every one of my programs is
about that. Whether you go to the Federal Reserve, want to look at
it, it's not here. I'm not here for rich people. The Federal
Reserve is there for rich people. The Federal Reserve knew that was going to
be inflation. They told you they didn't know. They lied. Anybody with
a brain knew that was going to be inflation. Everybody knows what causes inflation.
It's money. It's not supply side shocks. It's not a Ukraine war.
Anybody took one economic course and not everybody did. Has to know that
the economy is made up of government g I, investment, SE consumption and
exports minus inports, which I have always been dragging as down because of China.
They're dragging out GDP growth down by one to two percent per year cumulatively
for thirty years. So that's what it is. And so if indeed there's
not any more money, something gives. But if the Fed prints more money.
Nothing gives for a while, and everybody has a sugar rush. Yeah,
and now the sugar rush is over, and it's really a financial crisis.
And by the way, it's gonna get a lot worse. The banking
problem is so bad it's gonna get a lot worse. And by the way,
the situation and Jenny would like this, the situation said, well,
I can just tell the situation to fix the banks is limited purpose banking.
We have to break up the banks. Now you're sitting talking to a very
conservative guy. We're going to break up the banks. JP Morgan, the
guy runs it, became a billionaire doing nothing, nothing but getting better deals
than you could get, nothing but big lobby and course, nothing but paying
giant fines. And I'll give you another promise. If I am president,
we are never settling a white collar crime and letting them pay a fine.
If I charge you in my Justice department, charges you with misleading customers,
taking those loans and not selling him to Finland. Go look at the fines
that JP Morgan is paid since two thousand and nine. It's a third of
their pretax income for like the first seven years. Jamie Diamond should have been
charged as a CEO and Brooke to court the guy at Wells Fargo. Here's
what they really did with the banks. Banks five top five banks two thousand
and eight have thirty three percent of American assets today seventy percent. Why yes,
Graham dot Why they made the regulation so huge? Go look up the
articles. I'm sure I know about it in May and other states, but
I'm in New Hampshire today. You could probably go find all the articles where
I make up the name Manchester will and trust. A trust department part of
a local bank had to sell. They couldn't do the paperwork and stay in
bit. They sold the JP Morgan. They had to sell it. They
couldn't. They made the rules so onerous that they're putting out of out of
there, putting out of business to local banks. Yeah. What we need,
by the way, our banks to be really small, and the way
it works is going to be this. You come in. Your name is
Jimmy. You live outside in a farm outside of Banchester and and and the
best loan, by the way, is to someone you know, right,
you know, not repackaging loans and selling them to Finland. So you come
in. Your father's been a farmer you're a farmer. You come in and
they know they know you. You want to buy a one hundred acres of
land. You've got twenty thousand dollars to put down. There's a meeting.
Yeah, that guy. But here's what we tell you at the bank.
This cash mutual funds. By the way, there's eight thousand cash mutual funds.
You may invested them mutual funds, right, they could be bond mutual
funds. They could be, but they're all cash. There's no leverage the
mutual fund. Joe might own navidias different stocks. How many of those went
bankrupt in two thousand and eight? The answer zero. We gave the banks
all, well, how many hundreds of billions of dollars aig all this stuff?
Right, totally unnecessary. By the way, airlines, don't get me
start our airlines. Oh yeah, bailed out everybody but a regular American exactly.
And the first time we go after that student loans, well, we
bailed out everybody but the regular person in two thousand and eight. And for
example, airlines, wasn't that the year that they were talking about giving money
to us. But then the thing was, oh, we're afraid they'll just
put it in the bank and they won't spend I remember that. Yeah,
but there's no need to. Actually, you can't just keep sending money to
Peoplet's call it inflation. But what I'm saying is that these large oligopolies,
kleptocracies, whatever we want to phrase, they're running things. And that's why,
by the way, not to get onto the candidates, why does you
think Rod de Santis announces with the we're just in in the world. It's
got the most money and they still fund it and they still loved it to
come out perfect. But so mister anti woke was very woke because you know
his name again too, well, it's it's de Santisis. But again,
this is all like a script. The only candidate that's not on a script
is me sitting here with you saying I don't know the answer to every question.
I disagree with you on this, but here's some major things to have
to happen for America to thrive again. One would be again Jenny would like
this. I'm joking up by the way. Here, By the way,
President Biden's added attacks that people don't talk about too much. For for large
any corporations publicly traded corporations for buying back stock their own stock to enrich their
shareholders in the short term. I agreed with it. I thought it should
have been more stringent. Whoa, I'm a Republican. No Republican agrees with
me. I've been talking about this for years. Yeah, just so you
know, this is again what I really do know some things I don't know.
When you buy back stock above book value, what the stated book as
its mind slide ability, just be very simple, you're lowering the book value.
But look at American Airlines bailed out in two thousand and eight. The
CEO, new CEO comes in, they get that money, people stop flying.
Boo boo boop. He buys back all the stock to enrich himself and
the CEOs of the presidents and the high management people right with the stock options.
He leaves the stock really hasn't gon up. He's got like fifty billion
dollars. What happens in twenty twenty they don't have any money. Who bails
them out? Jenny does again. And what the people have to understand this
one thing that they'll never tell you, but it's so obvious. Jets,
American Airlines, Delta Airlines. They go broke. The planes still fly.
Yeah, they're still investigated and kept safe by the FAA. They're just the
stock holders went to zero. Nothing about the planes. Nobody takes a hammer
and start smashing the plane. There's some thought process that we have to save
the airline stock price because the planes won't fly. The planes always fly.
People like Steve Laughy, that's me, go buy them guys who went to
go buy the whole company for one eighth fine, But that's not what happens
in America. We spend all this money bailing out large ceo. So they're
very, very wealthy. By the way, do you know what the average
pay because of this for the CEOs of corporations in America is now three hundred
times the average worker in their company. It used to be thirty six.
Yeah, Now thirty six seems like a lot. Yeah, three hundred seems
like wrong. Yeah. And so these are the things that happened. The
guy makes instead of United Healthcare ad same thing. By the way, they
announced an eight billion dollar profit in the first three line. I bet you
I don't know the answer for that particular company, but I bet you that
buying backstock with it not giving it back to shareholders or lowering party a party
for their shareholders. They were very proud of how much profit they made on
the backs of dead people. Well, and there's nothing. I mean again,
I'm not against them making money, but buying backstock Joe Biden. President
Briden was totally right. My Republican Party is totally wrong, and I would
actually make it more onerous. I have an honest question for you. Yes,
what do American health insurance companies bring to the table to make health care
better? One? They do bring the ability to put all the course levels
together and see what's happening with all of their customers and sickness and health.
Right, they do bring. I mean, there are things that they bring
together by being large rather than not having it at all. Right. So,
Two, there is a profit incentive within these companies, but a lot
of them, by the way, hospitals, there's nothing. Again, I'm
talking to you. I think you'd like this, but I really have this
real problem with nonprofit fits where CEOs make more than fifty thousand dollars. Yeah,
because these nine profits I hear you. I hear you on that.
But health insurance companies, I would argue, do not do a single thing
to improve positive outcomes and healthcare. Whether they make a profit for themselves certainly
doesn't make healthcare better. And whatever pool you're talking about, I'd rather have
that in the universities where they are and where our doctors and teaching hospitals,
or reviewing charts on the front lines, where they're talking about what's going on
in our society, what we see, what we might need to invest in
to keep the public healthy. My health insurance company literally does not one single
thing to do anything to increase a positive outcome. They're not ahead of you
going, oh, we saw your cholesterol was this, So hey, come
on, we're going to come and do something with you. If they don't
do any of that, I go to the doctor, doctor bills the insurance
company, insurance company nicol and dimes. My doctor denies things, puts more
of the bill on me, and then report an eight billion dollar profit in
three months. What are they doing to help American size society be better or
very healthy? I see zero? I know you see zero. There are
things that obviously, there are a lot of good people who work at all
these different places, who are who are really trying. They really think I
think the system like you think is broken. We have different ways to start
fixing it. I would start with the prescription drugs in the patent system and
then keep moving. I think those are two things that would unify the country.
I would think a lot of care to every American, so everybody's getting
the appropriate care they need, and therefore they're less costly on our system because
they're kept better healthy and they have better access. I gotta, I got,
and I won't even I won't. I won't retort because we've already said
it. But but I think, but I think we all agree Lorian prescription
drug prices, it would be a good thing. By the way, Steve
is why, um, because something I was reading about recently. Uh the
uh so you know we use taxpayer money to fund fiser and uh sure it
was the other Uh listen a lot of tagger it might have been all I'm
not sure a taxpayer money to pay for these And now those are not going
to be distributed free anymore. Apparently, I'm not sure when that starts.
But people are gonna have actually have to start paying for those. But but
we already paid for the development of those vaccines. And I'm you know,
I'm very grateful, But I don't know that's a that's that's a very valid
it's a very valid point. I totally get that one. Now I actually
take a step farther. The vaccine was not a vaccine. And I don't
want to argue whether people should I got vaccinated if you didn't get vaccinated,
it's not even the argument. But the vaccine wasn't a vaccine. When you
get a polio vaccine, you don't get polio. This was more of a
shot. I have no idea when they told it was that the shot for
the Chinese virus was going to be a vaccine. Why the federal government hasn't
going back to I don't understand your logic and why it's not a vaccine.
Well, a vaccine to me would mean that you don't get it at all.
No, that but that's not how vaccines work at all. I thought.
I thought, that's not how vaccines work. For example, um,
you can you can be given the chicken pox vaccine and years down the road
you go to be a work in healthcare and they draw tighter on you and
it's not so great, not so great. So maybe no, No,
I mean, a vaccine can't don't don't get a vaccine like that can wear
Well, if that's why you get a shingle shot, which is a vaccine
for chicken pox as an adult age fifty, which I got. So,
but a vaccine like anyway, Well no, no, here's the thing I
want to say. This is the part that's not that is relevant. Why
wouldn't the federal government go back and say, you told us the efficiency effect
the effectiveness of this particular what's called vaccine was x and it wasn't. They
never made hard claims. We had guesses, but it's science. You have
to see how it pans out. They made high claims that people who got
this shot and got it twice would not get the Chinese virus, the covid.
They did. People did that, many, many, many people did
reduce the rick of dying from the disease. That's sort of vaccine is to
keep you from dying. No, that's like a flu shot, a flu
shot. You can get the flu shot and still end up with a low
version of the flu. And that's why we don't call it a vaccine.
It's just a flu shot. It's it's called a vaccination by your doctor.
No, no, no, a flu shot is not a vaccination. My
point is that we should go We should have went back to Defiser and said
what you told this didn't turn out to be true, So what pay us
back? Pay us some of it back. We gave you a lot of
I think that the vaccines should be free to all Americans. I didn't say.
I didn't say shouldn't be free to all Americans because we funded it.
I didn't say that at all. That's that's what I'm saying. I'm saying,
Defiser, you told those X, but you delivered. Why. That's
not that's not that's not appropriate. It's like the doctor says we can do
X and it's got a fifty percent chance of saving you, or it doesn't
work that way. It's science. You have to you have to put it
into into practice and see what it happens, and monitor outcomes and see where
we go. Nobody ever gave any guarantees that one shot and done. We
all hoped it could be. I'll hoped it could be, but it didn't
turn out that way. The science didn't. It's science. I mean,
it's right. But if you go back and look at what Fizer said at
the beginning, they said this was really going to work. And doctor Fauci
said, this is really gonna work. It's really gonna be a vaccine,
and you won't get it. Doctor Fauci said this. We all hoped it.
Well, he said it. The head of our health department said it.
He didn't hope it. We didn't say. I hope it works.
I always had hope. I never had like a you can have hope.
I unders telling you what they said. They were wrong. Oh, I
don't know. Well, here we are. On the other hand, we
lost four million instead of eight million. Could have been maybe less than that
if we didn't have a crazy I think it. I think it worked out
pretty well. Actually I did. I agree with I think it should stay
free to everybody. Yeah. I'm not trying to be paid for it,
so we should always get to have it. Yeah, I just yeah,
exactly. I mean that was my may. I don't underst that may have
been again, we could let's stop here. That's right, because we started
to trial a dual a dual m RNA vaccine that's covid and flew together.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. M r and m vaccines were
vaccines that they've been studied for way before. COVID. This disadvancements in breast
cancer that are insanely cool have been. It was being studied before COVID,
and then COVID wrapped up that science, and now they're looking at some some
serious potential benefits of retroducing some of the more serious or the more common breast
cancers. So I have a lot of hope in them. Yeah, well
good, We're good. We are see if we can. You've been very
generous with your your time. We're actually passed the top of we can we
can. Yeah, it it's after I'm gonna Yeah, you've got to go,
um anything. Uh, but can I just ask you just a quick
question. I don't I haven't heard you, and maybe we just haven't gotten
any of it. I haven't heard you really talk about social issues much at
all. Really, I mean, are you is that something? Not not
that I think you're avoiding any of that, but but you know, like
de santiss I hear you you kind of pick on him a little bit,
which is fine because I think the guy's psycho um. But but you know,
I kind of get the impression you're not you're not into that part of
it as much as you know you're looking for practical solutions to America's uh financial
issues and other things. But I mean tell me because when when I like,
when I'm on your website, it doesn't seem like you're bogged down in
the culture war stuff. I'm not. I just I'm pro life. I
was hoping that Roe Versus way would be overturned. It was leave it up
to the states and just move on. That's where it should be. Always
should have bet the States. I said after a while that people won't talk
about it as much. I you know, people go through horrific situations in
their own personal lives. But I happen to be an evangelical Christian and I'm
pro life. But that doesn't mean like Tim Scott who just announced that whatever
bill they put up my desk the most stringer, no bills coming to my
desk. It's not coming to my desk. No one's going to bring a
bill like that to my desk. It was left to the states because it
wasn't in the constitution. I talked about it. Consist. See the thing
about me, I've said these things for like twenty years straight. Like I
said the same thing about China about social issues. Whatever the real problem in
America today is not that the real problem in Americas that were out of money.
Yeah, and we're gonna and we're broke, and everybody seems to be
still running around hoping to be able to sit down before the game of music
culture starts stops. But it's stopping now. When I announced a month before
SVB Bank went broke, I said, we're having a financial crisis now twenty
five seconds into my thirty second audio. I know this stuff. It's a
Times call for a a lawyer. Get a lawyer, the Times call for
someone with six children who understands a lot of these issues. Nose is a
financial crisis, has lots of empathy for other people, doesn't want to go
into the whole Marxist thing about democrats. Needs Democrats to move toward what he's
saying, so we can fix this country some my children, your children,
your nieces can have an American dream like I did. That's why I'm here.
That's what like when you when you say that about like you know,
you don't see much value in calling Democrats Marxists and what That's that's what I
notice about you that I just think is kind of different from where a lot
of the GOP is now because you hear like again not to keep going back
to desantist, but I hear desantists. He's constantly talking about the wokeism,
and you know, and he lies, he lies about killing leftism. And
yeah, it's a lie to say the SVB bank went broke because it was
woke. It's a it went broke because it mismatch assets and liabilities on the
duration of them. This is this is like, we have to stop this.
Yeah, but they raise money. And that's why, by the way,
I mean again on national defense. Why do you think Ron de Santis
not to pick on him, why do you think him well, he's an
opponent of yours. Why do you think why why did Tucker Carlson ask him
six questions about Ukraine? Some were faults like that the year the USS the
Russia's doing better the currencies it wasn't. It was a lie from Tucker Carlson.
It wasn't doing better. But why do you think he answered as a
territorial dispute because Tucker Carlson thought it was a territorial dispute because if he agreed
with Tucker Carlson, he'll raise money. Tucker Carlson's wrong. Your train has
always been for many, many years a very important part for Europe, from
Ivan the Terrible through the Cossacks, through Catherine the Great, right, so
the so, so I know this is what I know. Yeah, and
it's it's an extraordinarily important part for America today that Russia does not advance because
once they advanced into Ukraine, they will continue to advance and there'll be much
more likely in nuclear By the way, Ukrainie people to be free. We
should help him. We're helping him, and we're not losing any soldiers,
and we're using mostly used equipment that we wouldn't use against China. I mean
not to get into the tactics of all this stuff, but yeah, but
wow, to say that's a territory dispute is Here's the thing about these people
in politics today. He knows that's wrong. Of course he still says it.
Of Course, that used to disqualify people from running. It doesn't anymore.
Once Donald Trump got away with saying whatever he wanted and became president,
everybody and that's why he becomes the mini Trump running for presidents. Republicans are
a bunch of mini Trumps and a guy named Steve. Laughy, I'm laughy.
No one's gonna agree with everything I have to do, I say,
but I'm here to change the whole shooting match of the debate if I can
do it one last time. At the age of sixty one. Well,
I still remember all the names of my high school and elementary school teachers.
Ah, you're only sixty one, hey, listen, man, we keep
electing. I mean, jeez, when we elected Trump, he was the
oldest president that we'd had, and then we elected somebody even older and Biden.
Yeah, so sixty one to me, I'm a spring chicken. You're
a young you you you young whipper snappers today you all want to be president.
I don't know. All right, Well, you're all good people.
I appreciate you having me on, and I appreciate the discussion. Yeah,
I appreciate it. But I have to say, maybe come back next time
and not be a dictator who wants to put your religion into my life,
my womb, my body. I don't not like women being a second class
citizen. Women are not second class, Oh they are, but they have
no control of their own body. This is an a state's issue. This
is an a federal issue. This is a human body. You have no
right to make any decisions about. And I totally can take your religion and
keep it in your home, out of the government. My religion is my
religion. But I am pro life, and that's how I feel, and
that's what I'll always be. I'm pro life. In fact, all Jewish
people are. We're pro the life that's here. You save the life that's
here. You do not force a ten year old child to carry around a
rapist baby. Oh I didn't. Oh no, no no, By the
way, I've always had exceptions for them. That's an exception. Okay,
So when a man forces himself, and maybe it's not exactly rape, it's
date rape. Is that a line? Is it a line when the fetus
is dead and the body's not actually letting the I know a woman to call
herself a walking coffin for two weeks because their body wouldn't allow an abortion to
happen, and the government said you can't have one. They had to take
her somewhere else in another state. If you have proper medical care. Proper
medical care is what we're talking about. It's not a little cell dividing a
greater right to life than than than a woman who's already here. I'm sorry,
Oh, I didn't say that that. See, I don't want words
to be put in my mouth. I didn't say that. I'm sorry it
makes you angry, but that my abusition that has been around for my whole
life. When I was born, I had all my rights intact. And
now as a woman, I'm horrified that people younger than me do not have
autonomy over their body. That there are these people men in particular, who's
no, no, no, there are a great many women who totally agree
with, including the ladies sitting right over there. And that's all. Well,
you can keep that in your house, but you can keep it out
of my exam room. Between me and my doctor and my family. That's
out of my care period, end of it. You may. But it's
been cited now at the Supreme Court, and it's a matter for the states
like it should have been. It's a matter for each individual human and the
government itself should never be a part of that discussion in any way, shape
or form, be it federal or state. Yeah, I disagree, you
can disagree. Well we're yeah, we're not going to come to agreement matter,
but it's five fifteen. Do you have time for a call? Yeah?
So okay, my dad's on the line called last time you were here
too, if I remember correctly, Hey Dad, Hey guys. UM,
I'm not going to go into it, but I'm a right to life guy
and I'll debate anybody anytime on that one. That's distorted thinking and distorted language
in my judgment. But that's not why I'm calling. I want to say,
what a great dialogue. And I do agree with Jenny about trying to
come to a more federalized, quality, pro equality based program now and uh
for for medical medical treatments. I've watched the insurance companies over the years.
You know, they would give me or they'll say, after I go jump
through all these hoops with them on the phone and send them paperwork in the
Alpacia departments, they would Okay, so they come back to me, thank
you, We're going to give you six sessions three sessions in. They don't
say I'm doing couples therapy or family therapy or individual three sessions in. They
don't call me, they don't send me a letter. They call my client
or clients and say, we think you only need one more session and that's
you know, I mean it's just and and that's it for them, you
know, because they can't afford anything, and we can't afford to help them
at the mental health center. So just a couple of things I wanted to
say, Steve, I think you sent me your mega hat, so I'm
wearing that, you know, I love your fourth rightness And a couple of
things. You know, Um, we are in grave financial uh jeopardy in
this country right now, and politicians on both sides of the Aisland. I'm
glad you're meant you mentioned Cotton. Cotton took across you know as a real
hero, but he doesn't do anything. You're right, he doesn't follow through
and he's all out from mister Cotton, as so many of these politicians are.
I mean, Lindsey Graham is still talking about twenty sixteen like on TV.
Like what lindsay exactly? I mean, what's exactly? Who puts them
on a show? Anyfore? What's going on that I have to run?
But I do appreciate, Oh you guys doing this. Oh can I just
say one of these things, you know, because I get go back from
some some colleagues and a family member not Matt, but another family member about
this. But I have been saying for the last two years, we need
to get free of China and its manipulation, from the fentanyl to the chips
and all of that data. We need to bring those manufacturing jobs and and
technology jobs back to America. Corporations don't like that, you know, I
don't want to hear that. If you sign my moving to show some guts
prudence in leadership, I've been saying, I'm with you on that. It's
good to hear you talking about that, and it's good that you guys had
a great dialogue today on the radio. Yeah, we're gonna have I don't
agree with everything, but I appreciate dialogue. That's important. Absolutely calm and
relaxed dialogue. I absolutely and I learned and I learned from things when I
like, especially healthcare, talking to Jenny and her personal situations. I've been
speaking about China, made a movie about China. It's on my website what
I wrote in twenty and eleven. I didn't come around like Marco Rubio last
month, like there's a warning shot across our bow. Big giant American corporations
have totally host the American Uh manufacturer and cities. I'm not nowhere, I'm
not youngst and we got to bring these manufacturer in Jack's back and guess what,
folks, they're coming back anywhere. Let's lead it. Let's lead because
every new manufacturing job is four jobs. Yeah. Absolutely, but I've got
to run to my next thing. Okay, I got let you go,
everybody, Thank you, great show today, guys, Thank you all,
Thank you. Thanks for the call. Thank you, Steve. Did you
want to plug? Where is that a public event you're doing. I'm going
to Goffstown to speak tonight to the Republican Party. Okay, I don't know
exactly where, but somewhere. Yeah, yeah, I have it somewhere,
but I gotta go there. And I got to meet some people before.
So it's been a good day. By the way, I love being on
stuff like this. I love arguing and yeah, yeah, we appreciate having
it. I learned more and that's part of the country. We can't be
a country any longer. Worst anybody that can talk to me, I only
we can't have a country where only hang around with the Republicans. Most of
my friends are like Learry call look ups at demo Crab basically right. So,
I mean I just mentioned him, but we disagree. I disagree with
my buddies. Yeah, but we're trying to make America better. But what's
happening within my party especially, I think, is they're not trying to make
America better. They're placating large donors when they say stuff so they can get
money. Yeah. Anyway, Steve laugh, So I did share you into
the into the chat room, yes, Lafferty, Lafferty laugh laugh. All
right, Steve's gotta go and we'll take a break and uh, we'll be
back. Thanks Steve. Hello, everybody, welcome back. We are well
in our number two numerow dose of Matt Connerton Unleashed and we are live from
the studios of WMNHEM in glorious downtown Manchester, New Hampshire, also on Comcast
ninety seven if you're in Manchester, and hello to all of our online listeners
across the nation and around the globe. You can go to my website Matt
Connerton dot com for all your live streaming options, social media links, contact
in folk show archives, etcetera, etcetera. Today is Tuesday May thirtieth,
two thousand, twenty three, and if you're just joining us. I do
hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. By the way, for
those watching online, let me grab this quickly here for those watching online,
and of course I'll describe it for you if you're not watching obviously, the
bulk of the audience is listening audio only. But if you are watching online,
you can see this wonderful shirt that that the big guy, the Big
Boss gave me today. Very nice. It says, uh WMNH Radio ninety
five point three FM staff black and white shirt. Very cool. It's got
an MPTS on the back and h I just really like this shirt and I
was very happy to receive this from the Big Boss, so I just wanted
to publicly thank him for that. Um and I'll probably wear it tomorrow.
Actually, yeah, it's a nice shirt, very cool. H So and
Jenny had to leave for a moment. She she'll be back. But if
you'd like to join us on the program, you can six zo three two
five six z seven. The studio line is open six zo three two five
six zero seven. You can also text me at six one seven nine one
seven four four seven six. I'm on social media at Matt Honorton. You
can email me Matt at Matt Connerton dot com, and of course you can
interact endo Pine in the Facebook live chat and we'll say a lot everybody in
there in a moment. But the best thing to do so that we can
hear and enjoy your dulcet tones is give us a call at six two five
six seven, UM, and thank you again to Steve Laughey for joining us
today on the program. If you miss it, of course it will be
in the archive. He was very generous with his time. He stayed uh
later than he really could. He's got a busy schedule, but uh uh
so we we we kept him for a bit, a bit longer than um
then maybe would be ideal because he's got other places to be, but no,
we uh we enjoyed having him on. And up Jenny has returned.
I was just showing off my new shirt for the those I love it for
those watching online on the Facebook. Yes, very glad about that. Yes,
yes, we'll say a load everybody in the Facebook live chat. Let's
see Kyle Clayton is in the chat room. Kyle, of course from the
Morning Show with Peter White. Would you gin her weekday mornings from seven to
nine am here on WMNH, with a replay from two to four pm.
Right before this show, Hello Kyle, they had a great show this morning.
I saw Kyle was on there. Yes, Yes, Melanie, La
Liberty is in the chat room. Melanie says, this is most of these
comments. Of course, they're regarding our conversation with Steve Laughey. Melanie said,
Oh wait, this guy's the Bible thumper that was on a few weeks
back. I don't know if that's I don't know if it's fair to categorize
him as that. Characterizing that way. Well, the thing is, I
when I hear like he doesn't go out of his way to talk about it,
he went out of his way to let us know that his religion belongs
in government. I don't think so. When I hear Bible thumper, I
think of somebody who really goes out of their way. I mean, it
came up, It came up because it came up. But I don't know.
I think that I think the definition has evolved over time, and I
think that you can legitimately call it a personate Bible thumper. If they want
their religion to be the law, that runs your day, understand your life.
I would not ascribe that to him, but and I do get a
kick out of it when when that somehow gets attributed back to Jewish people,
because that's not true. When what does well? When the oftentimes people will
try and like kind of almost marry Christian to Judaism, and they're not one
and the same, especially on the abortion issue. Jewish people believe in the
value you are. You are supposed to do everything you can to preserve the
life that is here, the one right in front of you, not some
cell dividing or whatever your belief system might be. They don't believe that God
sticks a magic finger onto the egg and makes it burst into life. It's
it's about perseverance of life is a big deal. It's a big thing,
and you should be preserving the life that's already here. I'm preaching to the
choir. I know you feel that way, But when somebody wants to go
to that level, wants to bring their belief system into the laws of our
nation and then make those decisions based on their religious beliefs, because that's what
it is. Under his religious belief he sees the fertilized egg as having a
greater right to life than the body it is within. Yeah, Crystal in
the chat says our friend from Illinois. Are the pharmaceuticals still working on improving
the COVID vaccine even if it's to make it like the hepatitis vaccine where you
may need a booster every ten years or so versus like a year. I
don't know. I do know though, that I'm going to have to I
think it's going to be an annual vaccine probably is what I think it's going
to happen. Fiser is trialing a dual inoculation that is influenza, the flu
and COVID. I do know. I'm gonna have to cut that part out
of the UH because we talked about it. Now. You have to cut
it out if you want to put it on YouTube of the YouTube version,
because then they'll take you down. They're talking about the truth. There will
be a separate No, I'm talking about Well in this case, No,
I'm talking about the conversation we were having with Steve where that came up that
section for the YouTube version, I'll have to take that out because what he
was saying does not comport with science. What well and YouTube's UH yeah,
guidelines on that got you um some of Melanie's comments. Melody makes comments in
the chat room to make it very hard to talk on the microphone sometimes.
Isaac Banks joins us in the Facebook live chat Isaac of course from Greensboro,
North Carolina. Isaac says, Hello, Amazon dot com. Why why is
Isaac Banks plugging Amazon in our chat room? Hey, they're not paying for
advertising in bucca. Yeah, my friend Karen Edmonds from Greensboro, North Carolina
and now she lives in Winston's Salem, North Carolina, and she wants that
package is earplugs, notebook pads, DVD of heehaw in Boy George and culture
club book as well for hashtag Karen Edmonds April Edmonds, please talk to your
sister. And she was telling me she wants the package, and she called
me on the phone yesterday. This drama in the chat raw and then there's
a link to Amazon dot com in there, so I get so Isaac Banks
is trying to communicate this message to Amazon that this Karen Edmonds wants her package
apparently and is using an our chat room. Our live chat room is a
conduit for that communication. That is fascinating all righty, then could somebody bring
me a chocolate shake? And I can I throw that out there like a
chocolate chay Melanie says, Hey, Matt asked him about evolution. Oh no,
uh, well not not Uh he doesn't necessarily unt evangelical, dude,
he believes it to the letter. Even Pat Robertson, uh does not believe
in is not a creationist. Did you know that? Yeah, we've talked
about that on the show before. Even Pat Robertson, he says that Young
Earth creationist, Sir naive, hm, um, you'd be surprised you.
Oh, I shouldn't judge. We don't know. We would have to ask.
No. I know I've known many Christians who believe in evolution um or
or or some will. You see her a lot about intelligent design, which
was sort of compromises. That was the compromise. That was the compromise.
Kyle. No, when I say I think he believes everything, I think
he believes in like you know nowhere in the Ark and that's how unicorns died.
Not necessari I mean a lot of Christians will tell you, don't don't
take don't the Old Testament literally. Actually, I think that's what I was
told at because you know, my dad sent that's different, that sent me
to Catholic school grade two to grade eight. I think we were I think
we were kind of I don't know if we were told overtly, but I
think kind of implicitly it was communicated to our These are these are stories in
the Old Testament. These aren't necessarily literal things that occurred. I from what
I recall, the fire and Brimstone preachers like to go right at the word
well, yeah, I mean yeah, you've got uh yeah. Some some
people who just take you want to have your religion. You have your religion,
have whatever religion you'd like. All the blessings to you. I'm happy
for you. Do not put it in the law that we have to live
under. Do you not try and force your religion on everybody else? Can
we learn anything from what goes on overseas? Can we talk about Afghanistan for
a second? Archer Flight joins us in the Chatman says, hello, they're
hashtag Matt and hashtag Jen. What did we miss that we perform? Oh?
We perform on June twenty fifth, twenty twenty three, at Center City
Park at downtown Greensboro, North Carolina is karaoke at four pm to seven pm.
We will sing and dance true hashtag Matt and hashtag Jen. We say
we had a good Memorial Day yesterday, all right. And Ronda Favero,
our friend from California also in the Facebook live chat, and Melanie says,
I gotta go Hill Satan. Oh my goodness, Wow, she's switching.
Look what's going on there in Vermont? Made a switch religions over good quickly.
Well, if you'd like to get in with a call six zo three
two five six z seven six zo three two five six seven, the studio
line is open. And um. By the way, I don't think you've
been on the show since you you went on your trip. I haven't been
on the show since I came back from DC. I don't think you have.
Really no. Wow, that's crazy. And I'm going back to DC
at the end of this month. Yes, I'm going to be speaking at
the annual Convention of People's Action. They're expecting somewhere around I don't know.
I think it was like eight hundred to one thousand or so folks. So
I'm looking forward to that. We'll be talking more about healthcare and a number
of other things, yes, but I had the pleasure of traveling to DC,
and I will tell you that it was far more than I anticipated.
When I was asked to speak at this town hall, I kind of envisioned,
you know, like a corporate room at like the Hyatt, you know
they rent out a room and everybody does that. I had amazing people taking
care of me. Let me tell you, I did not have to worry
about anything. And when they came to get me, and I don't know
if I'm supposed to say the person's name out loud or not, but they're
an amazing individual and I had a blast hanging around with them for a couple
of days. It was just awesome. They came and got me to take
me to go speak at the town hall, and it's like she's pointing over
to and telling me pointing to where I need to walk because she's gonna go
park the car so she's gonna put me out closer to the building. And
look, it's literally the capital, like literally the Capital. And we're pulling
up and I'm looking at her going I'm speaking in there, like I really
it was kind of it was overwhelming in that and I really got nauseous.
In that moment, I got nervous, but it went amazingly well. I
will say shout out to our great state. When Senator when Senator Sanders was
introducing me, he said gen coffee from Manchester, New Hampshire, and you
could hear a very distinct whoop from Manchester, New Hampshire. We actually um
had a New Hampshire right in the audience, which was really cool. I
didn't expect that it went really well. There were a lot of there were
doctors on the there. The panel was made up of doctors. Myself is
the patient, Senator Sanders and Representative Jaia Paul and we're all basically talking about
the same thing about healthcare and why I think this here's the thing. I
mean, all these years we hear about people trying to fix the ACA,
and we got to wrangle in the pharmaceutical and we got to wrangle in this
insurance company, that insurance company. We'd been doing this for decades and it
doesn't work. It doesn't make the system any better. More people every day
are going without care. What we're doing, throwing good money after bad is
not going to fix our healthcare problem. Our healthcare problem could be fixed by
using the system we already have in place, Medicare, which people who have
Medicare are usually happy with Medicare because like I wish I had Medicare, I
have an advantage. I don't get access to the care I could have under
medicare. But if Medicare was the agency that paid, and healthcare was open,
that everybody got the care that they needed, that nobody's kid was going
without their inhalers, that nobody's kid is going out without chemo, then everybody
would be entitled to healthcare. The amount of it costs to run healthcare in
this country would dramatically decrease if we get through rid of all of this billing
and coding, and if medicare. You know, your doctor submits to Medicare
and they go, oops, you missed a code, and they fix it
between each other instead of denied, and we got to send letters, and
we got to have another appeal, and your five appeals in and they're still
not approving it. Meanwhile, your cancer is spreading you or your kid is
suffering whatever, all because of this bureaucracy that costs an enormous amount of money
and does zero zero to improve healthcare outcomes. The goal of healthcare is to
improve have more positive outcomes, have people live better quality lives, longer lives,
and be able to enjoy their family, enjoy their life. That's what
we would all want, and it shouldn't be if you got enough money to
buy it, because we all pay for it. You want to talk about
everybody paying for it. You brought it up earlier with paying for the development
of the COVID vaccinations. Well, where do you think all the money comes
from that gets granted out or goes into this where people will say, I
don't want to pay for other people's healthcare. What do you think your premiums
going? Your paying for other people's healthcare. But right now you're paying for
other people's healthcare and you're lining pockets of rich CEOs and stockholders. Yeah,
that's how insurance works anyway. That's what people don't seem to realize. As
any any kind of insurance, be it health insurance or any kind of insurance,
you're all paying for you know, you value it, You're paying for
everybody. People think I'm paying for my private insurance, so I'm paying for
me, And that's not true. And it's like you said, very good
example is everybody's insurance. It's like that, you have homeowners insurance. Some
of you out there right, you have homeowners insurance. You all pay your
premiums. Joe down the street has a house fire and collects on that.
That's your money. That's that's that's being paid out to him. They count
on having a larger pool of good to pay for the bad. So health
insurance companies want larger pools of healthy people to pay for the bad. Which
is why it's associated with our workplaces. It's attached to our workplaces, which
it's not like that another kind countries. Here in America, healthcare is attached
to your job. So as long as you're healthy and you got that job
and you're paying those premiums, you're paying for the sicker people. But the
minute that you become the sicker people, what little you have left gets drained
out. And then when you eventually lose your job altogether, you're not a
burden too men anymore because you weren't worth it anymore. When you were healthy,
it was great having you on the payroll. But now you're sick,
Oh, we don't want you. You're gonna cost too much money. It's
great that you lost your job, because now you lose your healthcare, you're
one cancer diagnosis away from being somebody who has no home, no property,
no nothing, you know, because that's not the way insurance works, especially
here. It's sick that we'd attach it to our employment. It really is.
Yeah. I don't I don't think, you know. I mean,
as far as what our guests today, Steve Laughy had to say about it,
I mean, you know, I think we can all agree on what
he was saying about prescription drugs, but I don't get the feeling that he's
really examined the issue much deeper than that. But it's one thing to talk
about the patterns, but there's so much more that goes into what these pharmaceutical
prices are. Yeah, sorry if I said that wrong. Oh I don't
sound Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, even my dad,
who's a conservative, you know, he supports a single payer healthcare at this
point, and these patients are getting ration too care as is now right,
and I don't want to ration healthcare in the United States. I want everybody
to have healthcare. Yeah. That's why I'm done with trying to fix the
system that's so broken. You can't fix it. We had a national healthcare
and everybody got healthcare, lives would be so much more improved, and the
cost of healthcare would Imagine picking your healthcare provider based on the quality of their
care instead of the cheaper price. You know that that that elevates our health
career in this nation. I'll say when I went to the town hall,
I was impressed by the fullness. The room was full, and I have
hope because people like your dad and me and other people out there have changed
their opinions on how to deal with American healthcare and what we need to do
if we're going to have a healthier nation. I think he was on an
interesting one thing he said that was interesting, but we didn't get a chance
to really explore it further. Was you know, he was talking about encouraging
more positive outcomes, and I kind of felt like he was sort of tilting
toward a little bit something that I've I've I've read about over the years.
A critique, one of the many critiques of the American healthcare system is that
there's not enough emphasis put on preventative or preventative care in terms of really encouraging
people to be healthier and make better choices. But I also understand too that
it's it's part of it's a it's an unfortunate part of human nature. Where
I've always said, you know, the absolute single easiest thing in the world
to take for granted is your health and right up until something goes wrong,
and um, and even and for some people even after even after something does
go wrong, UM for example. So I'm not I'm not sure if the
healthcare system can solve this, because it might be just a matter of human
nature. But for example, I can think of two people right off the
top of my head, both of whom people you know, I'm not going
to say who they are, obviously UM, and both of them people some
of the listeners would know. UM. Definitely. I can think of two
people I know who have had heart attacks who continue to smoke cigarettes, one
of them who has had multiple heart attacks and continues to smoke cigarettes. And
it's UM. So it's very difficult to get to get people to UM.
You know, we have and you know you can see, you know,
we have rising levels of obesity and diabetes in this country. Yeah, for
all in this nation's cigarette smoking has gone down dramatical or whatever where it used
to be, it has. But that being said, what concerns me is
that if we're going to get into that, what is the what is the
what is the consequence? I mean, if you're not being healthy about your
lifestyle, what's the consequence? Do we cut you off from healthcare? Well?
No, of course not. And that's that's that's what makes you get
into That's why it's that's a difficult problem to solve because I think some of
that is just there's just an element of human nature. I'll tell you why
people take health for granted and then they and then they're stubborn about making changes.
If we get rid of the insurance companies and allow doctors to see the
patients as they should instead of being lifted limited to fifteen minutes, maybe they
have twenty thirty minutes with the patient that they actually now have the time to
address and talk to them about lifestyle changes they can make to live a healthier
life or things that they could do. Doctors are limited to fifteen minutes in
the room with you if they're lucky, and all the hours of charting that
they don't even get to go there with their patients. They're basically rushing.
Let me listen you heart, Let Melsten to you along. Let me check
your labs. You know, they don't get the time to spend to do
the quality care with the patient that they could do if we got rid of
insurance companies. Yeah, I don't. I just think if we got rid
of insurance companies it would be a huge benefit to everybody. No, I
think so too, except for the people that are maligning their pockets. Yeah,
six three two five six seven is the number? Two call six zo
three two five six seven. We have a little bit of time left on
today's show. We should take a moment to talk about It's very frustrating subject.
But we're not out of the woods yet on the debt limit because now
so over the weekend, it was a big step, a positive step.
Of course, a deal was reached. By the way. We didn't get
a chance to get into that with Steve, but I almost got the impression
he was like pro default, so it sounded like that's where he was going.
I think my head would have exploded if we'd gone there. On top
of everything. Yeah, yeah, I'm almost glad we didn't because even even
though I disagree, even though I probably disagree with him on most things.
I do enjoy having him on. But um, but I credit him for
being able to have the conversations and talk about parts. I like being able
to talk from different perspectives. Yeah. Yeah, he didn't shy away from
it. No, he's very open to dialogue. Um. He was actually
suggesting, but I don't think he'll this was off here, but I don't
think he'll mind if I repeated on here. On his way out, he
was suggesting, Uh, you know, he wants to come on again.
He likes being on the show. Um, he was suggesting that we have
Uh my dad wants me to get to uh and we probably could get him
revec I'm sorry, not revec vec Rami Swami. I think I'm saying his
last name correctly. And uh, Steve wants to debate, debate uh vec
Ramiswamy on the show over a particular topic or just in general. I'm not
sure we'd have to. We'd have to see, but it would be interesting,
it might be, it might be feasible. Um. But uh yeah.
So over the over the weekend, we we did clear one hurdle with
the debt limit where a deal was reached. But now we have this problem
of well of and predictable. Although we'll see. I'm I'm cautiously optimistic this
is going to work out. But the problem we have now is, UM,
you've got House Republicans who don't like the deal, and you've got a
Senate Democrats who don't like the deal. And UM, I guess my message
would be to both the uh you know, the the House Freedom Caucus Republicans
uh in Congress and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party in the Senate.
Uh, y'all need to uh suck it up and vote for this. Perfect
is the enemy of good. Yeah. Uh, I understand both sides have
things in there they don't like. Of course you do, UM too bad.
Uh. The alternative is to push the self destruct button on the global
economy. I'd rather not, I understand. Uh. You know, if
you're a progressive Democrat in the Senate, maybe you don't like some of the
work requirements. Uh. If your House Freedom Caucus member and the House,
uh, you're frustrated that you didn't get the original bill that you passed,
which, as I referred to it last week, would be austerity on steroids.
Uh, I get it. You know it's not it's not all that
you wanted. But again, the alternative is because we're out of time.
Okay, I don't know, you know, if if you're going to try
to hold this up, and and I understand there there are House Freedom Caucus
members who would be perfectly fine with pushing that self destruct button, who are
actually pro default and uh, and I think there I don't think there's progressive
Democrats in the Senate who want to do who would be fine with that,
but they are going to be contributing to that happening if they don't get on
board and vote for this. So uh, you know, uh, Jennet
Yellen says June fifth, and that could move again, and you know,
and some people might say, well, you know, it moved before,
it could move again. It could move again, as you know, as
more numbers coming. No, no, no, Well the thing is,
that's well the problem, here's the problem. Yeah, it could move again
and we have more time. It could also move again and we have less
time because very often when these projections are made, it turns you know,
it turns out, oh guess what, uh, tax revenue coming in lower
than we thought. Looks like we actually have less time. So that could
happen too. So we're out of time, guys. So whether you're whether
you've got Senator Mike Lee and the Senate who's saying, and he's a Republican,
he's gonna intentionally he's talking about intentionally slowing it down. Of course Vos
won't happen. Of course it should. I know, like he's gonna try
and put it. Yeah, good, Yeah we don't. We don't have
time for this guy. Time to your games. Yeah, it's not a
game you're likely going to change, but a whole lot of the people's will.
Yeah, so y'all need to just vote for it. Walking around in
the suit worth as much as somebody else's rent. Sorry, it's true,
it's true. So uh so that's the that's where we are with that.
So uh we could yet kareem into economic oblivion. I'm cautiously optimistic, but
I'll tell you what, there's already, and sure enough there's you know,
it's it's rare actually that I have a moment of sympathy for House Speaker Kevin
McCarthy, because I really don't have much respect for the guy at all.
But there are already House Freedom Caucus members calling for his Ouster, and in
this particular circumstance, I think that's a shame. Well, you know,
he wouldn't be in a horrible situation if he hadn't given away everything. He
gave up so much that there are three people that are on the Rules Committee
that are going to vote against him, and they were put on the Rules
committee in order to win their votes for the speakership. It looks like Tom
Massey is going to yeah, is going to go ahead and vote to get
this to the House floor. So I think they'll have to get it out
of the committee and that's supposed to happen tonight. I'm cautiously optimistic but now,
but we're not out of the woods yet with this. But yeah,
these um, all the people who are complaining that's that that ship is sailed?
What do I mean, what do they want? Do they think that
there's time to go back and renegotiate this? Come on, there isn't.
But there's a lot of people that aren't going to have money, like military
people and yeah, elnerly people are just gonna have no money for rent or
food or medications. These these these jerks walking around up there, they're not
gonna know nothing they got Cadillac Health Insurance. They're certainly not hurting for meals.
They get a heck of a cafeteria in this capital. Let me tell
you, let me say they even have a subway down there. They got
everything they need. Come right to their beck and call. They ain't hurting
for nothing. They don't know anything about the pain that they're talking about in
inducing to the average American that's gonna end up hurting because of this. All
right, well, we gotta we gotta wrap up. Jenny, Thank you,
Hi, thank you. Sorry if I got a little excited, No,
no, it's all good. It's a good passionate discussion, good discussion.
Thank you again, Steve Laughy for joining us today and his wife Kelly,
who is here as well. And um tomorrow on the show, we've
got stand up audio. Ah. Yes, they're gonna be coming in talking
Joe Perow. They have a show coming up at the Rex on June third.
This weekend they're going to be talking about. And then on Thursday,
you've got Kevin Hammerck going to be skyping in. Yeah, and then Friday
is going to be your big day. So you get a good week of
show, a little short week. Well, what's Friday? You said,
Friday is going to be a big day. Fridays you're a big day.
Oh oh you mean that's my long day here at the station. Yes,
yes, here, long day right right, Friday. Of course I do
this show and I get to hang out with Polyc and Mike from Queen City
Cabinetry and of course DJ Sevon Retrospectrum Radio with poly C. So yeah,
Fridays are a lot of fun here. You're pretty chuck full of guests for
the month of June there, yes, yes, well done, well done,
thank you. All right, we do have to go. I'm gonna
play a little stand up audio to play us out, and if you miss
any part of today's show it we'll be up in just a little bit at
WMH radio dot org and on my website Matt Connerton dot com. And that
is it for us for now. We gotta go. Palka y'all a little
bit later. Bye everybody, Bye bye.