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Speaker 2: Good afternoon, beautiful day, beautiful. I mean, you couldn't ask
for probably a better day to end the year on.
I mean, this is absolutely beautiful right now. If you're
paying attention to weather prognostications at all, you would kind
of be aware that there's something brewing out there that
all models are kind of When I say models, I
mean all of the European and the American and a
couple other folks that are out there are showing that
it's going to be. It could be has the potential
likely to be a very cold January, like since nineteen
eighty five kind of cold. It's gonna blast down, and
even that the coast and down in Florida could be cold,
could be icy, weather could be snowy weather. Now I'm
trying to get my good friend Joe BOSTARTI to come
on the air today. I don't don't know if he'll
be able to. I send him a couple of articles
we were communicating back and forth this morning. I'm going
to convey to you one of those articles, Michael Man.
And by the way, if you want to get in
on the conversation, you're welcome to do so. Seven oh
four five, seven oh eleven ten here at news Talk
eleven ten, nine nine three chat Adam sitting in for
Pete Callander and I hope Pete's enjoy I hope he's
having a blast. He works tediously throughout the year and
and just a great asset for WBT. Now when when
Michael so, Michael Mann is known for the hockey stick
graph and and he's he's he's one of the chief bishops,
or I guess he would call him a cardinal. If
you're looking at the climate change cult as kind of
a an organized religion, which it really is, it's very atheist.
It's very much you know, claims to be driven by something.
They have their version of the truth. It's the only truth.
No other version of the truth is really allowed in
their church. So I think Michael Mann would be a
cardinal at the cardinal level. He's not quite the pope
of the movement. I don't know if al Gore or
Michael Mann someone Greta Thunberg certainly is would be leading
up a sisterhood. If you were to make analogies to
the Catholic Church, you know, Greta Thunberg would be holding
up an order of nuns. But that kind of a
monkish group. And then you've got you know, the cardinals
and bishops and the priests and all that stuff on down.
It's a very interesting structure to this, and I guess
the scientists would be the monastic ones in a way,
or people that claim to be scientists. Michael Mann has
a peace out there and I'm trying to get job,
but started to call in he is an actual scientist,
along with Richard Ledson formerly Pat Michael's mister Spencer Roy
Spencer Down University of Alabama. There's a lot of these
people that have tried to push back to say it's
not that you need to say climate change doesn't exist.
What the argument should be is it's not the end
of animals or humanity, and that there's never been a
geologic period of time that's just stable. There's not a
global thermostat here. There never has been. I mean, there's
been times that's been far warmer than this. There's times
have been a lot more co two in the atmosphere
than this. There's been times there's been less than this.
We've had ice ages. We're not even really sure what
causes ice ages. By the way, that would be alarming
to me because imagine if whatever whatever switch that is occurs.
I don't know what it is, scientists aren't sure what
it is, but if it happened, because when it does happen,
it's bad. It's bad for all involved. It's bad for
the it's bad for animals, it's bad for the planet's
bad for the oceans. But we have several periods of
time that we've had these ice ages, many ice ages.
And again, but I digress. Michael Man and Peter Hotez,
these are two folks that have they I love the
titles to a lot of articles in the political realm
because you can tell what they are and by just
reading the titles, and I do expect and Joe Bisarreadi
confirmed that when I send him this note that this
year you will see more hyper breathing labored thought. On
the climate front. The crazies will come out in full force,
even if it's a colder year, and a lot of
people are saying we're likely to have a colder year,
because twenty five or twenty four is a warmer year.
But if it's linear, it's linear, and it there's no
telling what's going to happen, and I'm not predicting it.
I'm certainly not on the front lines of that, but
I do appreciate looking back at what they've said and
then seeing how they've never been right. And that's one
of the problems with the sky's falling mentality, is that
when you overplay that hand enough times, you lose the
narrative and rather than laying people so right now, there's
a lot of science science people that want to claim
they adhere to science, that say, hey, ched, if you
disagree with us, we think we should have the right
to put you in jail. That's not a conspiracy. That's
been said by many of the folks. In the European
side of things. There are folks that have suggested such
things to the un that the time for disagreement is over,
the time to act as now the planet is in
periled and anyone who disagrees with us needs to go
to jail. And in fact, at the end of Michael
Mann's piece that I'm getting ready to read, he talks
about that, he talks about that we can no longer
tolerate people who disagree with us. For the most part,
you know, we're researchers and academicians, that's what we are.
This is far more than an arcane discussion for our
faculty and students. Anti science. Remember, anti science is anyone
who disagrees with Anthony Fauci. Anti science is anyone that
disagrees with Michael Mann. Anti science is anyone who disagrees
with a given narrative that is peddled by this group.
If you disagree with them, then you'll or the anti science.
It's kind of like the Witchcraft persecutions. You know, the
town elders come, I say you're a witch, but I'm
not a witch. But yeah, we say you are. And
if you disagree with us, you're a witch. And that's
the kind of mentality we find with this intolerant group
of scientists that don't want to discuss things. And so
what he writes is anti science is now a lethal
force that threatens human civilization. We can no longer fight
climate change in pandemics unless we can find a means
to diffuse the anti science bomb that threatens our future.
So they've equated. Michael Man has done this for years.
He just gets bolder every year. Is he's now saying
you if you disagree with them, you're basically a terrorist.
You are akin to someone carrying around a bomb, and
you threaten the planet. And they never look in. He says,
you know, so far we're losing this battle while time remains.
The window of opportunities beginning to close. Now. They said
it was beginning to close in the eighties, they said
it was closing in the nineties, that it would absolutely
be closed by the two thousands. But then we only
had five years left, and then we had another five,
and then we had ten, but we lost that. So
now it's gone. It's over. It's been over five or
six times. In the seventies with the population bomb, Paul
Earlik earth Day. Earth Day was created because the end
was near. Now they never take stock of great victories
They never are pleased that we're not further on. They
never say, you know what, we're doing, this is wonderful.
It's not as bad as we thought it was. If
I was trying to sell you on something and I
had told you information that was wrong for forty or
fifty years, one of the things that I think would
help shore up my your belief in me would be
for me to come to you and say, you know what,
this is fantastic news that it hasn't gone as far.
There's still things to be concerned about, but it hasn't
happened as fast, it hasn't been as bad. And there's
actually some success stories out there. You know, when you
find a species that's doing well, recovering, expanding, those are
success stories. Be proud of those. We've paid attention to
a lot more species that we've been worried about and
it's working. Take stock in that. Be pleased with that,
move forward with that. But they don't. It's that you
anti science people. Y'all are criminals. Y'all are carrying around
bombs that are against society. And I'll read through his
column because he dropped a column today here. It is
the last day of the year. Yes. In fact, he
claimed they're publishing it as January February. But in it,
what they're saying is it's not just a threat, we
now have triple threat. There's a triple threat to humanity.
And I'm going to go through why that is absurd
in just a second.
Speaker 1: So when I was a kid, my grandpa died with Alzheimer's,
and before he died, my mom and my dad and
all of us really helped take care of him as
he got progressively worse. Forty years ago, there were no
treatments and not much support for caregivers and family. Things
are different today because of the work of so many people,
including the Alzheimer's Association of Western North Carolina. It's a
great organization with awesome people. They've got huge hearts. I've
been a supporter for like twenty five years. This cause
means a lot to me. I participate in the annual
Walk to End Alzheimer's and I am leading a Charlotte
team this year. It's called Pete's Pack. You can sign
up and join the team and walk with me. It's
on October nineteenth at Truest Field in Uptown. Sign up
at alz dot org. Slash Walk and then just look
for my team Pete's pack and there's also a link
in the podcast description here. Also, I'm going to be
mceing the Gastonia Walk on October fifth, So make a
team and join us or make a donation to help
me hit my goal. I would really appreciate it. There
are a bunch of other walks around the Carolinas and
you can go to alz dot org for all of
the dates and locations. We are closer than ever to
stopping Alzheimer's and if you can help us get there,
we would really appreciate it. Will you come walk with me?
For a different future, for families, for more time for treatments.
This is why I walk.
Speaker 2: Good afternoon, Appreciate the staff, you guys, everybody. I've had
a great year and looking forward to another one. And
until they plant me in the ground, I hope it
continues to be that way. Now, my friend jobs already
DI confirm he'll be joining us later in the broadcast
because he had seen he had seen the same article,
well because I sent him to him and he made
a comment about it, and so I said, hey, you
need to be on the show. He's like Okay, be
glad to do so. So not only will he talk
about probably not as much about that, but he's been
tracking these storm systems. He's the co founder of WeatherBell Analytics.
He does it for company. This is kind of interesting
because it's one thing to be out there and give
the local forecast, so you do it for your local
station and everything. It's another when the entirety of your
corporate survival depends on the accuracy of your long range forecast.
And Joe's been doing this. He's a great weather historian.
He's someone who is looked. What he does is he
goes back in history and looks at similar systems and
how things were lined up and how they will act.
What will this polar vortex be like, how does a
hurricane act, where does it move? How is it similar
to other hurricanes in similar climates at similar times. And
he's just an interesting, a very different kind of fellow.
We look forward to having it on the show now.
The article I was referring to is called a Triple
Threat to Humanity, climate change, pandemics, and anti science by
Michael Mann and Peter Hotez, and he writes over the
past decade and I've got multiple comments on this, but
I want to try to convey what they're trying to
convey to you. Over the past decade, many of us
in the scientific community have come to appreciate the existential
threat big words existential threat we face today, a threat
unlike any we'veked witnessed since the days of the US
and Soviet Cold War at the latter part of the
twentieth century. While even today the specter of nuclear annihilation remains,
especially given the escalation with Ukraine, Russia and Israel Iran,
we now face entirely new twenty first century forces that
place the future of humankind in even worse peril. Our
newest and gravest channel may not feel as acute as
the nineteen eighties Cold War threat of mutual assured destruction.
There are no missiles with nuclear warheads criss crossing the oceans,
but it's every bit is real. The next gen Mad
consists of three synergistic components. The first is the unprecedented
warming of our planet. By the way, his hockey stick
graph is if you look at it over history, is
just wrong. He's using the same graph, by the way,
if they generated twenty years ago. It's called the hockey stick,
and it makes it look like the end is near.
It's not. But he says the unprecedented warming of our
planet that one of us, Michael Mann highlighted more than
two decades ago while still a postdoctoral researcher for the
hockey Stick curve, the warming of the planet its impacts,
which include coastal inundation from melting ice and intensified more
deadly hurricanes. They haven't been more deadly. The droughts are
not worse. The heat, heat, wildfires, waves, everything, whatever it is,
it's always bad, is taking a toll on our civilization.
By any measure, be it loss of life, which could
be measured in millions of lives per year, or economic
costs which could be measured in trillions, look no further
than deadly temperatures that exceed one hundred and twenty two degrees.
This past summer, more than two thousand Americans died from
extreme heat, a tragic new record, by the way, more
humans than ever have in the country, and by the
way that takes into account the people who crossed the
border who died of exposure. So as much as Michael
Mann would love to say that's a climate death it's
a death of political consequence. It's a death caused by
bad policies that led to women, children, and men dying
in deserts in the desert southwest. So a lot of
those deaths were on their hands. It wasn't the climate,
it was bad policy. But anyway, this is the kind
of stuff they do. We need to stop using fossil
fuels for energy and transportation. The hockey stick description also
applies to the new pattern of cadence of pandemic threats.
Our second component. One of the most common ask questions is, hey, doc,
what the X going on? Why are we seeing three
major coronavirus global epidemics SARS, MERZ and COVID nineteen or
a bow in West Africa. By the way, the ebola
is not an epidemic that tends to be isolated, as
it burns through populations. But it doesn't stop these guys
from saying it was these viruses all originate from bats. Actually,
we don't know where COVID nineteen came from. They're saying bats,
and we're not sure what the origins of ebola are.
This is what's weird. You can read any book from
the Hot Zone by Richard Preston, We've been looking for
the origin of Ebola, but we're not sure. Even Marburg,
we know that the viral hamorrhagic fevers in the desert
southwester are caused by the hantavirus, which is caused by
rat pieces, but he doesn't mention that his post. Part
of this accelerating canes and pandemics may be shifts in
bat habitats that bring them closer to humans, in concert
with expanding human populations in formally forested areas due to urbanization. Again,
these are similar. Expansions in urbanizations together with climate chains,
also explain why we're seeing more mosquito transmitted virus infections
such as denge. Actually, it's because we have a lot
of stagnant water in and little puddles or on our
houses that mosquitos grow in because they tend to stick
close to where they're born. This is just unbelieved. This
brings us to the third and perhaps most insidious component
of all, a well organized finance, politically motivated, and steadily
globalizing campaign of disinformation and attacks against mainstream science that
makes it extremely difficult to mount an effective global response
to climate threats. We witnessed an early instance, decades ago,
as Michael Man described in his book The hockey Stick
and Climate Wards with he and his colleagues came under
attack by forces linked to oil and gas. By the way,
the oil and gas industries, as much as michael Man
can say they attacked him, are also the ones on
the forefront of raking in subsidies from solar panels and windmills.
These people, it's so you know, you read their stuff
and it just gets more, it gets a stranger. Increasingly
we recognize how the forces behind the attacks on climate
science and biomedicine around vaccines and pandemics have begun to converge.
Why have they begun to converge begun to converge because
a lot of the COVID nineteen vaccine stuff did not
work out well. It did not the unfortunate realities. Vaccines
are amazing. They've been around for since the seventeen hundreds.
People have learned how to use them, and we had
some phenomenal ones. We still have some phenomenal ones. But
the ones for COVID nineteen were not that effective and
did have tons of side effects that we're just now
learning about more that undermined, if anything, undermined the vaccine science.
It was the people peddling the COVID vaccine that's what
undermined all of the other science on vaccines. But these
people never look in the mirror and accept responsibility for
what they did. Michael Mann has pedaled the end is
near for forty years. For forty years he said the
end is near. It's not near. Tragically, this even includes
personal attacks on members of Congress and presidential candidates, attacks
from billionaires and conservatives like Fox News and the Wall
Street Journal. Now it's interesting again, never looking in the mirror.
In all, we have identified five major forces that have
advanced to tax on science and scientists and promoted anti
science dist information. We call them the five p's, the plutocrats,
the petro states, billionaires and state actors, the pros, the
hired guns. They call them, the propagandist, industry, shills and
opportunities posing as experts, and as we've already explained above,
the media. Together they can pose a coordinated, powerful and
formable anti science leviathan that threatens our future. Although we
are for now, and remember when you read these things,
what I would ask that you do is always, always, always,
they always pose or pose it that they are the
angelic forces of our savior. They will bring about saving
the planet if only we listen to them. They are
the ones. So you could tell you could take these
five ps and you could be a conservative that wants
scientific discussion about climate and you would like to have
more truth, and you could say these same people are
in opposition to that. I would say Michael Mann is
in opposition because he's already said it's an existential threat
and the world is over, we need to have a
discussion about it. You can't tell him that he doesn't
want to have a discussion about it. He wants you
to be in jail and shut up because he's right,
you're wrong. And if I were to say from our side,
the same five piece the plutocrats, and I wouldn't call
him Petro states, I would call him, I guess the
windmill evangelist or solar evangelist, renewable evangelists. So you'd have
the plutocrats and renewable evangelist, which are billionaires and state
actors who fund stopping debates. You would have the pros,
which are the hired guns that are out there to
stop debates. You would have the propagandist who are in
the media, and people like Michael Mann an opportunities posing
as experts because many of these people that are scient
claimed to be scientists aren't. And as we've already explained,
the media, and I would say that most of the
media CVS, NBC understand they are regularly say everything that.
Speaker 1: Happens is to cost while transcending gene reporting.
Speaker 2: Turns radios and will disagree with your images although they're
most you're an atheist native videos.
Speaker 1: This as it started at Christian ninety seven and mid Hill,
North Carolina. It was the first sign to provide this
valuable servic didn't image if you disordered science, high quality
produce likes to be mediats and albums.
Speaker 2: It means to stand hurricanes are not power. You can't
use that is in a time perfect. If activity has increased,
then you can't say the first time mailed them, they'll
be ready to Buyers may have videos because we're not
doing control burning dinner, or you're allowing too much station
to build.
Speaker 1: Christmas, family vacations, the birthdays or just your family. We
now know told I'm not imaged that, but you can
talk your photos. Yellow study rs are and the other
great example of the kind made.
Speaker 2: The partul who came now were part of creative video Donham.
But back to his column here at the end, as
we first and foremost researchers and academics, this is far
more than ourcane discussion. Anti science is now a lethal
force that threatens human civilization. We can no longer fight
climate change in pandemics unless we can find a means
to fuse an anti science bomb. I would say the
irony here as I finished this the segment is that
we are at a time in humanity when we were
more equipped to deal with more things in a more
direct way than ever before, while these people are saying
the sky is falling and the earth is ending, and
they are the ones that are creating the anxiety and
damaging your kids each and every day by telling them
the end is near and taking away their hope much
more to go now they're having just fighting. Now we
went to the break, it sounded like I was full
of chagrin. And what it is is the war of
ideas must continue. We whenever you get into a world
where ideas are not tolerated, where descent is quashed, you
for any of you that are sci fi fans, you know.
You know, if you're on the Enterprise and they come
to a planet where it's kind of monolithic thought, you
know there's a problem. The whole storyline is going to
be about, Hey, how do you overcome this monolithic thought?
If you read Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit four fifty one, it's
the suppression of free thought. You're burning all the books.
If you get into Logan's run, you know, you can't
push back against the rules. You got to get on
the caresel when you're thirty four or thirty five and
be spun up and killed and under the auspices that hey,
someone might win. You know, if you Brave New World
by Alvis Huxley, these dystopian nineteen eighty four, the film Brazil,
all of these dystopian sci fi futuristic thoughts on humankind.
Even the Silo, something that's currently I'm shocked that it's
actually on Apple. The silo is this, Oh, you have
to believe, you have to follow this dog. Now, there
are aspersions to Christianity. There's this book of a foundation.
You must believe the book. But the truth of the
matter is in acting like it's something that's not. It
actually proves the point I'm making, which is all of
these dystopian futuristic even Gatika, one of my favorite of
all time, they all portray don't question what we tell you.
That's the central theme of a lot of dystopian futuristic
novels or scientific works of art, sipha whatever. It's that
you don't question so when. And one of the most
unique things about humans is we do question that inquiry
leads to breakthroughs. In Korey, a natural born curiosity. If
for those of you who believe were made in our
maker's image, we have a natural born curiosity. Sometimes we
have a natural born skepticism. But skepticism and curiosity or
tomato tomato, those go hand in hand. You have to
be skeptical even your own belief You should be skeptical
of your own beliefs sometimes, but you have to be
naturally curious. I think the media fails when it isn't.
We saw that with Joe Biden. I think they do.
Media does best when it asked difficult questions, regardless of
who's sitting in front of them, not just because they
don't like one person. Ask this guy difficult questions. Don't
ask this person any questions. We saw that with Kamala
Harrison Donald Trump, he would do one hundred interviews. She
wouldn't do them, and when she did, she was an epic.
She was a crash test dummy flying into the wall
without a seat belt. It was terrible. But that's what
I would say that Michael Man and many of the
sign the alleged scientists on the global warming right there,
they have a confirmation bias. When they find something that
affirms that confirmation bias, they run outside and scream it's
the end of the world. And if you were to
ask them, has the planet been warmer before, they would say, well, yes,
but that's different as was there a proliferation of life
when the planet was warmer? Yes, but that's different. Okay,
so what eradicated a lot of species was the cold,
wasn't it? Well that's different. It's always different because it
doesn't fit their narrative. Now, one of the most I'll
give you an example of where this all these because
the solution that everyone on in that ILK wants, if
you let's just say they're correct. Their solution to the
problem is always socialism. Their solution to the problem is
we need to control the means of production by controlling
the production of energy, and energy is limited to renewables,
which will not fund a society, will not keep us going.
We need to limit trans limit your freedom. So you
can't travel by aircraft. You don't need to be traveled
by internal combustion engines. You can only recharge the engines
sporadically with intermittent energy. Maybe there's hydrodjew I don't know.
Dams are probably permitted. I wish they'd go back to
nuclear being permitted, but they haven't grasped that yet. But
so here's a really good example of why this kind
of fails. And this is from the BBC. This happened
in Great Britain. It was published, it was updated in
an hour ago. The carbon footprint of a long delayed
new green quote unquote ferry will be far larger than
the thirty one year old diesel ship that usually serves
the route between the Scottish mainland and the island of Iran.
Now a R R A N, not I R A N.
But it's in. So they they spent, oh we gotta
have a green ferry. We got to get rid of
this diesel plunker out there. The green ferry is going
to make things better. It'll change the temperature by a
point oooo a million ohs one somewhow an emissions analysis
by cal Mack has calculated that the Glen Sannox will
emit ten point three nine to one equivalent tons of
CO two a year, compared to seven thousand, seven hundred
and thirty two for m V Caledonian Isles. So the
dual fuel ferry has more car capacity but requires larger
engines which emit methane, a greenhouse asked with a far
greater global warming effect than CO two. Fairies Procurement agency,
which owns the ship, said the comparison was inaccurate. It
always when they disagree with you, it's that accurate. The
size of the Glen Sannox is a factory in its
carbon footprint, but so too is the liquefied natural gas fuel,
which is less climate friendly than previously claimed. The business
case for the ship, drawn up in twenty fourteen, predicted
it would admit about four hundred fewer times. It actually
admits three thousand more tons. Instead, it's now expected to
do seven hundred tons extra, rising to about twenty five
hundred tons extra if methane is included now now. So
the point is they told the public this will be better,
it will be greener, much fanfare, much news media. Look right,
our green fairy, it emits worse more and it's four
times more expensive and over budget. The fairy costs four
times as much as predicted. The same thing we see
with a lot of real projects, even the one here
in Charlotte. The light rail here is you know, much
more expensive than ever predicted. It never did meet the
kind of ridership predicted. It didn't save traffic or change anything.
It's just a boondoggle. It is saying it's anything other
than that is not being honest. So that's the kind
of solutions that don't help.
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Speaker 2: Someone's thinking a lot of different music today. Much appreciate
it as always. Chout out of hey for Pete Callender,
hoping he's enjoying his time off. And as we head
toward the top of the hour, you know, we were
talking about this in the green Agenda stuff, and you know,
here's the thing that's fascinating to me about that topic.
I'm not going to be laboring because we'll be talking
with JOBASARTI later in the broadcast. It is that somehow
and it works both ways. I want to say this
in both ways. A topic that is supposed to be about.
It is the single overarching, most impactful topic that it
can affect your bottom line and freedom that we've seen
in our life times. I mean other than being invaded
by China or something like that. But largely the American
way of life is anathema to the climate change solutions,
if you read through them, the single greatest impact for
your ability to go and do things, enjoy things, travel,
I have a car, All of that is completely hindered
in many ways. I think the Amish are probably the
most climate friendly people horse drawn carriages. I think that's
what the Left doesn't realize that the ultimate result of
their policies would be something like that. You don't have
climate friendly aircraft. You don't. It's just not I mean,
the entire airline industry would go under. The ability to
go cross country and you want to go in your
RV and pack up and head out to see great
you know, the Wonders of America. No, no, no, no, no, you can't
do that. It's your car. My truck only gets like
nineteen or less on the road, and it's a hybrid.
It wouldn't get that much. It would be it would
be disastrous. In fact, I think it's only a hybrid
because there's some kind of incentive. It doesn't need to
be a hybrid. It just looks good to say it
is right. It's to be rather I mean, to seem
rather than to be kind of mentality. But that's where
there really is, this battle in the trenches. It's not
sexy when Greta and Michael Mann and the rest of
them are out there and they're frustrated because it's not sexy.
Used to it was just not sexy to push back
on it. Now it's not sexy to talk about it
at all. It's just and that's that's the frustration. My
concern is because I saw what happened during the pandemic.
They were able. They meaning I guess the political left,
from Roy Cooper to Mandy Cohen to Anthony Fauci to
the rest of them, were able to suppress people. We're
able to force people. I mean, when I saw military
members being forced to take a vaccine that had been
untested and unproven, I thought it was very dystopian. It
was very alarming to me that we could force people
to do these things. I never would have dreamed if
you had have told me, oh yeah, We'll be able
to force people do whatever you want to. We'll be
able to fire people because of not obeying what the
federal government told them to do on a vaccine or
a disease that you that you could just right across
the board wipe an entire group out of their jobs.
So I don't say that, and I know it. I
realize it's boring when you talk about windmills and solar
panels and that because most of us have adopted a Hey,
none of what they've said came true. But let's but
be aware, be vigilant because it doesn't go away. Now.
I do want to get to one, and you know what,
I'll probably get to on the other side. But I
do want to get to the New Tolerance Campaign. And
you've never heard of them. I doubt. I doubt maybe
one in one hundred and fifty of you have ever
heard of the New Tolerance Campaign. But they look at
the there are a grassroots watchdog organization, and they look
at who deserves National Woke Awards and they announce those.
We're going to go through their winners this on the
next in the next break. After the next break, we'll
go through their agenda of people, And I do want
to get to the Obamacare thing is as as the
left cheers fifteen years of Obamacare, it's worth noting, you know.
And this is coming from the Democrats, by the way,
and you're going to see it more because now that
Trump's in office, we'll be talking about health insurance a lot.
Democrats are warning. Sally pipestrote this over the Washington Examiner.
Democrats are warning of a surge and the number of
uninsured if costly enhanced subsidies for exchange coverage expiring. In
other words, if they don't continue Obamacare, there's going to
be a lot of uninsured people. But exchange coverage is
borderline useless to many of the people that enrolled in it.
It requires beneficiaries to fork over huge sums before it
kicks in and confines them to a narrow provider network.
So rather then subsidized junk insurance through the exchanges, lawmakers
should deregulate the market so insurance can offer health plans
that are affordable and efficient without federal subsidies. Now this
is an opinion piece, but imagine that insurance by virtue
of its existence. By the way, insurance is one of
the reasons that America was founded. You don't believe me,
or maybe you're not aware of that. But it wasn't
worth it for ships from Great Britain to cross the
ocean in the seventeen hundreds or it's late sixteen hundreds.
It wasn't worth it to them until insurance could insure
those vessels. Because the company lost one ship, they would
go under. So insurance looked at risk and said, hey,
the odds of that ship making it over this. If
you want to ensure that cargo's going to cost you this.
And that's how insurance work. Insurance for cars should work
the same way, and it largely does. Insurance is based
on your risk. You have a beach house, your risk
is different than if you have a house in Matthew's
or Union County or Caberras whatever. It's different. Risk is different,
and you pay relative to it. Now, in health insurance,
we've become kind of socialist there. We want to say
that if you want to be three hundred and fifty
pounds and unhealthy and your insurance should be the same
as someone who's health is off the charts good. So
we're trying to take not we, not you, not me.
But groups that are out there in the political world
are trying to remove risk from health insurance and then
call it insurance. And the real goal of that is
to make it socialized, to make it a one size
fits all instead of making it about risk. So when
they say the exchange coverage is borderline useless, it requires
beneficiaries to fork over huge sums before it kicks in
and confines them to narrow provider networks. That does look
at the exchanges. You can look at healthcare dot gov
and you can see how your plans work where you're stuck.
But what if it was back to risk. It would
look very different, wouldn't it. The enhanced subsidies allow people
within comes up to one hundred and fifty percent of
the federal poverty level, which is forty six thy eight
hundred dollars for a family of four. It's not a
lot of money to sign up for free exchange coverage
at taxpayer expense. Exchange enrollies pay a progressively larger share
of income for premiums until they reach four hundred percent
of the poverty level, which is one hundred and twenty
four thousand for a family of four. When their contributions
are capped at eight point five percent of income. In
other words, the more money you make, the more you
have to pay. Now, that's how it works. These premium
subsidies hide the actual cost of coverage. Consider a hypothetical
couple in their twenties living in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Ironically, that's
the town where I was born. It's where James Madison is. Harrisonburg, Virginia,
making eighty thousand dollars a year, by the way, not
a rich area, just under four hundred percent of the
poverty level. The least expensive plan they would be able
to purchase through the exchange runs at four hundred and
seventeen dollars a month after an eighty two dollars tax credit,
But the plan comes with a narrow network, a seventy
two one hundred per person annual deductible, and a forty
percent coin insurance for most health expenses. The out of
pocket maximum is eighteen thousand dollars, enough to purchase a
decent car fresh off the lot. Add in the plan's
narrow provider network, and the picture gets worse. If the
hypothetical couple from Harrisonburg, Virginia can't find an in network provider,
then they're on a hook for one hundred percent of
most fees for everything from primary care to lab test
to baby deliveries. If they visit an out of network
emergency department, they'd be on the hook for half of
the bill, even after they hit their deductible. In short,
the marketplace insurance often works like catastrophic coverage, only useful
if someone suffers a five figure health care catastrophe. But
that's not how the exchange is advertised. Many enrollees don't
learn that their coverage won't offer them much help until
they make their first claim. Democrats plan to make the
enhanced premium subsidies permanent would cost taxpayers three hundred and
thirty five billion over the next ten years. According to
the Congressional Budget Office, we shouldn't be spending that kind
of money to subsidized coverage that many people we'll find useless.
And they're right on that, if you think about it,
if we put some thought, and that's one thing I
one of my wishes for twenty twenty five is for
us to have an honest discussion about health care, not
health insurance, because we conflagrate these two, don't we I've
got health insurance. Everything's fine. Well that's not healthcare. It's
a way to pay for health care. But we need
to get a handle how much does healthcare cost? How
much does it cost you to go to the doctor.
How much does it cost you to go to the hospital.
How much does it cost you to go to urgent care?
You don't know if you have health insurance, show them
your card, you pay your twenty dollars or your hundred
or your fifty, and then you get a bill later
on for the difference. We've got to get to where
we understand what we're paying and your doctor needs to
understand what you're paying for. They don't. They have all
That's why you walk in and most of the employees
are not in healthcare. They're in paper pushing. Much more
to go here on the Pete Calendar radio show, Joe
was starting. We've got hour three, so much more to go,
so do stay tuned. We'll be back after this.
Speaker 1: All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you
so much for listening. I could not do the show
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for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.