With
me.
Hey, she's here.
I thought that this would never happen.
I talked to her agent and everything.
I thought we had the contract worked out.
I am so
sorry.
Yeah, I thought we had an agreement and all the fees were paid to get her here.
I paid for air transportation.
I paid for a limo to get her to the building.
And she's finally here.
Thank you.
Denise Lockwood, owner
of Racine County.
Before we
get to all the goodies here,
you
just had a recent tragedy in your family.
Your mom
passed
away.
My mom died, yes.
And so was it in Ohio?
No, in Florida.
My mom moved to Florida two years ago and my dad had been very sick as well.
So we were double teaming and she was so amazing.
The gratitude that I have in my heart for being able to be present with her
over the last few months and be present for my dad as well because it was it was a very probably the most difficult thing to be supportive to to a parent that is is choosing.
She decided she wanted to stop dialysis.
And so it was it was not for the fainted heart.
But we had some very wonderful moments.
My mom was a very big Elvis fan, right?
So she, we decided we were gonna have this Elvis party.
And it was just, we had this very good mojo and all three of the daughters, my two sisters and I, were living together and we hadn't lived together for like, oh, I don't know, 35 years.
So that was an interesting process, but I am grateful and my mom was so amazing.
Like this woman,
When I was in the fifth grade, I was really into Russian foreign policy.
Wow.
I
know.
What a nerd you are.
And do you know why?
Because we went to Washington, D.C.
and one of my mom's friends was married to a guy who worked for the Pentagon who wrote a book about IBM missiles.
Missing them.
When you broke your glasses, did you use that piece of white tape in the middle?
No, this is the weirdest thing.
My mom, she fed your soul.
All three of us are very obviously different people.
And so she I latched on to I want to know about Russian foreign policy.
So she took me out of the fifth grade for one day.
So I grew up at that time.
We were living in Worcester, Ohio.
And there's a college of Worcester there.
It's a very prestigious school.
And there was a debate call.
It was a great decisions debate around Russian foreign policy.
And she's like, let's go.
And so that's my mom.
And, you know, she struggled very much with health care issues and had diabetes and heart issues.
So there were very two very different versions of my mom.
But it was, I am so grateful because I mean, this is a woman who read to us well into, because she loved it so much to read to us.
until we were probably about 10, 11 years old.
And so she read like little women and we went to, I went to Ireland and England when I was 11.
And that's where I decided to be a writer because I went to Shakespeare's house and Shakespeare was short and I was short.
And that's where I decided to become a writer.
Well, Karim Abdojavar was tall.
I didn't become a basketball
player
because I went there because he was in Milwaukee.
But that
was 11-year-old logic back then, right?
So what's really interesting about the dichotomy of growing up Lockwood is, is like, you know, my dad's a very MAGA guy.
My mom is a Democrat.
I grew up with them, you know, sparring respectfully for a very long time.
And it was good.
It was healthy.
And so those are the things that I carry with me.
And there was this moment when she was definitely understanding that her days were on the shorter end.
And she said, you know, Denise, she said, you have to keep going and keep on the fight.
And that's my mom.
So they're gonna cry now.
No, I've cried a lot.
I mean it comes with waves grief grief is a very strange bedfellows But you just kind of sit with it and you're like yeah, she was so amazing you're
lucky to have a great
mom I am
a lot of people don't
yeah,
and they have miserable home life.
You're very lucky.
I am so like I literally went to Speech and speech and debate team in the morning mucked salt stalls by 10 30
went to a farmer's union rally with my mom and then to a Lincoln Day dinner.
It
was weird.
You were a super
nerd.
And they were from Cleveland, Ohio.
I grew up on a farm and they had nothing, no understanding of how to farm when they started.
So like we were figuring out people.
We were figuring it out people, so.
Can't picture you in bib overalls.
I never wore bib overalls.
Doing a
slop with the pigs.
No, no, Carhartt's and Tingley Boots friend.
Carhartt's to shout out to all my farmer friends.
And a Case 1942 tractor with a crank start and an electric start.
Wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I'm sorry for your loss.
Thank you.
We need to get you back to the swing of things.
And that's what I want to talk about too, because
You know, I carry with a lot of experience, a frontline experience now with the current healthcare system.
And so that is kind of what's driving the bus quite a bit.
And if you noticed, I wrote six stories about Medicaid alone in the last few weeks, primarily because the work requirements are starting to kick in.
They stated Wisconsin.
I don't
know much about Medicaid because
I'm not on it.
So that's badger care.
Okay, so Badger Care is the Wisconsin version of Medicaid.
Basically, there are, in Racine County, there are 46,000 people of the 200,000-ish number of people who live here that are on Medicaid.
Of those 46,000, half of those people are children.
Okay, so then you take the rest of that, half of that pie, you divide it up into thirds, and a third of those folks are people who are over the age of 65.
a third of those people are people who have disabilities, and the other third are of working age.
And in that sliver, about 70% of those people are already working.
And so this work requirement is going to impact, the proof of that is going to impact roughly about 7,000 to 8,000 people in Racine County, which doesn't sound like a lot.
However,
We know statistically that those folks are typically much more medically fragile or have capacity to be medically more fragile than their counterpart.
Well, let me
ask you this.
Yes.
When you say the work requirement.
Yes.
What does that mean now?
So in the big, beautiful bill that was passed last year, yes.
Basically, there is a work requirement.
And ironically, the state of Wisconsin
had a work requirement that they passed, but they never were able to implement it because of COVID.
And so this is not a new thing, but the questions around how and what happens to those folks is the central part of the reporting process, right?
So I'm on all of the calls for the state of Wisconsin.
And I'm also doing a lot of research around policy and things along that line.
So the Center for Medicaid and Medicare sets the prices for these services with hospital systems, right?
That's the reimbursement rate.
And typically those are of all ways of contention.
And one of the things that happens is if you are in...
badger care or Medicare or are in on the marketplace or have commercial insurance, you get charged a different rate than somebody who is on private pay, which is typically higher.
And the reason why this is really important and it impacts not just people on Medicaid is when those folks become more fragile, they will present to the hospital in a more acute ways because
They're not taking care of themselves on a preventative type of protocol.
And so that presents a much bigger stress to the system.
And I've been talking to a lot of the hospital systems in Racine County.
And they're also confronted with
a very big problem called the Silver Tsunami.
Now, what is the Silver Tsunami?
We're talking to Denise.
I want to get it all out.
Denise Lockwood, owner of Racine County Ice.
She's working on a bunch of stories.
We're talking about Medicare, AKA BadgerCare.
Medicaid.
Medicaid.
What do I call?
Medicare.
Medicaid.
It's
okay.
Medicaid.
And you left off at the Silver Tsunami.
Yes.
Okay.
So those aging baby boomers.
OK, so as you age, obviously you have more medical needs.
And so the fragility of the system.
And I saw this front line with my dad and my mom, right?
So my dad had two stents put in in May.
He was hospitalized five more times because he kept presenting to the ER and then they would fix one thing.
And then he was, yeah.
So that kind of.
carousel kind of process that you go through when you're in acute or kind of chronic disease.
That is a big thing that stresses out the medical system, right?
So this is all happening at the same time as this other piece with the Medicaid, right?
So if we're paying more for folks who are a larger population of chronic illness folks,
then you also throw in a lot more folks that, you know, who are on Medicaid.
That's a different kind of math.
And I'm going to stress this again, I don't care how people vote.
This is the reality of policymaking and process and procedure.
And we need to really pay attention to these conversations because even with COVID, the insurance rates
are skyrocketing.
Anybody who owns a small business, which I do, will tell you that it is no fun trying to understand like the health care system and through the lens of insurance, right?
So this is going to have a really big impact on hospital systems, hospital access.
One of the things that happened with my dad was they didn't update his my chart because staffing levels
These people are being inundated.
OK, they didn't update his meds.
He ended up getting dehydrated.
Those are some of the things that we're starting to see.
And Wisconsin is also one of the number one is the number one on the list for the rate of falls.
OK, so some of these things are staffing.
What are we tripping over everything?
Well, friend, when we when we age, we have that.
that whole stability issue, right?
Well, let me tell you, this is
what's bothering me about the health
care
system.
And I'm not going to mention which hospitals, doctors or whatever.
But I called for an appointment.
I have to have a CT scan for my heart surgery.
I had 15 years ago.
Every year, I got
to have it.
Every six months, I have an alternate thing with it.
So I called up and I got somebody in the Philippines.
And they said, OK, you have to go to Madison to have that done.
I said, no, I don't.
I can go to Racine because I'm getting it for at this point, 14 years.
He goes, no, you have to go to Madison.
I said, goodbye.
I went down to the hospital and I said, I have to do this in person.
You can't.
You have to do it over the phone.
I said, I will find a new doctor this afternoon, but I am not talking to the Philippines anymore because I don't know what they're doing.
And I've got to get this settled because I got other stuff to do.
So she called up and we have to get Glendale on the phone that time.
I said, crap, shoot, who do you get?
I said, if I get the Philippines again, I'll find a new doctor.
I don't care.
because I will not, then I found out my other doctor, his place does are the Philippines too.
Get this, I called Best Buy, local, I guess it was after hours, so I called Best Buy to ask him a question.
I got South Africa.
I said, I'm calling Best Buy, Racine?
He goes, yes, South Africa, we're answering their calls.
I mean, the Philippines, she said, you have to go to Madison.
I said, I know I don't.
He says, yes.
But yeah, and I wanted to talk to the president of the hospital.
And I said, you gotta stop this nonsense.
We're dealing with people's lives
here.
And you're screwing around with the Philippines?
Yeah.
So do you see why my work is really important right now?
What are you doing about
that?
I haven't anything about the Philippines.
Come on.
What are you doing?
I know.
Well, and that is on the ball here.
Yeah.
And that's that's a lot of it is is a product of staffing and reimbursements rates.
And they're trying to cut costs.
And, you know, a lot of if you talk to anybody in health care right now, it is a very interesting place right now.
Let's talk about the elections coming up.
We have a whole bunch.
We've got the governor's race coming up in November.
We've
got
the
sheriff.
We've got the first district congress
and a lot of
stuff coming up.
What do you think?
So it's gonna be very interesting.
That's the word that I'm gonna go to because and a lot of this and I'm really looking forward to elevating the conversation around a lot of these topics because you you think that Medicaid policy and CMMS is actually a function of federal government and it is it is now shifting towards state Decisions and it's also impacting counties.
So
So the county is the one who mans those folks that are determining who gets care and who doesn't, especially on state and federal funded insurance, Lyft Medicaid.
So there's a lot of impact around this that is going to be a function of policy set by people who are elected, right?
So I'm kind of the nerd, because I am.
Helen Cathy's daughter that goes there, right?
Having the human conversations around this is so vitally important in conjunction with policy and who pays for it, right?
So it's not just a question of access, but who pays for that access?
If I pay this amount and I do I get to the front of line or do I go to the back of the line?
Like, what does that look like, right?
These are very human stories, but they're also rooted in elections as well.
And you really want me asking those questions.
Did you hurt any polling on the governance race at all?
I believe and do me a big favor because my brain is kind of a little still, a little mushy.
The last time that I saw a poll, I think it was a week or two ago and Crowley was beating Tiffany by a hair.
So it's going to be a very tight race.
And actually,
The last several governor's races have been very small margins.
Well, I get emails all day long,
even though I
blocked them.
I still get them.
Anyway, the Tiffany people sent me some.
David Crowley used to cheat on his exams in school.
He used to cut school.
He has no education whatsoever.
Then you get the attack ads from Crowley's people.
Tom Tiffany hates little puppies.
Yeah, you know what I'm doing?
You want to hear something really cool?
I set up trackers around the advertising and the PR of this.
And so I'm developing, I'm tracking them over time and really developing a rubric around, okay, so what is it that impacts our readership the most and what do
do these candidates really think about policy making around those and really starting to build more institutional knowledge.
And so that stay tuned because that is something I'm very, very much attuned to how we talk about each other candidate-wise, but also
bringing it to the politics and the people and the policy.
I don't know any
policy.
All we're hearing is people.
I know the negative.
You got to hear this.
Listen to listen to this for a second.
And then Barack Hussein Obama, what a likable charismatic character.
What an intriguing part of our political land.
You know, to show me how brilliant he is as a politician, the first thing he had to do was overcome that name.
And I don't think there's a tougher name to run for president in America.
Honestly, then Barack Hussein Obama.
What could be harder?
Hi, I'm Charles Manson Hitler.
I'd like your vote.
Charles Manson Hitler cares about the people.
Charles Manson Hitler will stand up to the special interests.
Isn't it time you took another look at Charles Manson Hitler?
I'm Charles Manson Hitler and I approve this ad.
Then they'd have attack ads.
Charles Manson Hitler is a tax and spend liberal.
Paid for by the committee to elect OJ Scott Peterson president.
Yeah, that's what I mean.
So we got to take these things to these.
We can't afford to stay rooted in that, right?
But that's what they do is and it's but all of the sides and it's packs and it's this and that.
So who's tracking all of that?
And like, where's the reality in in in those statements?
I want to
hang on a few minutes after I want to talk about data centers.
Oh, yeah.
Because I know nothing about them.
I
know those big bill.
They can play poker tournaments in those buildings for
all.
Yeah, that's on the on the docket, too, on Denise's docket.
That's on my bingo card.
Hold on.
We'll talk a few minutes after eight o'clock because you got in late.
I did, okay.
I will stay late.
I want to spend a few more minutes with Denise Lockwood from Racine County Eye, owner of Racine County Eye, because something real important here, and I've been trying to get these people on the air to talk about it, and they keep saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll do it.
We'll get back to you in a couple of months, go by, then we'll get back, and I call them up again.
Yeah, yeah, we'll get a hold of them, they'll get back to you, then we'll get back to me.
Talk about data centers.
Now, I don't know anything about data centers other than what I hear is people say that there's a lot of water and they make a lot of noise.
I have no idea what goes on in those big buildings.
I've told you, it could be a big poker tournament for all I know going on in those buildings.
I mean, a lot of space, or a big swimming pool where they're doing laps.
I don't know what they're doing in that building.
So, what do you know about data centers?
Are they dangerous?
Everybody's talking about them like, oh my goodness, they're coming from outer space.
This is how the aliens are going to get us, data centers.
Well, okay, so let's kind of explain a little, just so it's servers.
So the data that you have that is used by AI and it has to go somewhere, right?
It's stored places.
And one of the things that's happening is, is they have all of these servers.
And the reason why people are concerned is because noise.
Water, electricity are all three components of these.
So like the cooling of these servers has to be stable.
They have to be able to, because they throw a lot of heat, so they have a lot of cooling systems.
Ironically, you're going to get a little new news, and I haven't even written it yet.
Uh-oh, here goes the scoop.
Modine is spinning off a whole other company because they make these
cooling systems.
And so they, I'm going to be writing about that within the next.
And they changed the name.
Modine.
Yeah.
Didn't they?
I guess we had never heard a thing.
They changing their
name.
They may have.
It's a
weird name.
It might be because, quite frankly, I am, that is not an area that I have been focused on as much, but it's something that I'm going to is on my radar.
And I'm definitely going to be writing about it.
Yeah.
I think I heard Stuart J. Waddles mention the name.
And I said,
I know it's going to remember that name.
You know, it's funny.
It's like McDonald's changing their name.
Right.
I mean, they're just, I still call it Johnson Wax.
Right.
And it's, I see Johnson.
I know what
it is.
So there's a lot of resources.
Now, here's the other, other thing that is kind of in the wings.
So you've got a lot more power needs, the power and who pays for it.
So in the, in the linear, how you tell stories one-on-one kind of thing is you keep following
those different issues as a relationship to it.
So there are more power needs, and that means there's expansion of power generating stations, like there are two that have been proposed.
And one of the things that I am very much trying to track is the expansion of Paris Generating Power, Paris Generating Station in Paris, Wisconsin.
Just, I want to say to the
It's real close to Great Lakes Dragway is the where that that station is.
And then it's going to be a massive expansion.
So that's one thing.
And then there's another one that's been proposed in summers.
And I'm trying to kind of get back into the focus after, you know, being with Ma.
But that's a big piece of it.
Now, here's the other thing because so they're building all of these things, right?
The first one came online just a few months ago.
They don't have a lot of folks manning these things.
This is not a heavy employment need, right?
So this notion of, okay, Foxconn originally was like, we're gonna build these big things and we're gonna hire all of these thousands of people that did not happen to the scale it was promised, okay?
So Microsoft comes in, they're building basically these warehouses with all of the generating for the data with the servers.
And they don't hire as many people and I'm going off of memory, so I'm just not gonna try to quote it, but it's like maybe a few hundred people, if I'm remembering correctly.
The other thing that is a big wrinkle in this, there are 15,
total data centers that are mapped for Racine County.
These are massive, all right?
The other thing that I'm noticing because there is a big movement right now to use personal data center collection at a personal level, okay?
So they've now got these machines
that will be in offices that will run your agents and not use a data center.
So everybody's saying right now, they're listening.
This is all gobbledygook.
How is it going to affect my cell phone?
OK, that's an entirely different system.
Isn't that with the data system?
So I mean, it's it's using a data storage.
So what does that mean?
Your cell phone is hardware, right?
So there's a system in place with with the.
My dad was a telephone engineer, so I know a little bit, but not to the same depth.
But at the end of the day, that's a different infrastructure around the telephony of those systems, the telephone wires, the cell phone receivers, the cell phone towers.
So how does this affect
me, a data center?
So ironically, you likely use a lot more AI than you really understand.
Am
I a robot?
A lot of systems, a lot of applications use AI.
One of the things that I use for my note taking is an application called otter.ai.
Basically, it records and transcribes my notes and then organizes them so I don't have to rewrite them into notebooks.
That's a long transition process, right?
So I use the AI on a daily basis and have for probably about 10 years.
But a lot of people aren't aware of the AI usage because they just understand that certain elements of their lives are taken care of and expedited efficiently.
You
remember the Steven Spielberg movie AI?
Yes, kind of, but that's a little too far back.
My memory and my, my grief heart and my grief brain is definitely still in play, which is why I was late today.
It
was about a little boy who was AI.
Yeah.
And nobody thought much of the movie.
You know, there's a good science fiction.
Spielberg does a good movie.
Little did they know.
Oh,
it's, it's huge.
It's today.
Yeah.
And it was, it's a tearjerker.
You'll cry at the end of the movie.
It's a tearjerker movie.
And I cried when I.
I saw it.
I'm a mush when it goes to movies.
I cry it.
If it's an animal movie, forget it.
I'm out of it.
Especially if it's a dog.
Yeah.
I mean, I can't, I can't handle that.
Challenge to Lassie, a movie that I saw as a kid.
I still cry when I see it on turn of classic movies.
Challenge to Lassie.
Lassie didn't die or anything.
It's just, it's a sad movie.
Yeah.
And I can't handle that.
Also, that Marley and me movie.
Oh.
Couldn't
handle that either.
Well, we leave here.
I got a question for you.
Yes,
Australia.
You know, everyone wants to say, you know, maybe this is not a bad idea.
Australia is looking to hire someone up for a full time job where they would live on a tropical island and just take care of the island.
Oh, but here's
what they say.
Warning, it's hard work.
I mean, we need to collect coconuts.
What do you do?
Clean up the palm tree branches on the island, sift the sand.
What do you do?
I mean, full time job.
That is a good question.
I don't know.
I don't think I'm not a good good.
Yeah.
I don't know that I could handle it.
But you
know what?
You want to think about data centers?
You want to think about Charles Manson Hitler?
Any politics?
Or Medicaid?
That
will mean there'll be a witch doctor to take care of you on the
island.
Oh, there you go.
Where do I sign up?
You'll pop a rattle on your head and everything's fine.
Well, I'm glad you're here.
Thank you.
And
I gotta get you back into the swing of things.
We will.
Yeah.
And I can't have you drifting away on
us.
No, no, no, no,
no.
Come back.
Come back.
And we got some projects we're working on.
Yes.
And I can't wait for those to come to fruition.
Yes.
So that's good.
I'm glad you're back.
Thank you.
All right.
Thank
you.
Denise Lockwood.
We're seeing County Eye.
Good to have her back again.