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Trump went after Noah, you know, just...
No, I just kidding.
No, it's not true at all.
You know, we have defended here in this program.
Winchills and feels like temperatures.
Right, we have.
We have defended that.
We have stuck with it.
We weren't cow-towing to the edicts of saying, oh, no one cares about those things anymore.
Well, not here.
We
is the actual air temperature, but again, wind chill, again, the feel is like temperature, 27 below with light wind out of the Northwest.
That's the real weather.
It's really cold out there.
Now, we were talking earlier about, do you want me to go outside and demonstrate how cold it is?
I've soaked one of our John
I wish you'd come up with a different John and Gordon signal.
We'll have worked out that.
We'll spitball that in the next meeting.
We'll do that.
All right, here, let's go to another.
This is the right wing, basically, trashing Jack Smith.
Why don't we listen to cut 325?
All right.
Uh, yeah.
He didn't happen, though.
No, no, it's not like that.
It
Are these guys afraid of that part of it?
I don't know.
Maybe, I wish they would be anyway.
Now, here is some released information.
This just came out.
It is a Jack Smith deposition that has been released, the video of it.
I want to play this selection here.
He was asked a very important question.
Let's listen to his answer.
There you go.
So kind of ties in with the the right-wing media talking about it Yes, yeah,
They really do All right, I found this clip and I it kind of stuck with me I heard it and I pursued it and I found it it's really important because We know that Trump backtracked on a lot of the threats that he made right mm-hmm taco
the Taco President.
So he backtracked, and this is one of those backtracked, this is just an amazing comment right here, and this is something that is gonna stay with the US for a long, long time after Trump, but he set us up for this, and he admitted it.
Let's listen to cut three, 13, and here it is.
Yeah, well that's kind of what you set up for us.
You burned some bridges and I really wouldn't doubt that NATO nations would kind of not Exactly volunteer to help us right now if we ever have a need for it.
Yeah
This is just outrageous.
Anyway, I thought that that cut really stuck with me for a while
They were talking about healthcare.
There were hearings on healthcare in the house.
This is just incredible stuff.
They talked to all these CEOs of the major insurance companies out there.
And I didn't even know some of this.
I didn't know that these major insurance companies, four or five of them, own almost every aspect of our healthcare system.
This is kind of a summation of it.
It requires a little visual here, but you can visualize it when the sky asks for everybody to raise their hands because everybody raises their hand on this.
So let's listen to cut 315.
Right, there it is, that's pretty shocking to me because we're talking of maybe having universal healthcare where the government is the insurer and everybody has the same insurance policy, everybody can go to the doctor, any doctor of their choice, any time they want, any hospital is their hospital.
I mean, that's a great system and you never have a bill, you never have medical bankruptcies.
We're pushing that.
Right little did I realize that actually they divided up five or six ways here between the major insurance companies which own the hospitals the doctors the drug prices This is so outrageous so outlandish that this should I don't know people should be very upset about this This should be the the page one story.
Hmm, but I think
AOC kind of put it best here in this little summation that you put together when she was talking about all this healthcare dominance by CVS.
Let's listen.
And it's about time we really start focusing on exposing the problem that we have with healthcare in this country.
It's privatized and it's an industry for profit.
So why do we make a profit off of people's health?
Why do we do that?
It's ghoulish, it's outrageous.
No other country in the world does it that way.
They have their own universal healthcare systems out there.
They may be based on private industry, they may
also,
but they also may provide it for free and whatever, but they have also other different areas that they have dealt with that we could use here in this country to bring the price of healthcare down as well.
And the whole thing for me is that if we don't start discussing it as we are discussing it here, because of this hearing and showing that there are like five or six healthcare
insurance companies that own the business of healthcare in this country, why not take it away from these people and have our own system, the government, our system, yours and my system, provide the insurance so it's fair, the government can negotiate prices downward for care that you get and for drugs that you get.
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Yes, I'm out on the street.
I'm very cold, but I would rather be here freezing than in a room having to have a conversation with a conservative MAGA at this point.
Yeah.
I'd rather be burning.
But I just want to make the comment, you know, why do these maggot conservative types just love being lied to?
It's like they get off on it.
And I think they would technically believe it at this point if Trump told them that water doesn't freeze, right?
exactly.
They'd go outside and they'd have to try it themselves.
And then they'd be dumbfounded that it actually froze, right?
But about the NATO stuff too, like if we abandon NATO and we're all alone, who's gonna come help us when Republicans start the next war, which they're technically doing right now?
Not to mention how many people from Denmark actually died helping us in Afghanistan, Iraq, and whatever other war Republicans
So yeah, just bring that people's attention that NATO has sacrificed soldiers for us many times now and it's completely disrespectful and disgusting to have these MAGA pretend like they haven't helped us.
They're ridiculous.
playing
Can I see one more signal?
Oh, yeah, sure.
Go
I saw this AI-generated meme out there that's hilarious.
It shows
Trump Vance and whoever else was standing in Greenland with the American flag.
Yes, they made an AI video of them standing there and then some polar bears come and drag them away.
Drag
I
Yeah, they all get mauled by polar bears.
I loved
They've got a healthcare story coming up that comes home here to Wisconsin.
I thought it, uh, was a really, really, really interesting plea from one of our representatives.
So, uh, we'll get to that in just a moment.
Let's go to
Hi guys.
How's it going?
Good.
Good.
How are you?
Um, I'm, uh, kicking back here.
Um,
I'm wondering, you know, other than the fact that, you know, with the insurance thing, there's that Carlite group that's real involved with ownership of healthcare stuff.
How many of these mega people were in the military?
What
that?
Like the records of all of these people in Washington, you know, that aren't the administration there.
How many of them that got elected were in the military?
I don't I don't know either that you know like I know the situation with the president But what about all those other people?
of them
I'm sure but I wonder if it's really a
Minute number, you know of them and and otherwise they're just in charge of the military Yeah, it's a
question.
So
Yep.
All right Appreciate your call today.
I want to get to this health care story.
It's you know, we've heard a lot of health care horror stories and
This is one of them.
Okay that we might have heard here in Wisconsin and you know after you hear some of these horror stories you think well if the Republicans still want to cut health care for you know people that need health care low-income individuals need health care on Medicaid and
They want to go to a free market system where they can tell you to go hit the bricks.
If they don't want to pay for your health care, if they don't think you need the care that you think you need.
After all of that, after hearing all the horror stories, they're still not moved by any of this.
It's brutal.
I don't know.
This is about a 22-year-old from Wisconsin, Cole Schmittnacht.
He died of a severe asthma attack.
You might have seen that story around.
Because of the price of his inhaler skyrocketed from $66 to $539.
Right.
Yeah, I
These are unnecessary happenings in this country.
We should not put up with this.
Not one.
But instead, it is happening.
Now, here's the other aspect to it.
There's a lawsuit by the family.
Walgreens.
The staff is being accused of not offering a cheaper alternative to the inhaler or contacting his physician, which they do.
They give a call to the doctor's office for you at Walgreens and get a substitute, of course, recommended by the doctor.
Alternatives would have cost about $5 copay and that would have been it.
He would have walked out with a with an inhaler at that point.
So there is a lawsuit not to say anything bad about Walgreens because they
you know, told me about a coupon that I could use for Pax Lovett.
Way back when, it saved me about $1,600, I believe.
So anyway, it's just, there are incidents where things fall through the cracks.
The system doesn't work as well because it's so complicated.
There's so many different aspects, so many things a person has to do to make it work.
And that's that situation here where Walgreens kind of fell through the cracks in this one.
They didn't do what they should have done to find out.
a lower cost and healer.
Maybe the child, well, a coal.
I know he's not a child, 22, but our kids are always kids to us.
But maybe he walked away too soon, maybe he didn't pursue it.
A lot of times you have to be your own advocate when you're asking for drugs or asking for treatment.
You
really
I mean, there's so many hoops you have to jump through.
And there's no guidebook to being able to do that.
Everybody seems like they're on their own.
I mean, no matter what your insurance plan is, or even if you don't have insurance.
There's so many choices that you have to make, or so many things you need to find out to be able to find out
I went through a similar thing trying to get to eliquus, which is a heart thinner, or a blood thinner.
prices extraordinarily expensive, but they had a coupon program that one of the pharmacies told me about.
And I had to track that back and then talk to a special clinic and all this and get a coupon rebate or something from the pharmaceutical company.
But to be able to find out about that, you need some guidance.
You need some help to do that.
And it was confusing and had to jump through a bunch of hoops
You may have been lucky enough to have the internet, the computer, to do that.
Some people don't have internet or at least that kind of internet where it takes a long time to get through to a website or something like that.
It's low internet connections.
Yeah.
I mean, you have to do a lot of research.
A lot of people don't have time for that.
Right.
And I think that's what Republicans calling on is not having enough time to deal with the complicated aspects of health care.
So it.
peels away, a whole bunch of people that could use it, they think that's saving money.
It's not saving lives.
That's certainly true.
You know, this Paxlova thing, I went to their website, after I typed up this story, I thought, well, let's see what they're offering now, or are they offering you a coupon?
Well, they're offering a coupon, and you can fill this out, but you have to have insurance first, and then if you have like a government...
insurance program like Medicaid or Medicare or Veterans Health, you can't get the discount.
And I don't know why that is.
So I can't figure out why that.
why that would happen, that they would make it so complicated and so difficult to get at least some kind of break on this.
If you have health care already, well, then you're okay, but you can't have this kind of health care.
I mean, this is the kind of complicated system we're stuck with in this country.
And for some reason, we're not out there asking for universal health care.
I don't get it.
I don't get
Hi, well I have a comment that like Walmart in any pharmacy should be able to offer they have those cards where like drug Rx
Yes.
Familiar with that.
Right.
And they should have really offered him that because he could have gotten a thing probably even cheaper than his $66 he was normally paying.
And I think that it behooves every
Pharmacy to offer that card.
a card similar to that
Ideally I go along with you on health care for all.
Yeah.
Yeah, I that would make it so much more simpler and
cheaper for everybody in the long run but in the case that we have now people shouldn't be afraid to ask
if there's some way to get it lowered.
yeah.
care?
Unfortunately, I did healthcare for a long time and
until I got sick and was unable to work and so I've gone through the hoops
sides and know that you need an advocate for you but people also need to not be not be afraid to ask well what can you do you know can you do something better for me can you help me
Hi, Mr. Friendly Door Princess.
Yeah, not speaking on behalf of Costco though.
Yeah, a couple of years ago, I passed out in my basement.
And it turns out I have a condition called heart block.
Yeah.
It makes one chamber doesn't communicate with the other.
So the whole thing just stops for a minute.
Wait, do I,
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John and Gordy from the Capital City, Madison, Wisconsin, broadcasting statewide, taking your calls today.
We're talking about health care and in a crazy system that it is, a killer system that it also is.
And we're talking to Kathy on the line right now, an old friend, and she had an issue with pacemakers.
Is that correct?
Yes.
So I saw the surgeon, she recommended a device called a micro.
which is it's a smaller pacemaker about the size of a vitamin pill that just sits in the heart chamber and so when my heart would periodically stop it would detect that and get things going again.
So I knew that's what I was getting.
The day of the appointment I got a letter from SSM Health saying we checked with your insurance
And your estimated co-payment for this is zero.
And I thought, whoa, good deal.
But after I got the pacemaker, which I named Stan, Stan anticipates my needs and he's always there for me.
Anyway, I get, Etna Insurance denied $35,000 of a $70,000 bill because they said it was an experimental device.
said, what's going on here?
Nobody told me that.
No one said anything like that.
Turns out the doctor's office, I don't know.
There was miscommunication somewhere.
They got authorization for a standard pacemaker that it has a battery pack that sits under your skin and your chest, and then it has leaves going into your heart.
And I knew I was getting something different, but I, you know,
how was I to know they got the wrong authorization.
So SSM recoded a bunch of stuff, you know, they play the game.
They still tried to stick me with I think a $4,500 surgeon fee.
So I wrote a letter to the Department of Egg Trade and Consumer Protection.
I explained, I explained what happened.
I said, I said, I was
I did not give informed consent for this surgery because critical information about the cost was withheld.
I don't think it was deliberate, but that's what happened.
And someone at SSM read my legalese and must have thought she's going to sue us.
And I could have had a pretty big case when you think about it.
Anyway, they wrote off the surgeons fee, and they also wrote off, I think, about $15 or $1600 in copays that I wasn't even disputing just to make me go away.
kind
yeah.
Not everyone would know to do that.
No.
That's the hard part.
So many people just get taken advantage of because they don't know.
Who would it go to, or what to do?
Well,
sometimes they think the system is against them anyway, and they never be able to win, so they don't try.
And sometimes, you know, they just don't have the time.
You know, they have all these other things in their lives that they got to take care of, and this is something they can pursue when they have the time to do it, you know?
I think we've all done that.
That's exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
right?
At Costco.
That's what I'm doing tonight, you guys.
Lots of security.
but that kind of cold out there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I have, I sit in my car and watch the building after closing to make sure the employees get to their cars safely.
Oh, good for
Oh, I'm counting the minutes till I get to go.
A good afternoon, John and Gordy.
Hey.
I just wanted to mention.
the Affordable Care Act, which was passed many years ago, because the Democrats passed a group known as the Tea Party went nuts.
The Democrats, the Democrats lost the Senate and the Congress because of that, trying to help people.
Yeah.
Yes.
And it was a big deal.
But the Democrats did lose power because of it.
And since then, you haven't been able to get much done.
There's a lot of fear out there.
I don't, I hate to mention the guy's name, but Trump tried to get rid of it and he has his own plan, but he really didn't have a plan.
It's just, it's a sad situation for healthcare.
I'll tell you another thing, Citizens United, if I get that right, that unleashed all the, nobody even knows where it's all coming from.
And politics has just turned into a, it's just a cesspool.
I don't know how you're going to get anything done when unlimited amount of money flow to these politicians.
Yeah.
And the Senate part is you had a plan, the Affordable Care Act.
All you had to do is sit down and make it better.
Yeah.
No.
Right.
No.
And so I get pretty frustrated with things.
And one other thing.
Joe Biden had the Inflation Reduction Act, which reduced drug prices for a lot
people.
did.
Yeah.
But, you know,
God.
It's an amazing thing.
Thanks for taking my time.
Wisco Paul, of course, we mentioned the other day that they did lower the price of like nine drugs, and there'll be more in the future, but then they raised the price of about 350 drugs, dramatically raised the price of those drugs.
So they're not losing money.
In fact, they're making money just by discounting just a few to keep us happy out
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