They’re Going To “Save” Medicaid (Hour 1)

Good morning and welcome.

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Kate's gonna be here to talk about a little video that's kind of going viral.

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The Popcorn King is here?

Robin Voss.

He'll be here later.

His horses have arrived.

He's arrived.

Yeah, Robin Voss had a little exchange with Lou Ann Bird.

Good friends with Lou Ann Bird.

Kate Duffy was there.

No, no, no.

She took the video and she, and she did a, she did a whiteboard.

Yeah.

She broke it down and gave you all the information.

Yeah.

So we're going to kick that around with Pat Crite low and Kate Duffy after the 9 30 news, little interchange, rather between Robin Voss and Luann Bird.

Did that happen yesterday?

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Yes.

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Specifically.

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Yeah, it's I mean especially if they're like in the slightly educational games and plus also we'll talk about this later, too But just the community

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Gonna start off with something that we meant to get to yesterday and just didn't get around to it about Medicaid.

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

In the House bill.

They want to fix it.

But nothing's going to be cut, Greg.

There are no cuts.

They're preserving it.

They're

going to preserve Medicaid, at least according to Mike Johnson, who was on Meet the Press on Sunday.

But this morning, as I was going through social media and just looking at stuff, Senator Roger Marshall, who is a Republican, was on Fox News this morning.

talking to Maria Bartiromo about Medicaid, and he said something that I think that is worth playing.

Calvin, do we have that clip from Senator Roger Marshall, please?

You could believe that you will have the vote for this package, and you will be able to identify more spending cuts by the July 4th deadline, or it's just going to take longer.

Look, I still remain optimistic.

Ron Johnson, Rick Scott, all those people, Mike Lee and I share the same goal.

On the other hand, as you mentioned, we got folks that are afraid of the small Medicaid cuts that we made already, Medicaid cuts that are going to strengthen Medicaid and save it for those who need it the most.

So we're pretty far apart yet.

We have 53 Republican senators.

We have 53 opinions.

We're trying to work through all that.

I've been real impressed with John Thune and Mike Crapo's ability to bring everybody together.

You know, they're leading the charge right now.

So I have confidence we'll get

but we're not done, Maria.

We will need to come back and do more recisions, but also take a second and third bite of this apple.

Let's get the one big beautiful bill across the finish line, then let's come back and get a second and third bite.

So

it

does include cuts.

Yes.

Those words came out of his mouth.

I did not mishear that.

Correct.

Yes.

It's always included cuts.

It's always been a problem where they're going to say,

You know, we need to, and they're gonna sell it as the cuts are gonna be all that waste, fraud, and abuse that's been dealt over the, which if you look it up, the research will show there are problems with federal safety net programs with fraud,

with abuse, with things

of that nature, but they're not, they're going to make regular folks suffer, and they're not gonna do anything about,

businesses.

Well, and that's where my gripe is.

It seems to be at least anecdotally, a lot of the fraud that happens with Medicaid falls under certain providers who provide certain services and they get the Medicaid dollars that are supposed to then offer programs to folks who are on Medicaid.

It seems like, I don't know, one could say the former governor of Florida.

Current senator a current senator Rick Scott.

Yeah, who had a little business that was convicted of one of the biggest Medicaid frauds in history I believe

yes, it was with his company he was

He

was a CEO of a group called Columbia HCA and they were He had to resign in 1997 because they were part of the largest healthcare fraud settlement at the time of 1.7

Billion

with a B as in boy

as in big beautiful blob dollars and nothing happened to Rick Scott, by the way.

No, nothing.

He got to be governor and they got to be senator.

I mean, I think the next, he gets to be president of the moon next.

I mean, it's just the, it's, it's the rich failing upwards as they always get to do.

Meanwhile, folks like me, you, our grandma's, grandpa's, uncle's aunts and people's kids will suffer because they are going to not cut Jane.

They're going to say

they're going to preserve.

They're going to

preserve.

It's

preserving.

Just they're going to preserve it with less.

Mike Johnson, as we mentioned, appeared on Meet the Press over the weekend.

He pushed back on some projections that this budget bill will lead to 4.8 million people who will lose coverage because of work requirements.

But Mike Johnson says that's not going to happen.

They're not going to lose coverage.

unless they choose to do so.

As in what, like they forget to check a box or something?

Right, he doesn't really go into a lot of detail about that.

Let me guess, we have to listen to him talk.

We do have a clip from Mike

Johnson.

What did I do to you?

Calvin, let's play that clip, please.

Do you have any actual evidence that these people that you refer to are engaging in fraud?

Well, there is a tremendous amount of fraud in Medicaid.

It's undisputed.

Tens of billions of dollars every year are lost in fraud to Medicaid.

So there's another category of people, 1.2 million, that are totally ineligible to be on the program.

We also have evidence of people who are listed and enrolled in multiple programs in multiple states simultaneously, and they are cheating the system.

I'm going to say this very clearly.

Our legislation preserves Medicaid, strengthens Medicaid for the people who actually need it and deserve it.

And we're going to get rid of the fraud, waste, and abuse, and that is a long time overdue.

Okay.

All right.

I don't dispute that that

is probably overdue.

So just a just a cursory search and Google provides that over a over a decade is supposed to fraud and errors amounts to a little over a trillion dollars because Medicaid is one of our biggest expenses.

Yes.

Next to Social Security

and

oh and Medicare the military.

Oh, but when we assign things like fraud and abuse

That gets to allow people, that allows people to put in their heads these nefarious individuals at their home saying, I'm taking all this money.

When it's really not, it has to do more with how payments are obtained.

Payments are not obtained through the people.

They're paid for by the people, but the people, when you like, if I own a company that works with Medicaid, I am doing the coding.

I can upcode, I can double bill.

I'm looking at kickbacks.

There's all sorts of ways of gaming the system, and it's not being done by the people who need it.

It's being done by these terrible companies who may or may not have been headed up by a former governor now, Senator of Florida.

So when we talk about fraud, waste and abuse, we should absolutely go after all those things.

But also, let's not punish the people, and I don't know, maybe prosecute the people who are in these companies committing literal crimes.

Fraud is a crime.

Absolutely.

Fraud is a crime, and that's been kind of our whole thing since the very beginning of all of this, is if you are finding all of this fraud, where are these court cases?

Where is it?

Where is the proof?

Show your work.

Yeah, the proof kind of being an important question.

I have to imagine there was just so much fraud and abuse chain that it just over welled Elon so much that he had to leave Doge and the government entirely.

He was like, there's too much abuse.

There's too much fraud, Jane.

I got to put the chainsaw down and walk away and make cars that don't on a gas.

This is such a load of garbage because Mike Johnson, the.

I wasn't going to swear.

Be careful.

No, I wasn't going to swear.

I just was looking for the wrong word.

The speaker of the house, he just says, oh, it's incontributable.

It's incontrovertible.

There it is.

But again, they've done this for years.

They know intuitively that millions and millions of people who shouldn't be voting are voting.

They have no proof for that.

He knows it in his heart.

He

knows it

in his heart.

And all this is an effort to gin up support from people who agree with them so they can simply go, see, he said it.

So I don't have to do any more research.

I don't have to know anything else because that guy said it and I like that guy.

So therefore they should cut Medicaid.

And then in two, three, six months they'll be like, why can't I get my Medicaid?

Why is it less?

Why is it gone?

I didn't vote for this.

Mike Johnson says 4.8 million people will not lose Medicaid unless they choose to do so.

Again, there are already work requirements in place.

We spoke to someone who receives Medicaid.

There are work requirements in place.

There are checks to make sure on a yearly basis that the situation hasn't changed.

These things are already in existence.

In the search for all this waste, abuse, and fraud, one thing, I said it last week and I'll keep saying it, that the government actually works better than we assumed.

There's things in place.

That

do

work.

Yeah.

When we return, Doge has done it.

Or maybe not.

That's all on the way.

Stay close.

You are listening to Matt Nair on air on the Civic Media Radio Network.

We'll be right back.

Good

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Butternut and WBZ H in Hayward the crew at the Reds go crew our broadcast starts today at 535 This is something that I think can slip past a lot of folks The government comes out and says look at this great thing we did Mm-hmm, and no one double checks to see if the great thing was actually done what?

Doge

Oh, yeah.

Doge seems

to

do this quite frequently.

Take a lot of wins.

Look at what we did.

We're Doge.

Yay.

Now look over here.

We're going to do something else.

And then it turns out what they said was not exactly what happened.

So Doge has come out and said that they have made sure that people who were not supposed to be getting paid social security are no longer getting paid social security.

If you remember.

in a speech on March 4th.

Donald Trump said that, quote, we are identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program for seniors.

Believe it or not, government databases list 3.47 million people from ages 120 to 129.

Money is being paid to many of them.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Hit the reverse real quick.

From ages what to what?

Yes, now.

This has been talked about.

The Social Security Database uses a really old programming language, which doesn't have a standardized way to store dates.

That's how old the system is.

So a default date, like 1875, just they picked a number out of the sky as a default date.

So they picked like 1875 for people who did not have birth information.

And again, not everybody had easy access to birth certificates even 80 years ago.

Yeah.

When Musk's team entered social security system, they found people listed in the system with ages of like 120.

So instead of doing like, I don't know, like one Google search or asking one of the people who's been there for a while, they went out there and just said 100 to 100.

Millions.

Well,

See, that's so funny because I remember hearing Elon, and I don't have the clip, but he has said it, it was in an interview, and he said it with some, with the shock of like, there are people out there, there was a person out there who was over the age of 250.

Like, what are you talking about?

There is no follow-up on that.

If you see something like that, I didn't know, like you said, you may wanna just Google it and show your work.

Take a look.

In 2023, it was recommended that the social security system be cleaned up so that those deaths

were permanently recorded.

They had found that a vast majority of beneficiaries who didn't have a birth date, again, listed to 1875, most of those people have since died.

And do not receive those benefits.

No, they do not.

There it is.

So they claimed that 12 million people were getting improper payments.

Actually, these people were dead.

So Doge appears to have implemented a plan that suggested a couple of years ago and now but now they are coming out Doge is coming out and saying look what we did We stopped all these people from illegally getting social security Even though that's not what happened.

Nope Nope never it's never what and and if you do and

I would love to find someone who could come on, and I would honestly, I would have them on for half an hour or an hour to really take people by the hand to explain to them the beginning, middle, and end, and doge is not done, but I'm talking about the Elon months of what they have done to this country in the ways of not finding fraud, not finding abuse, not finding wasteful spending, but instead costing us so much money.

Through their operations that it's going to take I've heard estimates between a few years to a decade

maybe

longer to repair this

Well, and as you said stuff like this gets out there and then it is it is presented as truth.

Mm-hmm senator Tim Scott Doe is just marked 12.3 million people age 20 and above as deceased in the social security database Democrats are losing their minds.

This fraud is being cleaned up.

Yeah, no, they they weren't getting payments

Poor Tim Scott, he got them.

the fuzzy end of that lollipop.

He got nothing in the White House, nothing.

He, that man, that man licked boots from the beginning and he got nothing.

He's still waiting.

Oh, but he's still excited.

It's fine.

There's a reward down there somewhere down the road.

He

just has to be patient.

We have news coming up next.

And then when we return, he is the host of mornings with Pat Crightlow.

Pat Crightlow will be here along with the founder of motherhood for good.

Karen Duffy is joining us.

Kate Duffy.

Yes, it starts with a K.

Words are hard.

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The aforementioned Pat Crite low broadcasting live from his home at Lake Wissota.

Good morning, Pat.

getting, getting the Yacht Rock

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You

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where to come.

We got you fixed.

We got you taste from, from a, a very smoky, rainy.

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Cause we get this smoky rain.

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We are delighted to be joined right now along with Pat Cratlow, the founder of Motherhood for Good.

Kate Duffy is here.

Good morning, Kate.

Thanks so much for joining us.

Good morning.

Thanks for having me.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

We wanted to talk to you because you did a little

Katie Porter kind of whiteboard breakdown yesterday after Lou Ann Bird, who was a friend of the show,

we've

had on the show many, many times.

Lou Ann Bird had a little exchange with no one other than the speaker of the assembly, Robin Voss.

We like to affectionately call the popcorn king.

We do have a clip from that exchange.

We're gonna play the clip of the exchange and then

Kate, you can take over once it's done about what you talked about in your video.

Okay.

Great.

Play that clip.

Got one,

please.

I guess I look at it and say, just don't have, um, we already have enough welfare.

I really don't know.

Oh, it's

a hundred percent.

And we already see there have a chance of probably funding Medicaid as it is.

Well, that's going to get worse.

We know that.

So why not, why not take care of poor people?

What do you mean?

Why not take care of poor people?

Women.

Well, they already have access to Obamacare for free.

Feel free to come in and sign in here over here.

Well, it doesn't right

now.

But still, postpartum care, I guess, doesn't get covered.

I'm dedicated.

Is that what the deal is?

Correct, but would I know Obamacare?

Which is why I wouldn't want people to go on Obamacare.

Feel

free to come

right in and sign in.

No, no, no, no.

Is that what I said?

What was the word you said?

There's two ways for people to get insurance, private sector, and public sector.

Public sector should have a last resort at

first.

That's

enough,

Kevin.

It's kind of hard to hear, but Robin Ross essentially tells Lou Ann Bird when she asks about coverage for poor people that Obamacare is free, that the ACA is, it's free.

I didn't know that, Jane.

So everybody should be good, Pat.

What

do you think?

Dragon,

Kate,

do it.

Yes.

So this was interesting.

So Luanne went to one of his listening sessions a couple of weeks ago and I have heard his listening sessions.

He doesn't really take just any question.

It's like a very kind of stricter format.

I bet it looks like in the video, I think she got there early and just kind of like went and talked to him really quick, which is like so Luanne.

Um, and she got this and she, she actually sent it to me.

And so part of it surprised me and part didn't write the, the welfare part.

We've heard him say that a lot about this postpartum.

Medicaid and blocking it.

And as a reminder to everybody listening, this is like so supported by everybody on both sides.

It already passed the Senate 32 to 1.

It has the support of 74 out of 99 assembly members, including many from his own pocket.

Just to

clarify, just to clarify Kate, what you're talking about is extending this postpartum coverage for a year.

Yeah, and it's not even expanding it to more people It's just allowing the people who are eligible for it the women who have access to Medicaid because they're pregnant and postpartum Just extending that time to 12 months as opposed to kicking them off at 60 days And we are one of only two states who has not done that

right

so

and

his

whole Robin boss's whole contention is that that's expanding welfare if we do

that

Which, and he said that before, he already thinks we have enough welfare, yadda, yadda, yadda.

I would love if like, somebody could just ask him when they have him, well, what is welfare?

Because, you know, it's not like a, it's more of an ideology, not necessarily a policy.

And why is he calling this welfare, but not, you know, support for school vouchers?

Or the loan that he got for his business during the pandemic.

Yes.

Yeah, that's not

welfare.

It's

definitely a strategic word he uses when he's talking about certain things.

But besides that, it was interesting that he said three times in that clip, well, we don't need it.

Those women can just get on Obamacare for free.

Again, another word he's deliberately using Obamacare.

Because that's not true.

And he said it like three times.

Yeah.

And that was the thing was like, when I heard that and

Try to keep the professionalism in my in my in my voice here, but when you

watch the

fit When you watch the video this sneering and the condescension of his words the way he speaks to Luan Who is just trying to get an answer and he just speaks from a place of like that was the question I had is he's either lying

Or he's ill-informed and I don't think he's ill-informed.

I think

he

knows that Obamacare isn't free

But he says

things like that and just gets lets it he allows it to just be out there in the world and he walks away.

It's like, yeah, I told her

Yeah, and I'm I wasn't like fully surprised to hear him say that because because I have like a large community who calls about this all the time and they call their own reps I have heard from some people from their reps like

Shay sort well and a couple other ones that their reps have been telling them well We don't need it because these women can just get on obama care for free And that's why I said in the video that I did like I just showed the math.

It's like No, you you can't maybe so there's like, you know, you're eligible for the Medicaid based on

where you are in regards to the poverty level.

You see it goes up when you are pregnant and postpartum.

But the ACA is like that has different stipulations too.

So there may be a case where somebody can get like almost free or very low cost.

But again, that's very rare.

And even if they can get that, it's like then going through all the paperwork and trying to apply and going through all that when you have a six week old, like give me a break.

Yeah.

That's something we've talked about, too, is the fact that this isn't just you walk in the room, press a button, and you get all this money.

Right.

Or you fill out one app,

one sheet.

We're not talking about a one sheet application.

I made the example last week.

This is how strict BadgerCare is.

I once tried to apply for it many years ago.

And I made $19 over the accepted.

And that was it.

There was no negotiation.

There was no do this.

It was literally, you make this much?

Sorry, you're not eligible.

And that was the end of the conversation.

So there are

guardrails in place.

And this isn't about pregnant or parents who have had children who are gaming the system.

This is something that everyone agrees upon most.

Here's what you have to remember about the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare is that it is not public insurance.

There is no public option.

Joe Lieberman killed the public option idea for the Affordable Care Act.

So if you're getting support, you're getting premium credits to purchase

private insurance from private companies.

The Affordable Care Act just makes some of that care from private companies more affordable.

What Robin Voss is doing is once again playing the role of Joe Lieberman and saying, we don't want you to have the public option of Medicaid.

We will steer you toward these private companies as we continue to try to knock down the Affordable Care Act so that once again, these private companies can deny coverage on a whim.

So for him, it's less

about the new moms now than it is his long game of eventually undermining the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid and making sure that the private sector for profit insurance companies always come

out on top.

If you're just joining us, we have Kate Duffy for motherhood for good, as well as Pat Critlow, who is the host of mornings with Pat Critlow right here on Civic Media Radio Network from six AM to nine AM.

The one thing I wanted to make clear also in that video, because yes, there's a lot of things happening to a lot of noise.

I'm going to post the video, Kate, that you put up explaining everything, but I also want to just let everyone know at the end of that video, he states clearly on what Pat was just saying, I would rather have people go to private insurance because there's no money

for his campaign and for him through a public option.

He wants to make sure those private guys are taking care of him.

And that, again, that's the other thing too, is like, are you lying or are you ill-informed?

I think you're lying.

Yeah, translation to that is he would like people on for-profit.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, because business is the best, the marketplace is the best, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, yeah.

It's so infuriating because she says, well, I don't want you to want to take care of poor people.

And Robin Voss just can't even muster up the energy to...

Well, it's more like, well, there's already help for them.

They don't need any more help.

It's already there.

It's already there.

It already exists if they would just take advantage of it.

But yes.

Well, that to the like 40 women a year dying in that postpartum period, Robin Voss.

But they're pro-family.

And

they want more women to have a

lot more babies.

We should all be having more babies and being more pro-family and all that stuff.

It's just, once you have it,

We don't like to help them.

Well, come on,

kid.

You're on your own.

They barely like to help you while you're having the baby and they'll do the everything they can to get the baby.

And then you're just, you're fine.

Go away.

Bye, bye,

bye.

Right.

It's the benevolent.

benevolent billionaire mindset of, you know, your healthcare will be taken care of by the private sector or by donations, the same with your education.

That's why we fight public education.

It's why they fight public transportation.

It's why they fight almost anything with public in front of it is because to them it's taking food off the table of these billionaires who will otherwise take care of us.

I'd rather we take care of each other with our tax dollars and have good responsible public servants who identify a problem like two

many new moms dying and do something about it.

Well, and as you

said, and what's really frustrating about that, that expanding that coverage for new moms is that that's a bipartisan thing that passed as you, as you pointed out when we first started talking with a lot of support on both sides.

Yeah, so poor down both sides.

But also it's like in every single like lobbying group that supports it is like a cast of characters you would never imagine on the same bill together Association pro life Wisconsin of course like physicians and and ACLU and ever like it's Supported by everybody.

So that's what I'm saying.

It doesn't make sense.

It's a very interesting hill to die on I don't know if he's just being stubborn and holding out or Or

what but but I saw something also this morning that said

30% of employers do not offer health insurance.

So it's not like every company offers health insurance.

Not every company is in a position to do that.

They don't.

I think that this goes back to what we've talked about in the past, which is when they had all the power in the world,

They could do whatever they want.

Once Fair Maps came into play and a few more Democrats got into power, they are going to do everything they can to deny Democrats any sort of say, and more importantly, deny Tony Evers any sort of win possible.

And he will allow, as you put it, Kate, women to die every year to keep this from happening.

And I think it's just, when you hear Republicans in the Assembly openly say, I don't know why this isn't happening.

And also, from a political standpoint, Pat, you can attest to this.

take it home to your district, knock doors and say, look what we did for you.

This is Robin Vos being the worst version of a monster possible and caring not at all about it.

Yeah, I mean, it's almost like he knows he's going down and he's taking everybody with him.

I completely agree.

Do you think, do we really, because a PJ on the live stream says Robin's up for reelection in 2027.

Do we really think that Robin's finally done being king of the hill?

No, and it would be 2026, and the term would start in 2027, but he's going to stick to his ideological guns because he is an ideological extremist, and that's what they do, and they don't care if he goes down with the ship.

He sees a long line of people who've been...

well cared for if they get defeated or leave office or things like that.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy looking at you, for example.

Yeah.

That Crite Low is here.

Kate Duffy, the founder of Motherhood for Good.

We have so much more on the way.

Stay close.

You are listening to Matt Nair on air.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

We will be right back.

you

Good morning and welcome back to Matt Nair on air.

Jane Matt Nair, Greg Bach and Calvi Teenie on the board coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.

You can always join us, call or text the number is the same.

855-752-4842.

Leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream, on Facebook, YouTube and what used to be Twitter coming up an hour from now.

We will wrap up the show as we always do with this shouldn't be a thing.

Today it is the Boulder Dash edition.

I highly encourage you to stick around for that.

Right now that we are joined by Pat Critello, host of Mornings with Pat Critello.

Morning six to nine across the Civic Media radio network.

And the founder of Motherhood for Good Kate Duffy is here as well.

And we were talking about earlier about this battle over statewide Medicaid access for pregnant people.

And just in general, we don't expand.

We haven't expanded the ACA coverage here in the state.

ever, uh, pregnant people have two, two, 60 days

after

giving birth, but there's also a wider discussion we were talking about earlier.

And one of the things, and, and, and, and I think what Robin Voss tries to do, and we see Congress and the Senate doing is weaponizing this fight for Medicaid in the way of saying we're saving Medicaid, we're preserving Medicaid.

And they like to talk about able body people, which always gets me.

really upset because as you just said, Jane, when 30% of businesses do not offer health insurance, it has nothing to do with able body versus disabled.

This has to do with the coverage you can access through your business.

And big businesses like Walmart, I've been tracked and clocked as telling their employees, go on state aid.

We don't want to give you health insurance.

Go on state.

It's better.

While they get millions, tens of millions, if not billions in tax breaks, all those things.

Some would call that corporate welfare, but like, yeah, it's just, what we're seeing now is that, you know, making a poisonous narrative to push cuts to Medicaid that are going to affect everyone, including the people who voted for them.

and by the way cuts that aren't necessarily explicit cuts but by increasing those work requirements those reporting requirements as Kate can tell you her hands are a little full right now as it is with the little one at home now imagine having to get online or fill out a form and now you have to do it more often to prove that you've been working for 80 hours a month or whatever the case may be and you finally just you give up because you you can't jump through all those hoops and they say you see we didn't cut Medicaid right

Busy Kate decided she just couldn't fulfill the requirements anymore.

She still needs it as much as ever.

Yeah.

Well, and and that's what is happening and will happen if these women get cut off at two months, right?

And this is actually why a lot of Republicans are for it, right?

Because they know that like if these women drop off at 60 days, we know most of the postpartum deaths happen between six and nine months.

And beyond those, there's a lot of near death experiences.

There's a lot of situations where women end up in the emergency room if they don't have insurance.

that's not good for any of us as the state anyways, and having to pay for people who don't have

emergency

care.

So that's why they also support it.

I think the fiscal estimate for this is like $20 million.

And when we're looking at the overall biennial budget we have and the surplus we have, which is in the billions, it's literally like the tiniest fraction of that.

And

just personally, the other thing that really annoys me to no end about this,

I feel that there is this assumption by some that every woman's pregnancy experience is the same.

And every pregnancy starts out great and it goes great and there's no problems and she gives birth and bingo, she's back.

That's not reality.

No, it is not.

And I say that as the husband of an OBGYN.

And we have, of course, another OBGYN, Dr. Kristen Lyrely on all the time.

And Kate, you talk to countless moms.

And the fact that there are still politicians who promote this.

Norman Rockwell version of pregnancy that is free of complications.

And it doesn't just affect the coverage.

We had we talked yesterday about how Iowa is the latest state to require people to watch a human growth development video that is riddled with inaccuracies so that they can have this cartoon depiction of how wonderful every pregnancy is.

That just ain't so.

No, it's not.

And even like my representative is a Republican and one of the staffers I talk to all the time when I call

tells me how his wife really dealt with postpartum depression very bad for a year.

And so it's just like, there are stories all over the place.

And by the way, when we lose these moms, these kids are losing their moms.

We're not just letting them fall through the cracks.

It's causing trauma to a child and an entire family.

And we know the stats on what happens when a child that young grows up with trauma.

They end up

not only is it bad for them personally, but they have a higher rate of landing in poverty, incarceration, things like that.

So,

I don't know.

Yeah, I feel like we have to bring in Joni Ernst to say, well, we're all gonna die anyway.

That's the mindset we're getting from Republicans

like Joni Ernst.

And Kate, the way you ended that is how whenever we talk about Robin Voss and this topic, I always end up with a huge crescendo, always peter out with

Because I just want to say to him, why don't you care about people?

What is it about you that makes you not care about the well-being of the individuals who live in this state that you claim to represent?

Everything you do in your job seems like you dislike us and want nothing for us.

Because this right here, supported by so many, as you said, Kate, a wild cast of characters, he's just like, no, I don't think so.

Well, there's the I was at the Senate hearing when this went through their health committee and representative Pat Snyder is in there who's a Republican and he said, if we can't get behind this, then what the hell are we doing here?

You

know, and it's like.

I just agreed with him.

There is bipartisanship.

I know.

I'm agreeing with Rand Paul lately.

What's it going on in this world?

Kate Duffy is the founder of Motherhood for Good.

We will include that clip

in our show notes

so you can take a look at the just warm way Robin Voss interacts with the lovely Lou Ann Bird.

Pat Crichtlow, the host of Mornings with Pat Crichtlow, 6 to 9 a.m.

Monday through Friday across the network.

Thank you so very much for joining us, both of you.

News is coming up next and when we return we're going to talk about board games are good for you.

That's all on the way.

Don't go away.

You're listening to Matt Nair on air on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Good morning and welcome.

Welcome to Matt Nair on air.

Jane Matt Nair, Greg Bach, Calvin Butenoff coming to you live from our studio here at Radio Park in Racine.

You can always join us, call or text.

The number is the same 855.

7524842 leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook YouTube and what used to be Twitter.

She owns the GameStop in Sheboygan.

Our guests were to talk all about games and what at the game board rather in downtown Sheboygan and how games are good for you.

Lynn Potion is here.

Good morning, Lynn.

Thanks so much for joining us.

Hi, Jane.

It's Lynn Potion.

Potion, I apologize.

That's okay.

And I do not own the GameStop, that's for sure.

Yeah, no, you own the GameBoard.

Yes, the GameBoard in downtown Sheboygan.

Let's talk a little bit, Lynn, about how you got into this because there's a connection with one of your children.

Right.

Well, the story is, it goes back 25 years ago, my son was diagnosed with a severe speech delay.

and later on with the neurological writing disorder.

But in the meantime, he was using games at speech therapy, and I worked with him at home using board games and card games that were coming out of Europe to help him find a different cognitive path to learning.

We were very successful at doing that, and Sascha I opened a store and then have in the last 20 years been helping other individuals with special needs.

autism and all the way through end-of-life stages with the menches.

That's fantastic.

That's

amazing.

It is.

It is really amazing.

I would think when people hear your story, they're gonna be, you must reach some, here's some skepticism from folks.

Really, playing a game made your son better?

No,

absolutely don't get any skepticism actually.

No.

No, playing games is actually super important for your cognitive.

abilities.

So I mean, everything we've ever done is with cognitive learning.

We're here in America, we're one of the few places in the world that does not believe in playing games for learning.

It actually kind of translates back to commercials being given to us and fed to us from the 60s to the 90s.

It was an unfortunate accident for the commercial because the commercials were really good.

And they said the kids play games.

And so adults thought, well, only kids play games.

And it's kind of an underlying current that people believe.

But if you go

to

Europe, everybody plays board games.

Everybody plays card games.

It is the best way to keep yourself sharp.

And as you mentally decline, that's the best way to stay in tune socially and academically.

That doesn't surprise me, Lynn, because it feels like when they

Nowadays, especially with smartphones and more variety in board games, you can access more independently made board games.

But they have to almost say, like, it's a board game for adults.

You have to tell an adult, it's OK to play this game.

You're not a child.

But I mean, I contend that when I was a kid, we used to play board games with my parents.

And I believe the box said from ages eight and up.

So that kind of includes everyone.

Yeah, it's unfortunate that it was more like the commercial on Saturday morning cartoons that you would hear that would say, oh, these are focused on children because the commercials were focused to keep the kids in turn into watching the TV on Saturday morning.

That's just the sad fact.

I mean, depending on what your age is, you probably grew up with some of that.

I did.

I'm 59.

I grew up watching those commercials.

And, you know, I had monopoly and twister and careers and the mystery date.

Oh,

mystery day.

Oh, my God.

Mystery date.

Brought you back.

Oh, yes.

He has a car.

Oh, he had a tie.

Oh.

And those.

I mean, those were delightful.

Those are great games.

But also, if you think about the Mystery Day game, that wasn't for little kids.

No.

That was like for 20 something.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's a whole boy.

That's a whole show.

Lynn, we could talk about that.

Seriously.

This guy doesn't even own a Ferrari.

Why am I playing this?

Yeah.

If you're just joining us, Lin Potyan is the owner of the game board in downtown Sheboygan, and we were talking about how board games are good for you.

And you mentioned Lin because we're just, I'm a little older than you, but I think we grew up in the same time period where as a family, we would play life, which no one ever finished because it was too long.

What

a

commentary.

Seriously

though, and Monopoly.

But what are games that are really good for cognition?

every game is.

No matter what game that is out there.

No matter what every game and it's really intriguing because there's obviously educational games, but mostly educational games don't involve a lot of critical thinking as much as you would think.

Um so so.

Educational games don't have that fun side.

They have that, I'm sorry, I spoke wrong.

They have critical thinking, but they don't have the fun part.

And

so when you put the critical thinking and the fun part together, then you have this really great combination.

And that's really what playing games is about, right?

We do an activity so that we stay involved and we're learning and we're having a good time and we're building memories and we're having socialization and we're having that experience with each other.

And then when it's all over, you've actually probably learned how to recognize shapes or numbers or letters or learn to take turns, learn to

have

a critical way of thinking about something, how to handle your resources, how to manage money, all those other pieces that come with it.

So you're learning something at all times.

Even though you're not even, you might not be aware of it.

not aware of it.

That's the best part.

That's what games are all about.

I mean, games started over in Europe.

You know, I mean, you could trace them all the way back to the pyramids.

When what did they do?

They played a game of bones with the people who were building the pyramids.

Unfortunately, those are slaves.

But in order to make the slaves work, they didn't let them play a game.

They had them build the pyramids and then they fed them.

But on their off day, they got to play the game.

They

didn't feed them.

And they didn't feed them.

And going back to the evolution of this, because when I was a kid, anything that was educational was.

boring and now they've especially with the dawn of technology and you can make you can make education whether it's a game or a story or anything you can make it so much fun and engaging and really I think it's more about especially for young people in flaming their minds of to curiosity rather than teaching them something it's learning teaching them how to be curious which is great yeah I think that's absolutely

fantastic

yeah yeah absolutely

One thing, though, I wanted to discuss with you really quick.

And this is a conversation I had with my brother-in-law, who is a doctor.

And it is the, while games are great, what you said, I totally believe that all games are good for keeping mentally sharp.

There are games out there, especially on our phone that say, you'll get smarter, or you'll make your memory.

They claim to do these things that I think...

physiologically are impossible or if you're looking to do something like that I mean I don't think a game can make you smarter but like if you're looking to sharpen your memory it's also something you should if you feel like you're having memory problems maybe talk to your doctor but also engage in gaming with other people because it's also great for community

but here's the thing you're getting confused with I'm talking tabletop games

you're

talking apps on phones

So it's a it's a different thing.

An app on a phone and computers for the most part.

There's no shame in playing video games.

Video games are very much more socially engaging than they used to be.

But back when Jane and I were kids, that wasn't

a thing.

That's

right.

So it wasn't socially engaging.

You were in direct competition with the person if there was somebody even in the room with you.

So let's go back to apps on phones.

They are isolating.

They do not allow you to engage with other people.

So you're no longer learning about facial expressions.

You're no longer engaging with community or with people who are around you.

So you're isolating yourself.

And if you have a cognitive decline happening, if you're older, then that is something that's going to make it worse.

That's not going to make it better.

You're isolating yourself is the last thing you want to do.

You want to be more socially engaging.

And as people go aging and hit a cognitive decline,

They have a tendency to avoid situations where they're uncomfortable.

They don't go on public.

They don't see people.

They don't drive anymore.

And those are things that are going to only be escalated by isolating somebody.

Now, can you play a word game or a crossword or play a, oh, there's wonderful little puzzle games on the phone.

Yes, absolutely.

But you have to balance that with whatever you're doing socially too.

So board games.

though, how that tends to grab all of that and put it all into one place.

Sorry, Jane, I cut you

off.

No, not at all.

And I just think you said something so interesting, Lynn, in that, especially for people who might be on the spectrum, I can see where doing a face-to-face board game, learning about facial expressions, right?

That's got to just be so critically important.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When there's a, you know,

Dungeons and Dragons is amazing.

It's a role-playing game.

Any role-playing game is really good if you have somebody with autism because they're learning how to take risks, they're learning how to take turns, and when they make a failure or they do something wrong in the game, they don't personally have a failure.

Their character has a failure.

They have to start over again, but it's a learning session.

They learn how to handle a social situation or how to handle defeat in a very nice

comfortable place as opposed to someplace that's likely like a school that will embarrass them.

We don't want to embarrass anybody.

Right.

It's a failure that's easier to accept, right?

Because again, it's in a different kind of environment.

Yeah.

I think this is fantastic.

And I've always been someone who's been very adverse to board games, not because I wouldn't enjoy them, but because I'm always afraid that the rules, I will not understand the rules, and someone will have to explain them to me.

And therefore making them not enjoy it because they're like, well, I had to explain to Greg for 40 minutes why this did this thing.

And so I.

So there's an app out there called dized D I Z E D. And we really focus on it at our store because it's a bridge that takes you from wanting to open the game to playing the game because you don't have to read the directions.

It's an app that will teach you how to play the game while you're playing it.

D I Z E

D.

Yeah, D-I-Z-E-D dies.

It's an incredible app.

Not every game is on it yet,

but

a whole bunch of games are on it.

And it makes it so much easier because some of those harder games, like you have to get a law degree to read them.

Are you kidding me?

I saw a video on YouTube talking about the most complicated game ever.

I think it's called The Conqueror of North Africa.

And to play it with everybody involved that you need, it takes about 10 years.

Oh, come

on.

Yeah, it is so complicated that it's a video of comedy now.

Wow.

We're going to continue... Yeah, I only have ten years.

Right?

Who's got that much good heavens?

I thought Monopoly was bad.

I thought Life was bad.

Much less a ten-year game.

We're going to continue our conversation with Lynn Poitian.

podium podium podium all right yeah we'll just call her Lynn Lynn owns the game board in downtown Sheboygan and she curates a whole bunch of different strategic and cooperative board games for all ages and has community game nights as well we're gonna keep this going as well as your

favorite games.

What games do you like to play at 855-752-4842?

Stay close.

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This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

We'll be right

back.

People play it now every night and every day

Good morning and welcome back to Matt Nair on air.

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Right now, we are joined by the owner of the Game Board in downtown Sheboygan.

Lynn Porian is our guest, and we're talking all things games and how games are good for you.

It's interesting, Lynn, you had mentioned that...

Isolation is not a good thing when you're talking about games because there is one word game that I play on my phone all the time that I love and it's called bonza and It's it's essentially if you took a if you took a crossword puzzle and you cut it up and Then you had to read and then you had to put it back together But

I don't that's very

cool.

Oh, it's fantastic And I turned up my friend in Texas onto it.

So we we talk about that all the time

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anything you play is going to be good.

Like anything.

Yeah.

Seriously.

There's not a bad thing.

We don't play enough as adults.

We don't play.

And we need to learn to play more.

I think that's what Europe gets right.

They did a cognitive cohort study where they followed a city of people for 20 years.

And when they got done with the study, they found that

15% chance less chance of getting dementia if you were one of the people in the study who was playing board games and card

games.

Really?

That's that's a really cool statistics to know about.

Yeah.

That's sad.

It is.

Yeah.

Well, if I can ask you a piece of advice, as I said, I

didn't mean to dumbfound you.

No, no, no, no.

I mean, that's it's both amazing and absolutely not shocking that Europe is getting it right when it comes to this topic that like they I've

I don't want to get political or commentary wise, but it doesn't, I'll say this.

It doesn't surprise me.

But as I said, as I said before in the earlier segment, you know, I have a lot of hesitation playing games because I'm afraid of the, the over, rules can be overwhelming.

The rules of play.

So it makes me say, I'm good.

I don't want to, I don't want to ruin your good time by me not knowing.

And, and that's, are there games for adults that would be a, a, a nice.

dip in the, in the, in the, in the water, your

toe in

that is like, it's easy games.

It's a lot, it's a lot of fun.

And it gets you just into the, the, that realm to move forward.

Yeah.

We specialize, we curate in bringing in a bunch of games that are going to be in all different qualities.

you know, levels for adults and kids.