5 Trillion Reasons to Fear Another Bubble (Hour 3)

Across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglo powered by UpMorth News.

Now, for my Lake Minnesota studio, here is the founding editor of UpMorth News, Pat Craiglo.

Well, hey there, Wisconsin.

Good morning.

It is 6.06 on a Thursday morning, October 30th, 2025, October 30th.

Happy birthday to my oldest daughter.

It means I've been a parent for years.

She's at that age now.

You can't say that my eight year old daughter my 10 year old daughter knows my 30 something daughter.

So happy birthday.

It's another beautiful morning to have you here up north live from Lake Basota from wherever you're listening across the civic media radio network spending your mornings right here as we get set for Halloween just one day away.

November just two days away.

I got a question for you.

Do you trust Joe Namath to sell you health insurance or

Jimmy Walker, remember JJ Walker from Goodtimes?

Or William Shatner from Star Trek?

Or some of the other, you know, D-list celebrities that are in these ads for health insurance through something called Medicare Advantage?

If you're, you know, say under 50, you probably don't think about this at all.

You probably don't notice the commercials one bit.

But if you have a parent that is approaching, you know, 65 or a few yourself or getting there and you're starting to pay attention to this kind of stuff like I am in my impending elderliness and with a parent who just turned 80 and is looking at a Medicare Advantage plan that she'd had for years.

and is now being canceled.

And so she and a whole bunch of other seniors around the country have to find new Medicare Advantage plans.

I mean, everybody has to do a lot of homework real fast.

So we've got an expert coming in today to talk about that at 735.

And she'll tell us all about, you know, what, what to look for in Medicare.

Now, let me back up a second here.

Because I don't blame you if you don't know what the Medicare Advantage blah, blah, blah.

Medicare, the actual Medicare, the thing that got set up back in the 60s, all right, was to make sure you've paid your taxes all your life, all your working years.

And when you turn 65, your health care is just taken care of by and large.

Well, somewhere along the line, some politicians allowed

regular old insurance companies to sneak in there and offer their own plans and call it Medicare Advantage, even though it is nothing like regular Medicare.

And the problem is, once you decide to go with one of those plans, it's tough to go back to original Medicare and you're suddenly trapped in that web that you thought you got rid of when you're retired and you could just get regular Medicare.

So we're going to talk about the difference between regular Medicare versus these Medicare Advantage plans.

They do have some pun intended advantages, but the disadvantages are something you really ought to consider before you put your name on the dotted lines on place.

So stick around for that.

That's coming up.

We will also be talking to Sean O'Malley about your money in the markets.

I got five trillion reasons for you to be concerned about a stock market bubble because we hear all about

you know, how the stock market is going great guns right now.

So the economy must be great.

No, it's not.

It's not.

There is such a bubble brewing in AI right now.

And Sean O'Malley is going to help share some of the warning signs with us.

So that's coming up along the way as well.

And of course, your input, which is always welcome by phone, by text, by comment, by email, 855-755-CIVIC, 855-755-24842, or use that Civic Media app to call us, to text us, to send us a voice note, or jump in the comment sections of Facebook or YouTube.

That would be the Up North News Facebook or YouTube pages, or the Civic Media Facebook or YouTube pages.

And it's on there where, let me bring the card up here on for social media, where people

people can see.

There's a lot fewer leaves here along Lake Wissota right now.

Parker Olson joining us from Madison Studio A2.

We're out imagining the leaves have been falling fast and furious by you as well.

Yes, they have.

There are about no leaves on the tree I parked my car under.

They're about no, yeah, we're getting there rapidly.

So I'm hoping for decent weather this weekend because then it's just going to be me and a leaf blower.

Then you hear it all throughout the neighborhood because raking, raking stinks if you've got more than a postage size, postage stamp size lawn.

So if you

can use power,

if you can use

power

to get those leaves out of there, why the heck wouldn't you?

We've got it.

We've got lovely fall weather out.

I didn't know you felt so strongly about your leaf blower.

Come on.

It's a lot of fun.

I've done the raking thing.

And I, you know, I'm not, I'm not immune.

These

hands are too old.

These hands are so they're so dainty and delicate.

And no, no, no.

But they do after a while.

It's like, okay, this is getting old.

Can we do something?

It's about speed.

more than actually about power or hands or anything else.

It's like, can we get this chore done with already?

Especially if I mean, it's one thing if you've if you've got little kids, I remember having to rake all the leaves in a pile and the kids jump in.

Oh, it's fun.

It really is.

But at some point, you don't have that anymore.

And you're just like, Oh, let's just get these out of here.

You know, and you know, preferably in my case, down the down the bank, you know, close to the lake.

But because I like both my neighbors on either side, but there have been years

in the past with different neighbors.

Oh, it's like, oh, oh, no, the wind was suddenly out of the east.

I don't know how that happened.

Oh, well.

Oops.

Oops.

So that's Jim.

Look at look at me making trouble on the street here already.

Let's see.

We we also have well, you pay attention to the YAC.

I do.

Thank you.

Okay.

Pat, thank you.

Thank you for saying YAC.

Okay, that is the Wisconsin, the Wisconsin enters Galactic athletic intercollegiate intergalactic athletic conference.

Yeah,

so it'd be like your UW whitewater Eau Claire Platteville, things like that.

And apparently somebody else

not say why a lot this is a massive debate in like the division three community

of whether it's

why ack or we ack.

No, WEAC is the teacher's union, W-E-A-C, the Wisconsin Education Association Council.

That's WEAC.

I have never heard the WAAC called the WEAC.

So, whoever's doing that needs to sit down.

That's

just wrong.

I want you to know I'm clipping this and I am sending it to my friends.

Good.

Because

this

is very important.

It's not just important, kids.

It's basic.

It is.

It's the WAAC.

Anyway.

Plattville from the YAC was the opponent for the Wisconsin Badgers in this year's, uh, Guarding Against Cancer Classic.

I mean, I might have the name wrong on that, but, you know, the Guard brothers were coaches, the respective coaches at Madison and Plattville.

And how did, uh, I assume the Badger men prevailed in this instance.

The Badgers did win.

I don't think it was as pretty

as they wanted it to be.

Um,

Here it is.

69 53 Badgers over Platteville.

Final tune up game for the Badgers before their season begins next Monday against, of course, the fighting camels of Campbell University down,

right?

I'm never I'm never going to take seriously.

Unless, of course, the Badgers managed to lose next Monday.

Then it's a whole different thing.

But Badgers begin the regular season next week.

And you said what you said, what Platteville actually put up a bit of a fight.

I believe so.

Yeah.

I think I read that they actually were up like eight and a thing or something like that.

Um,

I can see that.

I mean, there was the one year, um, you know, they rotate schools.

And one year it was UW Claire and we went down to Madison to see the blue golds play, uh, you know, the Badgers and of course the Badgers ultimately prevailed, but you get that false sense of security when the Badgers are just kind of doing their rope and rope strategy and just letting, you know, seeing what the other team has got.

So I'm sure the Platteville fans enjoyed that.

But yes, in the end, ultimately the Badger men were victorious as were the Toronto blue chase.

Yeah,

who beat the LA Dodgers six to one last night to come within a game of clinching the World Series.

Game six will be tomorrow night as Team Canada and and team team everyone

but LA

team everyone but LA actually.

Yes.

Roots for Toronto and tomorrow night's game.

The Dodgers looked so quiet last night in the parts that I saw the ones where we're watching the Brewers going

Come on, guys.

Come on, guys.

Come on, guys.

And you could just they kept doing cutaways of the crowd, the Dodger crowd, just all looking like.

Come on, guys.

Come on.

Anytime, guys.

And it was like, it was like they just they ran out of gas.

They're just done.

Now, can they can they pull off one game, much less two in Canada?

Sure, it's possible.

I mean, we've seen that lineup.

We see what it can do.

But at this point, Toronto definitely has the momentum and

That would that would be all right with us.

They

know.

Yeah, I'm okay with the blue jays one.

Yeah.

Yeah, we can do that.

Let's see one news clip to tell you about and then we're gonna hear from Sharita Booker as we talk about weekend events that you might consider attending at points around Wisconsin this weekend.

But as the government shutdown drags on, and we look back at the record of what some of these folks in Congress have had to say.

you know, in the past about government shutdowns and budgets and things like that, something really grabbed our attention from Western Wisconsin Congressman Derek Van Orden, who, like others, tries to do this job of pretending to be a moderate, pretending to call out the right wing of his party when, in fact, he is a, you know, dues paying member of the right wing of his party.

But he was on something called the John Frederick Show in December of last year.

So they knew they were about to take control of Congress.

Donald Trump had just won the presidential election.

They were going to have the House and the Senate and the White House.

And this is what Congressman Derek Van Orden had to say about being in the majority and therefore they

were able to pass a budget.

They were going to do whatever it is they wanted to do.

And if they couldn't get their stuff together, well, then by gum, they, you know, they should pay a price for that.

Listen to what Derek Van Orden had to say.

When we have unified government, I'll be very clear about this.

When we have unified government, if we cannot get our 12 appropriations bills through in a budget, then we don't deserve to be in the majority any longer.

We don't.

You know, I don't sugarcoat anything.

And I'll take the paint off anybody that

is is talking smack about these sorts of things that includes members of my own party.

So a lot of the reasons you got to understand that we didn't get a lot of things done was because of members of the Republican Party.

Some of our far right guys held things up in the rules committee.

They voted against rules if the rule passed and they prevented a lot of these measures getting through.

So that's true.

The other side of the the coin is anything we do has to get through the Senate which was controlled by

Chuck Schumer, it still is until we get through January.

So I'll say that again real clear.

When we have unified government, if we can't get our 12 appropriations bills through and a budget passed, then we do not deserve to be in the majority

period.

I'm Derek Van Orden, and I approve this message.

There, game set match from Derek Van Orden himself.

If they can't get their 12 appropriations bills because if you don't know the background, there isn't like one federal budget bill.

It's broken up into pieces called appropriations bills.

There's 12 of them total.

Some pass ahead of others because some need more debate, etc, etc.

They can't do any of that.

They passed the one big bloated boondoggle because it wasn't a full federal budget.

It was just a roadmap of, you know, trillions of dollars in cuts to make to give tax cuts to the very wealthy.

Big-time cuts in Medicaid and in SNAP SNAP benefits are going to run out this weekend even though they don't have to because there's a multi-billion dollar contingency fund that the Trump administration is refusing to use they actually want families to go hungry to put pressure on Democrats to cave in and let Republicans jack up health insurance costs under the Affordable Care Act.

And Derek Van Orden is telling you, well, once we're in control, if we can't get those appropriations bills passed, if we are that dysfunctional, we should not be in the majority.

So that's an interesting bit of audio that that is not the last time you're going to hear that played.

That basically is the 2026 message about how the Republicans have done in Washington so far.

Temperatures in Wisconsin range from 23 in Merrill to 43 in Door County.

It's 34 in Wasaw, 37 in Oshkosh, 34 in La Crosse, and 27 degrees here in the Chippewa Valley.

Sherita Booker tells us about trains, wine, and lizards for weekend events all after the break.

I'm Pat Crightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Hey, welcome back on this Thursday morning.

Sharita Booker is here, social media manager for Up North News.

And well, we're going to throw a little curve at you.

Sharita, first off, good morning.

How are you?

Good morning.

I'm good.

How are you?

Good.

Good.

We normally talk about events that are coming up this weekend that you might like to attend.

But we've discovered something else you might like to attend.

Your local culvers for something brand new that they're offering.

What did you tell me they're about to offer?

They will have

cheese and Mac aka Mac and cheese beginning November 3rd through December 28th.

Okay, I have.

And first off, look, fair disclosure, this is not a commercial for Culver's they're not paying us or anything.

So therefore I feel like I'm entitled or free to say, I'm not the world's biggest fan of Culver's cheese curds.

I love all the rest of everything

else.

Same.

I don't

like

the breading.

Yes.

And so you say that they're doing mac and cheese or I'm sorry cheese and mac and I see that it's going to be you know, just their pasta in a creamy Wisconsin cheddar cheese sauce topped with extra shredded cheddar cheese.

And I'm in

because as I've said several times before, there are a lot of other places, Michigan, Texas, other places where mac and cheese as a side is like a real staple.

You don't see it quite as much around Wisconsin.

And so if Culver's wants to add mac and cheese, however limited, I'm in, I'll go.

Right.

Well, we'll have to come back with reviews.

Yeah, exactly.

So when does this get started?

November 3rd.

November 3rd.

Okay, well, there we go.

So next week, we'll we'll have to do a food review.

See how this works out.

Alright, so pardon that little detour.

Let's get back to this weekend's events here.

Starting with train fest.

As a guy who's dead worked on the Chicago Northwestern Railroad for many years.

I am totally in on this.

Tell us more.

Yeah, so if you or someone in your house is into trains like Pat or you really like seeing cool setups, Train Fest is coming back to Milwaukee this Saturday and Sunday at the Barrett Center downtown.

They're going to have more than 50 operating train displays, hands-on demos, and a bunch of the major model railroad manufacturers and dealers all in one place.

There's also a mini diorama circus activity if you want to try building something small, and they also got a free riding train for the kids.

So if you've been thinking about starting a layout or you've got a kid who loves trains, this

trains.

This is the spot.

Kids 12 and under getting free with an adult, which is nice.

Adults tickets are $18.95 for Saturday and $13.95 for Sunday.

Or you can do a two day pass for 20 bucks.

Tickets are on sale now.

Just search trainfestmawakie for more info.

I really wanted to have model trains as a kid.

And, uh, you know, we were, we were just a little too limited in our means to do that.

And I always appreciated it.

You'd think it's, we would be one, maybe it's my retirement project.

I'm yeah.

I'm going to have room in the garage or the basement or something.

Sherry, if you're listening, we'll talk later.

And the grandkids will probably love it.

Oh, would they ever?

Yes.

So that's the Baird Center.

This weekend at trainfest.com has details there.

All right, let's go from from trains to Lizardy type things what's happening in Madison this weekend.

The Scaled Up Reptile Expo is happening this Sunday at the Madison Marriott West in Middleton.

It's a family-friendly event where you can see thousands of snakes, lizards, frogs, tortoises, turtles, and tarantulas all under one roof.

You can talk with experienced breeders and keepers, learn how to care for different species, and check out setups if you've been thinking about getting a new pet or upgrading your enclosure.

They also have a bunch of reptile keeping supplies, feeder insects, frozen feeders, supplements, decor, plants, and more.

Admission is $14 if you want to get an early

Okay, so where are you on reptiles?

It's snow for me.

The

only

reptile that I like is a gecko.

They're cute, but I'm scared of stuff like that.

No, it's understandable.

I mean, I wouldn't.

rush out to get a snake or a lizard or a frog or a tarantula myself.

I remember going to somebody's house and this was only a couple of years back.

So these are like grown adults and their basement was filled with aquariums that were filled with larger snakes.

And that was just not my jam at all.

But

yeah, I go fishing and we see frogs all the time and

I just, I don't like frogs.

I don't like how they look.

And he freaked me out.

All right.

So you, you, there will be extra room for you.

There will not be any charita at the Madison scaled up reptile expo this weekend.

Let's, let's get to something much more in some people's ball parks.

That would be wine.

And there is a wine walk in downtown Lake Geneva this weekend, Sunday only, right?

Yep.

Only Sunday.

And you'll spend the afternoon walking around downtown, stopping in at different shops and sampling wine at nearly 30 different participating spots along the way.

It's a really laid back way to explore the area and you get to support local businesses while you're at it.

Tickets are $45, which covers your wine samples, a souvenir glass, snacks and a map of the stops and a few discounts at participating shops.

If you're just tagging along and don't plan a drink, they have a designated driver ticket for 20 bucks and that includes crab, sodas and snacks.

Proceeds from the benefit.

goes to downtown Lake Geneva Mural program.

So the money goes right back into the community and into more public art downtown.

And just to head stuff, the wine walk always sells out.

So if you want to get your tickets, do it ASAP.

You need to be 21 or older and you'll check in at the bottle shop on Main Street to get your glass and lanyard.

Get your tickets at downtownlakejeneva.org

slash wine walk.

That's great.

And of course, there's so much else going on around the state.

If you went over to travelwisconsin.com, you'd see things like the Broadhead JC's have a holiday market, case high school craft and vendor fairs and Racine on Saturday.

Marinette has blues, brews and barbecues, and so so much more.

So head on over to travelwisconsin.com to learn more about things that are going on in your area, or

Just go grab some mac and cheese, and we'll open our notes Culver's and otherwise when we get together next week with Charita Booker, our social media manager here at Up North News.

Charita, thank you very much.

Thanks, Pat.

Oh, I guess I should mention too, in terms of social media, we have new social media accounts just for the radio show on Blue Sky, and yeah, we put it on Twitter.

X, whatever it is.

Just look up at the little at symbol PK for Pat Crichtlow radio show, PK radio show.

That's our new account there.

Coming up next, our history lesson includes the opening of a Broadway play that definitely made the characters pop you learn extra spending some time here up on the lake.

I'm Pat Crichtlow.

The Midwest farm report is next here on the media radio network.

Let us

kick off today's history lesson with Grace Slick from Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, Starship, all the band names she kept her Grace Slick.

She's 85.

years old today and again would be one of the first to tell you that's surprised to make it to 85 live live the true rock and roll life from the 60s onward but again 85 years old for Grace Flick happy birthday to her happy birthday to Eddie Holland part of the legendary songwriting and production team of Holland Dozier Holland

all kinds of Motown hits.

There was baby love, there was stop in the name of love, heat wave, how sweet it is to be loved by you.

How about this one right here?

There were a lot of hits they wrote,

Supremes.

Standing in the shadows of love, so forth and so on.

Eddie Holland still with us at the age of 84 and I was seeing somewhere online that the Motown Museum is expanding in Detroit and they recently had a bit of a celebration about that and it included some of the some of the greats that were there, Smokey Robinson of course.

Both Brian and Eddie Holland were there.

Otis William, the surviving member of the Temptations and more.

So I've never been to the Motown Museum.

So hearing that they're doing an expansion, just all the more reason to look forward to going to that someday.

There you go.

More to see, more to do.

Well, because it was based out of basically just a refurbished, not refurbished, but just a house in Detroit.

And then they turned it into a record studio and

and then it became so much more.

Speaking of Otis Williams, last surviving member of the Temptations.

It's his birthday as well.

He's 84 as well.

He and Eddie Holland, born on the same day.

Also happy birthday to the Eagles, Timothy B Schmidt.

He is 78 years old

today.

All right, here comes another one of those birthdays that for some generations it will make their knees buckle Henry Winkler the Fonz oh Fonzie from happy days is 80 years old today Can you just imagine the Fonz still in his leather jacket but in his rocking chair and saying hey the Fonz don't need those Medicare Advantage plans

But I think Henry Winkler does some kind of commercials, if not for Medicare Advantage, then for something else.

Oh, really?

Oh, yeah.

He's pitching.

I mean, look, if you're an aging celebrity, there's always something to pitch out there.

So I'll have to take a look for that.

Anyway, Henry Winkler, 80 years old.

And by the way, so much more than just the Fonz, of course.

He's been in so many good shows.

What was the most recent one about Barry?

Wasn't any of it, right?

On HBO, he's the acting coach to...

A serial killer, basically.

Yeah, you're right,

Barry.

Yeah, it's a good show.

Who's it from Saturday Night Live?

Who's Bill Hader is the lead in this?

And Henry Winkler is just really funny.

By the way, also underrated in Night Shift, along with Michael Keaton, one of their earliest movies together right after Happy Days.

Ivanka Trump, first daughter, is 44 years old today.

The second president of the United States, John Adams, was born this day in 1735.

Do you have that clip from War of the Worlds?

I do.

I don't

know if there's

a specific part I just pulled from the front.

Okay, I don't know if I wanted to cue it up to anything.

I just noticed that today is the anniversary

of Orson Welles' radio adaptation of the H.G.

Wells novel War of the Worlds about a Martian invasion.

It was played on the radio this day in 1938 and caused panic in some parts of the U.S.

So here's a little excerpt from

it.

So that was the very beginning of it and and it starts like you know just a normal radio broadcast with an orchestra and then interrupted with these news bulletins about you know a UFO and then a spaceship has landed and then you know the the Martians attack and of course there's all the sound effects and people really believed that there was an invasion by Martians.

But as you could tell there at the front end of the broadcast and in the middle of the broadcast

An announcer did come on to say, this is a play.

And yet, enough people either didn't hear it or disregarded it and were calling police stations and people were getting a little freaked out.

Now, it's a little bit apocryphal whether the panic was widespread or if it was just a few random folks who were freaked out by this.

But still, it was a lesson that everybody else in the radio industry never

forgot.

I always thought that it was like everyone was like oh god the world's ending run

I remember hearing not the original broadcast don't talk about that but as a kid as a kid they played it one Halloween night after we got back from trick-or-treating and I remember listening to it and again you know you knew what it was but I'm sitting there was like a 10 year old or whatever it was I'm like oh yeah I could totally see how people get freaked out I'm getting a little freaked out and I know that this isn't real you know

Because keep in mind, radio was still relatively new.

Obviously people have tried that with TV as well over the years, but War of the Worlds was kind of the original, the original Panic broadcast, if you will.

On this day in 1982, the number one song was by a band from Australia.

This, of course, would be meant at work, and it was the group's first number one in the U.S.

Now

is the number one song this day, 43 years ago.

On this day in 1987, George Michael, fresh off Breaking Up Wham, released his first solo album, Faith.

I'm sure people

are

here.

Oh, the album's named Faith, and it starts off with this nice church organ.

This must be very wholesome.

I am.

It's very pretty.

It is very pretty.

It's pretty, but the host now suddenly wishes he'd have queued this up to the right moment, but that's OK.

We'll just enjoy the organ a little bit longer.

Who doesn't like a good organ?

Wait a minute.

That's what he never

mind.

Oh, anyway, between this song and songs like Father Figure, I Want Your Sex and more, the album was a little controversial and therefore, of course, went to number one and won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year.

On this day, two years ago, former basketball player Magic Johnson became the fourth athlete to become a billionaire after Michael Jordan, LeBron James, and Tiger Woods.

according to Forbes magazine.

Okay.

Does this count?

What do you mean?

Because, yes, he was an athlete, but he's not an athlete now.

I don't feel like this counts as the same as like LeBron James being a billionaire.

Well, I don't think Michael Jordan, Michael Jordan didn't become a billionaire while he was an active athlete.

Okay, so he wouldn't count either.

Yeah, no, he does count.

Athletes who as athletes and in their retirement became billionaires.

I don't know.

You only want active athlete billionaires?

Is that what we want?

Well, no, I don't want any billionaires.

But I would like these to be

two different categories.

Gotcha.

All right.

It was on this day in 2003 that a new Broadway show premiered at the Gershwin Theater in New York City.

It was a musical from Stephen Schwartz, and it was called Wicked with Adina Menzel and Kristen Chenoweth with lots of little toe tappers like this

one.

So, Wicked is

now going to be back in the movie theaters, part two of the movie series.

The play though, that did alright in 2003, winning two Tony Awards, a Grammy, and seven Drama Desk Awards.

On this day in 2017,

President Trump's former campaign chair, Paul Manafort, and associate Rick Gates were indicted on charges of fraud.

Advisor George Papadopoulos pleads guilty to lying to the FBI.

Again, pleads guilty to lying to the FBI.

And they are all pretty much scot-free now because, again, elected criminal here, letting the criminals out of jail.

What's on the National Day calendar for this Thursday, October 30th?

Oh, Pat, I know you'll love this.

It's Candy Corn Day.

Okay, well, we've I feel like we've talked that talked that one to death yesterday.

But yes, the guy who for years and years and years and years said I hate candy corn.

Candy corn is terrible.

It's just a big old mouthful of sugar is softening his stance now.

So I know

What I didn't do yet, what we talked about yesterday is I said, yeah, you mix it with some peanuts, you know, and you got a salted nut roll.

Oh, yeah.

But remember, we said yesterday, now add a couple of chocolate chips to the mix and you got a baby Ruth.

So I'm going to try that today.

And then I'm going to call my dentist office right away for cleaning.

You know, there is a candy corn that has chocolate like in it.

That

one, I'm not a huge fan of.

No, I don't know if that would work.

No.

But I'm willing to experiment.

All right.

What else we

got?

It is mischief night, which I believe is just the night before Halloween.

Mischief night.

Mischief night.

So if you're feeling mischievous, Pat, go

for it.

I thought that's what Halloween was, but okay,

whatever.

It

is also a haunted refrigerator.

I do have a haunted refrigerator there, but I'm pretty sure that's a

typo.

Haunted refrigerator.

This has got to be from having really old food in it.

That kind of haunted like it's so scary, the stuff that's in there that has expired.

I envisioned that or it's just like a loud refrigerator.

That could be too.

Yes, I get that.

So somebody came up with a national haunted refrigerator day.

There you go.

Okay, seems like a seems like a bit of a stretch.

But yes, I there are folks who whose refrigerators do indeed become haunted.

I recall a couple of times when I was, you know, I would do babysitting as like, you know, 12, 13 year old or whatever it was, because you couldn't drive yet, you couldn't go anywhere.

So you may as well make money.

And so I do some babysitting.

And occasionally, you know, you kind of want to raid their fridge, they

always say, Oh, help yourself

to whatever.

Help myself to

big old plate of mold, you know, or whatever

was

in there.

And gosh, I remember at one point, somebody's fridge was so disgusting.

And do you know, there's a there's an episode of Big Bang Theory, early on, where Sheldon convinces Leonard to go into Penny's apartment while she's sleeping to clean it up because

the mess

bothers him so much.

Yeah.

I look back at that now and realize that that may have happened once or twice, where I was so disgusted by somebody's fridge.

I just went ahead and cleaned it out and figured I was doing them a favor.

Now, at no point did I ever get a call going, what did you do?

You touched my fridge.

So I'm assuming they were, at first I thought, oh, they must be thankful.

Yeah.

I also think they may have been really embarrassed and never called me again to babysit.

That's awesome.

Whatever the reason was, I was looking up for the kids.

I'm trying to babysit the kids.

You can't have living lab experiments in the fridge when you're raising your your your chitlins.

All right, so there you go.

Haunted refrigerator day today.

We'll be talking about a little bit of entertainment news along the way as well.

And then coming up in our seven o'clock hour, we will be discussing Medicare Advantage plans.

Some of those can be haunted as well, with an expert on making sure you get the right health coverage for yourself or for an aging parent.

I'm Pat Quitelow.

This is the Civic Media Radio

Network.

Bring us a little a little what you bring us a little dirty work a little steely Dan here coming back into the break.

Yeah, just a little bit.

Okay.

All right.

The man behind the curtain suggested it.

I see.

Oh, okay.

You know, you know why that might be in part.

It's one one that I did not get into the history lesson in time.

But Donald Fagan from Steely Dan, he released his debut solo album, The Night Fly 43 years ago this week.

Really?

Yeah.

There's your little yacht rock moment for the day.

That's some dumb luck on my part because I had no idea.

You know, sometimes, sometimes again, never underestimate yacht rock.

The forces of music will sometimes work in your favor.

Moving on to other entertainment news on this Thursday morning.

Pat, that was your cue.

Yeah, yeah.

Right.

Okay.

Sometimes I take a big breath

because you

know, okay, well, you tell me

what you take.

You take that big breath.

I'll remind folks it's a 23 and Merrill right now 27 in Eau Claire bundle the kids up 34 and lacrosse 39 in Oshkosh Parker's ready to exhale and share with us some entertainment

news.

Pat.

Dove

Cameron.

I don't know if you know who she is.

I have literally no idea.

Beautiful.

Awesome.

It is great to be on this side of that.

Hold that generational divide.

Yeah, this is a rare one on this like half hour worth of the show.

All right.

Duff Cameron, she was popular from her time as an actress on Disney.

She's engaged to, is it Damiano David?

You're asking me?

I don't know.

How do you say, I don't know how to say the name of the band either.

Is it Manskin?

Manskin?

Um, you know, I hate,

I hate leaving you out here like

this,

but I, I've got, I am literally thinking you might be making all this up at this point.

I suppose I have said zero words that make sense to you so far in this.

It's, it's here, uh, it says here, uh, on the interwebs, uh, that Cameron was dating Italian singer, Domiotto David.

Yeah, I guess.

And yes, it might be man's skin.

It's got one of those funny little European symbols over it, so it might be pronounced something entirely different.

See, that's the thing with those European bands.

Yes.

And Dove Cameron, apparently I would know from the Disney Channel series Live and Maddie.

And then it was in the Descendants film franchise, and then has been in a few other TV shows like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

If I remember right, Liv and Maddie was actually like... The setting was in Steven's point.

If I remember right.

Really?

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm

pretty sure.

Huh.

Yeah, there you go.

Okay.

Let's try another one.

Let's try another one.

Let's go to Luigi Mangione.

Uh, the guy who, uh, the CEO of United healthcare.

Yes.

He's, he's in entertainment news now.

All right.

He's an entertainment news because apparently, um, a fake list of like his favorite artists went viral and he was not a fan of that.

And he started listening to music and apparently he's become a big fan of Charlie XCX and Taylor Swift.

Okay.

I actually saw this last night on TMZ.

where they were talking about this guy's his playlist, walking around the yard in the prison.

And first off, I'm still coming back to the root of we're doing new stories about this guy.

Now, again, I'm telling you, we're going to be talking in the seven o'clock hour about those.

terrible, terrible people at the health insurance companies.

So I get the anger, I get the frustration.

I'm not going to go so far as to endorse murder.

But clearly, enough people want to consider this guy, you know, if not a celebrity, a hero, whatever, that we now care what his playlist is in the prison yard.

And that and that Tay Tay might be part of it.

All right.

You never know.

So I give up.

I cannot

make

myself care.

I cannot make myself care about what he's listening to any more than he cares about what I'm listening to.

So what's next?

Fair enough.

We've got Jennifer Lawrence, Pat.

I don't know how much you hate watching yourself or how much you hate listening to yourself or how much you used to.

Because I do.

I hate watching myself.

You hate watching me and listening to me.

Yeah, I get it.

Totally.

But what is what does she say?

Is she is she watching or listening to us, sir?

She's now watching us.

Every now and then she sees clips of her in like old interviews and she hates watching herself.

She called herself really annoying.

She

called herself really annoying.

Yeah.

Jennifer Lawrence is is wonderful.

I really like her.

And I get the sentiment because yes, nobody likes to look back on their stuff.

And you should not be judging your old stuff too harshly.

Eventually, what you're going to end up doing is you're going to look back and you're going to kind of be more, you know, you're going to kind of romanticize the past instead.

What I mean by that is every year, at some point, I'll see a picture of myself and I'll go

Oh, God, I should not allow anybody to take pictures of me anymore.

Without fail, you know, fast forward, I don't know, three, four years or so, you're gonna see a picture yourself and go, ugh.

And then you're gonna see this picture from like three, four years ago, and you're gonna go, see, I looked so much better back then.

Look, I look better.

But at the time, I certainly didn't think so.

But now I'm like, Oh, gosh, I looked much better back then.

That's not what you thought at the time, then butterball.

All right.

So, you know,

Let's let's not be too hard on ourselves.

Let's not romanticize, you know, the past either.

It just is what it is.

And she was wonderful back then.

And she's wonderful now.

And she she she's a I think she's got a little bit more self confidence than she's letting on there.

But I appreciate the the attempts at modesty.

Fair enough.

All right.

Got anything else?

I don't know if you were watching it much of the World Series last night, but apparently Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were there.

And they got booed.

Very likely.

Oh, yes, they did, which I don't.

I don't think

that's what

it's probably not.

But I mean, some people really don't like Harry and Meghan.

And I just I just don't know enough.

I don't I don't care enough, frankly, but just booing any.

Almost anybody has a few people, but I wouldn't have put Harry and Megan in there.

But again, you know, it's baseball.

You've got some people who want to watch their sports and their beer and they don't want to see celebrities.

And so I think that Harry and Megan will be okay.

I think I think they'll get over it.

Coming up in our next hour, a very exhaustive Marquette poll talks about how Wisconsinites feel about the issues and the candidates.

Spoiler alert.

They don't know enough about the candidates yet.

They're like, it's way too early, please.

But we'll talk about that after the news.

I'm Pat Cratlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Cross Wisconsin on Civic Media.

You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglo powered by UpNorth News.

Now for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of UpNorth News, Pat Craiglo.

Hey,

good morning.

It is 7 0 6.

Nice to have you back here up north on a Thursday morning, October 30th.

2025, Parker Olson producing things down in Madison Studio A2.

Coming up, we will have an expert on Medicare Advantage plans.

It might not be for you, but it might be for an aging parent who's considering one of the so-called Medicare Advantage plans as opposed to traditional Medicare.

Oh, is there a difference?

You might want to get a little...

educated on that.

We're going to try to do that for you coming up at the bottom of the hour.

We will talk about some new extensive polling through the Marquette poll, not your usual horse race numbers about candidates, but more about what people in Wisconsin think about the issues.

And at some point, we'll talk about the UW Eau Claire College Republicans and a stunt they pulled and just how sick I am of the feigned outrage when racist activity gets called out.

You know, it's it used to be just your crazy uncle or I'm sorry your eccentric uncle Who would start everything with I'm not a racist, but and then they'd go on and on and on That seems to have infected a larger part of society like oh, it's not racist to you know dress up as an ice officer and then somebody else dresses up as a as a Mexican woman and you're arresting this person There's nothing racist about that

Please tell me you don't really believe that.

Anyway, 855-75-CIVIC is the number 855-752-4842.

You can use the Civic Media app as well.

You can call us or text us.

You can leave a voice note as well.

And now, we've got new accounts on social media just dedicated to the show.

So I will say that there are Civic Media, social media channels, you know, on Facebook and Twitter and all that.

Up North News, of course, has a Facebook page.

There's also, you know, again, Twitter and Instagram and all of that.

But now just for this fine little radio show, we've created an account on Blue Sky for all the nice people that want to follow us.

And we also created an account on what used to be Twitter X for people that just want to scream at each other or whatever it has become.

In both cases, they have

They have character limits on their names.

So like you can go to Facebook and you can look up our show page there.

Just look up Mornings with Pat Critelaw.

That's the name of the Facebook page.

Mornings with Pat Critelaw.

That doesn't all fit in Twitter or Blue Sky.

So it's PK Radio Show, again, PK for Pat Kruitlow, PK Radio Show.

And that's how you find us on Blue Sky and Twitter X, whatever it is, where we will put up show clips and invite you to interact with us there.

But of course, you can just do it in the comment sections of Facebook and YouTube while you're watching the show.

Or you can send us an email.

if you're old fashioned like that radio at up north news wi.com.

In sports, we had the Wisconsin badger men's basketball team Parker defeating Plattville last tune up before the regular season began 69 53 was the final.

You were saying that the badger men didn't look as dominant as you you thought they might have going up against a yx school.

No, yeah, Plattville kind of give them a little bit of a hard time at the first half or so.

Um, I do think it's probably worth pointing out though that it is not entirely unheard of for division three school to actually do like really well and beat division one school sometimes.

Um,

that's probably not quite as true for a major team like the badgers.

Um, but it certainly happens.

You see it a lot, uh,

men's

women's basketball.

But but there are no schleps.

I mean, they're they're capable of providing at least a little bit of a fight.

And so I think I think when we refer to this as a final tune up before the regular season, I think that's the right way to put it.

They they see this team and go, All right, well, before we take on fellow Division one teams like the fight and camels of Campbell University next Monday, we better get ourselves ready.

So it looks like they finally did.

And in the World Series,

The toronto blue jays beat the los angeles dodgers six to one To lead the world series three games to two So the world series goes back to toronto for game six tomorrow where toronto could seal the deal or if the Dodgers win there will be a deciding seventh game I'm assuming on saturday as well and then that will wrap up the baseball season for 2025 now we can get into Anticipating 2026 which is is part happiness and part

Which players are we going to lose for agency and things like that?

I don't remember who I read it from, but I read somebody say the other day that they really think that the Brewers could be onto something and really investing in the future right now and have a really good five-year span coming up here.

Well, I sure hope so.

I don't want to hear, you know, the rebuilding thing rebuilding now that nobody rebuilds, you know, you either either have the right people or you don't.

And sometimes they're because of a heavy payroll with a lot of experience.

And sometimes they're young and just really good because you did a good job of scouting.

And hopefully that's where the brewers are on that.

But first, we got to get through the rest of the World Series, Friday, and perhaps Saturday as well.

All right, there's a new Marquette pullout.

And as you know, during

you know, the the height of election campaigns, I tend to not get too worked up over polling because polling can be all over the place.

Again, a good reputable, let me try that again, a good reputable polling company works hard to have a representative sample, a good cross section of the public.

But even then, it's sometimes tough to match with how the results are going to turn out on election day.

So I don't emphasize it as much there.

But in this case, I mean, we are so far away from the election that it's a lot about familiarity with candidates and familiarity with issues that I thought some of these were interesting enough to share.

The Marquette poll interviewed 846 Wisconsin registered voters from October 15th to the 22nd and a margin of error of four and a half percentage points.

And I'm going to stop right there just to say this is how much polling has changed now from the olden days.

In the olden days, you would do a poll in one night and you would get that representative sample because everybody had landlines, everybody answered their phone.

And you know, a lot of people talk to that now nobody answers their phone if they don't know who it is.

And that's why it took a week just to get 846 registered voters in Wisconsin to answer the phone.

and answer these poll questions.

So the margin of error four and a half percentage points seems a little broad, but that's kind of the nature of polling these days in the cell phone era.

Anyway, this new poll finds that a large majority of both Democrats and Republicans have not decided on a favorite candidate for governor for next year.

No big surprise.

In fact, only 6% say they have heard a lot about the 2026 campaigns for governor.

I would include every one of you listening right now.

You're probably hearing more about the 2026 governor's race than almost anybody else, including some of the people who were running for governor.

But you, you are familiar.

You've heard all of these names that I'm going to be talking about.

And as far as recognition goes, now this is recognition, not support.

In terms of recognition, Milwaukee County Executive David Crawley is tops on the list at 26%.

Lieutenant Governor Sarah Rodriguez at 25%.

State Representative Francesca Hong at 22%, State Senator Keldoroy is at 17%.

Now these all make sense because they're from the Milwaukee or the Madison areas.

Then you've got a lawyer, Missy Hughes at 16% and others lower than that.

But now you ask them, well, do you have a favorite?

Do you have a candidate you would vote for next August in the primary for governor?

Well, among the Democratic voters, 81% said no, four out of five said no.

We're practically a year away from the primary.

What are we talking about?

However, of those that do have a preference, well, if you get the emails from State Representative Francesca Hong, you've seen the subject line, Francesca Hong in first place in polling for governor at 6%.

And Lieutenant Governor Sarah Rodriguez at 4%.

David Crawley at 3%, Senator Calderoy's at 3%, Missy Hughes at 2%.

But again, 81% are undecided.

So if you're Francesca Hong, you take the little victories where you can because you have both recognition and support from people.

And if you're some of those other candidates, Lieutenant Governor Sara Rodriguez, Milwaukee County Executive David Crawley, State Senator Calderoy's,

You know that you got a little bit more work to do to build your recognition and build people who will actually commit to say, this is my person for next August.

There will, of course, be a Wisconsin State Supreme Court race in April 1st next year.

And the two candidates there have very little name recognition.

There's Waukesha Appeals Court Judge Maria Lazar, who has 15% name recognition, mostly among conservatives, I would imagine.

and Madison Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor, 16% public recognition, again, I would assume mostly by liberals and progressives.

However, despite the lack of knowledge about the candidates, seven out of 10 voters said they are absolutely certain to vote in April when that Supreme Court seat will be on the ballot.

When people say, why do you love living in Wisconsin?

Well, I mean, it's the fall colors.

It's the lakes.

It's all the sites.

It's the cheese.

It's the old fashions.

But it's also the fact that we have people all around us who will tell you, I don't know much about the state Supreme Court race yet, but I know it's important enough that I'm going to vote.

I'm going to learn about the candidates as we get closer to election, and I'm going to vote.

That is a level of civic engagement.

that you do not find in all 50 states, and I love that about this state, that people actually do care.

They care enough to want to learn about the issues in the candidates and go vote.

They don't all do it, and I don't agree with all of them, but they at least take the time to do it.

On national issues, will President Donald Trump's policies increase inflation?

57% say yes.

While 30% say his policies will decrease inflation Okay, and 12% say they'll have no impact.

There are of course substantial partisan differences 60% of Republicans say Trump's policies will decrease inflation Which again tells you there is a very broad and effective right-wing media bubble in this country meanwhile

Obviously, 96% of Democrats think his policies will increase inflation.

But what about independence?

69%.

7 out of 10 independents look at what the president's doing and understand that it is increasing inflation.

Now, Trump does have his supporters.

There are 33% out there who say the tariffs will help the economy.

55% say it will hurt the economy.

And once again, you've got a majority of independents who say, no, tariffs hurt the economy.

Ask if tariffs are helping or hurting Wisconsin farmers.

Well, 16% say they are helping Wisconsin farmers.

That is truly Donald Trump's base right there.

The 16% who say that tariffs are helping the farmers.

62% understand that they are hurting farmers.

Overall voters are evenly divided over which party is most responsible for the shutdown of the federal government, which again tells you that right wing messaging is effective.

I'm not really happy with the wording of the response here by the market poll people because they lead saying 33% say it's the Democrats.

But it's 38% who say the Republicans, so I don't know why the Republicans weren't listed first.

38% Republican, 33% Democrat, 28% saying both parties are equally responsible.

Now, at the heart of the shutdown, should the increased tax credits that help pay for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace be extended?

58% of respondents in Wisconsin say yes.

It's basically a 60-40 split.

Obviously more Republicans believe the credits for health insurance should expire.

These are also folks who have not yet had to go through what so many others have gone through and understand the importance of having these premium tax credits continue to keep health insurance affordable.

We will talk more about the affordability of health insurance with an expert about Medicare Advantage plans coming up in 15 minutes.

From the heart of America's up north, live from Lake Wissota, thanks for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.

I'm Pat Crightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

It's not just chilly it's cold out there right now 23 degrees up in Merrill right now 25 here in the Chippewa Valley La Crosse is at 36 degrees Oshkosh you're at 39 right now it's 34 in Wasaw so while it's that cold out here to remind you that

hockey season is underway and you can follow every game from the Wisconsin Badger Men's Hockey Team.

They are taking on the Minnesota Gophers tonight.

Coverage begins at 7.30 on WFHR in Wisconsin Rapids.

And if memory serves, I believe Jimmy Cusco was telling us all about how civic media has recently expanded.

and has added some stations in the michigan upper peninsula so if you're up in the up close to ironwood it turns out that uh wjms in ironwood is now a member of the civic media family and they too will be covering all the badger sports including the badger men's hockey game come thursday

Packers, by the way, play on Sunday against the Carolina Panthers.

That's a noon kickoff.

So the pregame coverage begins at 10 a.m.

on Civic Media Stations in Ritzland Center, Park Falls, Wattoma, and Racine.

Head over to civicmedia.us to learn more.

Well, as mentioned at UW Eau Claire, the College Republicans recently put on a Halloween costume contest.

which, again, it seems like every Halloween there's somebody that does, you know, something in blackface or something where they go, wait, what do you mean?

Why?

These are folks that watched way too much and listened to way too much Meg and Kelly.

You know, the one who told you that, of course, Jesus Christ and Santa Claus are white men and don't see anything wrong with positions like that, or

costumes like the one that they posted on Instagram of one student dressed as an ice agent and is seen arresting a woman dressed as a stereotypical Latino immigrant with a handcuffing her with her hands behind her back.

Needless to say that there are people upset about trivializing what has really turned out to be

a series of unlawful arrests and detentions and conduct that is way beyond the scope of typical law enforcement in terms of arresting people without cause, without warrants, arresting them violently, without cause, arresting citizens, detaining them, racial profiling.

None of these things should be celebrated, but

Of course, they are being celebrated by a certain faction of the population.

And that's a little unfortunate.

UW Eau Claire unfortunately put out a rather vanilla statement saying UW Eau Claire is aware of the incident that occurred Monday evening that involved Halloween costumes worn by individuals at a student organization meeting on campus.

The event was not organized by the university.

Yeah, we know.

We're not expecting that the university instructed the college Republicans to engage in, you know, race-baiting photographs.

You could still condemn it just the same.

But, you know, to be fair, I'll read you the statement from Fred Kappus, chair of the Eau Claire County Republican Party, who called it feigned outrage.

He said, what I saw an experience was this group of responsible college students having a good time.

There was no hateful and unsafe rhetoric displayed by the college Republicans.

He says, the motivation by Democrats, of course, is to smear, besmirch, and portray these conservative students as racists.

A typical Democrat tactic, your feigned outrage is very transparent.

Here's the thing.

You can you can feign outrage at being accused of racism.

It doesn't make the look any better for the things that you engage in.

Look, if you want to celebrate what people in your political party are doing, if you want to wave like at the convention last year, if you want to all wave the same sign that says mass deportations now,

that's your prerogative.

It's also the prerogative of pretty much every other right thinking American to look at thousands of people waving signs that say mass deportations now and say, we got a race problem in this country, a racism problem in this country, that we're looking to just racially profile people and mock them with Halloween costumes as well.

Because again, it was the people waving the sign saying mass deportations now.

that have told us the problem is border security and the problem is the immigration system, to which everybody else, independents, Democrats, said, yeah, let's fix that.

Let's fix this problem because we actually need and value immigrants in this country.

Our economy needs immigrant labor.

Our future needs immigrant labor as the baby boomers continue to exit the stage.

And y'all said no.

Said no, we don't want to fix immigration.

We want to round up as many brown skinned people as we can.

Now in the beginning, we're going to tell you, we're going to tell you that it's all about getting the terrorists and getting the narco dealers and getting the fentanyl.

But once again, we're going after Maria from housekeeping and we're going to celebrate that.

And, you know, maybe she's got kids who were born in this country and we're still going to ship them out of the country despite them being citizens.

You can celebrate that all you want, but the record is clear.

We could have fixed the system and you said no.

You elected somebody who vowed not to fix the system, who is moving all kinds of our tax dollars away from fighting violent crime to simply rounding up people.

based on race and skin color and either harassing them, detaining them, and even sending them out of the country, not necessarily to the country where they came from, which in in and of itself is cruel and barbaric.

So if folks get a little unhappy that you decide to celebrate that with a little bit of a racist play with Halloween costumes, you'll have to understand that maybe you can go back to

you know, some other kinds of ghosts and goblins and skeletons and the things that are a bit more traditional toward Halloween.

Keep your race baiting politics out of this, please.

When we come back, we're going to talk about Medicare Advantage plans and what people need to know if they're looking for plans for themselves or if they are caregivers or adult children for aging parents.

That's coming up.

And then in our next hour, Sean O'Malley, Joseph Peck, you chat homes and more.

I'm Pat Crightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

you

Welcome back at 735 on this Thursday.

Remember, you can sign up for our daily newsletter.

Head over to upnorthnewswi.com.

In today's edition, it includes more of your favorite photos of Halloween decorations.

We talk about your favorite Halloween candy.

There's also a link where you can help with food banks that need to stock their shelves with snap benefits running dry during the government shutdown.

And there's an article there today on Wisconsin Farms where you can spend the night.

as part of agritourism.

Again, for that and more, subscribe to our newsletters, head over to upnorthnewswi.com to learn more about the weekday newsletters and our weekend newsletter as well.

All right, let's talk healthcare policy.

Okay, I heard everybody going for the radio dial.

Don't do that yet.

When we talk about healthcare policy, making sure that you can afford to get sick, we want to make sure we draw a distinction of what we're talking about here, Medicare,

which is for seniors by and large versus the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, which is the health insurance coverage that you can buy through the marketplace.

That's kind of at the heart of the government shutdown.

And we've covered that before and we'll come back to it.

But this is primarily about Medicare.

So there is also an open enrollment period going on right now for Medicare, especially for people who

Instead of being part of original Medicare, want to purchase health insurance through a private insurance company through something called Medicare Advantage, which says it covers a few more things than it might, but there are also other things to be mindful of when you're comparing these Medicare Advantage plans to traditional Medicare, either for yourself or maybe for an aging parent or somebody that you're a caregiver for.

And this time of year, there's always people who are either choosing a plan for the first time or they've been on a plan and that plan is being dropped or modified and they want to compare plans again.

And they don't want to get ripped off in the process because there are also scammers out there.

And so to that end, we wanted to find somebody that could tell us about, you know, the best way to go about all of these things.

And that's where we found Ingrid Cunninger, who is a fraud and abuse programs manager for the Greater Wisconsin Agency on Aging Resources, and also something called the Senior Medicare Patrol.

And she joins us this morning.

Ingrid, good morning.

Thank you for being here.

Good morning.

Thanks so much for having me.

Yeah, it's a pleasure having you here to talk more about this because it can be, I mean, so very confusing.

You know this firsthand.

I hesitate to wonder how many people have just given you that look like, just please help me pick something.

It is so

It is so convoluted.

So let's start at the very beginning here before we can get into Medicare Advantage.

Do you want to add anything to my distinction between original Medicare versus these Medicare Advantage plans?

No, I think you did a great job of outlining that.

It's really important for people to understand that they do have a choice and there is a difference.

Oftentimes when we're talking to people who are already enrolled in either original Medicare or have a Medicare Advantage plan, they're not even really sure what plan they chose or what.

the what's going on.

Just like you said, it's complex.

There's a lot of ins and outs about that.

And it's not always easy to understand.

So it's just really important for people to take the time to learn more about all of their options.

And right now is a great time to do that.

In people who are first eligible for Medicare, they hear about, you know, traditional Medicare or original medic Medicare.

And there, there's a lot that it covers, but they're also

significant things that it doesn't cover because I mean like prescription drugs there are a lot more prescription drugs now than there were 60 years ago when this all first guard started when prescription drug costs they weren't nearly the same concern 60 years ago were they?

No, absolutely.

You're absolutely right.

There are definitely a lot more medications as well as diagnoses that people have that require additional treatment and therapies that, you know, Medicare, original Medicare or traditional Medicare may or may not cover.

And so that's what led to the creation of Medicare Part D to help cover these things.

But there was also then the creation of, you know, so-called Medicare Advantage for these private insurance companies to bring plans in.

What are the kinds of things, you know, on the pro side of the ledger?

What are the things that they tout as reasons why you might pick a Medicare Advantage policy over original Medicare?

Sure, I think some of the things that they tout are things that you mentioned, you know, Medicare, original Medicare doesn't cover certain things and Medicare Advantage plans because they're able to privatize that are able to offer additional benefits.

So oftentimes, you know, dental insurance might be an additional benefit in a Medicare Advantage plan or hearing aids, you know, those sorts of things that

impact older adults or that older adults are often looking for or needing assistance with.

And sometimes those Medicare Advantage plans do offer those additional benefits.

Yeah, there's there's there's there's vision.

There's sometimes, you know, discounts for, you know, fitness programs and gym memberships.

I mean, there's a lot of commercials out there on the TV this time of year angered touting, all the all the things that make their plans, you know, so wonderful and so worthy of choosing.

But of course,

what they're not going to put in the commercials is that there's also on the other side of the ledger, there may be certain restrictions.

What are the things that people should be most cautious of or do their homework about when it comes to the things they don't talk about on the TV commercials?

Absolutely.

We always say if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

So as all of these television commercials are touting,

all of these great benefits.

There's also teeny tiny fine print scrolling at the bottom that outlines a lot of things that aren't covered or outlines additional eligibility requirements that people might not be aware of while they're considering that plan.

So it is really important to

read the fine print or get more information about those plans that kind of pique your interest or seem to have some benefits that you think would be beneficial to you and your health care in the coming year.

And just to be really careful about those things because oftentimes people don't read the fine print or don't realize that.

And if you're working with, you know, a large insurance broker from who knows where not anyone local, they may or may not have your best interest in mind and they may not

point out to you that you'll have to choose a different network of doctors or the medications that you're currently taking won't be covered or will be more expensive to you in the coming year.

And oftentimes people don't realize that until they go to the doctor for the first time in the next year or go to the pharmacy to get prescriptions refilled and suddenly are stuck with bills that they weren't anticipating and hadn't planned to have to pay.

We are talking to Ingrid Cunninger from the Greater Wisconsin Agency on Aging Resources and the Senior Medicare Patrol.

And I'm going to sound like such a weirdo here.

Ask 100 other people, what was the new story that most shocked them this year?

And they'll tell you a lot of the usual suspects.

But for me, it was this story that I saw a few months back.

The amount of senior citizen medical debt is

soaring.

And that doesn't make sense at first blush because you think, well, wait, Medicare, I paid my taxes all my life, I've got Medicare, it's going to cover things, I'm going to get a Part D drug plan, and that's going to cover most of the things.

How can this be?

And you read deeper into the article, and it's all kinds of folks on these Medicare Advantage plans who between the deductibles and the copay or deciding to go without because of previous denials of care.

they're suddenly racking up all this Medicare or medical debt.

That is extremely shocking to me to see that happen to the senior citizens of the United States.

So to me, it was just a very cautionary tale, not only to pay attention to what the private health insurance companies are saying, but also I would assume the potential for for scammers and others who want to take advantage of people in the system as well.

And as the fraud and abuse programs manager, that's something I'm sure you're watching closer than anybody else.

Absolutely.

The amount of Medicare related fraud, errors, and abuse is astounding.

With the Senior Medicare Patrol, we focus primarily on educating Medicare beneficiaries as well as their advocates about how they can protect themselves from Medicaid.

Medicare related fraud and scams as well as how they can detect and report that.

And the estimate right now is between 60 and 100 billion dollars per year is just

the Medicare system.

So to answer your question, absolutely, there are a lot of bad actors out there looking to take advantage, not only of older adults, but of a program that older adults really rely on to provide their health insurance coverage.

How did the scammers tend to do this?

Is it like a phone thing where they're calling people and making some kind of a hard sell on them?

Yeah, primarily the the scammers do operate via telephone and it looks if there's a couple of different ways that they do that The first thing is that they're looking for people's Medicare numbers So they may call and say that they're calling on behalf of Medicare and they just want to make sure that You've received your new Medicare card Well, if you didn't receive a new Medicare card recently you might be caught off guard and think

I didn't know I needed one.

And then that person on the phone is going to be so happy that they called you today because they're going to be able to take care of that.

They just need to, here comes the catch, verify that information and they'll go ahead and get that new Medicare card issued.

Well, here's the thing.

There's not a new Medicare card.

And Medicare is not calling people.

that's something for people to remember.

Not a new Medicare card, Medicare is not going to call you.

So what happens then is that the people that have gotten that Medicare number share it with other Medicare suppliers or equipment suppliers, anyone who's willing to make suspicious or fraudulent claims to Medicare on your behalf.

So then what happens is

that you receive your Medicare summary notice and you notice that Medicare has paid thousands of dollars for orthotic braces or catheter supplies, a bunch of things that you didn't receive were not ordered by your health care provider and now Medicare has made payment for.

And that's where the billions and billions of dollars rack up.

We are talking to Ingrid Cunninger from the Senior Medicare Patrol, Senior Medicare Patrol, smpwi.org is the website.

And you've got some articles in there about how this is really the time to double check your plan, even if you're happy with it, so that you can compare, you know, apples to apples.

So between that website, smpwi.org for Senior Medicare Patrol, Wisconsin.org, and Medicare.gov.

How important is it to be proactive?

rather than wait for somebody to ring your phone.

It's very important to be proactive.

And as you mentioned earlier, this is right now we are in Medicare's open enrollment period.

So every year between October 15th and December 7th, Medicare beneficiaries have the opportunity to, as you said, review their plans for this year, see what changes their plan might have.

in the works for next year and then look at other options.

That's a great benefit that people have the opportunity right now to review plans and see if there might be something out there that

is more beneficial to you.

Maybe there's additional benefits.

Maybe the cost is different.

Maybe your health situation has changed and you need more coverage or less coverage.

And so now is a great time to do that.

And I would really encourage people to, I know I said it goes until December 7th, but don't wait until December 7th, especially

if

you're looking to connect with some of the unbiased resources that might be available in your community to kind of help you sift through all those things.