The A&G Replay Monday Hour Four

Summary

Armstrong & Getty On Demand Episode: The A&G Replay Monday Hour Four Release Date: May 26, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of Armstrong & Getty On Demand, hosts Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty engage in a lively and critical discussion covering a range of pressing political and social issues. From the formation of a new political party to the intricacies of the U.S. healthcare system and infrastructure woes, Armstrong and Getty provide insightful commentary infused with their characteristic humor and sharp perspectives.

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Political Landscape and Formation of a New Party

The episode opens with Armstrong and Getty expressing frustration with the current political environment, particularly criticizing the Republican Party's approach to deficits and entitlements.

Joe Getty humorously laments, "I'm forming a new political party. I've given up." (01:35)

This leads to a brainstorming session for the new party's name, with suggestions like "Angritarians", "Ocrats", and the bold "F y' all." Jack Armstrong quips, "I'd wear that T-shirt and whatever the flag looks like, I'm flying it on the back of my truck." (02:39-02:47)

The conversation underscores their disillusionment with existing political parties and hints at a desire for a movement that better represents their principles and frustrations.

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Discussion on President Biden's Health

A significant portion of the episode delves into the controversial topic of President Joe Biden's health. Armstrong shares insights from the Morning Joe segment, suggesting that Biden has been battling cancer for years without public acknowledgment.

Jack Armstrong states, "The reporting on everything that happens in the mainstream news is so horrible." (04:05)

They discuss the misuse of the term "aggressive cancer," explaining how it no longer holds the same meaning as before. Armstrong reflects on his personal experience, saying, "My cancer was worse because it was not aggressive." (04:07-04:12)

Joe Getty adds, "I think that is by far the most likely theory. And I hate to steal the thunder of our own featurette, but we got this note from Jacob..." (05:56-06:21)

Addressing public statements, they recall Biden's alleged slip-up where he mentioned having cancer, pondering its implications and the administration's possible concealment strategies.

Jack Armstrong emphasizes the media's failure, stating, "They keep an aggressive cancer as if that absolutely means something and it doesn't at all." (04:05)

This segment highlights their skepticism towards mainstream media narratives and government transparency concerning the President's health.

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Cultural Identity and Immigration

Transitioning from health politics, Armstrong and Getty explore the themes of cultural preservation and the impact of immigration.

Joe Getty critiques modern Western societies, asserting, "We have the one culture that not only is not beautiful and worth preserving... but it's evil and we deserve to have it stamped out." (13:09)

They discuss the erosion of native languages and cultures, contrasting it with authoritarian measures in countries like Russia and China where cultural and linguistic diversity is suppressed.

Jack Armstrong references Pope John Paul II, stating, "Language is culture, talking about that it is... if a language dies out, that culture's died out." (12:22-12:48)

The hosts lament the overemphasis on multiculturalism in places like England and the United States, arguing that it leads to cultural dislocation and loss of traditional values.

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Healthcare System Critique: Medicaid and Obamacare

A critical analysis of the U.S. healthcare system forms a substantial part of the discussion, particularly focusing on Medicaid's expansion under Obamacare.

Craig Gottwells, a healthcare expert, joins the conversation to dissect the financial implications of Medicaid expansion. He explains, "When Obamacare came into play... we did expand Medicaid... now covers anywhere from 8 million to 14 million able-bodied working adults." (20:14-22:00)

The hosts criticize the inefficiency and escalating costs of government-run healthcare programs. Joe Getty notes, "It's the Byzantine system... the single-payer path is a good 30 to 50% more expensive." (28:50-29:05)

They discuss the shift in Medicaid coverage from 2% of Americans to approximately one-third, highlighting the program's entitlement creep and the financial strain it imposes.

Jack Armstrong reflects on personal experiences with the healthcare system's complexity, saying, "Don't get sick or break anything. That's the answer. Stay here." (33:21)

The segment concludes with suggestions for alternative healthcare models, such as direct primary care, advocating for minimal reliance on government programs.

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Infrastructure Failures: California High-Speed Rail

The final major topic addresses the catastrophic failure of California's high-speed rail project, which serves as a prime example of governmental mismanagement.

Jack Armstrong draws parallels to notorious projects like Boston's Big Dig and Alaska's Bridge to Nowhere, stating, "California's high-speed rail project... the biggest government sinkhole of bureaucracy and waste." (34:14)

He cites the latest reports from the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA), revealing the project's ballooning costs from an initial $33 billion to an estimated $135 billion, with completion dates pushed back by decades.

Joe Getty emphasizes the inefficiency, remarking, "It is the greatest failure of democracy I've ever witnessed." (35:08)

The discussion underscores the broader theme of democratic institutions' inability to manage large-scale projects effectively, resulting in significant financial waste and unmet public expectations.

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Conclusion

Throughout the episode, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty maintain a critical stance on various institutional failures, whether in politics, healthcare, or infrastructure. Their conversation is peppered with sharp observations, humorous anecdotes, and poignant critiques, offering listeners a comprehensive analysis of current challenges facing American society.

Notable Quotes:

• "Don't get sick or break anything. That's the answer. Stay here." – Jack Armstrong (33:21)
• "It is the greatest failure of democracy I've ever witnessed." – Joe Getty (35:08)

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Timestamps:

• 01:35 – Formation of a new political party
• 02:39-02:47 – Naming suggestions for the new party
• 04:05 – Misuse of "aggressive cancer"
• 04:07-04:12 – Personal experience with cancer
• 05:56-06:21 – Speculations on Biden's health concealment
• 12:22-12:48 – Language as a cornerstone of culture
• 13:09 – Critique of Western cultural policies
• 20:14-22:00 – Medicaid expansion under Obamacare
• 28:50-29:05 – Cost inefficiencies in single-payer systems
• 33:21 – Advice on navigating the healthcare system
• 34:14 – Comparison to other failed infrastructure projects
• 35:08 – The high-speed rail project as a democratic failure

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Note: This summary excludes advertisements, introductions, outros, and non-content sections to focus solely on the substantive discussions between Armstrong and Getty.

Transcript

[Announcer]

You're listening to an I heart podcast.

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[Jack Armstrong]

Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln radio studio at the George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.

[Joe Getty]

Armstrong and Getty. And now here.

[Jack Armstrong]

Here's Armstrong and Giddy. New week headed into Memorial Day. This could be a big week for your life today. Today you're under the tutelage of our.

[Joe Getty]

General manager, the Republican Party, both houses of Congress and the White House. And they're going to grow the deficits and leave bloated entitlements alone. What the point anymore?

[Jack Armstrong]

Wow.

[Joe Getty]

I'm forming a new political party. I've given up.

[Jack Armstrong]

Wow, Coming out. Angry Hot on a Monday morning.

[Joe Getty]

Exactly. Well, offended. Righteously angry. Not like I lost my temper because I'm drunk angry. No, righteous indignation. It's a stupidity. That hypocrisy, the lack of principle. I got three names, so.

[Jack Armstrong]

For a new party. So not I lost my temper because I'm drunk angry, like the only other bad golf shot.

[Joe Getty]

Now I'm helicoptering my club angry. No, this is righteous biblical anger. How about.

[Jack Armstrong]

How about the doordash was so slow. By the time the yogurt got to me, it was all melted angry, which I had yesterday.

[Joe Getty]

That's legit to me. I mean, that man pays for yogurt. He's, you know, expects it to be nice and chilly. All right, so I got three possible names for our new political party. I assume you'll join me on this quest. Angritarians. Referencing my. My being pissed off. Enough is enough. Ocrats.

[Jack Armstrong]

Gotcha.

[Joe Getty]

Or finally, F y' all.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's pretty good, too. I'd wear that T shirt and whatever the flag looks like, I'm flying it on the back of my truck.

[Joe Getty]

F y' all again.

[Jack Armstrong]

I thought the general manager would be Joe Biden's prostate.

[Joe Getty]

No, no. An old man has cancer. There's. There's no humor there.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's just terrible. Doesn't have to be humorous. It's just a big news story I adopted for humor. I'LL tell you something, though, interesting wrinkle on this that just happened and I want to get to it before you hear it somewhere else.

[Joe Getty]

Do tell.

[Jack Armstrong]

That came up on Morning Joe with Joe Scarborough and he didn't state it outright, but he was certainly hinting at it strongly. So it turns out, according to the doctor they had. Well, there's a whole bunch of stuff I can say about this as a guy who had cancer. The reporting on everything that happens in the mainstream news is so horrible. But as usual with this, there are a number of things I keep hearing over and over again. They keep an aggressive cancer as if that absolutely means something and it doesn't at all. Having had cancer and talked to doctors before back in the day, many, many, many years ago, in general, aggressive was bad and non aggressive was good. But not anymore. My cancer was worse because it was not aggressive.

[Joe Getty]

Because it sounds fascinating at the time.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, because it wouldn't take the bait. As my doctor said, you're trying to poison the cancer with the chemotherapy and it wouldn't take the bait like trying to catch a rat with, you know, rat poison. It wouldn't take the bait because it was so sl. Slow moving. An aggressive cancer, he told me, will grasp onto the we're going to get you and grasp onto the poison and die faster. So often that is better so that, that using that word every single time in every story is meaningless. So there you go. Let's start there.

[Joe Getty]

Siding.

[Jack Armstrong]

But the interesting thing is that I learned from, from Scarborough show today and again, this is what they kept hinting at. He's had it for probably a decade at least through his presidency. Absolutely. Minimum several years, but probably a decade. And it's impossible. They either. Well, almost certainly they just didn't test for it or just didn't do anything.

[Joe Getty]

And, or just kept it quiet because as we've said many times, the president decides what to reveal from that presidential exam, what not to reveal. It is. It is the ultimate. This tells us nothing possible that they.

[Jack Armstrong]

Did that, although you had to keep it quiet every year for many, many, many years because the president, you know, gets a yearly physical and everything like that. And did he get tested for it every year and keep it quiet throughout his entire presidency, probably years before his presidency, so that he could maybe run again or whatever. Or this is what I think Scarborough was hinting at is just his overall medical health, including his brain. They just didn't test. They just didn't ask any questions about anything because it was all going to be bad news and they didn't want to have to discuss anything, so better just to not know.

[Joe Getty]

I think that is by far the most likely theory. And I hate to steal the thunder of our own featurette, but we got this note from Jacob that I was going to include in mailbag later on in the hour. He says, hey guys, do you remember that speech where President Biden randomly said I just found I have out, I have cancer or something like that? Then he moved on and nobody commented on it and the White House clamped down. Do you remember that?

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, that's right.

[Joe Getty]

I think he accidentally let it slip.

[Jack Armstrong]

Although there's no way he just found out he had cancer because he's had it for a very, very long time. But of course, unless they just gave.

[Joe Getty]

Him a PSA test for the first time ever, possibly.

[Jack Armstrong]

Although we're going to play some of the her tapes later. He didn't know when he was president or vice president or when his son died by years. So him saying I just found out I got cancer, who knows what that means? That could have been him remembering from 10 years ago. But I'm talking about his brain. The fact that, you know, him having prostate cancer and hiding it or whatever, I find that kind of a non story actually. But the fact that it fits in with just the overall ignoring everything about his body and brain I think is pretty interesting.

[Joe Getty]

Well, and how widespread the knowledge was. And I read a great piece, we'll share it with you later, about why this all matters. Now this is not just looking in the rearview mirror and kicking Democrats for the fun of it. This is one of the great cover ups in American history.

[Jack Armstrong]

All right. Mark Halpert keeps making it about the media, which I think is a good thing. It's the biggest failure of the media ever, period. I don't know what second place would be, biggest failure of the media, period. And again, I just think it's mostly interesting from the hiding his brain thing. And over the weekend, Maureen Doubt in the New York Times, who's the, the guy they always quote in the Washington Post, the senior man. We had him on the show when we were out there in Chicago. Dan Balls, like some of the biggest heavyweight hitters wrote some major pieces over this weekend about how awful it is that this was hidden for all this time. Kind of like they're discovering it, which.

[Joe Getty]

Is weird, but shocking.

[Jack Armstrong]

I mean, it's really come to the top of everybody's consciousness as a what the hell sort of story, right? Well, more on that later. It's just, it's absolutely amazing. But wow. So I wonder. See, he got Crazy Jill involved. You got to go to Crazy Jill and. And the artist hunter, who's also crazy, they might have just been saying, no, dad, honey, no tests. Let's just do no tests. No tests about anything. And then we don't have to lie. And then we can just go out there and say everything's fine.

[Joe Getty]

It is gratifying and somewhat shocking to look back and see how right we were about all of this. Not that we had any unique knowledge. Look at the polls at the time. And I say this not to pat ourselves on the back, but virtually everything we said about Jill is the evildoer in this. You can tell Dr. Jill, not a real doctor.

[Jack Armstrong]

She's a crazy person. She's a for real crazy person.

[Joe Getty]

Yes, she is absolutely unhinged. But everybody in the cabinet who knew and was silent or denied it vociferously. Chuck Schumer, who's a congenital liar. I don't know why anybody ever listens to him on any topic. He couldn't tell the truth unless he accidentally did it. You know, Mayor Pete, you know, all of these people who continue to be significant, you know, persons in American politics, we cannot just let them get away with it. They should never be in office again. They should never be entrusted with power again. God.

[Jack Armstrong]

Who's the guy? I don't remember his name. Democrat. He's the chair of the Armed Services Committee. Like, you know, a big committee. Never talked to Joe Biden once.

[Joe Getty]

Right.

[Jack Armstrong]

Which is just incredible.

[Joe Getty]

Well, because he, in previous administrations had regularly talked to the president as the head of important defense committee.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, of course you would. Yeah. So anyway, there's a lot on that. Joe Biden's prostate. You know, hope they get him a treatment. He's fine and all that.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, he's. He's. Come on. He's on dsd. Anyway.

[Jack Armstrong]

True.

[Joe Getty]

That's door.

[Jack Armstrong]

The Armstrong and Getty Show. Get more Jack, more Joe podcasts and our hot [e-mail]. the Armstrong and Getty Show.

You say a lot. That's in some of your song lyrics. You want to tell us what it is? Means either live your culture or you kill your culture, and there's no in between. So I'm going to get up every day and I'm going to live my culture today. What was that nonsense he was muttering in the middle?

[Joe Getty]

That was French, Jack. It's a language. That was Jordan Thibodeau, who was featured on 60 Minutes as part of a really interesting segment about essentially Cajun and similar music in that culture. I thought that was a really interesting statement. You either live your culture or kill your culture. Especially because I was corresponding with a friend of mine about my upcoming trip to London with my bride and. And he sent along some commentary about.

[Jack Armstrong]

Have you been brushing up on your English to get ready for it?

[Joe Getty]

Hilarious. And it was a commentary on how Britain and Europe, having permitted rampant immigration that nobody voted for but the elite wanted, had caused enormous dislocating cultural problems. And it's something we've talked about several times. But. And pointing out that like the mayors of most of the big cities in Britain are all Muslims, inexplicably, because they're still a fairly small minority. But there are hundreds of Sharia councils and Sharia courts and the rest of it in Britain. And I found that really intriguing.

[Jack Armstrong]

Which way to Buckingham Palace?

[Announcer]

Why?

[Jack Armstrong]

Over there? Which way?

[Joe Getty]

Over there? Over there.

[Jack Armstrong]

Why are you talking like that?

[Joe Getty]

So I was, for whatever reason that came within 24 hours of hearing Mr. Thibodeau talking about, you live your culture or you kill your culture.

[Jack Armstrong]

I always remember when I read the giant biography of Pope John Paul the Second, he was constantly saying language is culture, talking about that it is. They travel together. They just do. And if a language dies out, that culture's died out. And if you can. And, and that's why, that's why Russia goes in and. And forces people to speak Russian, various languages in various areas. Because you.

[Joe Getty]

China.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, exactly, yeah.

[Joe Getty]

You dare speak one of your ethnic languages in China, you will be hauled into re education.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's why it's so hilarious that we're so willing in the United States to like turn over giant swaths of the country to another language. We just put up signs in that language, start putting things in that language and say, that's fine, we don't care. We don't need to hang on to our language.

[Joe Getty]

Well, exactly. You called it funny and I get you're being kind of ironic, but I was just going to say it is one of the more horrifying and obscene things I've observed in my life, that we of the West, Europe and the United States and Canada, primarily the English speaking world and Europe, have been convinced that we have the one culture that not only is not beautiful and worth preserving or awesome or successful or whatever, but it's evil and we deserve to have it stamped out. And anybody who doesn't participate in that stamping out enthusiastically is an awful person and should be shamed or forced out of their job or what have you. And you know, if you just look at England, never mind the United States, look at England.

[Jack Armstrong]

Hello.

[Joe Getty]

They've practically brought us democracy. It's existed in different forms in different places. But my God, the Magna Carta and the emergence of the Parliament as a counter to the king and working with the monarch and just over hundreds of years hammering out the details of how does a people self govern and then that giving birth to the United States. I mean, you want to talk about a culture worth being proud of and preserving? How about British culture? And it's offshoots. So do you have more you want to say on that topic before I get to my next. This all came together like in the last three minutes in my head.

[Jack Armstrong]

Wow.

[Joe Getty]

So why would those who were browbeating us to flush our own culture down the toilet hate our own history, hate our own people? Why would they do that? I think a lot of you are probably a little bit ahead of me at this point, but I came across this this morning. It's a, it's a piece in the National Review. And let's see. Oh, it's by the notorious MBD Michael Brendan Doherty, who came across some audio of Hillary Clinton, of all people, doing an interview at one of those never ending look how smart and cool and rich we are speech a thons.

[Jack Armstrong]

God, who goes to those things?

[Joe Getty]

Well, it's a certain class of people, but I know I've never heard of most of these things. This is the 92 NY part of the Newmark Civic Life series.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, yeah. The 92 Street Y is a huge deal in New York. If you're important. They have those all the time. Yeah, I see those on YouTube videos regularly.

[Joe Getty]

I've never been so Hillary was jabbering about. She was. She launched into the screed and we could get the audio, but it's, it's better to shorten it because, you know, she rambled a little bit. She launched into this mocking the idea of the Trump administration or anybody else trying to get Americans to have more babies. And she's right in that it's ultimately going to fail. But she launches into a screed in which she says the quiet part out loud that the progressive, the affluent, progressive lifestyle, however you want to describe it, lifestyle, liberalism, certain forms of feminism. It's the privilege of affluent Americans and is supported by mass immigration, legal and illegal progressivism is not economically or socially sustainable, except if we import brown people and foreign people. She said it's crazy trying to make America great again by returning to the lifestyles and the economic arrangements of not just the 50s. I mean let's keep going back as far as we can the nuclear family return to being a Christian nation, a return to producing a lot of children. These are quotes even though she says.

[Jack Armstrong]

The alleged particularly offended by her throwing out the nuclear family as something to give up on easily. Wow.

[Joe Getty]

Then she takes a shot of Republicans said they have no interest in paid family leave or funding quality child care. They're cutting head start. But she said it's sort of odd because the people who produce the most children in our country are immigrants and they want to deport them. None of this adds up. This is all a quote. In fact, one of the reasons why our economy did so much better than comparable advanced economies across the world is because we had lots of immigrants, legally and undocumented, who had a larger than normal by American standards family. So quoting Doherty taken together, Clinton says that immigrants make the American lifestyle of today add up in part because of their higher birth rates. And she's right. Although he later points out within two generations, certainly three immigrant birth rates plunge down to Native American birth rates.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'd like to also point out the reality any neighborhood you ever lived in Hillary become primarily a different language speaking in the restaurant you used to go to become a food and language that you don't know in your school.

[Joe Getty]

The teacher, she couldn't learn in schools because there are so many languages.

[Jack Armstrong]

When you go to the emergency room, a lot, a lot of Spanish speaking or whatever that really slows things down is that no, it doesn't happen to you. It's funny, it happens to everybody else.

The Armstrong and Getty show get more Jack, more Joe podcasts and our hot.

[Advertiser]

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[Jack Armstrong]

The Armstrong and Getty Show.

[Announcer]

They literally are trying to take health care away from millions of Americans at this very moment in the dead of night.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh my God.

[Joe Getty]

Oh my God. It's a party of monsters.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's why they're having Republicans.

[Joe Getty]

They're monsters.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's why they're having the 1am vote tonight on the big beautiful bill to try to slide through in the dark of night, the cutting back on Medicaid.

[Joe Getty]

And so the Republicans, who are actual vampires, can come out to vote too, because, you know, the sun is down. So Craig got walls originally. Craig, the Obamacare lawyer. Because when Obamacare was in the works and passed, Craig would talk to us about it, longtime friend of the show, and, and everything he said was true and virtually everything he predicted happened in contrast to most of the coverage of it, which was garbage. Well, Craig is now Craig the healthcare guru. And we're gonna talk a little bit about Medicaid, among other things. Craig Gottwells. How are you, Craig?

[Announcer]

I'm good. How are you, gentlemen?

[Joe Getty]

Terrific. Thank you very much. So what do you make of Hakeem Jeffreys quote there? And what is the reality of Medicaid?

[Announcer]

Well, it underscores just how we can never give anything to the government. This is why we can't have nice things, right? So in 1965, the federal government passed Medicare and Medicaid. And specifically with respect to Medicaid, the whole idea was, man, we need a safety net for like single moms with disabled children who are falling through the cracks. We need, we need this, this mechanism to just capture the most disadvantaged among us, to help them out and to give them, to give them a list, right? So we did. And back when this was passed in 1965, it was designed to cover 2% of Americans. 2%. Today it covers 1 in 3Americans and 41% of all babies birthed in our country.

[Jack Armstrong]

Whoa. 41% of babies born so originally for.

[Joe Getty]

The blind, the disabled, the utterly unable to help themselves. And now it is approaching half of us.

[Jack Armstrong]

Is that because we have so many more single moms with blind babies or what has happened?

[Announcer]

Well, you know, you know better than I, Jack, this is entitlement creep. Government creep at its finest. I mean, you, you, when we, when, when this really took, took off and became insane was with Obamacare in, you know, the early, you know, 20 teens, when Obamacare came into play, Obamacare was bribing the states because, you know, the way this thing works, it's a, it's an agreement between the state and the federal government. And there's shared financing, right? So the federal government couldn't just say to the states, you shall expand Medicaid. But what the federal government did is said, hey, look, if you expand Medicaid to basically able bodied, working age people now, because we'd already, you know, had Medicaid for all the other categories you just mentioned, Joe. The government said, look, if you do that, will we, the federal government will pay 100% of it for some time and then we'll pay 90% of it. So all but 10 states went ahead and said heck yeah, we'll take that deal. And so now with that Medicaid expansion that occurred with Obamacare, it's 90% paid for by federal taxpayers and it covers anywhere from 8 million to 14 million able bodied working adults, or I should say able bodied adults, some of which are working, some of which aren't.

[Joe Getty]

And in a bizarre twist, correct me if I'm wrong, the federal government compensates the states at a much higher percentage for able bodied dudes smoking pot on their parents basement couch than they do for actual like disabled people and blind babies.

[Announcer]

Yeah, no, that's exactly right. So that was the, that was the Obamacare bribe because, because Medicaid already covered all those people we were trying to protect, you know, when we started this thing in the 60s. So it covered all those people that had disabilities, single moms, et cetera, the blind, the disabled. But it didn't cover just underemployed or unemployed able bodied adults. And so in order to get the states to agree to do that, the federal government had to say, look, we know that we're only paying you an average of 50 to 65 cents on the dollar for your existing Medicaid and we know that's not enough to get you, the states to agree to go ahead and cover the adults. So we'll pay 90 to 100%, starting at 100%, dropping down to 90%. So yes, that's exactly right. If you are 28 year old dude smoking pot in your mom and dad's basement right Now, Medicaid's paying 90%, the federal government's paying 90% of your Medicaid where it's only paying an average of $0.60 on the dollar in a state like California for a disabled mother with the child.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, I'm thinking somebody I know specifically who has like a regular person with a job and is doing it the normal way and their incredible medical bills they got right now because they've had some health problems. That's very galling that they have these high medical bills with insurance and everything as opposed to if you got on some sort of government plan it would all be covered.

[Joe Getty]

And Craig, I'm going to leave it up to your judgment how much you want to get into this, but there are all sorts of other Perverse incentives that this law has caused states taxing hospitals to raise the amount spent. But then they get it back from the federal government, then they give it back to the hospitals. I mean, it's Byzantine.

[Announcer]

Yeah, let's, let me just give you a couple nuggets on the cost of it. Just, just because what's happened is employers pay two to three times the cost of a hospital visit as Medicare and Medicaid do. So when you are on Medicare and Medicaid, you go to the hospital, you pay X. If you're on an employer sponsored plan, you pay two to three times X. Wow.

[Jack Armstrong]

Thus the bills I was just talking about.

[Announcer]

Thus the bills. But even with that reality, gentlemen, if you're on Medicare, that cost per taxpayer is about 11,000 per year. If you're on Medicaid, it's 9,400 per year. And for employer sponsored people, it's 8,700 per year. So even with that, now granted employer sponsored coverage, generally younger, generally healthier, we get that. But even with this tremendous cost shift to the hospitals, it just, it underscores how inefficient these government programs are. When they passed Medicare, now this is Medicare, not Medicaid, but they did all the financials together when they passed it in 1967. Actually two years in, when they did an analysis on it, they said, hey, we think this is going to cost 12 billion by 1990, when in fact it cost 100 billion. They were off by a factor of eight.

[Jack Armstrong]

With Medicare, it's the bullet train of medicine.

[Announcer]

Yeah, it's the bullet train of medicine. And now that there are some people making noises that gee, we ought to trim back the edges a little bit and get these able bodied adults off, off of it, you of course get the grandstanding of politicians, even those on the right, screaming that it's, it's, it's murder in the streets.

[Jack Armstrong]

So Medicare is the one we all.

[Announcer]

Get when we cynical, it will.

[Jack Armstrong]

Medicare is the one we all get when we turn 65. But Medicaid is the one that the downtrodden poor folks allegedly.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, yeah. Hey, Craig, I, I want to, I want to do the numbers you did for Medicaid too. So in 1987, Congress projected that Medicaid would make special relief payments to hospitals of less than a billion dollars by 1992. Under a billion dollars, the actual cost was 17 billion. So they're 17 times as high. I mean, if that doesn't tell you what you need to know about government entitlement programs and what they do, inevitably well, you're too stupid to understand it and I pity you.

[Announcer]

And that one was in a five year span, Joe. That was their 87 projection for 92.

[Joe Getty]

Oh my God, you're right.

[Announcer]

Yeah, that wasn't.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, and one of the problems, one of the problems is, you know, all government programs grow and you know, the high cost of good intentions and all that sort of stuff. But in this case you've got the added part that there's a bunch of people that want the government to run all of health care. So they're, they, they love the, they're pushing the expansion. It's not just like normal bureaucratic creep. They're, they're pushing it. The more people covered, the more you can make the argument of, well, we're already government health care anyway, let's just flip the switch and go full on single payer.

[Announcer]

No, you're absolutely right. And the single payer, I'm just here to tell you the single payer path is a good 30 to 50% more expensive. Now those costs are hidden because of the way the money sloshes around. But you've only got one payer of health care in America that actually cares what it costs and that's employers. That's it. The insurance companies don't care because the way Obamacare is written, they need more claims to make more money. The government doesn't care because the more health care costs, the more budget they get to address the issue. The only, the only policyholder, the only tax, the only moneyed interest in this that actually cares is an employer. And it's dramatically shrinking. Those of us that get health care at work is shrinking every year.

[Jack Armstrong]

I don't know how we ever get this fixed because like I, you've probably been listening, you know, I got whooping cough. So I've been to the doctor like yeah, four or five times, eight different medications, all these different bills, most of them tiny. I don't have the slightest idea what anything cost or I'll get a bill. I know I'll get a bill in a month for 180 bucks or 580 bucks, I don't know. And then I'll just pay it and nobody has any idea. And the, the randomness of those of us who have employee, you know, insurance, we don't, we don't know if we're getting ripped off or good price or whatever. So it's, it's complicated.

[Joe Getty]

No, it's certainly discouraging. Go ahead, Craig.

[Announcer]

Yeah, and it's not health Jack, by the, you know, a Lot of people think that hey, I have Purple Cross as my insurance. And so whether I go to Stanford or El Camino or Good Sam for this particular shoulder surgery should be about the same price because I have a Purple Cross PPO contract. Right. It's not. You can pay 10,000 for that shoulder surgery or 50,000 for that shoulder surgery with the same exact insurance card. It's utterly insane what's happening in the commercial market because government has crept into this unholy alliance with the commercial payers. And so you have this, you have this situation where it's crony capitalism at its absolute worst. You know we're talking about and we can tease for a future visit but there are ways to get around this. But relying on the government or this large commercial sector is going to kill us. And when I say the commercial sector, I mean the fully insured carrier employer sponsored plans, self funded employer sponsored plans are the way to go. It's the only way to beat this and beat it back.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, we're talking to Craig Gotwell's. Craig, the healthcare guru. Craig, I feel like at this point in the interview we ought to give people the local suicide hotline number. I mean because it's so discouraging. So we've you know, described this incredible, mountainous, wasteful, enormously expensive government program out of control. And if you as say a Republican, Chip Roy for instance, say hey can we have 35 year old guy smoking pond on his parents couch please pay a $35 copay when he goes to the doctor. You have Hakeem Jeffries screaming, you're literally taking health care away from millions of Americans.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, that's, that's one problem though. The other problem is that's a Democrat. You got Josh Hawley, a Republican writing an op ed.

[Joe Getty]

Holly has lost his soul. I hope he gets hit by a car. Abhor violence.

[Jack Armstrong]

Josh Hawley writes, I think in the New York Times last week. You know Republicans, hey, do not cut any of this. It's a bad political move. So where does that leave you?

[Announcer]

Yeah, it you. At this point gentlemen, I put my head down. I don't even listen to the big, the big picture anymore. And I just try and help one employer at a time. And I get individuals that contact me and they ask me what do I do. And I say buy as little insurance as you can. Buy the highest deductible. Go ahead.

[Jack Armstrong]

Don't get sick is your recommendation.

[Announcer]

Don't get sick. But, but find a doctor. Find a doctor who's left the system and engage in something called direct primary care, where you give them anywhere from $75 to $200 a month, you treat, you work with them, and then God forbid you have something giant happen, you have the highest deductible you can stomach to go deal with that, that issue. But you've got to cut insurance and government payments out as much as you can and work directly with doctors. Is. That system is growing, gentlemen. I talk to doctors every week that are leaving the system and going direct pay with individuals and not, not the $350 concierge model, but like doing this for a hundred dollars a month, literally.

[Joe Getty]

Well, I love the idea of starting at that point in our next conversation with you, Craig, and talking about that because one of the things I was going to bring up if we have time and we don't, unfortunately. But some of the unholy vertical integration of the giant healthcare companies where the doctor, they own the hospital, they own the pharmacy, they own the pharmacy benefit manager, which is an unholy murky cesspool of God knows where the money goes. And so yeah, the idea of checking out of that system, I love it. Let's, let's, let's talk off the air. We'll schedule you to come back because I think it'd be great for the good folks.

[Announcer]

Sounds great. Gentlemen, have a wonderful day.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, thanks, Craig.

[Jack Armstrong]

Appreciate the time he has to come on all the time and bear bad news. I mean.

[Joe Getty]

Okay, Yeah, I just, you know, as a realist, you've, unlike the Biden family, the one thing you must do is understand reality or, or you're, you're hopeless.

[Jack Armstrong]

I've been saying to Craig, and he usually agrees for years. I think the realist view is we're going to end up single payer health care. It's just when, when does it finally happen?

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, I suppose so. But in every single health, single payer healthcare system, people who can afford it go outside.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right, Right.

[Joe Getty]

Gotta learn those ropes.

[Jack Armstrong]

Dang it.

[Joe Getty]

Don't folks. It'll be okay.

[Jack Armstrong]

Don't get sick. Just don't get sick or break anything. That's the answer. Stay here.

Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty. The Armstrong and Getty Show. The Armstrong and Getty Show.

So there have been a couple of great government works things that got out of control and cost gazillions of dollars and never got finished in my lifetime. I remember Boston's Big Dig hearing about that my whole life. Decades and decades and decades of wasted tons of money. Alaska's famous bridge to nowhere. But they're all paling in Comparison to California's high speed rail project which goes back to 2008 and if it's not already at the end of the day will be the biggest government sinkhole of bureaucracy and waste as an example of how democracies can fail in our nation's history.

[Joe Getty]

And it's probably already enrichment too. I must point out part of the.

[Jack Armstrong]

Reason it's getting a bunch of a national attention now. New York Times did a story last Sunday, the Associated Presses on it and the Dispatch did a story yesterday is the chsra, that's the California High Speed Rail Authority. They put out new numbers just recently and their own new numbers have now increased the total cost to $135 billion. When taxpayers agreed to this, it was 33 billion. It's now 135 billion. It's more than $100 billion more than originally proposed. It was. We were all supposed to be writing it five years ago. It's supposed to be done in 2020. I have not written interview. They're now saying if it comes anywhere.

[Joe Getty]

Near the original promise, it will be north of $200 billion. Mark my words.

[Jack Armstrong]

And they said in their most recent statement it may take two more decades to complete most of the San Francisco to Los Angeles segment. Two more decades to complete most. So they're not even saying in two decades they can complete it.

[Joe Getty]

Right.

[Jack Armstrong]

And I don't know if you know about travel, but you really need the whole thing. Like if I'm going to New York this summer, I need to get all the way there. Most of the UA doesn't do any good.

[Joe Getty]

It's either get you to Indianapolis.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's really an all or nothing proposition. Whenever you travel somewhere. Am I going there or not? But I thought this was really interesting and I can't believe this hasn't gotten more attention. This is from the CHSRI's own plan. It is now going to connect to towns on the outskirts of both major metros. It's not going to take you from San Francisco to Los Angeles. It's going to take you from Gilroy, which if you live in the area you know ain't very close to San.

[Joe Getty]

Francisco, that is the outskirts of the outskirts of the outskirts.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's 70 miles southeast of San Francisco to Palmdale.

[Joe Getty]

I just checked. It will take you just under two hours to drive from Gilroy to San Francisco as we speak to Palmdale, which.

[Jack Armstrong]

Is 37 miles northeast of the edge of Los Angeles. And in Los Angeles traffic it would take you several hours to make that drive. So instead of the city centers. It's going to take you from Gilroy to Palmdale. That will save construction time and money, but it will need mean the writers will need another hour or more to get into the cities. That is an incredibly generous statement. I would say a minimum of three to four hours on a good day. All told.

[Joe Getty]

An hour and a quarter from Palmdale to LA right now.

[Jack Armstrong]

All told, economist Scott Summer estimates that this new setup would require at least a seven hour series of trains or cars for someone to get from downtown San Francisco to downtown Los Angeles. Instead of the original promised 3 hour 1 train trip and 7 hours on the best everything broke your way. It would take seven hours.

[Joe Getty]

It is the greatest failure of democracy I've ever witnessed.

[Jack Armstrong]

Armstrong and Getty.

[Announcer]

You'Re listening to an iHeart podcast.