12/10/24: Romania Elections Cancelled Over Misinformation, Gambling Next Opioid Crisis, Shooter Manifesto Reveals US Healthcare Rage

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar – December 10, 2024

Hosted by Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti on iHeartPodcasts

In the December 10, 2024 episode of Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar, hosts Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti delve into three pressing issues shaping the geopolitical and social landscape: the annulment of Romania's presidential elections due to misinformation, the burgeoning crisis of online sports gambling, and a harrowing manifesto from a shooter that exposes deep-seated rage within the U.S. healthcare system. This comprehensive summary captures the essence of their discussions, enriched with notable quotes and timestamps for added context.

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1. Romania Elections Cancelled Over Misinformation

Timestamp: [02:19] – [11:50]

Krystal and Saagar open the episode by addressing a significant political upheaval in Romania. A top Romanian court annulled the first round of the presidential elections, citing allegations of a coordinated Russian misinformation campaign. This decision mirrors the infamous Russiagate scandal of 2016, raising alarms about foreign interference in democratic processes.

Key Points:

• Allegations of Russian Influence: The Romanian president declassified intelligence reports suggesting that Russia orchestrated thousands of social media accounts on platforms like TikTok and Telegram to promote far-right candidate Colin Georgescu. These efforts were purportedly aimed at skewing the election results.

• Impact on NATO and Regional Stability: Romania's strategic position within NATO and its planned large-scale military base on the Black Sea make this political instability a matter of concern for Western allies. Krystal highlights the potential shift in Romania’s alignment, which could jeopardize NATO's security architecture in the region.

• Court's Justification and Political Reactions: The court's decision was framed as an attack on democracy by eurosceptic and reformist candidates alike. Saagar underscores the frustration felt by NATO allies who view the annulment as prioritizing institutional stability over the sovereign will of the Romanian populace.

Notable Quotes:

• Saagar Anwar: “This is a big deal because Romania has been an important military partner in that region and there's a huge NATO base that is being planned for Romania as well.” [05:22]

• Krystal Ball: “If it's a democratic will of the people to elect somebody who wants to end aid to Ukraine, then so be it.” [07:30]

Analysis:

Krystal and Saagar critique the Western diplomatic maneuvers that seemingly override the democratic choices of Romania's citizens. They argue that such interventions could set dangerous precedents, undermining the very democratic values these alliances purportedly uphold. The hosts express concern over the long-term implications for NATO's cohesion and Romania's sovereignty.

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2. Gambling Next Opioid Crisis

Timestamp: [14:22] – [29:25]

The discussion transitions to a burgeoning social issue: the normalization and legalization of online sports gambling in the United States. Saagar delivers a poignant monologue drawing parallels between the current gambling trends and the devastating opioid epidemic.

Key Points:

• Supreme Court Decision and Legalization: The 2018 Supreme Court ruling struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), catalyzing the rapid expansion of legalized sports betting across 39 states and the District of Columbia.

• Explosion of Online Sports Betting: Companies like DraftKings and FanDuel have monopolized the market, leveraging sophisticated marketing tactics to normalize gambling as a daily activity. Saagar highlights the exploitative business models that rely on problem gamblers to sustain profits.

• Societal Impacts: The hosts discuss alarming statistics linking increased sports betting to higher rates of household bankruptcy, domestic violence, and overall societal degradation. They emphasize that these consequences disproportionately affect economically vulnerable populations, particularly young men.

• Business Practices and Ethical Concerns: Saagar exposes the unethical strategies employed by gambling companies, including the suppression of winnings and the targeting of addicts through aggressive marketing and personalized incentives.

Notable Quotes:

• Krystal Ball: “They were already trained, rested, and ready for the Supreme Court decision which opened the floodgates.” [15:00]

• Saagar Anwar: “For every $1 wagered on sports betting, household savings is depleted by $2.” [22:00]

• Saagar Anwar: “If these gambling companies were forced to allow fair play...they would go bankrupt.” [26:30]

Analysis:

Krystal and Saagar articulate a compelling argument that the unchecked expansion of online sports gambling poses a significant threat to American society, akin to the opioid crisis. They criticize the lack of regulatory oversight and the exploitative nature of the gambling industry's business models. The hosts advocate for stringent regulations, drawing lessons from past pitfalls associated with addictive substances, to mitigate the emerging crisis.

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3. Shooter Manifesto Reveals US Healthcare Rage

Timestamp: [32:15] – [40:19]

The episode takes a somber turn as the hosts examine the disturbing manifesto of Luigi Mangione, the alleged assassin of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Through this lens, Krystal and Saagar explore the profound frustrations and systemic failures within the U.S. healthcare system.

Key Points:

• Shooter's Motive: Mangione’s manifesto blames the profit-driven healthcare system for dehumanizing patients and rendering lives disposable. This act of violence is portrayed as a drastic expression of rage against systemic injustices.

• Critique of Profit-Driven Healthcare: The hosts dissect the U.S. healthcare model, highlighting its inefficiencies despite exorbitant expenditures. They compare the U.S. unfavorably to other wealthy nations with better health outcomes and higher life expectancies.

• Investigative Insights: Krystal shares findings from a New York Times investigation into Acadia Healthcare, exposing fraudulent practices within their methadone clinics. The clinics prioritize quantity over quality, overextend their staff, and engage in record falsifications to maximize profits.

• Call for Healthcare Reform: Emphasizing the need for a humane, patient-centered healthcare system, Krystal and Saagar urge policymakers to address the systemic issues fueling dissatisfaction and potentially violent outcomes.

Notable Quotes:

• Saagar Anwar: “Your health is at best incidental among wealthy nations.” [35:00]

• Krystal Ball: “Every greedy middleman ghoul in the system getting their cut and patients getting sick and stuck with the bill.” [38:00]

• Krystal Ball: “If Democrats are actually serious about getting back into power and truly delivering for the nation, they will heed the message that was loud and clear this week and fight to cut these parasites off once and for all.” [39:30]

Analysis:

Krystal and Saagar present a scathing critique of the U.S. healthcare system, condemning its profit-driven nature and the resultant neglect of patient welfare. They link healthcare inadequacies to broader societal issues, including violent expressions of frustration. By highlighting specific cases of malpractice within Acadia Healthcare, the hosts underscore the urgent need for comprehensive healthcare reform to restore faith and functionality in the system.

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Conclusion

In this episode of Breaking Points, Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti methodically dissect complex issues impacting both national and international spheres. From the fragile state of Romanian democracy and NATO alliances to the insidious rise of online sports gambling and the lethal ramifications of a broken healthcare system, the hosts offer incisive analysis and compelling arguments for systemic change. Their discussions encourage listeners to critically evaluate the forces shaping their world and advocate for policies that prioritize integrity, transparency, and the well-being of individuals over institutional and corporate interests.

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Note: Timestamps are approximate and correspond to the provided transcript segments.

Transcript

[Savannah Guthrie]

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[Hoda Kotb]

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[Hoda Kotb]

Hey guys, Sager and Crystal here.

[Sager Anwar]

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[Hoda Kotb]

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[Sager Anwar]

So a crazy situation has been unfolding in the NATO country of Romania. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. Obviously, hugely relevant for us because of their NATO status, but also because of the role of missile information, which was used as justification by Romania's top court to annul the first round of the presidential vote. So let me just read you a little bit of this so I make sure I have the specifics right here. It says a top Romanian court on Friday annulled the first round of the country's presidential election days after allegations emerged that Russia ran a coordinated online campaign. What? Does that sound familiar to you? To promote the far right outsider who won the first round, the constitutional courts unprecedented decision, which is finally came after the president declassified intelligence on Wednesday that alleged Russia had organized thousands of social media accounts to promote Colin Georgescu across platforms such as TikTok and Telegram. The court, without naming Georgescu, said that one of the 13 candidates in the Nov. 24 first round had improperly received preferential treatment on social media, distorting the outcome of the vote. Georgescu denounced the verdict as an officialized coup and an attack on democracy, as did the second place finisher, reformist Elena Lascone of the center right Save Romania Union party. So obviously soccer raised a lot of alarms among close watchers here because the contours of the allegations are very similar to the Russiagate allegations back in 2016 of this coordinated Russian influence campaign. The current president released these intelligence reports that indicated and didn't even come to the conclusion that these TikTok accounts and whatever had changed the election result didn't even directly reach the conclusion, just sort of alleged and hinted in that direction that it was Russia that had created these accounts and was running them and conducting this malign influence campaign. And then they use this as justification to completely annul the results of this election. Also worth noting here. So the politics of this guy Georgescu, or not my politics, he's a far right politician. He was the only candidate that was sort of aggressively against Romania's support for Ukrainian military aid and was sort of adversarial vis a vis NATO, was more kind of pro Russian aligned in terms of his rhetoric. And this is a big deal because Romania has been an important military partner in that region and there's a huge NATO base that is being planned for Romania as well. So this was a problem not just for the people who are currently in power in Romania. It was also a problem for us and our other NATO allies because it signaled potentially Romania could be going in a different direction and not be a reliable NATO ally and the seat of this giant military base that's being planned.

[Hoda Kotb]

Yeah, this is just classic NATO diplomacy where NATO itself is more important than the literal will of the Romanian people. Also, maybe it's a good reason as to why former Soviet republics should not be in NATO. Right. Because maybe they have complicated feelings and populations. And if you have a restricted number of countries that have more of a unified message and goal, then it's a little bit easier to defend.

[Sager Anwar]

I feel bad for these countries.

[Hoda Kotb]

I do, too.

[Sager Anwar]

These end up being used like our pawns and Russia's pawns in the region. And caught in this tug of war between Europe and between Russia. I mean, it's the same dynamic that played out in Ukraine.

[Hoda Kotb]

Exactly. And actually in Romania, in Hungary and all these other Slovenia countries like that, they have long histories of both. So making them choose is ridiculous. It should be up to their own democratic populations.

[Sager Anwar]

And if they wanna be unaligned, also, fine.

[Hoda Kotb]

Yeah, go for it. Exactly. Look, Romania is a proud people, proud country with a long history, very interesting place. And it's not right that they're basically having this Western style coup is effectively what this is. By canceling the election where within their own system, this man won. And again, it's funny when you read the press like the Financial Times, let's put this up there on the screen. The absolute vast majority of this thing is just, oh, Romania's Western partners are worried about a key ally turning towards Moscow, as Bucharest is a NATO and an EU member that has so far supported Western efforts to back Ukraine in its defense against Russian aggression. And here's the thing. He did not. Even Georgescu did not deny or he denied saying that he wants to take Ukraine or Romania out of the US military alliance. And he said, quote, he wants to renegotiate the terms of its membership. Okay, so what, Donald Trump said stuff like that too. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. And yet, you know, he wins, what is it, 22%. Sorry. The largest share of the vote was won by the center left party, followed by the nationalists at 8%.

[Sager Anwar]

So he won the first presidential voting round. This article is about the parliamentary elections where the centrist parties, mainstream parties, did well enough, even though there were huge gains by the nationalist far right groups. But they did well enough that it looks like they'll be able to form a sort of mainstream party governing coalition. So all of the NATO types were breathing big sigh of relief about this result. But now the first round of the presidential vote has been annulled. They're probably going to redo the vote sometime in the spring and we'll see what happens there. But I mean, this would be like if in the US in 2016, after there was Russian influence in our campaign, which we all know, I mean, we run multibillion dollar campaigns here. Like the idea that the weird memes that they were putting out on Facebook was determined as preposterous. But anyway, if that had been used to actually overturn the election. Or imagine this time because Twitter is run by Elon Musk, who put a quarter of a billion dollars into Donald Trump's campaign. If that was used to overturn the results of this election. And you can see how this could be used in both directions, right? Because then in 2020, they could have said, hey, the censoring of the Hunter Biden laptop story, that renders this election illegitimate and it should be overturned. And so you can see how this would be the road to hell and the road to completely just disregard the will of the people. And to my knowledge, in spite of our State Department's rhetoric about how much they are committed to democracy, blah, blah, blah, I don't think that they've objected to any of these doings in Romania.

[Hoda Kotb]

Why would they? Right? This is the project. This is what they actually want. Put the next one up there on the screen because it's interesting where they point out how the long history with Romania and their own struggles and all of that are exactly what this quote unquote resurrects dark memories of. So in their bid to save democracy, democracy, they are recalling their own dictatorial past, which they probably want to get away from exactly by expressing it through their democratic process. So if it's a democratic will of the people to elect somebody who wants to end aid to Ukraine, then so be it. And, you know, the funny thing is, this may seem like fringe issues and stuff to us because Ukraine is just one of a number of things, but if you're Romania, it's actually a big deal. It's like, not only you're in NATO, this is a country which you're very close to. You've got some of your population who can probably recall some of the USSR times and others and their own dark history as well. And so you're overturning this election basically based upon the will of the European Union and of NATO. I cannot think of a better example to justify so much of the European far right hatred, which is now basically pan European at this point of exactly these institutions which claim to act in the name of democracy and are obviously committed to anything. But.

[Sager Anwar]

Yeah, no, that's, that's absolutely right. And the last thing I mentioned, this base, I just wanted to give you some of the details because I do think this is very significant to understanding the, like geopolitical dynamics here. This is from another article. That military base in southeast Romania on the Black Sea coast will become the largest NATO military base in all of Europe, will surpass the US Military base in Ramstein. Is that how you say that? Germany in size. The new base will give Romania an increased role in NATO security architecture. A position of greater strength in the Black Sea, which is militarily dominated by Russia, will be able to host 10,000 soldiers and civilians by 2030. So that's why we have such an interest in what is going on in this election and also because of Romania already being an important ally in terms of our position in the Ukrainian war. But I mean, obviously the hypocrisy is clear and it's very troubling. And so the first, first controversial decision was the outgoing president deciding to release these intelligence reports which fueled all of this speculation and concern about Russian meddling in their politics. And then following on the heels of that was this top court in an unappealable decision using those intelligence reports as the basis for annulling the presidential election results. So there you go.

[Savannah Guthrie]

All right, we're all set for the party. I've trimmed the tree, hung the mistletoe, and paired all those weird shaped knives and forks with the appropriate cheeses. And I plugged in the Partisan.

[Hoda Kotb]

Partisan.

[Savannah Guthrie]

It's a home cocktail maker that makes over 60 premium cocktails, plus a whole lot of seasonal favorites, too. I just got it for 50 off, so how about a Cosmopolitan or a Mistletoe Margarita?

[Hoda Kotb]

I'm thirsty.

[Savannah Guthrie]

Watch. I just pop in a capsule, choose my strength and wow, it's beginning to.

[Hoda Kotb]

Feel more seasonal in here already.

[Savannah Guthrie]

If your holiday party doesn't have a bartender, then you become the bartender. Unless you've got a Bartesian, because Bartesian crafts every cocktail perfectly in as little as 30 seconds. And I just got it for $50 off.

[Sager Anwar]

Tis the season to be jollier.

[Crystal Ball]

Add some holiday flavor to every celebration with the sleek, sophisticated home cocktail maker, Bartisian. Pick up your phone and shake to get $50 off any cocktail maker. Yes, you heard me. Shake your phone and get $50 off. Don't delay.

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[Hoda Kotb]

Okay, real quick.

[Sager Anwar]

All right, Sager the much anticipated Anti online sports Gambling Monologue. Let's have it.

[Hoda Kotb]

I want you to close your eyes and think back to the year 2018. Some ways feels like a long way away, but objectively, it wasn't. It was six short years. And yet in those six short years, one of the most sweeping social revolutions in the United States has happened beneath our feet. And we are only just starting to grapple with it. That is the mass legalization and normalization of online sports gambling. The mass legalization and normalization of sports gambling has the potential to rival the opioid epidemic in the United States, its destruction of the American family unit. And yet today, almost all lawmakers are lockstep in their support of it. The roots of online sports gambling boom in the United States trace back to a 2018 Supreme Court decision after a petition was filed by the State of New Jersey challenging something known as the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection act, or PASPA. PASPA, passed in 1992, effectively restricted all legal sports gambling action to the state of Nevada. And now this is Stuck in New Jersey's craw in 2009, especially after the Great Recession, they needed a way to bail out Atlantic City casinos. So on their behalf, they brought the suit against the law, where it would be eventually resolved in their favor in 2018. Now, in the nine years where New Jersey brought the suit against Paspa, something important also happened. The absolute explosion of something called daily fantasy sports. Daily fantasy sports was effectively a loophole, allowing people to place wagers on fantasy sports leagues and daily payouts, something that many Americans were already doing in their spare time. It aligned perfectly with the rise of the smartphone. Companies like DraftKings and FanDuel began their entry into the market under this guise. So it was at this time where the roots of the epidemic were laid. Wagers were already being placed in mass by millions of Americans, and the normalization of gambling on the phone was planted. Perhaps most importantly though, these companies began to hone their strategies, which include insane levels of marketing focused on one specific message. It's a game of skills and you can hit it big. Now, in a sense, they are correct, but there's a lot more subtext removed which I will return to later. Suffice to say this, they were already tanned, rested and ready for the Supreme Court decision which opened the floodgates. On May 14, 2018, the Supreme Court struck down Paspa. Within a month, the state of Delaware began accepting single game wagers, which would be seen as tame today. By the end of the month, seven states had legalized sports gambling, and by today, As I speak, 39 states, including the District of Columbia, have now had it legalized. Now, it's important to note, when I say legalized, it doesn't mean that it's a free for all. What it really means is that a few mega companies like DraftKings, FanDuel, Prizepix and others have effectively rolled up the legal sports betting market by getting separate states to grant them preferential licenses to run action in their state. This is important because the quasi monopolistic way that sports gambling runs on a state by state basis means that it is not a fair marketplace, and two, it means that their excesses and sins are multiplied to absolutely stupidity, stupendous profit and fundamentally are altering the way that American sports leagues will operate for decades to come. So let's take some time to ruminate on gambling itself and the attitudes of the United States towards it. Over the years, it's fair to say, the US has undergone an extraordinary transition from effectively a nation of prudish Christians to much more secular libertarians in the span of just a few decades. This is evident in current social attitudes from everything on abortion, gay marriage, to marijuana. And now sports gambling. Gambling itself was traditionally viewed as a sinful, backwards activity that was actively discouraged by the state for centuries. Now the compromise that we got to was one that I actually think is quite sensible. People will always gamble. Let's not make it too easy. You can do it, but you have to go to a physical casino. There are governing bodies like the Nevada Gaming Commission which makes sure that these games are run fairly. And in general, that attitude was to confine it to as small places as possible that are accessible, who are committed but who did not want to make it part of everyday life. Quite sensible, in my opinion, should be applied to all vices. We understand they exist, but it shouldn't be too easy to indulge. From cigarette to alcohol. And this has been an attitude in America now for decades. But then everything changed and now all of a sudden, sports gambling is not just legal, but it's available everywhere at the click of a button on your smartphone that's always in your pocket to hundreds of millions of Americans. And the results are in. They're astonishing. Since 2018, US customers have placed approximately half a trillion dollars in bets at legal sportsbooks and climbing, turning a nation that had rare access to sports gambling into the largest gambling marketplace on earth. This has transformed the finances of everyday Americans in that has not happened in generations. My friend Charles Lehman summed up three separate large scale studies. The top line findings are for every $1 waged on sports betting, household savings is depleted by $2. Legalized online gambling has increased the risk of household bankruptcy in a State by 25 to 30%. And worst of all, legalized sports gambling has massively increased the rates of domestic violence, specifically against spouses of those who lose. Unsurprisingly, all of these effects are felt by the most economically precarious households and the financial effects are concentrated amongst young men. Fair to say it's been a disaster. So let's go through the arguments for why even though all of this is really bad, we should overlook it. First is philosophical argument. This is what living in a free society looks like, that just because some people can't control themselves, we shouldn't ruin the fun for everyone. I understand that argument. I agree with it partially. But I would say this. The US has recognized always that we can respect freedom of choice, while also recognizing that when something is bad and trying to reduce that behavior for the societal benefit of all citizens, we should. We have arrived at this with a sensible attitude, for example, towards cigarettes. We know cigarettes are bad, so we tax them. We restrict their place of sale. We don't allow cigarette companies to advertise on television. We have developed good social norms around not wanting people to smoke. Nonetheless, something like 20% of Americans still smoke. But it's down from a record of like 40 or 50% decades ago. And new uptake in smoking continues to reduce. Now compare cigarettes to online gambling. DraftKings, FanDuel Bet MGM Prize picks are allowed to to flood the airwaves with a single message. All you have to do is use your skill and your genius and you can become a winner. I will explain soon how this is a complete lie. But second is this and what I want people to understand. It is impossible for these companies to run a fair operation that does not rely on exploiting gambling addicts and to still make a profit. A new study by the Southern Methodist University tracked 700,000 online sports bettors for five years. They found less than 5% of users ever withdrew any profit. The remainder of the users either broke even or lost money, covering the winnings of those five. But worst is this. 3% of all bettors who lost the most accounted for 50% total revenue of these online sports betting companies. In other words, less than 5% of people actually realized any profit. The rest were losers. And the big losers lost so much they made up 50% of total revenue. Now couple this with the dirty secret of online sports betting. If you are one of the less than 5% who win, you're lucky. If you're allowed allowed to gamble for even a few months on these apps, once you start to win consistently, these gambling companies are fully within their rights to limit your bet size to amounts to less than 10 or even $1, meaning that if you're any good, they are allowed to restrict your action and their potential exposure. So this is an outrageously good business, isn't it? You can promise people they can get rich. If they actually do, you cut them off, then you employ all company resources towards extracting as much as humanly possible from gambling addicts to make up 50% of your revenue. In other words, if these gambling companies were forced to allow fair play and then follow their own guidelines around restricting addicts, something they are legally required to do, they would go bankrupt and this entire farce would fall apart. Take the story of a New Jersey man known to us as Mdalo 1990. In 2020, this man never placed a bet in his life. By 2024, he had lost approximately $1 million. Despite making an income of $175,000 per year. He drained his wife's investments, he maxed out their credit cards, he drained his young children's savings accounts and sold the gifts that they were given for Christmas and their baptisms. Now it's really easy to say yeah, it's his fault, screw him. But according to his wife's lawsuit, this user was contacted on a daily basis by DraftKings VIP hosts. They facilit to gambling products despite knowing it was impossible for him to be able to support the amount of money that he was placing on wagers with his W2 income. Their own policies, as dictated by the state, require them to have gamblers placing large sums prove their ability to furnish funds by providing them a W2 statement or bank statements. According to his wife, quote, they knew he would not be able to continue to gamble large sums of money if they required verification and they also knew the source of the money was, quote, illegitimate. A modest amount of due diligence required by their own policies would have shown he did not have the ability to wager literally four times his literal W2 salary throughout this entire time. Again, on a daily basis, DraftKings threw so called free promotions at him. Whiskey glasses, VIP tickets and more. Now, they do not do this out of the goodness of their heart. As I said earlier, people like this man constitute only 3% of gamblers but make up 50% of revenue. In fact, some people have caught on a new number of pro sports bettors are mimicking the behavior of people like emdalo1990. They log into their accounts in the middle of the night to make it seem like they cannot sleep without checking their bets. Why? Because it flags to the algorithm that they are gambling addicts. It means that the company is more likely to shower you with so called free promotional money and to continue your addiction chain. This is fundamentally different than alcohol or cigarette companies. Cigarette companies are not allowed to advertise, period. Let alone literally sponsor major sporting events. Furthermore, cigarette companies are not allowed to identify their so called super smokers and shower them in free and addictive cigarettes to encourage their addiction. Same with alcohol companies or any other vice. In this case, the statistics show us that the profit margins and the very business model of these companies rely on so called problem gamblers to to prop up the revenue of the entire company. And now let me take it even a step further because now imagine if cigarette companies had a super addictive special cigarette and that cigarette was the one that they are marketing the most pushing and making the most money on that is the case of online sportsbooks who are pushing a particular type of bet called a parlay bet. Most of you probably know what it is, but it's simple. A parlay bet is a contingent bet where several discrete events have to happen for you to parlay Bets, unsurprisingly, have the biggest payouts and unsurprisingly, they have the biggest loss rate for gamblers. Why? Because they're unlikely. And yet this exact bet, the parlay bet, is the one most pushed, most marketed and most used by online sports bettors. The largest online sportsbook in the United States, FanDuel, has amassed 46% market share in the United States, specifically by marketing massively profitable single game parlay bets, which are gigantically profitable for the company. We don't have exactapply. We do know this from the state of Illinois. 60% of all wagers in the state wagered online are parlay bets. We also know that the online sportsbook know that they will win with such regularity, they build it into their profit forecast before the customers even officially lose. And they remain the single most profitable bet to the company. So again, bringing it back to a cigarette comparison. You target the most addicted and you sell them the worst thing for them. The system is built on a simple ban. Winners milk losers for all they're worth. All of you who are placing small wagers for fun is great, but the thing is, it's only enabled by crippling addicts. Already, Gamblers Anonymous is reporting massive spikes in the number of young bettors calling their hotline, coming to their meetings. Some children as young as 14 have found their ways to bet their parents. Phones are full. Addicts. This will only continue. Which brings me back to the comparison I made at the top. It took nearly a decade to reckon with Purdue pharma and the OxyContin crisis. It created an entire generation of previously not known heroin addicts. But the signs a few years were all there. And now we've unleashed in addiction with one of the highest rates of people taking their own lives and made it easily accessible to hundreds of millions of Americans. If anything, this trend is accelerating. Literally. Just a few days ago, the state of Missouri legalized sports gambling, now the 40th state to do so. And so when people come back to this in a decade and we have millions of gambling addicts, high rates of domestic violence, alcoholism, and we need to figure out what to do. Let me offer this modest proposal. The solution is staring us all in the face. More of what we used to do. PASPA was correct about one thing. It is not fair that Nevada is the only monopoly on sports gambling. So instead adopt a model. What the UK used to have Sports betting is legal and available in person at parlors which are widely accessible. People can access it, but it requires physically having to go to a location with cash. This introduces the same level of friction that all other vices are governed by in the us. Second, betting organizations must be subject to fairness rules. If they advertise anyone can win, then everyone must be allowed to win. They cannot be allowed to limit sharp sports bettors and must have a truly free marketplace. 3. We must have heavy oversight on the ongoing fusion between professional sports and gambling companies. You can call this nanny state intervention if you want, but here's the truth. The NFL, the National Football League itself. It only exists because of multiple acts of Congress and preferential treatment from the US Government. Sports and the NFL are important to the American character. Gambling corruption scandals are already beginning to question the very integrity of the game itself. Leagues have become physically intertwined with multi billion dollar gambling behemoths is a recipe for corruption and disaster. So I will end with a warning that I gave many years ago. Sometimes private industry can be just as much of a threat to your freedom as liberty to your freedom and liberty as the government itself. And in this case I think it is quite clear the damage gambling companies have wrought and will continue to do to America's families poses a direct threat to our country. I am clear eyed it will only get worse. But I hope I could help all of you. At least think about what I believe is going to be a major problem of our time. So what do you think Crystal? Did I convince you?

[Sager Anwar]

And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagre's monologue, become a premium subscriber [e-mail] all right, we're all set for the party.

[Savannah Guthrie]

I've trimmed the tree, hung the mistletoe, and paired all those weird shaped knives and forks with the appropriate cheeses. And I plugged in the Bartish Bartesian. It's a home cocktail maker that makes over 60 premium cocktails plus a whole lot of seasonal favorites too. I just got it for 50 off, so how about a Cosmopolitan or a Mistletoe margarita?

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I'm thirsty.

[Savannah Guthrie]

Watch. I just pop in a capsule, choose my strength and wow, it's beginning to.

[Sager Anwar]

Feel more seasonal in here already.

[Savannah Guthrie]

If your holiday party doesn't have a bartender, then you become the bartender. Unless you've got a Bartesian because Bartesian crafts every cocktail perfectly in as little as 30 seconds and I just got it for $50 off.

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[Sager Anwar]

Luigi Mangione, the alleged killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson wanted to send a message to the world that much is clear. Police found bullet casings with the words deny, defend and depose. His backpack was found in Central park stuffed with Monopoly money when police arrested him at a Pennsylvania McDonald's. He was in possession of a manifesto that read in part quote I do apologize for any strife or trauma, but it had to be done. These parasites had it coming. Even louder than this message though was the public response to the cold blooded broad daylight murder of a CEO. From TikTok to Facebook to the Ben Shapiro comment section, Americans of all political ideologies and backgrounds came together to express their utter and complete disgust at a healthcare system that they experience as violent which treats their lives as just as disposable as Mangione treated Brian Thompson's life. Their disgust by the way, it's well founded. Here in the US we don't really have a healthcare system. We have a profit maximizing price gouging system. Your health is at best incidental among wealthy nations. We spend more per capita than any other nation by a long shot. We should have the best health care on the planet and the healthiest population. But of course the reality is out of these same wealthy nations we also have the lowest life expectancy, the UK is the second worst and their citizens live on average nearly half a decade longer than we do. We are having entire years of our lives stolen from us. Now sometimes the problems with having a system built around profit instead of around health can feel kind of abstract. But a recent New York Times investigation into methadone clinics dug deep into the way that these sick incentives can play out in the real world. These clinics are a sort of microcosm of the way that profit motive perverts every corner of our healthcare system. So here is that backstory. KDA Healthcare is a large hospital chain started by a former financier that has aggressively moved into the addiction recovery space in recent years after purchasing a for profit chain of 165 methadone clinics from the private equity firm Bain Capital. Between the financier founder and the private equity connection, I'm sure you already feel really great about the care that these chains provide. At these methadone clinics, recovering opioid addicts can receive a daily dose of the narcotic methadone to help curb their cravings for more damaging opioids like heroin and fentanyl. These clinics are of course heavily regulated by state and federal authorities. But according to the Times, Acadia uses all kinds of lies and tricks to skirt the rules and to juice their profits. As reported by the Times in their piece Fraud and Fakery at the Country's Largest Chain of Methadone Clinics, Acadia's clinics aggressively push quantity over quality. The more patients they take on and the more cups of methadone they hand out, the greater their insurance and federal government reimbursements. Now, I'm sure you can imagine the sort of behavior that this drops lives. Staff are overloaded. They're underpaid. They have massive caseloads that they cannot possibly handle. They take on patients who are not even opioid addicts to be able to fill out their quotas. They routinely falsify records in order to meet federal and state guidelines which require that the cup of methadone come with a certain amount of counseling and therapy. One staff member, for example, bragged that if they even said hello to a patient, they counted that as one of those mandatory therapy sessions. Now, I'll note here, an Acadian spokesperson denies these allegations as they operate in compliance with all rules and regulations. The methadone business though, has proven quite profitable for Acadia as the federal government has gotten more serious about dealing with opioid addiction. Following a drug company fueled addiction crisis, Acadia has seen their methadone clinic profits spike 30%, adding about $3 million in revenue to the larger hospital chain's bottom line each and every year. Their greed fueled business practices do not end with treating patients like cash cows instead of humans, however. According to the Times, they're working to get their money grubbing hands on some of the settlement money secured by states and counties nationwide from those big pharma companies like Purdue Pharmaceutical, which helped to create the opioid crisis in the first place. In other words, Acadia is both profiting handsomely off of this epidemic by providing substandard treatment and also trying to bilk the very money that is meant to go to the victims of this epidemic. It is truly sick. This may seem like a long shot, but the effort is already bearing fruit. According to the Times, quote, this year, for example, the company successfully lobbied the Kansas legislature to allow for profit companies to receive grants from that settlement money. Christopher Hunter, Acadia's chief executive, has told investors that the settlement funds will be a really nice tailwind for the company. Gee, can't imagine why people despise these companies and the people that run them. In addition, they have been busy working the halls of congress to avoid what would be a deadly threat to their business model, allowing people to avoid methadone clinics altogether and receive their dose from the pharmacy like other medications. Ironically, Katie has been arguing that this bill should be blocked because of how critical it is to combine methadone with their, quote, individualized care and quote, gold standard suite of services. You know, the very services that the New York Times found this company was often not actually providing and routinely lying about. So at the nation's largest methadone chain, humans are treated like cattle. They are denied therapy that could help them with the recovery. Staffers are overworked and put under intense sales like pressure to deliver numbers. Records are outright falsified and faked in what can only be described as mass fraud. And this is just one little corner corner of our profit first health care system. It doesn't serve the patients or society. It serves only the corporate executives and shareholders who are at the top of that chain. Now, if you want to see how this plays out in other corners of the healthcare system, you could start by taking a look at the separate investigation from these same New York Times journalists into Acadia psychiatric hospitals. In that expose, you'll learn how they literally trap patients against their will and against the law so that they can maximize insurance payouts. And if that isn't dark enough for you, Acadia employees have been accused by dozens of patients of assault and neglect. A Utah Acadia hospital was closed after state regulators investigated dozens of charges of assault and rape. Tennessee regulators found that Acadia had lied in their medical charts, claiming they checked on a patient every 15 minutes. In reality, that patient wasn't found dead for hours, had already entered a state of rigor mortis. Now, perhaps not all actors in our healthcare system are as negligent, abusive and fraudulent as Acadia is accused of being. However, this model of abusing patients for profit is in fact exactly what you should expect from the system that we have set up. Every greedy middleman ghoul in the system getting their cut and patients getting sick and stuck with the bill. New poll from Gallup shows that even before this CEO was slain, Americans were absolutely clamoring for a radical departure from the health care status quo. Gallup finds a new post. Obamacare high in support for the federal government guaranteeing a right to health care coverage. Only 32% of the country disagrees. And yet, because there is so much money being made, so much cash flowing from those profits into the campaign coffers of D.C. politicians, health care reform has been all but abandoned as a national issue. We went from Bernie pushing Medicare for all to Biden briefly pretending to fight for a public option, to Kamala crowing about dropping prices for a handful of drugs with savings only going to Medicare recipients. That's how far we've fallen and how quickly. If Democrats are actually serious about getting back into power and truly delivering for the nation, they will heed the message that was loud and clear this week and fight to cut these parasites off once and for all. By making our country more humane, they will save lives, including potentially the lives of a CEO or two. And Sagar, I'm kind of and if.

[Hoda Kotb]

You want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber [e-mail] thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate you. Great counterpoint show for everyone tomorrow and we'll see you then.

[Savannah Guthrie]

All right, we're all set for the party. I've trimmed the tree, hung the mistletoe, and paired all those weird shaped knives and forks with the appropriate cheeses. And I plugged in the Partisan Partisan. It's a home cocktail maker that makes over 60 premium cocktails, plus a whole lot of seasonal favorites too. I just got it for 50 off, so how about a Cosmopolitan or a Mistletoe margarita?

[Hoda Kotb]

I'm thirsty.

[Savannah Guthrie]

Watch. I just pop in a capsule, choose my strength and wow, it's beginning to.

[Sager Anwar]

Feel more seasonal in here already.

[Savannah Guthrie]

If your holiday party doesn't have a bartender, then you become the bartender. Unless you've got a Bartesian, because Bartesian crafts every cocktail perfectly in as little as 30 seconds. And I just got it for $50 off.

[Sager Anwar]

Tis the season to be jollier.

[Crystal Ball]

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