← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
12/17/25: Unemployment Spikes, GOP Flails On Healthcare, Trump Demands Venezuelan Oil and Land
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This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.
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D
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E
Hey, guys. Sagar and Kristal here.
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Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of the show.
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This is the only place where you.
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Can find honest perspectives from the left.
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And the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
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So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
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We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breaking points.com.
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C
All right, good morning and welcome to Breaking Points. How you doing?
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E
Good. This Christmas set actually always gives me a flashback. I always feel like I have a flashback to you arguing with Ted Cruz on the Christmas set.
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C
Oh, that's right.
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E
Yeah.
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C
That was on the Christmas video.
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E
Yeah, it was on the Christmas set. So I'm always like expecting Ted Cruz to.
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C
We should have worn our Breaking Points Christmas sweaters.
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E
I actually thought about that.
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C
Which you can get in the our store down there still, I think.
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Yeah, there's still some available.
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C
Go check out the merch store.
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They're pretty great. Everybody loves them.
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C
We should have won something. Front of the tree for everyone.
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E
Yes. Or a BreakingPoints.com subscription. Yes, indeed. Maybe you can get a year of Friday show second halves for Christmas for someone you love because those Friday show second halves, they get wild.
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C
Although based on the new jobs report which we'll be talking about at the top of the show, you probably can't. Things are getting dark. Also, speaking of the amount of money you're spending on healthcare, you probably can't. We'll be talking about that for our second episode. Although there's some good news in the fact that Republicans are completely collapsing and that might lead them to actually pass the Democratic legislation. We'll see. If you're in Venezuela, you absolutely can't because we're putting Venezuela under a complete and total naval siege. We'll talk about that.
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E
Yeah. Trump put out a Wild Truth social just last night. So we'll break that down too.
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C
Susie Wiles. We'll talk about the Republican response to her incredible just vomiting of her thoughts to the Vanity Fair Day two of Susie Gate.
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E
It is here.
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C
We're loving every second of it. The New York Times had a fascinating for many different reasons story on Jeffrey Epstein yesterday. We will talk about what was in it and most importantly, what was not in it. Bari Weiss, meanwhile, is she ran her Saturday night town hall with Erica Kirk. Huge get. Very difficult to get Erica Kirk an exclusive because she's usually on other networks. So it's hard to like actually schedule.
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E
That between Fox and the podcast.
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C
Yeah, the numbers are out and it was terrible.
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E
Could have been better. It could have been better.
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C
Yeah, that's very bad. We'll have some updates on the Brown University shooting as well as a nuclear scientist.
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E
Yes.
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C
Or like even beyond a nuclear scientist. He was doing stuff that I can't even begin to try to explain. Was assassinated at his home. So we either have one or two killers still in the loose in the Northeast. I'm not sure which of those two scenarios is actually more frightening. The public now, rather than the FBI has been falsely accusing people of being involved with a Brown shooting. We'll talk about all of that. And the weather is improving in Gaza, but we're going to talk about what, what, what the floods did and what the and a new drop site report on what the Israeli destruction of all the sewage treatment and trash collection has done to just day to day life in Gaza.
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E
Well, let's get to a big show today. So we'll start now with these new job numbers. Well, we got new jobs data yesterday and actually before we even dive too deep into that, the basic news is that about 64,000 jobs were added in November. That was higher than what many people expected. But the unemployment rate also rose in novemb November. That's the gist of it. We're going to break down those numbers in more detail. But first let's dive on into FOX News for a sample of how they covered where the economy is right now.
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F
People are sick of waiting in terms of the jobs since Liberation Day, which is when most people look at is when things kind of start taking a turn for the worse. We've only added 17,000 jobs on a monthly basis. There are over 700,000Americans who are unemployed today versus this time last year. That's a huge number. Unemployment for young Americans is over 10%. If you took out health care sector, hiring would be negative.
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E
So if you're familiar with Fox, of course, that was Jessica Tarlov, who is a Democrat, not surprising. But spot the lie in those numbers. We can put the CBS tare sheet up on the screen here. Employers across the US added 64,000 jobs in November, beating economists forecast new government data shows even as new October figures revealed a loss of 105,000 jobs, a sign the labor market remains under pressure. The unemployment rate in November rose to 4.6%. That is the highest level since September 2021. They also go on to note that it's a picture of the labor market after the six week blackout and official data caused by the recent government shutdown. That's true, Brian. This is the first information we are getting here. The data suggests, CBS continues that employers in industries ranging from manufacturing to hospitality are hitting the pause button on hiring amid concerns about economic growth and tariff costs according to some economists. Quick reaction to that. First, Ryan.
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C
Yeah, what seems to be going on here, and this probably comports with your own experience, people aren't losing. People aren't leaving their jobs voluntarily. They're holding onto jobs even if they hate them. They're not moving around and getting wage increases like they were during the pandemic and towards the end of or towards the end of the pandemic. But companies are not creating any new positions. And when somebody leaves, they don't fill that person. And so that's why you see that unemployment number going up and to the right, which is not how you want it to go.
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E
Okay, so let's then dive here into Kevin Hassett talking about the economy. This was from Face the Nation. Margaret Brennan in this clip is pushing Hassett on surveys of CEOs about employment. So could the situation get worse? Let's go ahead and roll the clip.
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F
I want to ask you about the Fed decision. The Federal Open Market Committee said job gains have slowed this year. We also saw the survey from the Business Roundtable. I'm sure you saw it. They asked CEOs what they expect to happen and they anticipate employment will decrease in 2026 rather than increase. Are you concerned about a hiring slowdown?
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G
The same Fed said that they were.
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B
More bullish on growth for next year. Right. And so I think that we're at a.
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E
But on the jobs picture.
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B
But on the jobs picture, you know, we're going to get the data next week.
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G
And so maybe next Sunday I'll come.
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Back and we'll about it because we've.
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G
Got two months of data coming out on Tuesday.
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B
And we'll get a clearer picture because right now we just have some very difficult to pin down surveys. Like the gold standard for this will be really the household survey, which we don't even get for October.
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F
But these were CEOs. They're the people who would be doing the hiring. Right. And they're saying we're not.
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G
But but they don't have the broad perspective that we'll get when we get.
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The big data released next week.
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F
And you trust that big data.
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B
I trust the household survey especially. And sadly, we won't have one for October, but we're going to get one for Novemb and that's going to be really important for thinking about where the job market is.
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E
Okay. And we can actually put the next element up on the screen as well. This is showing unemployment increasing over time since November 2023. So this is from Mike Konskal. He is the senior director of policy and research at the Economic Security Project. And he's saying it's not just that this job report is bad, though. It is unemployment is up 0.47% in 2025 and increasing. It's that it shows what Trump hoped to do with the economy is failing. And R just want to pause on that point because it is now that we have almost a year into the second Trump administration. Fascinating. Not surprising, but fascinating how closely they have tied themselves to AI because Trump obviously, I mean There are a million reasons that they've done that. But Trump obviously also saw AI as giving the shot in the arm to markets. And so, I mean, the amount of stock increase that's tied to AI right now is stunning and horrifying.
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C
More than all of it.
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E
Yep. And yeah, it's like 80%. Like, it's crazy. And they now are going to have on their hands responsibility. People will point to them. They would have done it anyway, but they basically have bear hugged these big tech companies that are going pedal to the metal on LLMs, artificial intelligence. And what's likely to happen in the next couple of years is mass displacement on the level of different periods during industrialization where we've seen mass job displacement because of automation. I'm not even making a judgment on whether that's good or bad, although we've, we talk about that a lot. But I'm just saying it's happening. And it's happening as they bear hug these AI companies to juice the markets. And that just politically as it's, as it's unfolding before us. Kind of look back at last year and you're like, you guys didn't see this coming?
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C
Yeah. And the comment from Kevin Hassett there was ominous, I'm sure, for people where he was saying, okay, yes, the CEOs are saying that unemployment might be up next year, but what about growth? They're bullish on growth.
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E
Yes.
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C
And if you live on Wall street, work on Wall street and live in upstate New York, then that's great. Unemployment's up, but growth is up too. Hey, that's even better, actually, because then you don't have to worry about uppity workers demanding higher pay, but you're like, wait a minute, what are you saying here? So you're putting all your money in AI in data centers, and you're saying that we're going to continue to have unemployment rate, unemployment numbers going up, but the economy is going to continue to grow. How does that help the people that don't have jobs? And nobody's talking about that. If, if you had a party who was like, here is what we're going to do. Everyone's gonna work 25 hours a week and we're gonna make sure that you're paid an amount that keeps up. Not just keeps up, but gets you ahead. Because if we're getting all these productivity gains, let's enjoy. It took us thousands of years as humanity to get to this place. Let's bask in it instead. They're like, nah, jobs are gonna keep Collapsing, but growth is gonna be good.
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E
Well, on that note, let's go ahead and listen here to Treasury Secretary speaking.
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C
Of ominous o this actually makes the.
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Point your point about Kevin Hassett here. Besant is fleshing out, I think even more. We can roll this clip.
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G
2008, 2009, 2010.
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B
Financial rules were too tight. They have hamstrung the American financial system. It was time for a change. We are going to be safe, smart and sound in terms of our deregulation. But we have to take the financial.
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G
System out of the straitjacket. This substantial increase in private cred which is outside of the regulated banking system.
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B
That tells me that the regulated system.
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Is too constrained and has not been able to compete with those who aren't regulated. So we're leveling the playing field and.
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B
I believe that we can do that in a way that creates trillions of.
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G
Dollars in credit for this very strong economy we're going to see.
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B
And it will be non inflationary.
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E
All right, so Ryan, put your finance bureau hat back on. It's probably been since the early aughts, since you've had it on. But when he says the substantial increase in private credit which is outside of the regulated banking system, that tells me that the regulated system is too constrained. What say you?
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C
So I mean what he's saying there is this rise of like private equity basically says that we're being too hard on oligarchs and that we should just reduce the rules so that more people will then not follow the rules that we've gotten rid of.
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E
Play around.
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C
Yeah, I mean it makes no sense. Like it just, it contradicts itself. It also leads exactly to financial crisis every single time. Like so it's also a kind of Hail Mary, like okay, nothing else is working. We need just a severe amount of deregulation so that we'll flood in, you know, so capital can flow. You know, we can get another subprime bubble. We need more bubbles is basically what he's saying. Like we're out of bubbles and when the, when this next one pops, we're going to need another bubble to keep things going. And then he has at the very end with no evidence and it won't be inflationary. Okay, good.
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E
That's the point of the regulations.
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C
Good, glad you cleared that up. The Mike Konzol post where he talks or he talks about the rate of unemployment increasing, he also has a full thread and maybe we can put it in the link so people can dig into it more. But what he does is he compares what The President is trying to do and what the President's team is trying to do to the economy with what is actually happening. And what he's trying to do is drive up wages for native born workers, drive up wages on the low end in manufacturing. He's trying to reduce the amount of spending in health care and he's trying to reduce the amount of spending for the federal workforce. And a key reason that you had an unemployment increase this month is because the Doge firings actually finally hit now because of the federal rules and on and on. But what he finds is that nothing that they're trying to do is happening. In fact, the reverse is happening. Manufacturing jobs are collapsing, he writes here. Unemployment is up everywhere, but especially for younger workers, black workers and those with bas and without a high school diploma. So the Trump base and a bit more for men, yes, the people that he said he was doing all of this for are the ones who are actually getting hit hardest by this. And you know, he chalks it up to all of the uncertainty that Trump has injected into the economy by making it really impossible to create a business if you have any reliance on imports whatsoever, deporting, you know, huge numbers of workers and otherwise just being a chaotic dude. And it's like, yeah, this is what you're going to get.
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E
Well, yeah, the uncertainty and the increase.
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C
In health care costs, of course.
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E
So there's no way around. And I mean, I think you even hear it in what Hast is saying. HACCP obviously is under consideration for a Fed spot and there's leaking against Hassett right now, actually, interestingly enough. But what you're hearing them say is basically they're conceding, they're in the middle of an experiment. They're very confident as to how the experiment is going to turn out when it comes to totally restructuring the economy. So we're talking deportations, manufacturing credits from the big tax bill and trying to incentivize factory building and all of that in the United States.
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C
Then why would we have a manufacturing collapse? Like, that's what I don't understand. Well, I mean, I think if you're about to have a boom, you would at least be staying steady.
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E
Because. But, and this is the point, companies.
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C
Are like, no, yeah.
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E
And it's a point that you and Krystal have made since the very beginning, post Liberation Day, which is the uncertainty is going to send people to China. It is going to send people, not everyone. And that's what the administration is in the middle of trying to figure out is where does it shake out at the end of the day? Do you come out on top or do you come out on bottom? And it looks right now like there's skeptics are proving correct. Now there are all kinds of things that they can do in the new year because they're doing all of the tariffs, as we know, while awaiting a Supreme Court decision ad hoc through the executive branch. And that means they have a whole lot of control over what happens in the new year. If they want to create more certainty in the economy, if they want to do all of these grocery type carve outs for things like, I don't know, bananas, they can find a way to do it. They can cross their fingers and hope that when their tax bill kicks in, more and more jobs start getting created. There are of course, anecdotal examples of factories betting on the United States or companies betting on the United States and building factories here. And so the White House trumpets those examples constantly. But even they have to concede they're in the middle of something. And that's where just thinking about the AI question as you're trying to restructure the economy to bring jobs back to the United States, you're bear hugging an industry that is intentionally eliminating jobs in the United States. I'm reading here from a CNBC story from late last month, but we've been talking about the college unemployment rate. So recent college graduates that are unemployed. This is one of the big blind spots in politics right now is that you have so many young people, rising youth unemployment, as CNBC puts it. And that's because entry level jobs are being, this is cnbc, quote, some large employers have said they're replacing entry level workers with artificial intelligence in order to streamline operations and cut costs. Concerns about the economy, persistent inflation and a slowdown in consumer spending are also likely contributors to an erosion of entry level opportunities. Other research shows. And so on top of all of that, you have the administration saying, okay, well college education pipeline needs to incentivize vocational schools, technical education, great, we all agree with that. These are people who just got college degrees. There are people who are going to graduate next year and the year after that with college degrees who are not going to suddenly say I'm picking up welding and the jobs are being eliminated and the ladder is shifting. And so even just that's the substantive point. But like the political point of this that's going to play out during the Trump administration is absolutely mass employment displace displacement. Like it's happening right now, it's going to continue to happen.
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C
At least Bernie Sanders is responding to it. Interesting development from him. Last night he put out a video calling for a moratorium on data center construction, which hits on both sides because the data center construction drives up your electricity bill and threatens your water supply while delivering basically no jobs. And if it works as expected, we'll also take your jobs. So it's like, wait a minute. So Bernie's like, I don't know, how about we not do that? Let's roll a little bit of Bernie. What will AI and robotics mean economically for the working class of this country? Well, don't listen to me. Listen to the people who are developing those technologies. Elon Musk recently said, quote, AI and robots will replace all jobs. Working will be optional. Bill Gates predicted that humans won't be needed for most things, end quote. Dario Amodai, the CEO of Anthropic, warned that AI could lead to the loss of half of all entry level white collar jobs. If AI and robotics eliminate millions of jobs and create massive unemployment. How will people survive if they have no income? They have no answer for that. And nobody trusts them to answer that question. You know who they do trust is that guy. He looks spry. Maybe he could do one more run. What do you think?
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E
He looks like he totally knows what AI is, how it works.
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C
He gets it better than most.
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E
He probably does. No, I actually believe that.
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C
I mean, he gets the gist, which is really all you need.
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E
I mean, some of this is like, intentionally. We actually have such a murky picture of what's happening right now with AI and in the economy and what the company's plans are. But I don't necessarily support that policy, by the way, because what's happening in China and other countries is no matter what we do, that's going to continue to happen. So I think we have to be smart about it. But that is going to be. It's like the health care conversation that we're having in the next block. Absent a genuine decent solution from the capitalists who just keep saying, trust us, we have your best interests at heart. You're going to end up with either Medicare for all, or in this case, you're going to end up with something like a moratorium, because people don't want the stupid option of just saying, go pedal to the metal, eliminate all of the jobs, and we'll just trust you to give us UBI and be happy when it all shakes out. And he's right. I mean, going back to Those quotes from CEOs of tech companies that is what they're saying. They're saying that aloud. That's what they think the future is going to look like. It's a question of how distant that future is. But I think you'd be ridiculous to think that's like multiple generations down the line when this is happening as quickly as it is happening. And so for the Trump administration to tie itself so closely A to the economy and then B, to I just. The politics of that are going to be difficult no matter what.
- [23:39]
C
And so meanwhile, swinging into this struggling economy is the sledgehammer of these looming health care premium increases. We'll talk to Brian Blaise, who's a conservative health care economist, about the latest going on in Congress about efforts to extend subsidies and why he thinks it's a terrible idea.
- [24:01]
D
So you're telling me that the AI that's meant to make everyone's job easier to manage just adds more to manage on top of the thousands of app the IT department already manages? Funny how that works. Any business can add AI. IBM helps you scale and manage AI to change how you do business. Let's create Smile to Business IBM.
- [24:28]
A
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G
Diciembre de ahoros en los obtain gratis dos eravientas Dewalt Craftsman o gobalt al comprad una bateria o un quit selecto ya horra cuarentadora resen Herramientas Craftsman V20 Selectas Lowe's Nosotros Ayudamos tu ahoras validos.
- [25:50]
A
Visita to Los Mastercano in Colorado street in Kennewick.
- [26:00]
C
In a moment, we're going to be joined by Brian Blaise, who's a conservative healthcare economist, to talk through Republican healthcare policy and strategy which is currently this week seems to be collapsing a little bit.
- [26:12]
E
Yeah. And Brian is the guy to talk to.
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C
There you go.
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E
On the right.
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C
So here's Donald Trump talking about where he is right now.
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B
What do you want to see Congress.
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C
Do this week as it relates to.
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B
Health care and the expiring aca?
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G
Yeah, that's a good question. I'd like to see the people get the money. I'd like to see all of the money that's going to the Democrat insurance companies. You know, the insurance companies are making a Fortune. They're up 1700 percent and more. Obamacare was set up and I said it right from the beginning for the benefit of the health insurance insurance companies. Of the insurance companies. They're making billions and billions of dollars. Their stock is through the roof. I don't want to give them anything. I want all money going to the people and let the people buy their own health care. It'll be unbelievable. They'll do a great job. They'll get much better health care at a much lower cost.
- [27:05]
C
So he sort of wants to end subsidies and just turn basically just. We'll talk with Brian about what his idea is there. There are a bunch of different ideas that Republicans have been kicking around to try to stave off the increase. You can put up B2 here. We were expecting a vote tomorrow in the House of Representatives. It looks Mike Johnson saying no because we're not ready for that and put up B3. Jake Sherman prowling around Capitol Hill. He reports a deal between House GOP moderates and House Republican leadership is breaking down. Disagreement over the language in the amendment to extend Obamacare premium subsidies. So the four will go to rules Tuesday to offer their amendment. If they're rejected, that means they will be free agents. This is Fitzgibbon, Kiggins, Vallejo and Lawler. Which matters because a lot of them are up for reelection and have tight races. What he's saying is if they become free agents, that could put Hakeem Jeffries three year ACA extension over the finish line. If you get enough Republicans to join with Democrats now. Ro Khanna was recently on Fox News making the pitch for a Boulder plan, Medicare for all its role con. And then we'll go to Brian. The high cost of the Democrats health care plan did not work.
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G
That's just not true. Look Private health insurance is what's bankrupting America. It was happening before the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care act helped slow the growth of private insurance. But of course, it's not the solution. The solution, as everyone knows, in my view who studied this, is Medicare for all. People should have national health insurance. Health care as a human right. You should not be subject to these private insurance companies that 18% administrative costs that are making billions of dollars of profit. So as executives are making millions of dollars, they're hurting our manufacturing. It's one of the reasons jobs are off short. They're hurting workers, pay going up. They're sucking on money from our economy and they're denying people care. Even people on the MAGA right have recognized that the system is not working. The system is broken. It's time to get Medicare for all in this country.
- [29:13]
E
Well, we're excited to be joined now, as we've teased long enough, Brian Blaize, who is of the Paragon, founder of the Paragon Health, really at the center of this policy conversation on the right and more broadly as Mike Johnson seeks to strike a deal. So thank you so much for joining us, Brian.
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B
It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.
- [29:31]
E
Now, maybe you could start just by telling us a little bit from your perspective of where things stand right now, because I'm sure you're hearing what's going to happen or what people want to happen. What's your prediction based on what you're hearing of how this all ends up before years end?
- [29:47]
B
Yeah. So thanks for having me on and just let me explain exactly what the situation is before the Congress. So Obamacare, the Affordable Care act, took effect in 2014. It's mainly affected the individual market for health insurance, which is where people go that don't get a plan from their employer or through a government program. Its regulations significantly increased the price of insurance and it contained large subsidies to help people afford the coverage that the government regulations had made more expensive. Those subsidies are permanent. They mean that the taxpayer pays a very large share of the premium. In 2021, as a pandemic measure, Democrats used reconciliation and they passed an expansion of subsidies. They put those subsidies in place for two years, and then in 2022, they extended them through 2025. So at issue is the expiration of these enhanced Covid era subsidies. If they expire, the typical Obamacare enrollee would still have very large subsidies. In fact, the subsidy would cover more than 80% of the premium for a typical enrollee. Now, there are some people who would face Significantly higher premiums. That is because the law originally capped the subsidies for people making less than four times the poverty line. Now that's a small number of Obamacare enrollees. It's only about 6% of Obamacare enrollees.
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C
People making less, only about 6% of.
- [31:23]
B
Enrollees have income above 400% of the poverty line. So most of the examples that you see from Democrats right now on people that face high premiums because these Covid era subsidies expire, they are for individuals right above four times the poverty line. But for the vast majority of people, the government is going to pay the vast majority of the premium next year. Now I think these subsidies poverty line.
- [31:47]
C
Is what, 40 for a family of.
- [31:50]
B
Four, 60 for a family of four. The federal poverty line is about $30,000.
- [31:59]
C
For a family of four.
- [32:00]
B
For a family of four.
- [32:00]
C
So we're talking 120,000. So if you make more than 120,000 for a family of four, then you're getting hit with that.
- [32:07]
B
Then you would face the higher premiums. Right? But 95%, about 95% of enrolle would maintain subsidies. And the subsidies would cover on average about 80% of the premium. Now one of the problems from the enhanced subsidies, they made coverage fully subsidized for a share of enrollees. And what we have seen is that far more people report that they have income to receive those fully subsidized enrollees. So we have done research that estimates that about a quarter of all of the Obamacare exchange enrollees subsidies are improper. They don't have, they don't meet the eligibility requirements.
- [32:46]
C
Many people, so you have to have how much income?
- [32:49]
B
So this is between 100 and 150 of the federal poverty line. The COVID era subsidies made that coverage fully subsidized. And almost half of all Obamacare enrollees claim that their income is in that narrow band. What we did at Paragon was look at sign ups in that income range with the actual people that have income in that range who would be eligible for the program. And we estimate 6.4 million people are enrolled in a fully subsidized plan who don't have that coverage. There's been pretty sophisticated schemes to enroll people because again, these subsidies, to the President's point, they go directly to the health insurance companies. So if people don't have to pay any premium, that is a reason for people to sign up. And brokers have developed pretty sophisticated schemes to get people get their information to get them enrolled. So there's millions of people that have been enrolled that aren't aware of their coverage. Now, if we've enrolled a lot of people that aren't aware of their coverage, one thing that you might expect is a lot of people don't use their health plan. In August, CMS released information on the number of enrollees in Obamacare that didn't use their health plan a single time in 2024, and it was 12 million people. So 35% of all enrollees in the market didn't use their health plan a single time. So we think there's.
- [34:15]
C
Do you think they got paid? Like, does the broker say here, if you get $1,000 up front to sign up, like, how does it. Like, why would you sign up for insurance and then not use it?
- [34:25]
B
So there were sophisticated social media campaigns. They advertised cash and gift cards. If people would call the number, people called the number. They asked for the cash and gift card. They gave their information. They didn't get cash. They didn't get a gift card. They got signed up for an Obamacare plan. The epicenter of the fraud. South Florida is like the epicenter of the fraud always.
- [34:48]
C
So it puts bars around all of South Florida.
- [34:51]
B
It's the worst in South Florida. And actually DOJ just a couple of weeks ago, closed the case. Two brokers, brokers committed massive fraud like this. The main beneficiaries are the health insurance companies because they're getting monthly payments on behalf of people that aren't enrolled in coverage and that aren't using the best.
- [35:10]
C
Kind of customer who doesn't take your product.
- [35:13]
B
That's right. So these two brokers, the amount of improper subsidies just from these two individuals was $230 million. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
- [35:25]
C
Rick Scott's like, that's real money.
- [35:27]
E
Well, okay, so on that point, this explains a bit about why Republicans are hesitant. There are some obviously real problems, and it explains a bit why Republicans are hesitant to just rubber stamp an extension of the deal. There are all kinds of political questions going into a midterm cycle that are different from the policy questions and that. But what then, Brian, do you think actually could be done? Because we're almost at year's end here, there's going to be an increase for some people, as you just explained. I mean, what could or should be done from your perspective when they have such. Republicans have such narrow margins. Democrats are pushing, as we heard from Congressman Khanna, Medicare for all. What are you thinking right now should happen in the next couple of weeks if there is anything to be done to stop people from Getting higher costs right away.
- [36:16]
B
Yeah. So I think there's action that's needed in the next couple of weeks. And then there's the development of sort of free market health plan. I think what the Senate passed. Finance Committee Chairman Crapo and help Committee Chairman Cassidy introduced legislation that would redesign a portion of the Obamacare subsidies. It would open up the cheapest type of Obamacare plan to more enrollees and it would take these enhanced subsidies and do what the President is advocating, direct them to individuals, has HSA contributions rather than as payments directly to health insurance companies. I think that legislation, there's a lot to like about that. I think what the House is looking at doing today is to expand further, expand options for small businesses, allow them to join together to get some of the regulatory advantages that large employers get when they offer coverage. So I testified in front of the Senate Finance Committee about a month ago. I suggested nine ways that Republicans could, you know, from expanding health savings accounts to addressing some structural flaws with the Obamacare subsidies and to opening up different coverage options that they could do in the near term. Fundamentally, I think the worst thing that Congress could do is throw good money after bad. The way to guarantee that we don't reform a very inefficient program and and sector of the economy is just to continue to over subsidize it because that reduces the pressure for real fixes. And we have a health care affordability crisis in the US I don't think it's right to just shift all those costs to the American taxpayer.
- [38:09]
D
So you're telling me that the AI that's meant to make everyone's job easier to manage just adds more to manage. On top of the thousands of apps the IT department already manages, Funny how that works. Any business can add AI. IBM helps you scale and manage AI to change how you do business. Let's create Smile to business. IBM.
- [38:36]
A
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- [39:37]
G
Diciembre de ahoros e lo us obtain gratis dos eravientas Dewalt Craftsman o gobalt al compra una bateria o un quiz Elo Craftsman V20 Selectas Lowe's Nosotros Ayudamos tua horas.
- [39:58]
C
Mastercano in Colorado street in Kennewick.
- [40:08]
E
We could put B5 up on the screen just to make that point. This is a Gallup poll. The headline here is cost leads Americans top of mind Healthcare concerns. So to the point Brian just made people agree. Everyone basically agrees this is one of the top stressors on the economy and individual families budgets.
- [40:28]
C
And then if we can put up the final one too. So put up B6. When Obamacare was passed, you were sitting at about 30%. A little over 30% said that they would prefer a government run system. Obamacare rejected the public option, rejected Medicare for all rejected. Even a Medicare buy in for people 55 and over. It was very close to being included. Joe Lieberman pulled it out at the last second. And so people have gotten this interaction with a bastardized version of a private system which is the only thing, thing we have actually around the world. Right. There's no pure kind of private health care system that I know of outside of, you know, in a, in a kind of developed country. Maybe I'm wrong.
- [41:17]
B
Outside of Singapore south.
- [41:18]
C
Okay, outside of Singapore. I don't know much about Singapore health policy. You can, you can teach us more about that. But as I was listening to you talk about the brokers and the, and the, and the scams and the fraud and how complicated this system is. And, and you're asked, and I assume the reason that you can fudge it is that they ask you ahead of time what's your income going to be for the next year?
- [41:40]
B
I don't know.
- [41:41]
C
Most people are like, I don't know. Like if some people are like this is my salary, I hope I don't get fired. So I expect this to be my. But maybe I will get fired and I will fit in and I will fit into this nice little band where I get all the subsidies or you just kind of game it and like I guess I'm going to make this, or we could just do Medicare for All and then focus on the fraud. Like put a ton of money into, like if these chatbots and this AI LLMs are good for anything, they should be able to find this fraud. Like you, like, you guys, you have a couple interns and you compared the number of people that exist right in this economic band and the number of people claiming the subsidies in that band and you're like, this doesn't match. You would think our LLMs could help us with that and then say, okay, Medicare for all. We're gonna make this simple so people don't go around not knowing that they have insurance. You know, because you're American, you've got it. Like, why don't we just do that and be done with all of this?
- [42:44]
B
Well, I think of how much government has already screwed up and the fact that you get the example out of Minnesota recently with that Medicaid fraud and dramatically increasing autism diagnostic parents to diagnose. Right?
- [42:58]
C
You're, it's going to be a constant cat and mouse game. Americans are very clever. So are the newer Americans.
- [43:04]
B
I think fundamentally the problem with health care policy is that the individual consumer and patient is not in control. So only about 10% of spending that people make on health care comes directly from them. Most of our expenditures come from third parties, whether it's government programs, whether it's insurance that takes the form of an employer sponsored insurance plan. We have created a market that is not responsive to the individual, consumer and patient. So it meets the needs of the insurance company, it meets the needs of the government program. It's not responsible to the individual. We have no idea what prices are. Right. Prices in most sectors of the economy, that's what coordinates behavior. And we know how to value things relative to other things. But prices are basically just made up. Nobody has any idea and people don't have any incentives to care about what the prices are. So I think fundamentally what we need to do is address these problems with government programs that have centralized control and power in the hands of the intermediaries and the middlemen and return as much control to the individual as possible so that they can choose the care and coverage that works for them. And so the healthcare providers, the doctors, the nurses are serving actual patients and meeting their needs.
- [44:24]
C
The reason I'm cynical about that is not just because of what most people say, which is that healthcare can't be a normal market because if you don't buy the thing, you could die. And so that creates an imbalanced amount of leverage in the, the transactional relationship between you and the person who holds your life in their hands pre existing conditions. But setting that aside, the United States government doesn't seem to care about markets anywhere else. Like in every other industry, we're okay with a monopoly or an oligopoly, whether it's airlines or youth sports or beef or poultry or like, like actually it's harder to find an industry that we haven't allowed to consolidate into just one or two producers that set prices. And so then we're expected to believe that, oh no, when it comes to healthcare, which makes up a third of the economy or something, we promise we're gonna do strong antitrust enforcement and we're gonna really crack down on the giant scammers. There were the medical providers. And we're not going to let private equity just roll this up and have giant companies let three companies control the entire healthcare industry and then set prices. And so then you have a situation where it's not just like beef, because like with beef, okay, you got four beef companies that control everything. I guess I could eat less beef, maybe go eat some chicken and some more soybeans or whatever. But when it comes to healthcare, it's like, no, you're gonna have to, you're going to have to pay the piper. And the US Government, I just don't trust to not make it so there's like three pipers.
- [46:10]
B
I don't trust the US Government either. I do think in some places it'd be great if we would have four competitors. We have produced a lot of local hospital monopolies.
- [46:20]
C
Exactly right.
- [46:21]
B
Local hospital monopolies are a real problem. Right.
- [46:23]
C
So why are those hospitals going to.
- [46:24]
B
Well, what I would look is where's the government policy that incentivizes consolidation and reduces competition in the market? A really good example comes from the Medicare program. Medicare pays much more for the same service delivered in a hospital than if it's delivered in a physician's office. What does that lead to? That leads to incentives for hospitals and physicians to sell out. So the hospital acquires the physician practice and then you have an integrated health care system and you've reduced competition in that area. There are examples where we've allowed market forces to work in healthcare and consumerism to work of people making cost conscious decisions and driving health care services to lower cost providers. And those lower cost provider, the high cost providers don't want to lose consumers, so they do lower their prices. So we do have examples. They are too few and far between, unfortunately. But I think where I want to go is what can we address in government policy that reduces consumer control and leads to these incentives for additional consolidation?
- [47:33]
E
And just zooming in on the politics of this quickly. I think one of the reasons that Republicans, and you'll know this better than I do, never landed on a consensus repeal and replace plan is that they never landed on consensus. There was never something that brought everybody together, you know, everyone from John McCain to, you know, Marco Rubio at the time in the Senate. So do you feel that as these conversations are happening now, and it seems to me again, this is probably a frustration you've had for much longer, but that Republicans just keep putting health care on the back burner while voters say this is on our front burner? This is the thing that is eating us up right now. This has forced the conversation. Do you think Republicans are getting anywhere close to a consensus, either tweak, as you say, before the end of the year and then big fix in the new year, or is it still just kind of we're going to tinker around the edges, do what we can when the crunch is on and hope that, you know, it doesn't come up again before we absolutely have to have some type of comprehensive solution?
- [48:36]
B
Yeah. So I do think Republicans have to do conservatives have to do a better job on health care policy. I mean, it's one of the reasons that I founded Paragon was because there was a gap on the free market side on health care policy. And like you said, I mean, health care is 20% of the economy we needed and the health care sector system is not working for most Americans. So we need policies. I think that there are like they recognize that Obamacare hasn't made healthcare more affordable. I think there's widespread agreement that just continuing to throw good money after bad and propping up an inefficient regulatory structure is unwise policy. I think there is agreement on how we should expand options and make some improvements on the margin on Obamacare. And I think what we have to do is just, I mean, one comprehensive plan I don't think is the right strategy. I think the right strategy is to look at what's not working correctly, diagnose the problem. Like I mentioned on Medicare, paying much more for hospital services than doctor services services. That's a bipartisan problem. It's recognized by Democrats and Republicans. Now who's the main obstacle to getting that policy through? It's hospitals. Hospitals are very powerful. If you look at the American Enterprise Institute has what they call a chart of the century and it looks at the price increases by economic sector since 2000. The number one, the highest growing price increase inflation is hospitals. That to me is where we have our main health care affordability problem is we need to drive down hospital prices in the US and these site neutral payments and Medicare should be a starting point, but it's going to require reformers to go and combat the health care industry.
- [50:33]
C
What do you think is going to happen? Do you think that these four Republicans or more will join with Democrats and pass them a three year extension in the House? And if it does, does it have a shot in the Senate?
- [50:45]
B
I do not. So I don't know if they'll join with Democrats and pass an extension. I do not think that that is a realistic policy. I mean.
- [50:55]
C
Right, but we've been doing unrealistic policy for decades. So.
- [50:58]
B
Well, I don't think it's. There's not going to be a clean extension of the subsidies. I mean, I think there's so many problems with the subsidies. The fraud is one major problem. There's not going to be a clean extension of these Covid era credits. I mean there might be some compromise out there. I think there's certainly a way to deal with the problem. For the people that I mentioned just above four times the poverty line. That is a relatively cheap fix. You would allow the enhanced subsidies to expire for people below 4 times the poverty line who still get very generous underlying Obamacare subsidies. You deal with the cliff that was created for people just above four times the poverty line and you introduce some reforms to address the cost drivers in Obamacare.
- [51:48]
E
So interesting. And just like you said, Republicans had such a gap on this. So we appreciate you coming in, Brian, and helping walk us through. We'll have to have you back on to talk about Singapore's healthcare system. Now I'm curious. My appetite has been. All right. Thank you. Brian Blaise, founder of Paragon. Appreciate being here.
- [52:07]
B
Thank you.
- [52:10]
D
So let me get this straight. Your company has data here, there and everywhere, but your AI can't use the data because it's here, there and everywhere? Seems like something's missing. Every business has unique data. IBM helps your AI access your data wherever it lives. To change how you do business, let's create Smile to Business. IBM.
- [52:39]
A
Cleaning out your home is everything. It clears your space, your mind. And it can give you holiday shopping power with Trashy. Trashy is the easiest way to tidy up for the holidays. Clean out and donate what you don't need and make room for stuff you'll actually enjoy. Just buy a Trashy bag, fill it with anything you no longer need, any brand, any condition. We take everything, then ship it free and earn trashy cash points instantly guaranteed. Keep earning points when you shop exclusive trashy deals and redeem for shopping wherever you want or even donate them to charity. It's simple, it's satisfying, and it's sustainable, since 95% of what you send gets reused or recycled. So those pants you love but never wear, instead of your closet or a landfill, they could wind up hugging someone else's butt while also unlocking a little festive shopping power for you. Buy your bag and clean out for the holidays at Trashy IO that's t r a s h I e IO.
- [53:40]
G
Este diciempre de ahoros en los ob 10 gratis dos erabientas dewalt Craftsman o gobalt al comprado navateria o un quit selecto craftsman v20 selectas los nosotros ayudamos tu ahoras validos.
- [54:01]
C
Visita to Loos Mastercano.
- [54:03]
E
In Colorado street and Kennewick.
- [54:11]
C
So I think a friend of Donald Trump must have told him that he was losing the capacity to shock people with his Truth social posts. And so in the last few days he shocked the entire world with his response to the brutal murder of Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle. Now is following it up with one of the most unhinged remarks he's made about Venezuela yet. We could put up this truth social post. We'll read this entire thing. He says Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America. Pause on that to note are you really invoking the Spanish here? Like what are you doing? He says. It will only get bigger and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before. Until such time as they return to the United States of America. All of the oil land, what? And other assets that they previously stole from us. Yes, Venezuela stole our oil land and other assets. The illegitimate Maduro regime is using oil from these stolen oil fields to finance themselves. The horror Drug terrorism, human trafficking, murder and kidnapping for the theft of our assets and many other reasons including terrorism, drug smuggling and human trafficking. The Venezuelan regime has been designated a foreign terrorist organization. Therefore, today I am ordering a total and complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers going into and out of Venezuela. Venezuela. The illegal aliens and criminals that the Maduro regime has sent into the United States during the week inept Biden administration are being returned to Venezuela at a rapid pace. America will not allow criminals, terrorists or other countries to rob, threaten or harm our nation, and likewise will not allow a hostile regime to take our oil, land, or any other assets, all of which must be returned to the United States immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter. DONALD J. Trump, TRUMP PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES I don't understand how Venezuela could return land to us promptly. I understand the oil thing. Like, there was a meme during the occupation of Iraq that said, how did our oil get under their sand?
- [56:26]
E
It beats me.
- [56:27]
C
But however it got under there, we're going over there and we're taking it back.
- [56:30]
E
Someone's got to find out.
- [56:31]
C
I understand the oil part. The land. How are we going to take. How did Venezuela take our land? Jesse Waters, last we talked about, I think last week, said South America is ours. It's in the name America.
- [56:44]
E
America.
- [56:45]
C
Maybe that's what he means.
- [56:46]
E
It's not that hard. It's America.
- [56:48]
C
Ironically, Trump recently seized Venezuelan assets. They seized an oil tanker. We seized Citgo. We took their oil company.
- [56:59]
D
Mm.
- [57:02]
C
Now we're going to. Now they're. Now they took our land.
- [57:06]
E
I mean, also another part of that where he's saying, on the one hand, Maduro sent criminals into the United States during the Biden administration. On the other hand, Maduro is a vicious dictator. These two things are in conflict, because what's actually happening is that Maduro is a dictator and people fled Maduro to come into the United States, which is why there's debate among the Republican Party over whether or not to grant asylum to people who, in the case of many Venezuelans, not all of them actually is pretty sound for asylum. Fleeing the Maduro regime. There were real reasons for people to be fleeing the Maduro regime, just as though there are real reasons for people to be fleeing Cuba over the last several decades. And so, on the one hand, Trump is acting as though this was intentionally set up up by Maduro to infiltrate the United States. But on the other hand, Maduro so bad. Well, if Maduro is so bad, then it stands to reason people are going to flee into the United States, which is exactly what happened. It wasn't. It's similar to the trafficking narrative that they're trying to build. Of course, I think there's pretty significant evidence that there are state actors in the trafficking. And, you know, many people would argue there were state actors on our side in the trafficking as well. So. But that's the argument the United States government is making. But to say that this was intentional, that the migration from Venezuela into the United States was an intentional invasion Infiltration, they're doing the same thing with drugs. And actually what's happened is that people are poor and desperate and are trying to make money or trying to get to a better country. And so that actually confirms the administration's argument about Maduro being a dictator. But of course they're trying to have it both way ways.
- [58:55]
C
And already a couple tankers apparently have been turned, turned around. Have turned around because they're nervous about getting caught up in this American Spanish Armada, which is throwing the Venezuelan economy into complete and total turmoil. Like it was already deeply struggling under this like incredible tightening regime of sanctions that we have have going on there, as well as the collapse of oil prices over the last decade, which was kind of propping up the Chavista socialism project. What that's going to do is create, like you said, an outflow of migration as well as create starvation and suffering and misery, which there's plenty of already, and create instability. Part of this, there's a right wing movement movement going on now in, in south and Central America. You've, you've had, you know, the right wing win elections in Ecuador, Honduras, Chile, Bolivia recently. And a significant non trivial amount of that is there were like 8 million Venezuelans.
- [60:02]
E
Yeah.
- [60:03]
C
Who getting into Chile, poured out of, into lots of other countries. Like a half million or so came to the U.S. yep. It's another seven and a half million went elsewhere around. And that generally throughout world history has created kind of a right wing pull. So when I first saw this news, I was like, Maduro, want to call him a dictator or not? He's offering to step down in exchange for lifting of the sanctions and not drone striking him, offering to let American oil companies come in. He's basically saying, what do you want?
- [60:38]
E
Well, he doesn't want what, what Trump is threatening to bring down right now.
- [60:42]
C
He doesn't wanna be killed.
- [60:43]
E
Yeah.
- [60:44]
C
And so I don't understand why Trump won't just say yes. Like, okay, you get your regime change, you get the oil, you get everything, but you don't get, I guess, a war. The only thing I can think of is, and this is like, no, this can't be what he's doing. Like, maybe he misses a border crisis. Like the border is very calm right now. And maybe to Trump, he needs a crisis at the border. And so he's like, oh, I need to create an enormous amount of instability and suffering in Venezuela so I can drive more people to the border and then in 2026, point to the caravans of the people at the border and Be like Democrats. I don't know quite how you finish that equation, but Democrats, scary brown people. You have to vote for me. It hasn't worked in the past. Like when he had the big caravan 2018, that didn't help him. What on earth is he doing?
- [61:41]
E
Well, correct me if I remember, but Maduro has said his counter offer, part of it is allowing his kind of him to hand pick a successor who would reign in power for a couple of years. Right.
- [61:52]
C
And while there's elections. Yeah. And that successor would not run for reelection.
- [61:56]
E
Right. My guess is that if there was any chance of Donald Trump himself cutting a deal with Maduro, that's probably a brick wall in the negotiations. But I think that's a simple.
- [62:05]
C
They're just gonna put the Nobel Peace Prize winning Machado forcibly on the throne, like.
- [62:10]
E
No, but that's what.
- [62:11]
C
She has no base at all.
- [62:12]
E
But that's what I was gonna say. The simpler explanation is that you have to think about this as President Marco Rubio as opposed to President Donald Trump. And President Marco Rubio doesn't want, like, knows that the United States, to paraphrase the Zelenskyy conversation, holds all the cards here except for the American people largely not wanting this, but wants to make a point and wants absolutely no quarter. Wants absolutely no remnant, which is impossible. But wants absolutely no remnant of the left, the socialist left or the whatever.
- [62:44]
C
You want to call it. Venezuela, it's a country that has a left.
- [62:48]
E
Yes. And has convinced Trump. I mean, we saw just a couple of days ago Trump declared fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction. That this could lay the groundwork for potential military action in Mexico. Because if you're declaring fentanyl wmd, there's all kinds of legal questions about what that actually means, what that actually does. But that's laying the groundwork for Mexico. That has nothing to do. I mean, this is. We're talking about cocaine in Venezuela and so that's a small amount of it. Yeah, I think that's the best guess is because Trump does like making deals, but I think he's basically outsourced this.
- [63:27]
C
To Marco Rubio and about half of. So if we manage the transition, then we can approve who becomes interim president leading into the elections, and then we can get somebody who's friendlier to the United States. If we don't manage the process, if we just drive some kind of chaotic regime change, about half of Maduro's deputies are much friendlier to China than they are to us.
- [63:56]
E
Yeah. And that's why.
- [63:57]
C
And so you Might get one of them instead.
- [63:58]
E
Which is why I think Rubio wants.
- [64:00]
C
To do a total takeover again, though, with what? Like who's gonna like Machado and what army? Like, you're really gonna. Like you're gonna occupy Venezuela.
- [64:11]
E
I don't know if you.
- [64:11]
C
With the U.S. army.
- [64:13]
E
Part of the Susie Wiles. We'll talk more about this in a second, but part of the Susie Wiles Vanity Fair story. I'm sure this jumped out to you as well. She's saying, we know who's on those boats, we have the CIA. I'm paraphrasing it obviously, but she says that to Chris Whipple in the Vanity Fair article. And with what army? Is a great question, always has been a great question. Could have learned that lesson during the Bay of Pigs. But it's, I imagine intelligence coming from the CIA, which we know has been authorized to operate on the ground in Venezuela by the President probably saying, you can do this. Cuz that's what happens every damn time. You have the people, you have the weak links in the military. You can do it. And that's my best guess as to why there's the full bravado for total, complete and total regime change, is that they're once again convinced that it's doable and that anything short of that just gives a foothold or leaves a foothold for China and Iran and the new axis of evil.
- [65:17]
C
And meanwhile, Trump is going to get somebody killed in the air and put up C2. So for the second time, civilian aircraft nearly collided, this time with a U.S. air Force tanker because all of these American Armada planes are flying around the Caribbean with their transponders off, not communicating with air traffic controllers. And as he said, it's the largest force maybe ever that's been in there. And so you have civilian aircraft constantly going through there. You know, it's a big sky and hopefully none of them go down. But this is extremely reckless and dangerous and nobody is asking for it. It like he. And he hasn't even bothered to try to lie much about it. This whole like weapons of mass destruction, fentanyl thing is, is like offensively, like lazy. Like this is what you like. It is maybe they just maybe like, we can do whatever we want.
- [66:24]
E
Well, yeah, and I think the best way to think about the Venezuela policy is just again, President Marco Rubio, I think Trump is, is not as interested as Marco Rubio is in this Venezuela regime change. He's been brought on board with it because he can use it from a kind of PR perspective to say this is the crackdown on drugs. Even though that is going to be digested by every. Most Americans to be related to fentanyl. And this is clearly not related to fentanyl. So anyway, all that is to say the trip wires right now, when you have CIA operating on the ground in Venezuela, when you have the armada, as Trump put it, that is, we are in the middle of a recipe for escalation. And that Americans could be dying in.
- [67:16]
C
Battle over Venezuela and Americans could crash into the sea.
- [67:23]
E
Yes. Yeah.
- [67:25]
C
Then they took out another drug boat, alleged drug boat, just recently. And meanwhile, Hegseth is saying he will not show the video that he is so proud of where they executed these two survivors. And he says absolutely the right battle decision. Keeps calling it a battle. It's not a battle. They're like basically unarmed and you're sitting in Florida hitting them with the drone.
- [67:51]
E
They're not coming and shooting at Americans. They are by their own admission, what this is. They're trafficking cocaine. Allegedly trafficking cocaine.
- [67:59]
C
And without outboard motors to get to the United States, like, they're going somewhere. Suriname or wherever, Mexico, somewhere. They're not going to the. They're not making it to the United States with that. Eventually maybe they will. A lot of, like, cocaine users are hoping they do. Right, bro?
- [68:17]
B
Like.
- [68:17]
C
Like, this is what we do here in the United States. Why are you killing our suppliers?
- [68:22]
E
To compare it to kinetic. Kinetic battle. Right.
- [68:25]
C
And so he's so proud of it and he would make the decision a thousand times again. But no, you can't actually see the footage of it. And, oh, we've destroyed footage of similar strikes.
- [68:43]
D
Foreign.
- [68:50]
E
This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something. Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA in adults with obesity? They may be happening to you without you knowing. If anyone has ever said you snored loudly, or if you spend your days.
- [69:05]
C
Fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability, and concentration.
- [69:09]
E
Issues, it may be due to osa.
- [69:12]
F
OSA is a serious condition where your.
- [69:14]
C
Airway partially or completely collapses during sleep.
- [69:17]
E
Which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation. Learn more at don't sleep on OSA.com this information is provided by Lilly, a medicine company.
- [69:28]
A
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