← Keeping It Real: Conversations with Jillian Michaels
Keeping It Real: Conversations with Jillian Michaels
The Untold Motives of Luigi Mangione and the Dark Side of Healthcare Power
01:18:44
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- [00:00]
Jillian Michaels
Huddle up.
- [00:01]
Brigham Buehler
It's me, Angel Reese.
- [00:03]
Jillian Michaels
You can't beat the postgame burger and fries, right? Know what else you can't beat?
- [00:07]
Brigham Buehler
The Angel Reese special.
- [00:08]
Jillian Michaels
Let's break it down.
- [00:09]
Brigham Buehler
My favorite barbecue sauce, American cheese, crispy bacon, pickles, onions, and a sesame seed bun, of course. And don't forget the fries and the drink. It's gonna be a high C for me. Sound good?
- [00:21]
Jillian Michaels
All you have to do to get.
- [00:22]
Brigham Buehler
It is beat me in a one on one. I'm just playing get the Angel Reef Special at McDonald's now.
- [00:27]
Jillian Michaels
Ba da ba ba ba. I participate in restaurants for a limited time. This episode is brought to you by Indeed. When your computer breaks, you don't wait for it to magically start working again. You fix the problem. So why wait to hire the people your company desperately needs? Use Indeed's sponsored jobs to hire top talent fast. And even better, you only pay for results. There's no need to wait. Speed up your hiring with a $75 sponsored job credit@ Indeed.com podcast terms and conditions apply.
- [01:00]
Brigham Buehler
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- [02:01]
Jillian Michaels
See him in the orange jumpsuit?
- [02:02]
Brigham Buehler
He's in the orange jumpsuit. Oh, my God. You're doing great, baby. Oh, we love you, Lily B. Today we're tackling a story that's ignited outrage across the nation. The assassination of UnitedHealthcare's CEO. Was this a desperate act born from crippling frustration with a broken system? Or was Luigi Magione a troubled young man suffering from mental illness?
- [02:27]
Jillian Michaels
He went through a journey. Like so many patients. He had a debilitating spine injury.
- [02:32]
Brigham Buehler
Joining me is Brigham Buehler from Ways to. Well, here to unpack the complexities of this tragedy.
- [02:38]
Jillian Michaels
This kid was struggling with this for 18 months. I mean, it's like being tortured.
- [02:42]
Brigham Buehler
We'll explore Luigi's history and the systemic failures that may have led him to this breaking point, while also examining the CEO's controversial legacy.
- [02:51]
Jillian Michaels
He implemented AI algorithm programs that rejected.
- [02:55]
Brigham Buehler
90% of claims artificially with accusations of insider trading. Tanked Penn pension funds in a ruthless strategy that denied thousands of valid claims. And now the outreach is spreading. Wanted posters of other big insurance CEOs are surfacing across New York, reflecting a boiling point with rising premiums, AI driven claim denials, and a health care system that many believe prioritizes profits over people.
- [03:22]
Jillian Michaels
They're monetizing your opioids. They want you on drugs. There's more money in selling band aids than there is in healing wounds.
- [03:31]
Brigham Buehler
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on. This is a conversation about anger, accountability, and the future of healthcare in America. What does the individual do with their own care?
- [03:47]
Jillian Michaels
Yeah, that's a good question.
- [03:48]
Brigham Buehler
Keeping it Real with Jillian Michaels. Keeping it real, real, real. Brigham Bueller, welcome back. How are you?
- [03:58]
Jillian Michaels
I'm good. Thank you for having me. We're living in crazy times.
- [04:02]
Brigham Buehler
I'm not even gonna pretend like we're not good friends, everybody. We're good friends. And the reason we're doing this show, at least the reason I'm personally doing this show, is because I've been watching all the coverage on this kid, Luigi Mangioni, who shot the United CEO, and it's like people are botching it. And I know they're botching it. And they don't understand it. They don't understand the complexities of it. They're often getting, I would say, at least 50% of it wrong, if not more. And the only one who can speak to this so eloquently and so intelligently is you. Brig, tell the audience who you are in the event they have yet to see you speak.
- [04:43]
Jillian Michaels
Yeah, no. And Jillian and I became great friends through the podcast. Ironically, you had me on to discuss compounding pharmacies and some of the nuances of health care and my experience with the big insurance companies. And our friendship was forged in the fire of testifying in front of the Senate together with Bobby Kennedy and the Maha Group. And we just got to know each other and become, I would say, really good friends. My background is, I like to tell people I've been to Oz and back. Like, my goal is to show you how the magic trick of the healthcare system is done. Because once I show you the illusion, they'll never be able to trick you or deceive you again. Once you have and are empowered with these tools, you will have a better insight into how the game is played. And I only have these touch points because of my history of being in the medical industry. So right out of college I was a drug rep. I worked for Eli Lilly, one of the biggest companies. I left that to go be a med device rep where I worked in some of the best and brightest hospital systems in the country and helped orthopedic surgeons, sports medicine surgeons. So I'm familiar with the surgical market, surgical procedures and equipment. But where I learned the most about how broken our healthcare system is was when I took a leap of faith and left working in the industry to become an entrepreneur. And I own genetics labs, blood labs and pharmacies that attempted to work within the framework of the insurance conglomerates and the big pharmaceutical institutes. And what I saw was terrifying and staggering to the point where, you know, I had built a thriving company of over 150 people. And those insurance companies in this system broke me. I had to lay off everyone and start over. And that is when I founded ways to well and revive my cash pay solutions that are attempting to bring cost effective care to the masses. And my goal is to expose the broken corruption system for what it is and to attempt to provide a life draft for people. There are options out there and those options are going to entail, you know, you, the individual, taking sovereignty and autonomy over your health and not putting your and your loved one's health in the hands of these insurance companies that are looking to do nothing more than profiteer off of chronic disease, sickness and death.
- [07:13]
Brigham Buehler
So I want to play out every side of this story and the first one is Luigi's. So my question is, what do you think would motivate such a violent crime against a high profile figure in the big insurance industry?
- [07:29]
Jillian Michaels
I mean, obviously I'll be the first to say violence is never the answer. And what happened is truly, truly tragic for Brian and his family and everybody involved, including Luigi. But what's equally as tragic is the 1.7 million lives that we lose every year to chronic disease. And these insurance companies are an implicit part of that destruction of our health care ecosystems. They have corporately captured segments of the healthcare industry like you and I testified in front of the Senate about. We've been trying to ring the bell and I've been screaming from a mountaintop for over four years since the first time I went on Rogan, trying to explain to people that these big insurance conglomerates are dangerous. And, you know, we talk so much about the catac, the catastrophic financial impact to America, to states and to families, but the impact is so much greater because it's truly paid in human lives and human casualties. And so let's talk about Luigi. Let's talk about. I always like to come from a position of empathy and try to understand people. And again, nobody can ever condone what this kid did. But if I do put myself in his shoes, he went through a journey, like so many patients. He had a debilitating spine injury. A spine injury where your discs slip out of place, that impinges nerves. Those nerves shoot into the extremities, like your hands, your feet, often causing numbness. And the scariest is in men. It'll shoot into your genitals, causing erectile dysfunction. Burning, fire sensation, sometimes in your genitals and hands. I mean, it's like being tortured. 24, 7 Needles sticking into your hands. It's hard for these people to sleep. And this is one of those procedures where people battle with the insurance company. And so if you were to walk through a typical day in the patient life of somebody like Luigi, I read that it took him 18 months to get the surgery approved. That's pretty common. It actually takes anywhere from six to nine months on average to get an insurance company to approve the surgical procedure. The problem with that is you're in chronic pain. That means they're going to give you opioids. That's why so many of these spine patients get addicted to opioids. They wreck their endocrine system, they wreck their hormonal response, they have chronic constipation. All of these issues exasperated by the opioids that were shoved down their throat that they have to take to function day to day. All the meanwhile, they can barely sleep, lay in bed, everything's hurting. And the process of that, Right. If you look at the medical process in general, it's an obstructionist process when it comes to surgical care. The insurance companies are quick to allow drugs. And I'll explain why here in a minute. And I think you know why after our discussions. But they're slow to approve surgeries. And so this kid was struggling with this for 18 months. Usually the insurance companies will make you go to a primary care first. You know, that's a two to three month process to get in with the primary care in this country. From there, they're going to say, whoa, Buddy, that's not me. I got to refer you out. You need to go to a specialist. Now, you go to a specialist, that's going to be another three or four months to get in with them. Then they're going to have to get a pre approval to do your mri. A lot of times the insurance company denies or delays the pre approval. You fight with them to get that done. Now you finally get an mri, you finally prove that you need the surgery. You finally get your day in the sun where you think you're going to get this healing factor and get this surgery done. And the last blow happens. The insurance company tells you you don't get to choose your surgeon. The surgeon you want may be out of network and may not be covered by that provider. So they choose the surgeon. And now the surgeon botches the surgery and you're unhappy. And if they botch that surgery, you're talking about a lifetime of pain and suffering that never goes away. And even if they get that surgery. Right. The sad part about spine surgeries is there's a 40% chance you're going back under the knife within a decade. Because once you. Once we fuse the spine, and this is why I discourage people away from spine surgery in general, and this is why I'm such an advocate for stem cells, is once we fuse that spine, you create a rigidity issue where the spine's no longer natural. So this vertebrae is locked in and this one's mobile. Well, what happens is this vertebrae is going to slip and the spine collapses. And now they got to confuse that spine. And that's why eventually people end up fusing their entire spinal column and having all of these continual surgeries, and they get caught on the merry go round.
- [12:19]
Brigham Buehler
Okay, hold on. So let's go back to. Because you told me this, you know, privately, so I think it's important we talk about this. The guy who was shot, the UnitedHealthcare CEO. Listen, I understand this man's a father. Neither of us ever think a person. Violence is the answer. But who is this man? Because when you look at why this man might be targeted, there's insider trading stuff. He's. You told me he was, like, tanking.
- [12:55]
Jillian Michaels
Teachers, like, again, out of empathy. I would say, like, let's sing his praises, too, on what he did do, right? He graduated. I heard from a town of 1200 people. He finished valedictorian of his high school. A very smart individual. I'm sure his parents were very proud. And he climbed the corporate ladder and made his way up to being CEO of United. But what did he do with that? Power, right? Power. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. You can choose which wolf to feed. You know that old Adam, do you feed the light or do you feed the dark? And I'm sorry, when you look at the history and you look at the record, he fed the dark. He fed the dark. He implemented AI algorithm programs that rejected 90% of claims artificially denying coverage to 90% of people. And then they go, whoops, sorry, accidental. Right, didn't mean to. 90% of claims were getting denied via their AI algorithm and they got busted with it. The other thing that happened is they were facing a Department of justice investigation as an organization for the monopoly that they have, for bullying, intimidating, for their tactics, for putting people out of business, for their corporate capture of these medical practices, for forcing pay. It's a monopoly. And so they're facing DOJ investigation. They know that that was going to go public. And this guy unloaded $15 million in stock before the news could break. Plummeting teacher and firefighter retirement plans. And the only reason this became public knowledge is the firefighter, I think the Hollywood Firefighter Department sued UnitedHealthcare because he cost them their retirements. And these guys are multi millionaire. You know, you had a chance to do something good and you chose to do something bad. You were implicit in the death of millions of Americans. What happened to him was tragic. But what is happening to all of these innocent people who are battling cancer, who are battling osteoporosis, who are being drugged and doped to death is a bigger tragedy. I'm sorry. They are the innocents. They are the ones losing their lives. They are the mothers, brothers, sisters. I lost my brother to this crisis, to an opioid crisis that never should have happened in the first place. Because if we look at how it happened, the FDA was captured by Purdue. That individual went to go work for Purdue. Once they gave them the golden ticket and let them put that drug on the market, then the PBMs negotiated a deal with Purdue to get a kickback. So they made just as much money as Purdue Pharma on this crisis of addiction and abuse. Then they put in a. Then when we talk about deny, delay, the safety nets to prevent opioid abuse are the pharmacogenetic tests we talked about. Let's identify if this patient can even metabolize this drug. Let's identify if they're going to be a slow, faster, moderate metabolizer and be at risk of ODing and dying. They took that Safety net. The insurance company said, no, we're not going to cover that. Denied. Gone. So now you have no way to get a blueprint for success. Okay, second safety net, we can test them with a toxicology screen to make sure they don't divert or abuse this drug. Denied. Gone. Insurance companies got rid of it. So now we have no way to tell that this patient that you prescribe a year worth of fucking opioids is not taking it and selling it on the black market, diverting it to somebody else or over utilizing it. Okay? And then the last is. The last pillar is alternative care, compounding pharmacies. Let's go back to it. We were making non abusive, non addictive pain creams that treat neuropathic pain. Injuries just like the one Luigi suffered from could have been treated with a non abusive, non addictive topical. But it wasn't. Why? Because they hate compounding pharmacies. Because we don't pay to play. We don't give them a kickback. Purdue Pharma did. So Purdue Pharma bought its way into a market share, bribed the fda, bribed the pharmacies, bribed all the insurance companies, and they got everyone chronically addicted to opioids and they printed fucking billions of dollars off of it while we died in the streets. Don't tell me these people are innocent. They're criminals. They should all be federally indicted and tried.
- [17:31]
Brigham Buehler
Okay? This was in it. Just so people are listening. And if you think that we're crazy, this actually is Brigham explaining something to me that I had sent him that was in the New York Times. And for the New York Times to be brave enough to cover something that goes after big insurance and big pharma. And so I didn't understand it because it was saying, and here's. I encourage everyone to look it up. New York Times drug makers paid middlemen, known as pharmacy benefit managers, to not restrict painkiller prescriptions, a New York Times investigation has found. For years, the benefit managers took payments from opioid manufacturers, including Purdue Pharma, in return for not restricting the flow of pills as tens of thousands of Americans overdosed and died from prescription painkillers as the middlemen collected billions of dollars in payments. And then they don't do as good of a job as explaining exactly how. Which is why I then went to you, Brigham, and said, I don't get it right. You know, I want to lean into the pain aspect a little bit just because personally I can speak to that. And I had three herniations and a fracture and While it sounds like I had experts looking at my MRI and saying like, oh, this is nothing. And brig, I couldn't walk for six months. And I'm. That's not hyperbole. I mean, I couldn't stand up without the pain being so great it would knock me to the ground. I crawled around on my hands and knees with construction knee pads and I would just weep and think, if this doesn't get better, like, I can see why somebody would arguably consider taking their lives or get to a place of complete desperation, because it's just no quality of life.
- [19:30]
Jillian Michaels
You.
- [19:30]
Brigham Buehler
You can't leave the house. It's not like, oh, you know, tingling. It's just fricking debilitating pain. And I can't imagine what I would have done without having the cash to pay for the mri. Brigham. I couldn't get anything being me. I couldn't even get into a pain management center. They're like, yeah, come back in six months. That they were willing to give me whatever pills I wanted. They didn't work, thank God. Which now, because I know you, I know they didn't work because my genetics are, you know, not compatible with these drugs.
- [20:02]
Jillian Michaels
Yeah, you're not a metabolizer.
- [20:03]
Brigham Buehler
But of course, nobody says that. They threw whatever drugs at me. I took them. They didn't actually work, which I thank God for. And the level of desperation is so great when you are suffering in that way and thinking that you have nothing left to live for anyway. So I'm projecting myself into this situation. But, you know, the narrative that you're seeing, and you and I were talking about this, and listen, I, I love Megyn Kelly. She's been very kind to me. But you and I were both kind of frustrated with the fact that, you know, maybe she doesn't have the entire picture. And it's like, well, he's mentally ill. He's a psychopath. Well, he's. I mean, is he. The kid has no history of mental illness.
- [20:43]
Jillian Michaels
But we can all be broken, right? I mean, when you're under severe pain, I think of how much my attitude changes when I'm hungry. That's just hunger. Can you imagine excruciating pain, erectile dysfunction as a 20 something year old kid? And you're battling this and then I don't know what happened on the back end with billing, but oftentimes, you know, individuals are covered via their employer. And I see this all the time, employing over 300 individuals at my companies. Across my companies, younger kids typically choose bigger out of pocket co pays and Deductibles because they're young and they go, it's not going to happen to me. I'll take a $10,000 out of pocket co pay or deductible. And then what that means is if you do fall into this pit of despair where you end up needing a surgery for a chronic pain or chronic illness, the first $10,000 is your burden. And the hospital is burdened and your clinician or labor is burdened with trying to collect those dollars from that individual that may not have the money.
- [21:50]
Brigham Buehler
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So head over to masterclass.com keeping it real for the current offer. That's up to 50% off@masterclass.com keeping it real masterclass.com keeping it real I have a bit of a love hate relationship with undergarments because on one hand you get a bra and the underwire is jabbing you, it's poorly fitted. And then you get the gaping cups which suck and look terrible under a T shirt or they're too tight around your rib cage and it makes you look like you have back fat or underwear that don't breathe and ride up the crack of your rear end. But team not with skims, you get none of the bad and all of the good. You get the support and the shape and the boost from the Fits Everybody push up bra and with the Fits Everybody boy shorts. It covers up any cellulite in areas you don't want it and it doesn't ride up your backside. It doesn't get better than this people. So shop Skims Best intimates including the Fits Everybody collection and more@skims.com and skim stores. After you place your order, be sure to let them know we sent you select podcast in the survey and select our show in the dropdown menu that follows. And it really helps us out. So if you could do it, we would appreciate it. Thanks so much guys. Have a great holiday. Get your underwear today. But I want to come back to the pill thing for a minute so we really lay this out. Why are the pills so readily available when the necessary procedures and or screenings like an mri. I remember and I'll just say this, I remember being in the emergency room with this. Cause I thought that my back had exploded. And in the emergency room in the middle of the night and they were like, we can't give you an mri, but we can try to get you in a CAT scan. And then of course he offered me a morphine shot that he was going to administer, which I said no to. Cause I have tough veins. I was like, no, no, no, no. And sent me home with oxy. Not codone.
- [28:00]
Jillian Michaels
Oxycontin, not cotton.
- [28:02]
Brigham Buehler
Codone, Codone.
- [28:04]
Jillian Michaels
Okay.
- [28:04]
Brigham Buehler
Oxycodone, Oxycodone. I'm sent me on with a ton of those and some muscle relaxers. And I still had no idea what was wrong with me. So why was I not allowed to have an mri, but I was given a ton of opioids.
- [28:15]
Jillian Michaels
Yeah, no, that's a great question. And that is the crux of the issue. So I have to break it down for folks. Insurance has no ability to monetize MRIs unless they own the MRI center. And right now that is not something they've captured. Insurance companies have captured the pharmacies, the pharmacy benefit managers, the middlemen that Trump alluded to the other day. The horrible middleman that makes more money, frankly, than the drug companies. And they don't do anything except they're a middleman. We're going to knock out the middleman. And I talked about this on Rogan years ago. The pharmacy benefit managers were an institution established to negotiate on behalf of the American people to drive down the cost of prescription medications, to make prescription of medications affordable for all of us. And to be a patient care advocate and be a voice for us in a room where we didn't have one. And the insurance Companies in the 80s, when we rolled out HMOs, captured those companies. So the five biggest pharmacy benefit managers are owned by the five big insurance companies. And I explain it. Think of like Scooby Doo when you're saying, who's the, who was the ghost? They pull back the mask and it's Mr. Rogers the whole time. That's what it is in this, in, in the, in our health care space. And why that is so crucial to understand is in the 80s, they went from negotiating on behalf of us to negotiating against us. They went to the big pharmaceutical conglomerates and they said, hey, you're only charging US$100 for insulin. Charge US$200 for insulin, and then give us a rebate of a hundred dollars. So United Healthcare shows you, Jillian, that they paid $200 for your medicine that month. They show it, like at my company as an employer, right, I employ, like I said, over 300 people. They go Brigham. Jillian was costing us 200amonth on this medicine. They never paid the 200.
- [30:25]
Brigham Buehler
They paid me.
- [30:26]
Jillian Michaels
Because they got a hundred dollar rebate. Yes. And that $100 rebate goes to the middleman, the pharmacy benefit manager, where they hold that profit. Then they make it look like to your employer and you that they paid this exorbitant amount for that medication, but they never did. They charge you a bigger copay, a bigger deductible, and at the end of the year, they readjust the rates and the premiums for your employer. So at the end of the day, it's the employers and the taxpayers paying for this marked up drug cost because it. And that is why the cost of insulin. Absolutely. And that is why insulin has gone from a hundred dollars a month to I think like 500 something dollars a month. And there was a Senate House special investigative committee, the Finance Committee, that dug into this, and they found that roughly 30 to 40% of the profitability was being held by the pharmacy benefit manager. And that is why we were paying inflated drug costs. Okay, now, and it gets more sickening, Gillian.
- [31:33]
Brigham Buehler
Okay, because I know what you're going to say. I was going to ask you this. I already know you're going to say go, because this is the question.
- [31:38]
Jillian Michaels
I was going to say, if we look at what they do with the federal government, the federal government said, hey, we're not really good at managing drugs. So we're going to punt this off to the Big insurance companies. So the same five big insurance companies manage Medicare and Medicaid, okay? And their PBMs show the federal government that artificially inflated, inflated price. And they go, hey, look, federal government, Julian, and the rest of America is paying 200amonth for this drug. Since you're the federal government, we'll sell it to you for 190. But they set the fake price because they're paying 100. So all of it is a lie. It's a lie agreed upon. And then the federal government in all their infinite wisdom, gave a safe harbor carve out to the PBMs in the 80s. That said, we don't have visibility into your pricing and your pricing negotiations.
- [32:38]
Brigham Buehler
And so go, go, go.
- [32:41]
Jillian Michaels
Yeah. And so where I'm going with this is you and I have talked in depth in our previous podcast about the corporate capture of the fda, the collusion, the cross pollination, people leaving the private ended public industry to go work for the private industry. You know, the head of the FDA went to go work for Sackler after approving opioids and OxyContin into the marketplace and wreaking havoc on hundreds of millions of Americans. The same exact Ponzi scheme is happening in the insurance framework. The head of ama, the woman who.
- [33:16]
Brigham Buehler
Helped push through Obamacare, ama, American Medical Association.
- [33:22]
Jillian Michaels
This is Medicare and Medicaid's oversight. Like. Got it. Hold. Yeah, the, the government entity that holds.
- [33:29]
Brigham Buehler
Regulates Medicare and Medicaid.
- [33:31]
Jillian Michaels
I think I meant to say aca.
- [33:32]
Brigham Buehler
Got it, got it, got it.
- [33:33]
Jillian Michaels
Sorry. Okay, so that entity she helped push through Obamacare, Aca is essentially Obamacare. She helped push that through 12 months later, went to go work for the big insurance companies, Literally got a huge payday left working for the federal government, went to go work for those big insurance companies. She set up all the Medicare, all the Medicaid programs. We outsourced all that to these pharmacy benefit managers and insurance companies. And they're raking us over the coals because it's us, the taxpayers, paying for all of this. We're paying the overinflated prescription drug cost. And an example of how I can highlight this, the state of Ohio did a forensic audit because they said something's not right here. When we're looking at our prescription drug cost as a state, what we're figuring out is our Medicaid cost is higher than the average wholesale price. So at the state level, they don't have the negotiating and bartering power of the big bad federal government. So the insurance companies are screwing them even worse than they're screwing the federal government and the private payers like us. So what they found in one year alone, $240 million in, in what they call. What is it? I would call it price gouging, but they call it price discrepancy or whatever. Spread pricing. The insurance companies try to say, oh, it's spread pricing. No, it's. It's you fucking us. Like, let's be clear here. You are absolutely price gouging the states, the federal government and people. And that, Gillian, is why people are furious at these insurance companies. They're denying our ability to get access to treatments. They're ramroding treatments that line their pocketbooks. It's the same narrative that we faced since the 80s. It's not about patient outcomes, it's about profitability. It's about quarterly earnings. And while we are dying at a breakneck speed, deaths of despair at an all time high, we're ranked 60th in the world in healthcare, I mean, which is pathetic. That's a travesty. The average American man dies 10 years younger than the average Japanese man. Like, we could go through all of these statistics.
- [35:51]
Brigham Buehler
Yes, we both know them.
- [35:52]
Jillian Michaels
But at the same time, United Healthcare's profits have gone through the roof. And their stock price has doubled in five years. Their stock price has doubled. While we are dying in the streets and dying of chronic disease. They are profiteering and monetizing sickness. And that is why people are disgusted with these CEOs. They are an implicit actor in this evolution and destruction of America. And they can pretend like they're a passenger. They're not a passenger, Jillian. They are double the size of the pharmaceutical companies. They did $2.5 trillion. They're juggernauts. They are not small. They're double the size of the fire. Sorry. $1.5 trillion. They're double the size. And they're projecting they'll be $1.9 trillion by 2029 in revenue a year. United. $370 billion last year in profit. In revenue. Sorry. $370 billion in revenue. Just United Health Care. And guess how much of that came from marking up our prescription drugs. Almost half. Almost half of their profits are coming from us at the pharmacy benefit manager. Sorry for the curse words, but that's how pissed I am.
- [37:11]
Brigham Buehler
Whoa, whoa, hold on, wait. Okay, so hold on, hold on. I just need to wrap my head. Just one sec. So we pay for the insurance, right? Like, I think I pay $500 a month or something for my insurance because I'm healthy. I Pay for that. I have a deductible, so I gotta pay for the first, whatever, 10 grand or something because I'm healthy. I chose one of those plans, a major medical kind of a thing. Okay, So I gotta pay for that. I gotta pay for all my co pays, so I gotta pay for all of that. Two.
- [37:44]
Jillian Michaels
Okay?
- [37:45]
Brigham Buehler
So I pay my money every month to the insurance company for my coverage. I pay the deductible out to the doctors. They don't have to pay anything. I pay the copay, which now I know ends up on my medications, now I know ends up going to the pharmacy benefit managers, which we'll come back to in a second. So you're telling me all that money I'm paying, that's only half of the profit that these guys are making. The other half is on driving up drug costs?
- [38:09]
Jillian Michaels
Yeah, they're making a ton of money driving up the drug costs. That is a. That is. And we. And I've said for four or five years now, the margins are made in the mystery when people say, I don't understand why. Why can't I get transparent pricing? Why can't. When I ran a pharmacy, I couldn't get transparent pricing. You know why? Because the pharmacy benefit managers decide the price and they can change the price at will. And they change the price not based off what's the most efficacious beneficial safety profile drugs. They base it off who's willing to pay to play. And if Pfizer says, we don't want to give you that rebate, they move them to a tier four drug. And now when your grandma comes in and she needs her refill on her life saving medication, and I've got to tell her, I'm sorry, Meemaw, your insurance doesn't cover that anymore. And I'm changing drugs on these patients every month. And they're furious and they're yelling at us and they're going, what do you mean? My. I pay my co pay, I pay my deductible. I filled this last month. You don't know what you're talking about. And Jillian, I would get a book like the size of a phone book every quarter with all the new drugs that they were dropping and adding. And I want to be clear and concise. It did not have a goddamn thing to do with the efficacy or the benefit or the safety profile of the drug. It had to do with who would pay them the most money.
- [39:41]
Brigham Buehler
Hold on.
- [39:41]
Jillian Michaels
Who would adjust the rebate. Wait, that's it.
- [39:44]
Brigham Buehler
Hold on a second. Because now, now, now hold on. Sorry, light bulb. Just a sec. So. So wait a second. My daughter is on ADD meds, and one that the doctor had initially recommended was not covered by insurance, but another one was, and I didn't even stop to think why that was the case. We simply called and said, like, hey, this one's not covered. We don't know why. Is there one that's covered or something else you prescribe. So hold on. Yeah, so. So, okay, wait a minute. Let me recap. I'm. Let me recap real quick. So back in the 80s, a group of middlemen called pharmacy benefit managers were put into place to negotiate on the American public's behalf. They were purchased. When you say captured. Because you've shown me this. When you're like, Jillian, United is. Tell me if I'm getting this wrong. United is Optum. Optum is United. United owns Optum. And Optum is the pharmacy benefit manager. Yes, Prime Therapeutics is the pharmacy benefit manager, but they're owned by Blue Cross Blue Shield.
- [41:01]
Jillian Michaels
You got it.
- [41:02]
Brigham Buehler
So they bought the middleman and said, f the American public, you work for us now. Cause we own you. You are us now. So the reason drugs in America are 2, 3, 4, 5 times higher than every other place in the world, like Canada, the United Kingdom, other parts of Europe, the reason I hate Ozempic, but the reason they get their Ozempic for $400 a month, and here it's $1,200 a month, is because here in America, the federal government has given pharmacy benefit managers carte blanche to negotiate drug prices from the pharmaceutical companies. They work for the insurance companies. Then the insurance companies says to the pharmaceutical companies, hey, listen, we'd love to buy Ozempic from you if you give us this price we want. So you charge us 200, but give us $100 rebate. If you don't play ball, we'll just tell everybody to buy Tirzepatide. You got it from, you know, Eli Lilly.
- [42:00]
Jillian Michaels
And then you gotta think, because they've outsourced the governmental pay to the insurance companies, they have captured 100%. 92% of the prescription drug care in America is covered by three of the biggest pharmacy benefit managers. Optum is one of those three. So even Medicare and Medicaid. And so if I'm big Pharma, I've got to play ball because I have got to get on Medicare and Medicaid. I want to be on Obamacare. Because the average American is on four or more prescription drugs, right? And as you get older, those drugs all get paid by who? Us, the taxpayer. Because we are the ones funding Medicare and Medicaid.
- [42:44]
Brigham Buehler
Oh my God.
- [42:45]
Jillian Michaels
So not only. And guess how much of their revenue comes from Medicare and Medicaid? Anywhere from 40 to 60%. So almost half of the profits are coming from Medicare, Medicaid, coming from the American taxpayer. Yes. We're not only getting screwed on our own pocketbooks, but then imagine me as an employer, right? I now and take a drug. Let's take a drug like Ozempic. I'm so glad you said Ozempic or Tirzepatide. A thousand dollar a month drug. I have 330something employees last I counted. Let's just say, let's just for simple math, say all 300 of them. That would be $300,000 a month. Now multiply that times 12. Now take that and add a premium to it. Now at the end of 12 months, the insurance company comes back and says, brigham, your company cost us $3.6 million.
- [43:40]
Brigham Buehler
But it didn't cost anywhere near that because they're not really paying that because they negotiated a secret rebate that they're not telling you anything about. So it costs them half, but they drive your price up lying and saying it cost them double without disclosing the rebate.
- [43:56]
Jillian Michaels
Yes, and then they're doing that to the federal government too. And we, the taxpayers are paying for that. That's the crux of the issue, right? So when we're screaming on a rooftop about the cost and then that's just it. That's just how the taxpayers are fitting the bill with the health insurance companies.
- [44:13]
Brigham Buehler
Right?
- [44:14]
Jillian Michaels
But not to get too in the weeds, but take a step back through the drug evolution process. And the NIH is the one that does most of the creating and innovating for big Pharma. And guess who funds the nih? Me. And you. The taxpayer. Most drugs are already developed and at a stage to go into human trials before a pharmaceutical company ever picks it up. All that research like Ozempic, these weight loss drugs, these GLP1s, the NIH was doing studies on these products in the 80s. We were compounding these products before big pharma launched them. We already knew about the NIH studies as compounding pharmacies. We couldn't make claims because it would have been off label. But compounding pharmacies were already making these drugs for a fraction of the cost of what big pharma captured and monetized them for. Which is because the nih, the nih, what they'll do is they basically, I don't, I want to use the word, sell the drug. They sign a patent agreement where they get some minor royalties for all of their taxpayers. So the taxpayer is subsidizing the innovation of big Pharma. Then big pharma has no expenses on the innovation side because we paid for that. Then they get to take it and they use that money to basically buy off the fda, bring it to market, launch it into a marketplace, run it through the human safety studies. When they do human safety studies, if they don't work around it some way through some backdoor arrangement with the FDA, launch it into the marketplace, partner with the PBMs and price gouge us again.
- [45:50]
Brigham Buehler
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- [47:07]
Jillian Michaels
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Brigham Buehler
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- [47:20]
Jillian Michaels
But we created the drug through our taxpayer dollars, through the funding, the NIH and its innovation. Then we allow them to capture the drug profiteer off the drug profiteer off our disease state and run it all the way through the system until you're over the age of 65, when then you become full time our problem, the taxpayer's problem in a society where we're chronically overweight, chronically obese, because they've also captured our food systems. And you just start going, how do we make America healthy again? We start by having the damn conversation. And we got to say, somebody's got to say the emperor wears no clothes. The system's broke, it's captured, it's flawed.
- [47:59]
Brigham Buehler
Okay? I learned something new every time we talk. Okay, so, so hold on a second. Which by the way, I want to throw this out there real quick, is one of the top reasons that these guys demonize compounding pharmacies.
- [48:11]
Jillian Michaels
You got it, right?
- [48:13]
Brigham Buehler
You can get it for a fraction.
- [48:14]
Jillian Michaels
Of the cost, 100%. And they try to say, well, the pharmacies didn't create it and we have a patent on it. But a lot of these drugs, if they're off patent or if they're on a backorder, like Ozempic's been on a backorder nationwide, right? They can't make enough of it because it's a diabetes medicine that disproportionately impacts minority and poverty stricken communities. But the poverty stricken and minority communities can't afford a thousand dollars a month. And a lot of those people don't have insurance. And they can't get to these drugs because everybody's taking it to lose 10 pounds for spring break because it's over prescribed and over utilized, and it's over prescribed and overutilized because clinicians in America have six minutes on average with a patient. And why is that? Because of HMOs. In the 80s when the insurance companies corporately captured medical practices, they only allow, they got to see 40 people a day to make a living. And so now they have to turn and burn patients to survive as a primary care in this country to the point where so many primary cares are going out of business. Guess who's buying up the primary cares? Optum. The pharmacy benefit managers and the insurance companies are acquiring primary care practices. So not only are they now owning the negotiations for the drugs, owning the patient life and your ability to get care, they are now employing your clinician and telling your clinician when, where and how, when to pull blood work, how to pull blood work. No, we don't want you to pull that comprehensive blood panel.
- [49:54]
Brigham Buehler
We don't want an mri.
- [49:56]
Jillian Michaels
Right, they got it. And then when patients go, why don't my Doctor do what ways? Two well does. I don't understand why my doctor pulls my blood work. No, no. I'm sorry to tell you this, but your doctor doesn't. That's why I tell people you've got to view your health insurance like car insurance. It's there if you total the car. It's not there to maintain the car. It's not going to rotate the tires. It's not going to change the oil. They're going to wait for something catastrophic, right? And then they're going to delay, deny, and keep you out of the system as best they can. UnitedHealthcare is currently denying one third of claims is what they say publicly. But when you dig a little deeper, the denials are up. It says by 30%. And in 2022, they denied 37% of claims. We're getting closer to almost half the claims getting denied. And then guess what? When you appeal, guess what percentage of people actually appeal. Jillian? 10%. It's beyond that. I want to go to what he put on those bullets. Deny, delay, depose. Okay, Deny. They're going to deny your coverage over 37% of the time, right? If we're looking at the statistics valid now, you appeal. Now you appeal it. Okay, 10% of people appeal. But let's say you need the surgery. You have to, you're, you got to get this surgery. You appeal it, okay? They delay it. They put hurdles in front of you. They make it hard for you to get to the care that you have worked your ass off and spent your hard earned dollars and paid them in good faith that they will give you this care and coverage. Now when you need it most, they try to delay and deny your ability to get to it. But the fourth D, and I'm not sure why he put this is depose. What do you mean by depose? They are a very litigious organization, all of these health care companies are. And this is where I go to before how they've captured the federal government, the Department of Justice and the FBI. But before I get into that, I have to explain to you what I'm talking about. Okay, you come in and on a surgical procedure, let's say you're out of pocket expense that you negotiated with the insurance because you took one of the lower grade plans because you felt healthy is $10,000 on a spine surgery I the hospital and burdened with chasing you down for that ten grand. I am required by law and by contract to go after you for the 10,000. I am not required by law to Collect it. I am required by law to show a reasonable effort to collect it. What is a reasonable effort that's left up to the eyes of the jury that you get served if you end up suing each other? And so now they set the $10,000 price point to scare the shit out of you, to keep you from ever going and having that surgery, because they cannot monetize that surgery. They're monetizing your opioids. They want you on drugs. There's more money in selling Band Aids than there is in healing wounds. They want to sell you the Band Aids. They don't want to heal the wound, okay? And now you get the surgery because you're in severe pain. Most the time, the hospital doesn't get the full $10,000. They give you a payment plan, and they say, jillian, what can you afford to pay? And you go, I have 500 bucks. They take the 500. They hold the 9,500 as a debt. They have no collateral to go after you. They have no leg to stand on. Now multiply that times thousands of patients. Now, I'm a hospital, and Blue Cross Blue Shield now owes me $9 million. I say, Blue Cross, it's been 60 days. I need the $9 million. I'm. I'm. I'm serving your clients. I need the money. It takes 60 to 90 days on average to get paid. Then they're going to browbeat me and negotiate the price down. They're typically going to pay a fraction of what I build them. Then, by law, in the contract again, I will be required to go after you for the difference. Now, if I finally get fed up and decide to sue Blue Cross Blue Shield, they're going to depose. And when they depose, they're going to uncover that I did not collect, my co pays, which is a violation of my contract, which is fraud. And now you're talking over a million dollars, which is a felony, which is 30 years in prison. And so this is what I mean when I tell you they are judge, jury, and executioner. It is not just with patient lives. They're killing people, but they're killing the physicians, the clinicians, the hospital's ability to access and provide care for their patients. And the way the system is set up. When I owned labs, and this is what I tried explaining, it is so complicated. It's really hard for people to understand. When I own labs, I thought, if the FBI ever knocks on your door, you're a bad guy. You're a bad guy. You did something wrong, and I Had a former Department of Justice prosecutor, the head of health care fraud for the state of Texas. Tell me, Brigham, the government comes knocking for two reasons. A lot of money and bad facts. If you're a successful entrepreneur, you're going to generate a lot of money. If you deal with these insurance companies, they're going to generate bad facts. And if you ever piss them off, they're going to bury you and they're going to sue you and they're going to word it in a way they can't legally bring forth criminal charges. But here's where I talk about the collusion, the cross pollination. The same way the woman who ran the AACA Medicare Medicaid program then went to go work for the insurance companies. There are currently five special investigative FBI fraud unit individuals in Texas that at the end of this year will hang up their spurs working for the federal government. This is facts. And are going to go work for optum and the PBMs. Five of them. And here's why this is a problem. Now you have a former FBI agent who has all these connections at the Department of Justice and the FBI specializing in white collar health care fraud, right? And now UnitedHealthcare puts together a packet and they put it on this guy's desk and they go, we want you to go interview doctors. Look at this. This doctor ran 800 blood tests last year. We don't think he had medical necessity. We don't think he collected co pays. We think he violated his contract. And he probably did because it's a lie agreed upon and it was from the day one. And that is why your doctors are scared to do anything. They are in a system that will chew them up and spit them out. And clinicians have been federally indicted for spine surgeries where they didn't collect co pays and deductibles because they'll say it's fraud. And they'll say that it was a Ponzi scheme to get the surgeries, but they never honored their obligation. And it's that. And then you go, well, yeah, but in a court of law, people will understand that. Jillian, in the state of Texas, the average juror has an 8th grade literacy level, an 8th grade literacy level. You tout out a spine surgeon and you say, this guy made $3 million last year. Here's a picture of him in front of his Lamborghini and you say, we think he committed fraud. He didn't collect all these deductibles. Here's the contract. They're not going to understand it. And they're just going to. A grand jury subpoena does not say, is this guy good or bad? That's what people don't understand. A grand jury subpoena says, do you think there's enough evidence for us to bring forth a case? Okay. And then you go, okay. But they can fight it, right? They'll win in the court of law because they can fight it. And then they'll go in front of a jury of their peers, and they'll have their day to defend themselves. Over 90% of the time in the state of Texas, as soon as they get a grand jury subpoena, they file for an asset seizure. An asset seizure means they seize your bank accounts, your cars, and your ability to defend yourself. All of it's gone overnight. Then they come back and they say, you have no money, you have no car, your name is mud. You've been in the state news, the local news. Do you want to take a settlement? We'll take $5 million. You'll get a slap on the wrist. You'll move on with your life. And when you do that a couple times a year.
- [58:52]
Brigham Buehler
Right.
- [58:52]
Jillian Michaels
You scare the hell out of the entire industry.
- [58:54]
Brigham Buehler
Yeah.
- [58:55]
Jillian Michaels
And you put everyone out of business, and everyone's willing to conform. And this is why I do not touch insurance. This is why when I. I couldn't tell you before how deep and how insidious this runs. And I haven't even gotten into this really in depth on Rogan yet, and I've been on it three times because it's scary, but I don't. I don't bill insurance. I haven't touched insurance in seven years. And I'll never deal with insurance carriers again because everybody is losing in that system, other than the insurance companies. The patients losing, the doctors losing, the hospital's losing, the lab's losing, and all the entrepreneurs are losing. And if you make one mistake, your freedom's at risk. Jesus.
- [59:39]
Brigham Buehler
Okay, hold on. I want to go to case of.
- [59:44]
Jillian Michaels
Saying, I know it's a lot. I know it's a lot.
- [59:47]
Brigham Buehler
Holy shit. All right, so then when people individually go bankrupt because there's a default rate on their ability to pay.
- [59:58]
Jillian Michaels
Correct.
- [59:59]
Brigham Buehler
Of up to 50 to 60%. This is why. Because when they've got these $10,000 co pays that they can't pay, then they have to declare bankruptcy because they have to be pursued for it. Because if they're not pursued for it, then the doctor can get charged with fraud.
- [60:19]
Jillian Michaels
Yep. And I say bad data in, data out. I don't even want to display the DOJ as bad guys, right? With AI, with artificial intelligence, one of the things we talk about is it's only as good as the data you load into it. The Department of Justice is the same. If they're getting skewed facts, skewed data in a biased lens from their buddy who they go grab beers with every week, who now works for Optum, all of this is being controlled, manipulated. They have so many levers they can pull. And this is the most extreme of the dirty of the dirty, but it is there and it is prevalent and it does exist and it does happen. Then where this gets insult to injury for me as a serial entrepreneur is when I owned blood labs, these guys would go meet with the DOJ on their weekly meetings, at their lunch and brunches and go, the reason healthcare is going up is because you got guys like Brigham out here telling doctors they should be doing analytics and blood work on everyone. Look at this. The doctor met Brigham and then he started doing 100 blood draws a month. No, they did 100 blood draws a month because I educated them on the importance of preventative care. If our goal is to prevent chronic disease rather than treat symptomology of chronic disease, we have to uncover the root cause. And to cover the root cause, we have to look under the hood. And to look under the hood, we gotta pull some fucking blood work, okay? And this person paid for that blood work. And you should honor this person's contract. But you're not. You're trying to make it look like me and the clinicians are committing fraud by pulling blood work, which is insanity. And that's why I'm in a cash pay model. And that's why I try to explain to patients they are going to obstruct your care. Like if you were to go in. I had several UFC fighters that accidentally went in and printed presented their insurance card and they gave them my panel and they were quoted $3,800 for my blood panel. My blood panels, we charge $500 cash pay with a 45 minute consult. And that price is inflated because of all of the fuckery you and I just talked about. It's an inflated price because they know they're going to get paid a percentage of the bill charges. They know they're not going to get paid for 60 to 90 days. They know they're going to be required to go after the patient for a chunk of that money that they're never going to get paid. It's a lie agreed upon and the lie agreed upon works until you piss off the insurance company and they decide to sue you. And now they sue you and they word it in a way that makes it look like you committed fraud. And then they hand a big old packet off to the Department of Justice. And then the Department of Justice goes, do we want to get $5 million in recuperations today and look like heroes and put a hide on the wall? Yeah, I think we do.
- [63:06]
Brigham Buehler
And I think I want to go work for the big insurance companies for triple the amount as soon as I'm done here.
- [63:12]
Jillian Michaels
When I ran a blood lab in the insurance market, I literally went out. Clinicians across the state of Texas educated them on the importance of preventative care. Right. If how do we stop the five chronic diseases that are killing so many Americans? The answer is you don't let them develop in the first place. And how do you do that? You do that through getting proactive and predictive and giving patients the knowledge to drive their healthcare journey. Knowledge is power. If I can help educate the person on the difference between you losing a foot of to diabetes and being a healthy, happy marathon runner is literally a tablespoon of sugar in your bloodstream. That's it. That's the difference. A tablespoon of sugar in your bloodstream is the difference between you being on your deathbed of diabetes and you being healthy. And how many tablespoons are in a Coke. Right. These are impactful things that it takes time, nuanced and knowledge to dispose, to bestow upon a patient. And. But you can't do that in America because the insurance companies are only going to pay that doctor for six minutes. So your primary care is trying to get you in and out of there. Go over all your family history, your chronic disease, then they can't pull your blood work because they'll get hammered by the insurance company. So I educate these doctors, I teach them on the importance of pulling blood work. I create a plan with packets and information for their patients where they can help educate their patients on the importance. And all of a sudden, thousands of clinicians in Texas start pulling blood work. The AI algorithms that these insurance companies have instantly, within weeks pick up on the uptick. They send out automated letters to the clinicians and warn them that they think they're in violation of their contract and they don't like them pulling all of this blood work. They don't think they have medical necessity. They think they're running up the cost of health care. So those clinicians all immediately call and go, hey, Brigham, I'm not comfortable pulling blood work anymore. I can't afford to lose Blue Cross, Blue Shield. I'll lose my business. I'll lose my practice. So your doctors bury their head in the sand and they say, I'm sorry, it's not my fault. I'm just part of a broken system. And everyone throughout the process has plausible deniability. But let me give you one more touch point before I digress. Who owns every one of these? Who owns Eli Lilly? Who owns Pfizer? Who owns UnitedHealthcare? Who owns the media outlets that got $8 billion from the pharmaceutical companies last year, but who also owns Monsanto and Bayer? The answer is blackrock, Vanguard, State Street. They're the majority shareholders of every one of those companies I just named. Whichever lever you pull, it goes back to that same, it's Mr. Rogers as we pull off the mask. Like Scooby Doo. They own it all in whichever direction it goes, we are being monetized like cattle.
- [66:25]
Brigham Buehler
You know what's crazy is they own the big food companies, too. I know that, too. They own the big ag companies, they own the big food companies, and now you're telling me they own the big pharma companies and the big insurance companies.
- [66:41]
Jillian Michaels
Got it.
- [66:42]
Brigham Buehler
And it's all the same three companies.
- [66:46]
Jillian Michaels
Yes. And they indirect. And then do you know who the majority shareholder is of blackrock, Vanguard and State Street? And do you know who the majority shareholder is of Vanguard and State street? Blackrock. So you're saying so in a way, yes.
- [67:03]
Brigham Buehler
So it's like when they.
- [67:04]
Jillian Michaels
It sounds corny, but I literally think of. I think of Ace Ventura when he's like, Binkle is Spinkle. Like, they're one in the same throughout this ecosystem. And it sounds. It's a lot for people to digest. And I really. This is the first time I've gone this. This deep because I'm not trying to, like, scare the hell out of people, but I'm also trying to bring some awareness to the challenge that we face. Because Bobby Kennedy's got a battle ahead of him.
- [67:33]
Brigham Buehler
I know he does.
- [67:34]
Jillian Michaels
You know, I mean, Trump's got a battle ahead of him. They can. I know they're saying they're going to dismantle the PBMs. I know they're saying. But this is why I said on Tucker Carlson yesterday, he said, what is the solution? And I'm like, you dismantle the PBMs, you force the pharmaceutical companies to manufacture only in the United States their day of outsourcing all their manufacturing to third world countries where The FDA hasn't visited them in five or more fucking years where we have no idea about the quality control and regulatories and what's going on in those buildings. 2000 manufacturing facilities of Big Pharma have not been investigated in five or more years. The FDA has been in my building three times in 18 months because I'm right here in their own backyard. And our big Pharma, you know, counterparts are just getting off scot free right now.
- [68:21]
Brigham Buehler
You're working on the back end to solve this problem. As I mentioned in the beginning of the show with Bobby Kennedy, should he get confirmed to shut all of this stuff down to the, to the best of everybody's ability. Obviously it's not going to be easy, but any step in the right direction is a step in the right direction and that's great. And I know personally what it looks like on the back end to try to deal with things like removing toxic chemicals from ultra processed food. So it's one less thing the American public needs to worry about. Right. But presuming those life rafts don't arrive, are sunk before they can arrive, what do we do as the individual? What does the individual do with their own care?
- [69:10]
Jillian Michaels
Yeah, that's a good question. You know, I think I, I say this all the time. We, you have to view your health care and we said it earlier like you gotta view the insurance. Like car insurance is there if you wreck the car, it's not there to maintain the car. And we went into that a little bit. But what do I mean by that? These insurance companies are here to monetize and manage your chronic disease. They are making margins off of your illness. They don't want to heal the wound, they want to sell you the band aid. And I'm here to prevent the wound. You don't need to heal the wound. If we can prevent the wound. But the system's not built to prevent the wound. The system is built to perpetuate the wound and sell you the band aid. And that's not what we want to do. So at ways to. Well, I believe in getting proactive and predictive. You know the difference between living to be a healthy, happy centenarian and dying at the average human life expectancy, I think it's 73 now in America is the onset of chronic disease. And we can delay the onset of chronic disease how? By getting proactive and predictive. How do we treat and prevent like or what do we do about the five chronic diseases that are killing people in America? We don't let them manifest in the first place. And you do that by looking under the hood, by getting proactive and predictive. And so what we're doing at Ways2L is we'll do a deep dive in your blood work. We'll look at over 70 biomarkers. The traditional medical system won't allow that because the insurance companies dictate what your doctor's allowed to look at. We spend on average 45 minutes with a patient. The traditional system spends six. From there we deep dive and educate the patient on the importance of diet, lifestyle, nutrition, and how we can prevent all of these onsets of these various chronic disease. And even forecast for you using AI and large language models if you're headed towards one of these chronic diseases and then give you the blueprint and the tools to be successful, to navigate and avoid that. I don't want you on four or more prescription drugs. That is not health care, that is sick care. And if you eat the average American diet, you go to the average American doctor. Don't be surprised when you die of the average American chronic disease.
- [71:25]
Brigham Buehler
Okay, ready? I can't afford you and you're not in my state. Go.
- [71:30]
Jillian Michaels
That's a good question. So what I'm attempting to do is go nationwide. I think we are currently in 40 something states. My pharmacy is in 47 states mailing prescription medications to your doorstep for pennies on the dollar, oftentimes cheaper than your co payer deductible in the broken insurance model. We send mobile phlebotomists to your home so we can come to your home or office, pull your blood work from there. We will get your blood work back. We'll send it to a blood lab that I own in an effort to drive down the cost of these blood work and blood analysis and we'll load it into our AI algorithm. We're different from a traditional medical practice in America. We don't care. Compare you to the sick sample size of the average American because we've already covered that the average American is chronically ill. 40% of us are overweight. 40% of us are obese. A larger percentage are overweight. Most of us are four or more prescription drugs. That is not a healthy patient population. So we compare you to what you would have been as a healthy 20 year old and we strive to get you back to that on all of your biomarkers. And we do that using AI algorithms and analytic tools and all of the modern cutting edge technology that's in our tool belt.
- [72:46]
Brigham Buehler
Okay, I can't afford it.
- [72:47]
Jillian Michaels
How much is it so our average. Sorry, my. Hey, Ralph.
- [72:54]
Brigham Buehler
Sorry.
- [72:55]
Jillian Michaels
He's about to bark at this smoke detector. Come here, bud. Okay, so you want to. Sorry, can we just. Okay. No, no.
- [73:02]
Brigham Buehler
Yes, I totally can go.
- [73:03]
Jillian Michaels
Yeah. So often people are shocked at the price point because $500 a month, which I'm not trivialite. $500 for a full panel and an hour consult with a clinician. Right. And that's your full comprehensive blood panel. Our consult with your clinician. I tell people it's not about being perfect, it's about being better. In a dream world, if you could afford quarterly blood work, most doctors would tell you try to get quarterly blood work because that's a snapshot of you in time and that allows us to better assess your trajectory and whether we're making improvements or digressing. And that's obviously going to be an easier way to guide you along your healthcare journey. However, I understand that budget is a constraint for people and that's why we offer finance plans. We allow individuals to, if they wanted to finance this over a year, period. But I recommend at least once a year taking a look under the hood, go to a cash pay clinic. If it's not ways to, well, find one in your area. Like, I don't have to have a monopoly on this space. I want people to have a monopoly on their health, whether that's through me or somebody else. I just implore you, please do not put yours and your loved ones health in the hands of these insurance companies. They are not good people. They are going to monopolize your health and profiteer off your disease. I'm telling you, you will be shocked what kind of feedback you get. If you spend the time and a little bit of capital to go out and talk to a cash pay clinic, they'll blow your mind.
- [74:40]
Brigham Buehler
So, Brig, hypothetically, I go twice a year. So if I go in January and I go in June, right. It's 500 bucks for my blood work and an hour long consult. And then you guys can prescribe something if I need something, correct?
- [74:58]
Jillian Michaels
Absolutely.
- [74:58]
Brigham Buehler
Okay. And I want to just use this example. So I'm playing stupid, but I now am a patient of yours, as is my wife, and I have a friend whose name I won't use. So I just want to give you the audience an example who has had stomach issues for a really long time. And they found like a thyroid antibody in her blood work. Not with you. And they took out her gallbladder and they're throwing all these different stomach medications at her, like proton pump inhibitors. And all kinds of stuff. She goes, I refer to your clinic. They did a GI map. And to make a long story short, I don't fully understand this and I'm not saying her name, but nevertheless, your team found out that she had something with her gut lining, put her on a peptide called PBC157 that was shipped right to her door. And within three months, digestive problems, gone, skin problems, gone. Thyroid antibody, gone. Because they did the necessary tests and didn't just throw the drugs that they were getting paid to throw at her.
- [76:05]
Jillian Michaels
You got it.
- [76:06]
Brigham Buehler
So I'm just saying, like, so I play stupid for you guys because you guys are learning this stuff and I'm friendly with Brigham. I have, I can pick up the phone, but so can you. So that said, Brig, is there anything I should have asked you that I didn't? And of course I'll put everything in the show. Notes of where people can find you.
- [76:27]
Jillian Michaels
No, I think we covered a lot. The main thing I just want to, I want to try to hammer home for the listeners are, look, 400 trillion to one. I said it in front of the Senate. We won the statistical lottery. We're here today. We're alive. 400 trillion to 1 are the chances you're alive. It's a blessing. It can be a joy. Don't let these people chew you up and spit you out. Take sovereignty and autonomy over your health, drive your health. It doesn't cost a lot of money to do it. There are hundreds of clinics out there. I would love to help you, but if not me, find somebody. And just like you would a contractor or a mechanic or a plumber. If you need to interview multiple clinics, find who makes you feel comfortable. Find who you think cares and is going to take the time to help you and your family. But there is hope. And it doesn't have to come in the form of big government and it doesn't have to come in the form of an insurance company. The hope starts with yourself and it starts with you changing your life for the better. It's about making better choices, not being perfect.
- [77:34]
Brigham Buehler
Thank you, sweetie. I'll talk to you soon.
- [77:36]
Jillian Michaels
All right, thank you.
- [77:37]
Brigham Buehler
Keeping it Real with Jillian Michaels.