3534 - The Obamacare Boiler Room; Zohran's Deputy Mayor w/ Maureen Tkacik, Dean Fuleihan

Summary

The Majority Report with Sam Seder

Episode 3534—November 28, 2025
Main Guests:

• Maureen Tkacik (Investigations Editor at The Prospect)
• Dean Fuleihan (NYC Deputy Mayor-Elect), Interviewed by Gino Rady

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into two major interviews. First, host Sam Seder and reporter Maureen Tkacik discuss the alarming rise of scams and abusers operating within the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") marketplaces, particularly in non-Medicaid expansion states like Texas and Florida, as extended subsidies are set to expire and health care costs skyrocket for millions. Second, Gino Rady sits down with incoming NYC deputy mayor Dean Fuleihan to talk about the historic win of Zohran Kwame Mamdani and the transition agenda for New York City, with special emphasis on immigrant representation and movement-driven governance.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. Obamacare's Boiler Room Scams and the ACA's Future

[Segment Start: 09:38]

ACA Subsidies in Jeopardy

• We are weeks away from Congress's last chance to extend COVID-era enhanced ACA subsidies.
• Without extension, premiums on ACA exchanges may rise up to 115%—and in some cases, up to 300% for higher-income brackets in certain states (Maureen Tkacik, 11:53).

ACA Structure Refresher

• The ACA built "a supposed marketplace," but Tkacik argues, "In neoliberalism, we always have to create the illusion of markets, even where nothing resembling a market really exists." (Maureen Tkacik, 10:48)
  • Three pillars: patient protections, Medicaid expansion (optional at state level), and exchanges for those not qualifying for employer or public insurance.
• Subsidies originally capped at 400% of poverty line ($62k for singles, $128k for family of four as of now); COVID-era rules removed this cap and limited maximum premium to 8.5% of income.

Catastrophic Premium Increases Looming

• Example: A family of four in certain high-cost states could face $4,000 monthly premiums if their income exceeds $128,000—"that’s half of the income that your family is generating." (Sam Seder, 16:09)
• The subsidy cliff is "not like progressive taxation... If you make $129,000 in 19 states, your premiums are going to triple" (Maureen Tkacik, 13:40).

The Scam Economy in ACA Enrollment

• Non-Medicaid-expansion states (especially Florida and Texas) aggressively purged rolls after the pandemic’s public emergency lapsed.
• Predatory brokers/brokers’ street teams—like those from the Fiorella Insurance Agency, acquired by a major private equity firm—exploited the newly uninsured.
  • "They were going to bus stops, homeless shelters, and motels and basically bribing people with booze and gift cards to sign up for their Obamacare plans." (Maureen Tkacik, 22:38)
  • Sometimes coaching applicants to falsify proof of income to get ACA plans (which paid brokers $30/mo per enrollee).
  • "Some of these people had commercial insurance policies and were finding out that they were enrolled in the ACA... CMS actually had last year, 200,000 complaints about this very type of fraud." (Maureen Tkacik, 25:22)

Shifting Demographics and Perverse Incentives

• ACA signups have more than doubled since 2020, clustering heavily in TX, FL, and GA—states that didn't expand Medicaid.
• Median premiums, especially among lower-income and newly enrolled minorities (especially Latinos), have plummeted (from ~$65 to ~$20 in some brackets).
  • Zero-premium plans are easy bait for scams, and recipients often don't know they’ve been enrolled until coverage is needed.

The Private Insurance/Mega-Corp Angle

• Companies like Centene (a Medicaid/ACA giant) are profiting handsomely as enrollment swells—"Their stock is up today on the idea that Trump might extend these subsidies. They're up 6%." (Maureen Tkacik, 27:42)
• Government now pays significantly more, via subsidies for private insurance, than Canada does for its public system:
  • "In 2025, American taxpayers paid $11,352 per person per year to subsidize the private insurance policies of Vermont ACA enrollees, who themselves pay an additional $11,000... In Canada, citizens pay $9,100 per person per year to fund their whole entire national health system." (Sam Seder quoting Mo Tkacik's piece, 35:15)

Systemic Problems and Policy Paralysis

• Maureen: “The system is asinine. We knew it when it passed... It was completely predictable... there are so many different ways that the big companies have milked Obamacare's loopholes and its fine print to just make extraordinary sums, but your average physician hates it, is making less money, is seeing more patients.” (36:53)
• Sam: “[Pelosi] would not allow an expansion of Medicare... and instead, they subsidized COBRA for people who had lost their jobs, which is literally the most expensive version of health insurance until now... So if I’m receiving it, it’s great, it’s free. But in terms of the efficiency of government, it was the least possible efficient way to do this.” (39:53)
• Both agree the only solution is direct public coverage: "Expand Medicare, expand Medicaid... outlaw Medicare Advantage." (Sam and Maureen, 41:51-42:19)

Notable Quotes

• "When you allow an insurance company to pay commissions to brokers... you allow the insurance companies to provide all these incentives—gift cards, free groceries, booze, and probably drugs—that's... going to create perverse incentives." — Maureen Tkacik [33:00]
• "All of this sort of like rent seeking and that runs from rent seeking to fraud with this industry... we are now looking as this system is getting super, super creaky." — Sam Seder [35:15]

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2. Interview: Dean Fuleihan, NYC Deputy Mayor-Elect (with Gino Rady)

[Segment Start: 43:17]

Representation & Immigrant Experience

• Gino Rady asks about inspiring young Arabs/Lebanese to serve. Fuleihan emphasizes the Mandani campaign's message of inclusion—"representing all the communities in New York City, the communities that have not... felt left out. It speaks to... the Lebanese community, the Arab community, the Muslim community, but it also speaks to all New Yorkers." (Dean Fuleihan, 44:25)
• Fuleihan shares personal experience: "It's not a natural thing for... It's not always a natural [fit for immigrants to serve], but it's important." (46:55)

Transition Period—Building a Movement Government

• Outlines the vast scale: 370,000 city employees.
• The "transition" period runs from election day to January 1. During this time, "We need that same excitement, that same energy" as the campaign. (48:44)
• 50,000 resumes received for city posts (50:00).

On Food and Culture

• Conversation blends in cultural references—the importance of Lebanese food, family, and identity. (50:21-51:15)

NYC Budget Priorities

• The city budget is $118 billion. Fuleihan: "The budget is the document that says, here are the priorities... It says, these are the principles we stand for. It is the policy document of this administration." (51:38)
• Affordability, housing, and public services will be reflected in the first budget rollout.

Delivering Real Change & "Is It Possible?"

• "Everywhere you go, someone is going to tell you it can't be done... That can't be the understanding. The understanding is that he [Zohran Mamdani] ran on an agenda that said: you're going to see change and you're going to see it immediately." (Dean Fuleihan, 54:06)
• Offers past NYC example: universal Pre-K for 4-year-olds, achieved in two years despite skepticism. (55:41)

The First Deputy Mayor’s Role

• Operational chief—ensuring day-to-day NYC functions, structuring city hall to deliver policy, responding to crises, and collaborating across government levels.
• Willingness to adapt: "It's a good foundation, but... this is a different mayor for a different time; with different challenges and different opportunities." (Dean Fuleihan, 58:24)

Gauging Success: Affordability & Hope

• Gino asks: “A year from now, what’s the one thing New Yorkers should feel different about?”
  • Fuleihan: “You see in a practical way a change in affordability... you feel that sense of hope... and you actually, it's a requirement that you feel that.” (63:33)
  • Practical markers: childcare, transit, rent relief.

Addressing the Naysayers

• For skeptics at a Thanksgiving table: “Judge us, of course, but we're going to show you that we can improve the lives of New Yorkers. And what part of that agenda seems inappropriate? Child care? Universal child care? … The argument keeps coming back, 'Oh, you can't afford it.' ... Show me the data.” (65:40-66:41)
• He emphasizes the campaign's approach: breaking down complicated policies for people leads to broad support once truly explained.

Notable Quotes & Moments

• "We want people to stay involved. We've received 50,000 resumes." — Dean Fuleihan [50:00]
• "What part of that agenda is wrong? ... It's hard to imagine... what is the argument? The argument keeps coming back, 'Oh, you can't afford it.' ... Show me the numbers." — Dean Fuleihan [66:41]
• Cultural interlude: Kibbeh recipes and tabbouleh—“I made sure before leaving Lebanon that I made my great aunt teach me our, like, recipes.” — Dean Fuleihan [50:45]
• "It's about the hope—you're going to see it immediately and you're going to see it in that budget." — Dean Fuleihan [54:06]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• [09:38] Start of ACA discussion with Maureen Tkacik
• [13:40] Subsidy cliff explanation: 300% premium spike
• [22:38] Details of ACA enrollment scams ("boiler room" tactics)
• [27:42] Centene profits and enrollment boom in non-expansion states
• [35:15] Comparing US vs Canadian government health care spending
• [41:51] Policy solutions & need to expand public insurance
• [43:17] Start of Dean Fuleihan/Gino Rady interview
• [48:44] NYC transition period & movement energy
• [51:38] What NYC's budget says about city priorities
• [54:06] Commitment to rapid, tangible change
• [63:33] One-year-on: Affordability as a test of success
• [65:40] Talking to naysayers about "impossible" promises

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Memorable Moments

• Maureen’s takedown of ACA’s reliance on “illusion of markets” (10:48)
• Sam’s analogy of the US subsidizing COBRA as “the least possible efficient way to do this” (39:53)
• Dean’s cultural warmth—food, family, and immigrant solidarity (throughout the Rady interview)
• The ambitious tone: “The understanding is that you’re going to see change and you’re going to see it immediately and you’re going to see it in that budget." (Dean Fuleihan, 54:06)

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Takeaways

• The ACA faces a looming crisis, with enhanced subsidies expiring and a flourishing economy of fraud stemming from systemic incentives.
• Massive government spending subsidizes private profits, to the public’s detriment; genuine reform means direct public provision.
• In NYC, the incoming administration promises urgency, inclusion, and big-tent affordability reforms with a grassroots energy—while acknowledging skepticism and complexity, the leadership team is determined to deliver tangible progress.

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For more details on these discussions, check out the linked piece by Maureen Tkacik at The American Prospect and Gino Rady’s blog on Substack.

Transcript

[Sam Cedar]

The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. Where every day is casual Friday. That means Monday is casual Monday, Tuesday, casual Tuesday, Wednesday casual Hump day. Thursday casual Thirs. That's what we call it. And Friday, casual Shabbat. The Majority Report with Sam Cedar.

[Background Singer]

Foreign.

[Sam Cedar]

It is Friday, November 28, 2025. My name is Sam Cedar. This is the five time award winning Majority Report. We are broadcasting live to tape steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, usa. On the program today, Maureen Tatchik, investigations editor at the Prospect and a senior fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project on the scams that are being run on people through the Affordable Care Act. Then Gino Rady, publisher of Gino's blog on Substack and also the Instagram guru for the Majority Report, interviewing New York City's Deputy mayor Dean Fulihan. Not the, I mean the incoming New York City's deputy may elect Deputy Mayor elect Dean of Fulahan. So two new interviews for you. Also here's the. I'm not gonna lie, Emma Viglin here. It's casual Friday. It's so casual, we're not even here.

[Maureen Tasek]

Yeah. And you know what?

[Emma Viglin]

It also is.

[Sam Cedar]

But let's bring her on.

[Emma Viglin]

I'm on.

[Sam Cedar]

You there? I don't see.

[Emma Viglin]

I'm here. It's okay.

[Maureen Tasek]

I'm here.

[Emma Viglin]

I'm here. It's also.

[Sam Cedar]

Oh, there we go.

[Maureen Tasek]

Yeah.

[Emma Viglin]

It's also your birthday.

[Sam Cedar]

It is also my birthday. So I'm not here.

[Gino Rady]

I'm off.

[Sam Cedar]

We had Thanksgiving yesterday, as you know, or yesterday was Thanksgiving. And it's so weird when we usually do the show live, the vast majority of people watch it or listen to it recorded, so we didn't really have to say any of this.

[Emma Viglin]

But we have to be honest. We have to be honest with our audience. They might be able to tell.

[Sam Cedar]

How was your Thanksgiving?

[Emma Viglin]

It was great.

[Gino Rady]

Really?

[Emma Viglin]

Yeah. Yeah. No family drama?

[Sam Cedar]

Really?

[Emma Viglin]

Yeah. Seriously?

[Maureen Tasek]

None.

[Sam Cedar]

Who did you have your Thanksgiving with?

[Emma Viglin]

Well, my husband's side of the family.

[Sam Cedar]

Okay. That's why there was no drama.

[Emma Viglin]

That's exactly why.

[Sam Cedar]

Yes. You avoided your own family.

[Maureen Tasek]

Yep.

[Emma Viglin]

Yep.

[Sam Cedar]

And was your, were your parents upset that you didn't come to their Thanksgiving or did they understand? Like it's, this is, you know, not.

[Emma Viglin]

To get too into it, but they're divorced, so I already have to deal with that. And two front battle. And now my in laws are very easy and it's just the alternating thing, so.

[Sam Cedar]

So things were pretty casual.

[Background Singer]

They.

[Emma Viglin]

I mean, I'm hoping I'm manifesting this situation. Yes.

[Sam Cedar]

Right. Because we're actually recording this a couple of days before. Thanks.

[Emma Viglin]

Yeah, you made that clear.

[Maureen Tasek]

Right.

[Emma Viglin]

But if anyone else wants to hear about my family history and you know, any.

[Gino Rady]

Anything else, I would hate to see you interrogated.

[Maureen Tasek]

I would fold.

[Sam Cedar]

I fold so quickly. And Brian has been on several occasions, without a doubt.

[Emma Viglin]

I mean I am not into poker and that's probably a good.

[Sam Cedar]

I could tell you mine was an absolute shit show.

[Maureen Tasek]

Oh what?

[Sam Cedar]

My Thanksgiving yesterday, which is actually in the future. There's always drama.

[Emma Viglin]

But your birthday is going to be even better because what are you going to do? Go get trampled at Target or something getting a tv?

[Sam Cedar]

No, I don't, I don't exactly.

I'm going to.

I'm going to finally get a microwave and I'm going to get into a fight over a microwave. It really works well on Black Friday because I say it's my birthday.

[Emma Viglin]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

And then everybody stands down.

[Emma Viglin]

Everyone's very nice after that.

[Sam Cedar]

Does anybody go shopping on Black Friday anymore? Is it all just people just like order to get the sale? I wait for Cyber Monday.

[Emma Viglin]

Oh yeah, yeah, that's. That's the way to go.

[Sam Cedar]

Any of that stuff probably. Today my kids pretended that it's my birthday and therefore we're going to do whatever dad wants and that lasts for about 15 minutes. That's probably what. Oh yeah. So it's nice.

[Gino Rady]

Wrap up an apple for you.

[Sam Cedar]

Exactly. The first 15 minutes are great and then it just all falls apart the. You know. So we'll see. But I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving and enjoy these interviews. We, we will be talking to Maureen Tatchic and Gino Rady will be interviewing the new deputy mayor, Dean Fulahan in a moment. Just a word from one of our sponsors today. Our favorite sponsor, Sunset Lake. Sabade.com Friends at Sunset Lake know that it's easy or I should say it's not always easy to feel thankful these days because well, frankly the country's in, I don't want to say a death.

[Emma Viglin]

Spiral but yeah, there's some rough stuff going on.

[Sam Cedar]

It's been better. So they wanted to extend their thanks to this show, our amazing listeners and obviously always to Brian for maintaining their entire lifted tea industry welcome. They they've been able to like they ramped up production. They were buy another factory to make the lifted tea.

[Gino Rady]

Buy another factory.

[Sam Cedar]

Another factory. Just for the amount of lifted tea that Brian drinks.

[Gino Rady]

State of her mind.

[Sam Cedar]

Exactly 45,000 people are being employed to provide Brian lifted tea. Actually, the lifted tea is amazing. Yeah. I will tell you this now. I'm actually recording this before Thanksgiving. But my plan is have two of those and come be completely out of it throughout all of Thanksgiving.

[Emma Viglin]

That sounds amazing.

[Sam Cedar]

Yes. Holidays are coming up. It's that time of year. Less daylight, colder temperatures, little extra stress as we wind down 2025, you deserve an opportunity to rest and recharge. And thankfully our friends at Sunset Lake have kicked off their Black Friday sale. Right now you can save 30% 3 0% site wide when you head to SunsetLake. Sabade.com use the code Friday to 5. That's the word Friday. The numbers 2, 5, no spaces. They got everything you need to chill out. They got smokables, they got keefe and pre rolls. They've got tinctures, tinctures for your pets. They've got tinctures to help you sleep. Same with gummies. Gummies to help you sleep or just chill out or gummies with a little to headset and make you have a little more fun. They've got Sabade coffee and Saba Day fudge. They've got lotions. All of their stuff is grown without pesticides, all using regenerative farming practices. These guys are a great movement partner. They've donated tens of thousands of dollars to strike relief, funds to carceral reform, to refugee resettlement, to food pantry. They just donated $5,000 to the Vermont food pantry. Just on and on and on. They have been great partners over the the past, I don't know, four or five years of this program, maybe more actually at this point. But they're giving you 30% off with the code Friday to 5 as in Friday Black Friday 2025. And if you spend over 125 bucks, Sunset Lake will throw in a free citrus flavored 750mg. See Bad Day, a tincture. Head over to sunsetlake sabiday.com use the code Friday to 5. Save on 30% on their wellness products for people and pets. The sale ends December 1st. I think that's Monday at 11:59pm so see their full site their site for full terms and conditions. Check it out. Also, as always, your support makes this show possible. If you want to help us survive and thrive and get the show commercial free, go to jointhemajoreport.com all right, we come back, Maureen Tasek, investigative editor at the Prospect and senior fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project, writing about the scam that is piggybacking the aca, particularly in states like Texas and Florida that have booted a bunch of people off of Medicaid. And then Gino Rady will be interviewing the New York City's deputy mayor, Dean Fulahan. And you can check out Gino's blog on substack. All right. Enjoy the show and we'll see you on Monday. We are back. Sam Cedar on the Majority Report. It is a pleasure me to welcome back to the program writer at the American Prospect and reporter Maureen Tasek is with us. And Maureen has written a piece. This is important because right now we.

[Gino Rady]

Are.

[Sam Cedar]

Weeks away from the last opportunity the Congress will have to extend the Obamacare subsidies that were additional subsidies that were put in place during COVID And right now people on the Affordable Care act exchanges are looking at potential increases of up to 115% in their premiums, which is both a function of the loss of subsidies and the subsequent or contingent increase in prices by the insurance companies because they are anticipating losing subscribers to their insurance and their shrink pools shrinking. Maureen, let's talk about, I mean, you're writing this piece to show like sort of the abuse of these systems, but let's talk a little bit first with sort of like the broad strokes here that we have remind us about like the development of the Affordable Care act and how it works.

[Maureen Tasek]

So, you know, put simply, the Affordable Care act created this supposed marketplace. You know, in neoliberalism we always have to create the illusion of markets, even where nothing resembling a market really exists. And so they created this pseudo marketplace. I really don't know. You know, they, they created, I think, 10 categories of health care that you needed to treat if you wanted to be, you know, an aca, an Affordable Care act certified marketplace insurer. And these were primarily designed for people who are between employment, self employed, Uber drivers, small businesses, anybody who couldn't get an insurance policy before. And they weren't on the marketplace, sadly.

[Sam Cedar]

Not through their employer.

[Maureen Tasek]

Right. Who, who couldn't get insurance through normal means through their employer or, or through, you know, Medicaid or what have you. And it subsidized those plans pretty liberally up to 400% of the poverty line and beyond 400% of the federal poverty line, which when the ACA passed was around 40,000, $42,000 a year for a single person. Now it's around $62,000 a year for a single person. You got nothing. And that was, you know, but, but you did get a chance to buy insurance if the, if you had a pre existing condition, which was something that had been Extremely difficult for, you know, there had been years of stories basically about self employed or small businesses, small, small business owners who would have a child who had a rare disease and had to go work as a cable guy, you know, just to get insurance for their kid. I, you know, I've read tons of stories about the, this was a huge problem right now. The problem. And I want to say I will correct something. A lot of people are going to be seeing 300% increases in their premiums. And this is if you are in that 401/ percent of the federal poverty line income bracket and that is for a family of four, it's $128,000. If you make $129,000 or 132,000 DOL in 19 states, your premiums are going to triple. And that's insane.

[Sam Cedar]

Now how is that going about. And I just want to like, just remind people that there were really three major components, broadly speaking to the Affordable Care Act. The actual name of the bill, people referred to it now as Obamacare was the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. So there was a whole host of stuff that were patient protections, like you say, no rescission, no lifetime caps, no annual caps, you can stay on your policy to your 2060 was actually a list of things that actually qualified it to be considered real insurance as opposed to like sort of scammy insurance that really didn't necessarily support you. The other part was the expansion of Medicaid which the Supreme Court said was optional for states. And I think we were close to, I don't know, 80, 90% of the states have expanded Medicaid since then. Many of those Republican holdouts succumbed to the pressure. And then what we're talking about is the exchanges which dealt with, I think at the time, close to 40 million people who were not eligible either for Medicare or Medicaid or we're not getting it from their union like you say, or their workplace. And so this is what we're talking about specifically the, that tranche of people. And so why is it that if you're at 4,101% of poverty, you could be looking at 300% increases in insurance? I did, obviously I didn't know that.

[Maureen Tasek]

So that is because that is how expensive these ACA plans have gotten. And I don't know, I have to, you know, I've been meaning to do some historical research on just what the average plan was at the beginning because I've been told that there are certain very high cost states. West Virginia is one very unhealthy Vermont is one, possibly because they're across, you know, the border from Canada. People are doing their own sort of arbitrage. Alaska, everything is expensive in Alaska. So that's another one. And I think Arkansas is one of them. But there are a few of these states where it's just ludicrous. It's like close to $4,000 unsubsidized for a month for a family of four. So we're talking about just an enormous chunk of change. I mean, this is, this is, that's.

[Sam Cedar]

Like $129,000 you're talking about for a family four. Yeah, $4,000 of post tax dollars. That's, that's, you know, you need to make, I don't know what the tax rates are in those specific states, but you're talking about making like, you know, 60,000 plus maybe to just pay, that's half your salary, that's half of the income that your family is generating.

[Maureen Tasek]

And yes, and unlike the way that, you know, we, we do progressive taxation in terms of taking, you know, the, the, the, the bracket only grows for the incremental, you know, amount of income that you take in over the cap. It's not like that at all. So there's, I'm sure there are probably a lot of people saying, okay, you know, number one, and this has been sort of a problem that's plagued the, the institution from the beginning. You know, you have people with good accountants who say, well, you know, I $4 in income last year because that's how, you know, rich people do it. And, and you know, there were, there have been stories that have been circulated by right wing think tanks for over a decade now of, of, you know, the millionaire real estate investor who got on Medicaid, you know, or got on a, an ACA plan with no premium because of this system. But, but basically if you're a normal person, if you're an Uber driver or whatever, you're going to, you know, you're going to be doing whatever you can, you know, maybe quit your job to see, to try and bring back your income back down. So in 2021, after, you know, the pandemic and the CARES act made a lot of changes in just the way that health care, the way that Covid was going to be covered. And at that point, the insurance companies were very flush because people were not doing any elective surgeries. They weren't really going to the doctor, they weren't getting in car accidents. They were pretty boring lives except for the COVID part. And Those that was covered by the government pretty, pretty strictly. They added new subsidies to, to Obamacare and they eliminated that threshold and that 400%. And they just said, listen, regardless of your income, we are going to cap the amount that you have to pay out of pocket for your premiums at 8.5% of your income. And that is why so many people at that $128,000 income range are going to see their, their costs, you know, go up 300, 400% because that is they, their, their costs were capped at 8.5% before. So it's, it's, it's a really wild way. I don't know, you know, who thought of this whole means testing program before, but there were also subsidies that were added to. Those are the people who are really, really freaking out right now. Self employed, small business on the Obamacare plan and you know, making $150,000. Those are, those are the folks who are really going to see the, the worst of, of this, this subsidy class.

[Sam Cedar]

We should say $150,000. The family is making that.

[Maureen Tasek]

Yes, the family. If you are a single person on Obamacare, this is $63,000 we're talking about is your, is your cap. So you know, it is, it is not a lot of money, especially in a lot of these states where the costs are very high. And at the same time though, this, the American Rescue act is the legislation that extended that, you know, boosted the subsidies and it ended up boosting the subsidies dramatically, but it added boost into those subsidies at all levels. So if you were up to 200% of the poverty level, you were eligible for a zero premium plan, a silver plan. And sorry, my husband keeps calling me, I need to just turn this off because long story, but the, so they added a whole lot of premiums at every income level and where the insurance companies really got excited was at that lower end income level because it's not too hard to sell somebody on a, an insurance policy that is completely free.

[Sam Cedar]

Right?

[Maureen Tasek]

And so what they were doing is in a lot of these states is going to very low income people. And in a lot of these cases in Florida and Texas, which are non Medicaid expansion states, they had all been barred by the CARES Act, I believe, from kicking, kicking enrollees off Medicaid during the public health emergency. So that was until 2023. They were really itching to kick some people off Medicaid and Florida ended up in, you know, 2023 and 2024, kicking close to 2 million people off their Medicaid roles. These are already, you know, very, very limited roles. And so they would, you know, find these people who were on Medicaid or were, you know, Medicaid.

[Sam Cedar]

These are insurance company brokers essentially.

[Maureen Tasek]

Right? Brokers and, or street teams hired by these brokers. And the brokers are really not.

[Sam Cedar]

They find this, they have this new sort of like reservoir of potential customers, as it were. All these people kicked off of Medicaid who are desperate for in, you know, health insurance but have really no means in which to pay it. So if you're selling them something, you're selling them something which is going to be fully subsidized. It's basically like an opportunity for a sort of win win for everybody. Maybe not so much the taxpayer, but.

[Maureen Tasek]

Right.

[Sam Cedar]

That's part of it. And, and so then what happens?

[Maureen Tasek]

So, yeah, and, and not, you know, again, a lot of these people didn't have any idea what they, what the, they were offered. In this case, there was this, this little boiler room called Fiorella Insurance Agency owned by, it was purchased during the course of this fraud by the private equity firm gtcr, which is a big Chicago private equity fund that, whose principal is the former Illinois Governor Rauner. That's the R&GTCR. But they're huge in healthcare. So this agency was going to bus stops and homeless shelters and motels and basically bribing people with booze and gift cards to sign up for their Obamacare plans. And the, you know, to do this they would have to actually, because before 2023 they would have to go through a long series because Medicaid wasn't actually supposed to be kicking people off the rolls. So you had to work pretty hard, the administrator, to agree to kick you off the rolls. You had to sort of, you know, supply falsified income statements or say that, you know, you had made a turn for the better. And these are people who are living in homeless shelters or people who are living in motels, say no, you are about to come into a lot of money and you simply didn't qualify anymore. But they were doing that because they were getting the, you know, if you sell these policies, you get a commission of up to $30 per month for the year per enrollee. So if you sell, you know, a household of four, that's a chunk of change. I think it's like.

[Sam Cedar]

So a, an outfit like Fiorella would actually do all the paperwork to say this person's no longer eligible for Medicaid. They get bumped off. Then they sell this product on the, the exchanges to the customer, they get the fee. Does the customer even know that they have health insurance at that point? Do they use the health insurance?

[Maureen Tasek]

Or.

[Sam Cedar]

I mean, because it seems to me like if it's just a matter of, like, okay, this person was booted off of Medicaid, which happened in Florida and Texas, like you say, and the person needs health insurance. I'm just functioning as like a community advisor. Like, that's what. When ACA launched, they were like these sort of entities that were NGOs that were paid to help connect people with the Affordable Care Act. But that's not all of it, right? I mean, they get them on the.

[Maureen Tasek]

That's. Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

And then what happens?

[Maureen Tasek]

So what happens? And, and there's all kinds of variations on this scam. This was the scam where they go, you know, find homeless people, poor people, and, and convince them to, you know, bribe them into switching their insurance. And for the most part, those people did know that their insurance had changed. They thought that it was going to make. Wasn't going to make a difference. It. They ended up. Their treatment ended up getting disrupted. There's another class of scam where, you know, that's, that's much more deceptive, where they were getting, you know, random people to watch videos and enter in information. And then these people were finding, when they went to get care that they'd actually been kicked out of their insurance. And some of these people had commercial insurance policies and they were finding out that they were enrolled in the ACA. CMS actually had last year, 200,000 complaints about this very type of fraud. So this was a fraud that was really, you know, ubiquitous in the country. And again, when you look at the numbers, in 2020, we had 11 million, I think 11 million Americans on ACA plans. In 2025, that number is close, close to 25 million. So you saw enormous growth. The, you know, the majority of that growth, probably 57% of it is concentrate is three states. Florida, Texas, non Medicaid expansion states, and Georgia, also a non Medicaid expansion state. Marjorie Taylor Greene's backyard. That is where that growth was happening. And a lot of it was happening at the hands of this company called so Centene. Their stock is up today on the idea that Trump might extend these subsidies. They're up 6%. It's been a very bad year for Centene. And they are sort of like this stealth United Health Care. They're this giant, but they deal only with, you know, they almost, you know, wholly with sort of poor populations. So they run health care in Prisons and jails, and they administer Medicaid in a bunch of states. They do a lot of dirty tricks. They put private homemakers.

[Sam Cedar]

Okay, so if we've seen a doubling, and that was to be anticipated, actually one and a half times, I guess, or actually two and a half times what we had in terms of Medicare, the Affordable Care act enrollment, that was anticipated. There was a sense that where more people are going to get on there. But do we have a sense of. And I get the fact that like there was this sort of cost shift from the public, ostensibly public Medicaid, where incidentally, the costs are about 2 to 3% in terms of administrative costs. So the costs are much lower for someone to get Medicaid insurance onto the private system, but which is now fully subsidized by the government. So it's just a more costly, inefficient way of providing government sponsored health insurance, essentially. Do we know how much of that increase in those three states said 57% because of that push people off of Medicaid into the aca, but do we know how much of that is like fraudulent or that people were guided off of Medicaid even though they were still eligible for Medicaid into the exchanges?

[Maureen Tasek]

No, I have no idea how, you know, it would be difficult to quantify that because without doing, I think, a pretty, you know, serious survey of folks, and again, these are non Medicaid expansion states. But when you look at how the numbers changed over the composition of the people on, on ACA plans changed over that 2020 to 2025 period, you see certain, you know, substantial shifts. Number one, you saw, of course, a, an explosion in the number of people who made, you know, 401% plus over the poverty line because there were a ton of people for whom, you know, insurance just went from, you know, not making sense or working in a Starbucks to get your insurance to, oh, okay, you know, I could actually do this.

[Sam Cedar]

Because there's, there's a cap of 8.5% of my income on this. And so it's affordable now for us. Okay.

[Maureen Tasek]

And the majority of those people, the vast majority of those people are white. At the same time, however, even still, even with this explosion at the top end of the income stream, you saw the ACA go from a majority white. You know, I think 58% of the enrollees were white to now it's like 51%. So you saw a real focus on recruiting minority, lower income patients. You also saw the premium, the average or median premium just plummet. So at all of these, you know, income brackets, you would see, I think that, you know, even like among Latinos, I saw like the average premium go from, you know, $65 to $20. And part of that is because of the subsidies and part of that is because they're bringing new Latinos into the programs and they're selling them on whatever kind of zero premium plan they can. So that was the other thing that, that, that shifted. And when you sell a zero premium plan too, then you know, you can so much more easily do that fraudulently because the, the enrollee does not know until they try to access their health care that it's happened. So it's, it's, there's been, when you look at the numbers, you look at the growth in these three critical states, you see because you know, you, you see a state like California and where California ACA enrollment change there was mostly the top end. It is really these, these three states and that's where Centene is really a, like a super dominant force. Especially in Texas you saw these boiler rooms selling these plans and doing kind of whatever they had to do to get people on the program. And this is of course illegal, but you know, why is it illegal?

[Sam Cedar]

What is the illegal part?

[Maureen Tasek]

Well, the, the most illegal, the, the, when the recipient is qualified for Medicaid, you know, that is with if, if you're coaching and which these, this particular boiler room was doing the coaching of, of, of enrollees to provide fraudulent information to the authorities to qualify for, you know, X, Y and Z policy. That's, that's a crime. Then there was conspiracy and money laundering. There were some yachts purchased with some of these ill gotten gains. I spoke to an agent at, from who had worked at Fiorella and she said that they had used her, you know, they were, they were using the licenses of agents who had left long before. You know, most of the people selling these policies were, were not licensed, you know, insurance sales persons. You're not supposed to go out with insurance sales. You're not actually supposed to go out and recruit the patients so they would hire these street teams. But there's like a real gray area of illegality there. But fundamentally when you don't, when you allow an insurance company to pay commissions to brokers, which is, you know, this is a huge problem in Medicare Advantage too, an enormous problem. And you allow also the insurance companies to provide all of these incentives, whether it's gift cards, free groceries, you know, you know, in this case it's booze and, and probably drugs, that is. But the gift cards is legal, that is, you know, that's obviously going to create a perverse incentive. Why are these commissions allowed?

[Sam Cedar]

Well, this is the problem writ large, and this is largely the point of your piece, is that we have incentive structures built into our healthcare system that are completely inefficient in terms of like the end goal of providing people with health care. And it ends up just enriching people, some of whom are like on a range of completely fraudulent and criminal up to like just completely unnecessary in the process. At one point you wrote you were talking about costs and this is, this is it. And when and when you say why prices are expensive in Vermont is because a big chunk of the risk pool goes up to Canada to get better health care, it doesn't the right to buy health insurance lose a bit of its luster. Reset insurance cost 3700 month for family of four as it will next year in Vermont, West Virginia and Alaska for families of four with household incomes over 128,000 across the border. In Canada, citizens pay over $9,100 per person per year to fund their whole entire national health system. In 2025, American taxpayers paid 11,352 per person per year to subsidize the private insurance policies of Vermont ACA enrollees who themselves pay an additional 11,000 per year per household to cover their premiums, to say nothing of co pays and deductibles. So in other words, the same family will pay in Canada 9,100 per person versus 22,000 per person in terms of the cost associated one in one way or another for their health care. And the, the gist of this is that all of this sort of like rent seeking and that runs from rent seeking to fraud with this industry. We are now looking as this system is getting super, super creaky. I mean whatever Donald Trump comes out with, I think he's announced that this week, to the extent that we have any details on it and it's possible to get this through a Republican Congress and to the extent that it ends up actually providing health insurance as opposed to like a tax free savings account for some people is just the, the most inefficient, expensive way to do this. It's just that we have incumbent insurance providers and frankly some health care providers who benefit from this system are making a ton of money.

[Maureen Tasek]

Absolutely. And you know, there are certain kinds of health care providers who are totally making bank the average physician know they hate it and they hate Obamacare and there's, you know, many Many other reasons for that because of, you know, mostly the data requirements. But yeah, the system is asinine. We knew it when it passed. You know, I, I was a grown up in 2009 when, you know, they rat to the public option. And this is something also I remember Larry Summers was deeply involved. He hadn't been involved in the ACA debate. And then, you know, at the last minute he comes out and says, no, you know, we have to go back to square one. Because I've been talking to the pharma lobbyists and, and they don't like this, that and the other thing. So, you know, he was involved, you know, but, you know, Joe Lieberman was the, you know, threatened to filibuster if the, the plan, if it had a public option. And, and you know, it was one of those things that happened 20 2009, 2010, that, that made me realize that, you know, the Democrats were, were almost as bad as the other guys, but the, it was completely predictable. And I think that now how it's played out has been, you know, there are certain, like, there's, there's so many different ways that the big companies have milked Obamacare's loopholes and its fine print to just make extraordinary sums, but your average physician hates it, is making less money, is seeing more patients. And so every, you know, they're really torn as well. I have, I know, extremely, you know, liberal, pro Obamacare primary care physicians who, who say, you know, look, I, I can't tell and I can't tell my patient to pay $3,000 a month for a policy. You know, in, in good conscience. Like, it doesn't, it doesn't make sense. I'm gonna have to teach my, you know, try and teach my patients how to, you know, how to survive as uninsured people. And we're gonna see, you know, we are gonna see more junky policies. But one thing about Centene is that, you know, this, this is the biggest ACA insurer. They, their policies are called AM Better. And they, I mean, these are not real policies. This is the other thing is that aci, ACA policies were supposed to provide some minimum threshold of care. They were supposed to be okay. This is a legit insurance policy. When you look at their reviews online, you look at, you know, every, everything Uber drivers have ever said about this kind of insurance, you realize they, they just.

[Sam Cedar]

The patient protection part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care act has also failed in many respects. Well, listen, Mo, we've got to run, but the bottom line, I think Is, and you make this piece point at the end of the piece is that we're going to have a complete sort of like wreckage of the Affordable Care act outside of the expansion of Medicaid, to the extent that it's happened in different states and to some degree with the patient protections that have largely been okay, although we see it on the lower ends, not so successful. And there's going to be both a sort of like political and material reasons to essentially re approach this, this whole system and replace it with something that is rational. And it feels like they've run out of options. And by they, I mean everybody who wanted to support this. Like we saw during COVID when Pelosi would not allow for an expansion of Medicare, which of course would have like brought new people into Medicare and instead they subsidized COBRA for people who had lost their jobs, which is literally the most expensive version of health insurance until now. Maybe that one could even that existed like COBRA was where you're paying both the employer and the employee side and the government decided to pay for all of it. So if I'm receiving it, it's great, it's free. But in terms of the efficiency of government, it was the least possible efficient way to do this. And they're so desperate to avoid the obvious answer, which is expand Medicare, expand Medicaid. Just allow, instead of one third of Americans on it, we allow an outlaw.

[Maureen Tasek]

An outlaw Medicare Advantage. I mean, that's the other thing, you know, and it just reminds me so much because the same guys who were so pro Obamacare, the wonks that were selling it to us day in, day out in their blogs are now the same people preaching abundance. And abundance says you can shower subsidies on housing developers and you can, you know, get rid of all the red tape and, and we will find an abundance of affordable housing. And it's, it's a lie. It's not true.

[Sam Cedar]

I mean, to be honest with you, it is also the same theory that is associated with the way that the, the Obama administration dealt with the financial and housing crisis. You had two options. One option was you pay the money to the people who owe the bank and they pay the bank off and the bank gets made whole and that person gets made whole like FDR did or you subsidize the banks and hope they do the right thing. And the fact is, is that in the private market, the incentives are not aligned with getting the most efficient delivery of all these products. It is make a profit first and foremost. Mo Tasek, thanks so much for your time today. We're going to link to your piece in the American Prospect in our podcast and YouTube descriptions. Thanks again, Mo. Appreciate it.

[Maureen Tasek]

Have a great evening.

[Dean Fleihan]

Thank you so much for coming on the Majority Report today.

[Gino Rady]

So, Gino, thank you for having me. I'm really, it's a privilege being I know being here with you and I know we have a lot to talk about. We can start with you pronounced my name and the way it is pronounced in the in Lebanon and we're here, it's full of hand. It's an interesting distinction between King there and how it's pronounced.

[Dean Fleihan]

But thank you for that, Fleihan, for everyone who's listening. And I'm lucky my name is easily aggregated my family name. So Raide can just be ready.

[Gino Rady]

He's trying to figure out there's the.

[Dean Fleihan]

Aim at the end there. But Radi is very I don't have it's much easier for me, thankfully. I told Sam and Emma that I wanted to do the interview with you because obviously we share something in common, which is that we're both Lebanese immigrants. So what would you tell the Arab and Lebanese community here, especially young Arabs and Lebanese who want to serve but haven't seen a lot of people in leadership positions like that.

[Gino Rady]

So it's a wonderful question. And the Zoram Mandani campaign really personifies what's possible. It's both about the immigrant community and actually when he announced me, I spoke about my immigrant heritage. It's his message. So affordability, but also hope and representing all the communities in New York City, the communities that have not have felt left out. It speaks to, I think we would both agree, it speaks to the Lebanese community, it speaks to the Arab community, it speaks to the Muslim community, but it also speaks to all New Yorkers because it and we saw that, right? We saw an outpouring of support for the mayor elect. Now for Zoro Mandani, we saw a level of support that was unprecedented and an excitement and people who never felt they were part of the system and now part of that system, that's that is a message we want and, and it wasn't a message that stopped on election day. So the other thing I would tell them is we need to keep this going. We need continued support. We need support for that imperative, that affordability agenda. We need support so that Albany understands we need that support and Washington understands that this is something the community of New York needs to succeed and prosper. So, so we want their continuing involvement. And, and he is certainly a role model to, to. For the, For Lebanese and Arab and much broader, to continue to continue to be active in our politics. And to the extent I can participate in that and encourage that we want to. Because it's not a natural thing for. I mean, there are members of our community who are involved, but it's not always a natural.

[Dean Fleihan]

It's not as obvious.

[Gino Rady]

But I have a feeling in our background that there's a, you know, in my family and I, there was always a discussion of politics and what was happening in Lebanon in the Middle East. And we also, I still have family in Lebanon. We had, we sort of had a direct tie because my family had a long history with American University of Beirut.

[Dean Fleihan]

That's my alma mater.

[Gino Rady]

That's your alma mater. And we had a strong tie with students coming at that time, where I grew up in Syracuse, New York, of students coming. And that was. And they were all over. I mean, it's Lebanon. They were all over the political spectrum from different sects. Oh my gosh. But even when they were from the same religion, they could be diametrically opposed. And of course you would fight over the politics and fortunately you would have a lovely meal, which I do love our food.

[Dean Fleihan]

It just arrived also.

[Gino Rady]

And, and that added to. Okay. But we have cultural identity that hopefully holds us together.

[Dean Fleihan]

You mentioned something that I think is very unique for Zoharan's campaign, where a lot of times when politicians get to the position they were running for, the movement that kind of got them there is forgotten. And during this transition period, it's been clear that that has been different. Can you explain to us what is the transition period exactly? Because in most places it doesn't usually take a few weeks or a few months for administrations to shift and how people can help during this transition.

[Gino Rady]

So the transition goes from the election day in November to January 1st. So January 1st, we take office. It is an enormous undertaking. It's a vibrant, huge city. It's the center of so many things in the United States and it has so much responsibility. The Everybody talks about 300,000 employees. If we add things that people don't talk about, like health and hospice, the biggest public health system in the country. It's the biggest public hospital system in the country. When you add that in our housing, you get up to about 370,000 employees that we have to give direction to and make sure that the day to day operations of the city are occurring and the policy agendas occur, occurring. But while we're also doing that, we need that same excitement, that same energy and you're seeing the mayor elect, you're seeing Zora Mandani out there all the time. You're even seeing me out there doing press stuff, which is not something I would normally do. So. Because the message is so important and we need community support to accomplish that message. So we want people to stay involved. We've received 50,000 resumes that we have to go through and make sure. Thank you so much. Tabbouleh, nasseri and hummus. We were perfect.

[Dean Fleihan]

The staples.

[Gino Rady]

Yes.

[Dean Fleihan]

Sahtan.

[Gino Rady]

So do you. And who cooks in your household?

[Dean Fleihan]

My mom. I'm lucky, you know that my mom is here, so I love her cooking. But I dabble a bit, especially in Kimbe, because that's what my town is like, really known for. So I made sure before leaving Lebanon that I made my great aunt teach me our, like, recipes.

[Gino Rady]

Excellent.

[Dean Fleihan]

I can actually the one that famous.

[Gino Rady]

As a very large kidby.

[Dean Fleihan]

So I actually learned that.

[Gino Rady]

Oh, my God.

[Dean Fleihan]

This is.

[Gino Rady]

So you have to make that for.

[Dean Fleihan]

I would love to. It would be another.

[Gino Rady]

So I make tabouli every week.

[Dean Fleihan]

Tabouleh is great.

[Gino Rady]

I have to make bread every week.

[Dean Fleihan]

If you.

[Gino Rady]

And. And the bread is beautiful, the fresh bread. So. So I interrupted us with the food.

[Dean Fleihan]

We. I think it's so much nicer to have it. And it reminds you of when you used to go to Lebanon and have. Have these conversations. You mentioned the hundreds of thousands of employees here. Someone with your experience both in Albany and City hall in New York City. What's something you'd like people to know about the New York City budget that they might not know about? Like, how it works?

[Gino Rady]

So for me, and I've obviously spent a lot of years doing budgets and I can talk about the technicalities of the budget and the current administration put out on a new financial plan yesterday, and it's 118 billion. So it's like an enormous. It's an enormous undertaking. But what it really is, it's about. It's about we're going to be. We're going to be responsible. Right. But it's also the budget is the document that says, here are the priorities of the city of New York, here are the priorities of the mint. And. And when. When we start in, in January 1st, we have one month to put out our budget. In between, there'll be a state budget and we hope to partner with the governor and the governor's team to do some of these major affordability issues to get them going. So the budget really is. It's a measure of what we stand for, it's the priorities we want. It says, these are the principles we stand for. It is the policy document of this administration. So we're going to take what came through that campaign. We're going to take what the voters supported and what they still see as necessary for the success of this city and that affordability agenda. And you're going to see it reflected in the Bunter. That's right. Got it.

[Dean Fleihan]

And a kebir.

[Gino Rady]

All right. So I think we have to dig in.

[Dean Fleihan]

You should. Yes, please.

[Gino Rady]

Thank you so much. And you have to start with tabula. Oh, of course.

[Dean Fleihan]

A bit. Some refreshing tabbouleh.

[Gino Rady]

And I'm going to let you hand me a brush. Just him. Just give me. Thank you.

[Dean Fleihan]

I like when. When they're nice and warm and fresh.

[Gino Rady]

It's beautiful. Are you going to have.

[Dean Fleihan]

You have to have. Surprise. Yeah. Please feel free. So we talked about the budget. What's a priority you think can happen quick where regular working class New Yorkers can feel the impact of what that's going to.

[Gino Rady]

We have to. It's a very ambitious agenda. And everywhere you go, someone is going to tell you it can't be done. Yeah. That it's not realistic, that Albany won't do the corridor, they won't raise taxes, Washington will do something to us, there'll be a Medicaid crisis, something will happen. That can't be the understanding. The understanding is that he ran on an agenda that said, you're going to see change and you're going to see it immediately and you're going to see it in that budget. And yes, some things will take time to implement, but the commitment has to be. And so the question of is it possible. I keep saying this to everyone. I can't name the number of towns I've been told or other people have been told. That's not possible. And then three months later, it happened. You know, I was honored to be part of the de Blasio administration. And in that first year, one of the things everybody wants. Right. Is universal Pre K for 4 year olds. And at the time, I'll never forget the department said, you can't. This takes five years. Right. There's no way to do it sooner. The governor at the time, Andrew Coleman, can't do it.

[Sam Cedar]

Do it.

[Gino Rady]

But it's not happening. No one's going to pay this don't do it debate. Yeah, don't do it. Okay. It was three months later. It's in the state budget. The state's 100 in it. And we enacted it in two rigors. If you. If government can do through progressives, Democrat, socialists, that agenda can be done. And the agenda that, that Zoram Ondani outlined is doable. And we. It is. It's. We have to make that happen. And I don't see, I don't perceive to sing more blocks everybody else. I don't believe it. We have to find there's always a way to make these things happen. And we'll balance the budget or be fiscally responsible. Yes, there'll be new revenues and putting those things together, it's then our job to both negotiate that and implement that. And that has to be the mission. These jobs are a privilege. Right? I'm honored to be in this administration. I'm really honored that he. I developed a relationship with him.

[Dean Fleihan]

I was going to ask you about that.

[Gino Rady]

I developed a relationship with him in late winter. And so the primary was still going down. Everybody still thought he wasn't going to win. And we just had conversations about government and what you do in the different offices. And he is so incredibly thoughtful on these questions and probing and looking to understand. Okay, doesn't know everything. What doesn't he know and how do we help effectuate policy. And I was both inspired by his campaign before and then meeting him and realizing the commitment he felt that didn't waver from. It was hard not to say I will help you in any way I can. So whether that's inside or out. And then we kept meeting, we kept talking about. So I'm really am. It's a privilege to be part of this. And there are people walking by us out there who, who have struggle every single day. And he is. He has put forward an agenda to address huge part of the problem they confront and make their life easier and make it so they can stay in the SIP and not leave the sip. But this city is affordable. Corlear. That agenda of hope is what's our obligation to do and it's our privilege to do so.

[Dean Fleihan]

Stepping back into this role, does it feel familiar or does it feel different this time?

[Gino Rady]

Well, it's a great question. It is different. Every period of time and challenge are different. And it's good. The way I view it is I need to take that experience both in New York City and in Albany, where I worked three years. Zach, take that experience and use that. But it's not the motto. Right. It's a body of knowledge, but it's not the same. This is a different mare for a different time with different challenges and different opportunities. So it's a good foundation, but no, it's going to be a different administration.

[Dean Fleihan]

So you bring the institutional experience to that, but with the movement driven and ambitious mayor on board.

[Gino Rady]

Yes.

[Dean Fleihan]

We didn't talk a lot about what the first deputy mayor actually does. So I keep, I keep stopping you from having some tabbouleh. So after that.

[Gino Rady]

No, no, it's fine. And it's beautiful to look at too, so. And you're allowing me to sip coffee and that's maybe the most important.

[Dean Fleihan]

Anything you want.

[Sam Cedar]

So.

[Gino Rady]

As we develop this transition, we need to structure a government that works for the Maryland.

[Sam Cedar]

Right.

[Gino Rady]

So. So what does that look like? And that's what's my role. What's his chief of staff? Eldest guard, church. You re announced with me. It was part of that brilliant campaign.

[Sam Cedar]

It was great.

[Gino Rady]

We were announced together. Working with this incredible team that came through that election and now expanding it for the transition. We're going to figure out, okay, how to effectuate the change he wants and also keep things, I mean they're day to day things that we have to make sure happen in New York if there's no story that has to happen. Right. The roads have to stay clean, the garbage has to be picked up, the day to day operational things have to happen. So our job is to figure out, okay, how do we structure the city differently, how do we structure city hall? So it's responding to the day to day, it's driving the policy, it's addressing any, anything that may happen in Washington that affects us. How do we address all those things at the same time so we don't get sidetracked. We stay on our principles, we stay on our policy. So the first deputy Mayor Wall really is to, to make sure the operations of the government are moving forward. But, but again he's going to. I know I'm going to be part of conversations not just about the budget, not just about labor contracts, not just about what agencies and how we decide they're reporting, but what's happening in orbit. Right. We had a meeting with the governor. Elle and I were both in that meeting. You would expect that.

[Sam Cedar]

Right.

[Gino Rady]

We're going to, we're part. So we're going to be flexible enough to make sure that daily operational challenges are being met and the policy is being driven. So we're going to do that and I'm going to have a team with me that. And we're going to make sure that those daily operations are occurring. So it's not a direct, it's sort of an answer of what a first deputy mayor does. But as we get closer to January 1st, we'll have that more defined. But we're also going to all be involved, all of us, that we agree with what the mayor elect identified as the issues and the policies and we're going to upshirk it is right. That's a key to this.

[Dean Fleihan]

That was clear throughout the campaign. It's definitely a continuation of that energy. Like a lot of the questions I want to ask you, I'm, I'm preemptive and you know, people want to listen, hear from you directly. So instead of with big question answer.

[Gino Rady]

Okay.

[Dean Fleihan]

You gave like your dynamic with Zoharan. I want to ask you about that. So you're very clear about that. Talking a bit about Governor Hochul as well. So I think it was a pretty full image.

[Gino Rady]

The one thing, anything you wanted, I.

[Dean Fleihan]

Wanted to ask you was the nice thing about new media and podcasts and stuff like that is it doesn't always. Your questions don't have to be like mainstream media all the time. So imagine if a year from now a New Yorker is watching this podcast. What is one thing you want them to think, oh, that thing Dean Flahan talked about. I saw the difference in that. I can actually feel that it's become better or changed. What would that one thing be that.

[Gino Rady]

We started to address that you see in a practical way as a change in affordability. That something has, that things have started to change in New York City and you feel that sense of hope and you actually, it's a requirement that you feel right that, that and, and you. It's the one thing.

[Dean Fleihan]

So it's better to go that personal budget and next year you'll be like, oh, okay, yeah, I actually do have a bit more left from my budget.

[Gino Rady]

Or is it. Or yes. That we've something that was constraining you and, and, and constraining that person. They now have relief free buses, trial care rent. That's the nice thing about, I mean.

[Dean Fleihan]

That'S why the platform, it's easily gaugeable.

[Gino Rady]

But while, while that's what I hope you'll see, I also need to make sure that you say, you know what, you're also running a city. You're, you're meeting the day to day operational things of the city of New York. So both those things have to happen. And if there are challenges and there always aren't a governor and everybody talks about Washington and the president, but whatever those challenges are, that we're addressing those too. Because I can't predict exactly what's going to happen at every single thing in the next year. But that we give you the comfort that you have in it. You have someone running New York City that's addressing those unforeseen challenges and that we're doing it thoughtfully but that we're still driving the agenda and we're still mad in the city.

[Dean Fleihan]

There's a lot of naysayers that keep saying Zohran's promises. He's giving promises to working class folks that he can't actually keep. Thanksgiving is around the corner and it's a time when a lot of family members and loved ones come together.

[Gino Rady]

Wonderful time.

[Dean Fleihan]

They maybe don't see eye to eye. So I'm sure a lot of folks watching this, listening to this conversation will have people on that table that are naysayers when it comes to what Zoharan can actually deliver on. What would you tell those folks?

[Gino Rady]

So it's good, they're having a wonderful meal for it. To calm down the political argument, the agenda. It's not again, it's an agenda that the people of New York City support. They have shown that in unprecedented millworks, resoundingly, for sure. And it's captured people who were not, and we talked about this earlier, who were not part of that system and now are. It's about dividing to clear agenda of affordability and it's a requirement of us to deliver on that. And I would say to them, judge S, of course, but we're going to show you that we can improve the lives of New Yorkers. And what part of that agenda seems inappropriate? Child care, Universal child care. Helping three and four year olds in an. In an early education system so everybody can afford it and not sinking the wealthy, that there's equity in taxation while the very wealthiest are getting huge benefits out of Washington, that housing is not a serious crisis. Affordability, that free buses and faster. It doesn't help working people in New York. What part of that agenda is wrong? Because it's hard to imagine. What is the argument? The argument keeps coming back, oh, you can't afford it. You can't do this. Well, we'll show me the cannabis. Are the goals wrong? Hard to imagine they would say they are.

[Dean Fleihan]

That was very useful when we were canvassing throughout the campaign where a lot of the ideas people think are, you know, very unreasonable. But when you take the time to explain to them the way that it was broken down on the website or Zohran speaks, a lot of people would get on board. It's just that there was so so much misinformation and an easier reaction where, like, this is the absolute best. Don't even think about having something better. But when you discuss it, like, point by point with folks, in my experience at least, it almost always works. And even if they're, like, not on board or they're not, like, fully committed, they understand that that idea isn't that crazy. It's just that no one took the time to explain it to them. And I feel that is something really special about Zoharan. Like, since I met him in 2021, I've, like, noticed that about.

[Gino Rady]

Wow. So it's amazing.

[Dean Fleihan]

Yeah. Thank you so much. You know, it was such a nice.

[Gino Rady]

It was real pleasure and you owe me. I think Kibby did her and maybe.

[Sam Cedar]

I owe you.

[Dean Fleihan]

This.

[Background Singer]

Know somehow I'm gonna get there.

[Dean Fleihan]

I.

[Background Singer]

Wasn'T looking when I just got caught between the truth and the life bar the finding out won't make me feel any better yeah, I know the clock is ticking but the meds are gonna kick and my pilot light shining bright I get somewhere the choice was made for the option where you don't get paid for the road that bends before it finally breaks you I get somehow lost my drive between the 101 and the fly do you know how far the teacher takes you? Yeah, I know the clock is ticking but the man's not going to kicking and that pilot light shining bright. While I shifted in and out of gear Waiting for my moment to happen I I don't know how much longer I can stay in or how much more I got to pay to play in I know somehow.