In this episode of Rush to Reason, host John Rush is joined by Dr. Kelly Victory and Steve House for an engaging discussion on healthcare reforms, pharmaceutical industry practices, and the intricate role of Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs). The guests delve into recent political developments including President Biden’s decision to extend liability protection to mRNA vaccine manufacturers. The conversation sheds light on the underlying issues with PBMs and their impact on drug pricing, calling attention to legislative roadblocks and advocacy for reform. Listeners will gain new insights into how healthcare policies are shaped, the financial implications of PBMs’ involvement
SPEAKER 13 :
This is Rush to Reason. You are gonna shut your damn yapper and listen for a change because I got you pegged, sweetheart. You want to take the easy way out because you’re scared. And you’re scared because if you try and fail, there’s only you to blame. Let me break this down for you. Life is scary. Get used to it. There are no magical fixes. With your host, John Rush. My advice to you is to do what your parents did. Get a job first. You haven’t made everybody equal. You’ve made them the same, and there’s a big difference.
SPEAKER 10 :
Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there. It is this feeling that has brought you to me.
SPEAKER 13 :
Are you crazy? Am I? Or am I so sane that you just blew your mind?
SPEAKER 15 :
It’s Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush. Presented by High Five Plumbing, Heating, and Cooling, where every call ends with a high five.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. Happy Thursday, everybody. Welcome Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Hope you guys have all had a great week up to this point. Dr. Kelly Victory joining us now. Let me bring her up as well as Steve House. But Dr. Kelly, how are you to start off with?
SPEAKER 14 :
I’m doing great. Had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and I’m skating right into the big holiday season.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, man, it is coming fast. Steve House as well. Welcome, sir.
SPEAKER 16 :
I’m doing well, too, except for I kind of threw up on my mouth a little bit a little bit ago when Biden gave the mRNA vaccine manufacturers liability protection until 2029 today. Yeah. Some of my Thanksgiving dinner came back. Otherwise, it was pretty good.
SPEAKER 03 :
Until 2029. In other words, I guess what he’s planning on is somebody else besides a Republican winning in 2028, therefore never having any issues there. Is that what his thought process is?
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, when you really think about this, I don’t know if this was on our agenda, but we saw two things this week. That happened, and then the PBM legislation to try to, you know, de-link it from drug pricing, which would have done so much for the American people. And that bill basically is dead at the moment, even though it has bipartisan support. It’s never going to make it through the process, and that’s… Because the pharma industry is so damn strong and, you know, $29 million of the lobbying effort, and they’ve slowed it to the point where it’s just not going to make it. And that’s insane based on what it does for us.
SPEAKER 03 :
And for those that maybe are tuning in for the first time, Dr. Kelly Victory, she’s been with us for a very, very long time over. I guess we’re going on five years now since COVID. Steve House has been with us for much longer than I’ve been talking to Steve on air for 10 years plus. And Steve was instrumental in having Dr. Kelly join us on a weekly basis long ago. Dr. Kelly, really quick, though, for folks that maybe don’t understand all of the acronyms and things that Steve just mentioned to go explain that.
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, with regard to giving liability protection to the mRNA vaccines, I think that that is absolute insanity. First of all, you’re giving a pardon or giving liability protection to something. That hasn’t been charged yet. We’ve been seeing a lot of that lately. I’m hopeful that we will sidestep around that particular, quote, liability protection by eliminating mRNA technology entirely or taking it off the market until it’s ready for primetime, which it’s not at this point. And I think that that’s my biggest takeaway from all of this. I think we are seeing a doubling down of the Biden administration trying to hand out passes to everybody and their brother. And it’s happening certainly very much with those people who are involved in the COVID debacle. It remains to be seen whether or not any of this actually holds up or is deemed to be even constitutional.
SPEAKER 03 :
Makes total sense. No, go ahead, Steve. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 14 :
Jump in. I’m sorry. You were also asking about the PBM issue. Yes. Yes. The PBM, a pharmacy benefit manager, is what we refer to colloquially as, quote, the middleman. They are the people who sort of broker the deals, if you will, between the pharmaceutical companies and those agencies that actually sell or provide the drugs, whether it’s a doctor’s office or a hospital or the government. Right. They are a middleman. They are a broker. It would be known in any other industry as racketeering. The middlemen essentially take a piece of the action. It’s a pay-to-play scheme. They say to the pharmaceutical companies, if you give us a kickback, we’ll get you the big juicy contract at UnitedHealthcare or at Hospital ABC or for the Department of Defense. It is racketeering by any other name, and it’s something that I’m hoping that Bobby Kennedy Jr. will absolutely eradicate, ultimately, because, as Steve said, it is the single biggest cost driver for pharmaceuticals.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, let’s talk about that for just one moment. Sorry, John.
SPEAKER 16 :
Go ahead. Just one comment, and that is, I really believe that Biden did this pardon because, you know, the pharma industry is a huge donor. But I think the other reason why he did it is they’re afraid that Kennedy is going to release all of the information from the trials. And you know what? They can’t stop him from doing this just by this. What they can do, though, is they’re going to be dealing with an American public that’s going to hear more and more and more about how bad this was and how much they cheated. And yet they’re going to want to sue, but they’re just going to stop their ability to sue. So that’s why they’re doing this. And then lastly, I was at the American Society of Healthcare Pharmacists meeting this week in New Orleans. And the one thing I will say, Kelly, is almost all of them struggle with PBMs themselves. And they’re sitting there looking at this and high-cost drugs, and they’re saying to themselves, how could we possibly be allowing this to happen? And then what you get is a hospital system signs with Mark Cuban to get 100 drugs from Mark Cuban that is going to reduce their cost which would theoretically be passed on to the patient, but then they send out a note publicly in a news release saying it won’t necessarily impact the patient’s payment amount because that is really dependent upon the agreement they have with their health insurance company. So what’s going to happen is they’re going to take the profit at the hospital level rather than the PBM level, and they’re not going to give it to the patient, and that has to be stopped by Bobby Kennedy Jr. as well. Wow.
SPEAKER 14 :
Correct. These things that have been called for years, John, rebates, The rebates should be going to the patient, but the rebates end up getting scooped up by the hospital system or the doctor’s office or whoever else takes it back and puts it in their coffers. So the patient is constantly on the losing end of this. It’s really a complete racket. And we’ve got to get this exposed. It’s part of the fraud, corruption, deception and graft that’s gone on for decades. It’s perhaps come to light more recently during everything we saw because of COVID. But this has been going on for decades.
SPEAKER 03 :
So a question, I’ll start with you, Dr. Kelly. With the changes in the administration, granted we’re not quite a little under 40 days out roughly. We’re counting down. We keep getting closer and closer to the time where the Trump administration will come in. We’ll then have to, of course, go through some confirmations and things along those lines. But once everything is in place, I mean – I’m very hopeful, I hope that I’m hopeful in the right way, that the team, not just RFK Jr., but a lot of others that will be involved with different things that will be happening there, DOJ, etc., do you feel like this new team can tackle some of the things you and Steve just got done talking about?
SPEAKER 14 :
I certainly think that they can. That said, I am… realistic with regard to how Washington works. It would never fly in the private sector. They are so slow to act. And I guarantee you that although you and I would like to believe that this stuff is going to get addressed day one, it won’t. It takes months and months and months to even get up to speed. So everybody’s going to be new. Everybody’s going to be feeling their way around. Everybody’s Everybody’s jockeying for position.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right.
SPEAKER 14 :
And the wheels turn so slowly in Washington that I think we will be lucky if they get a fraction of the things done that they’ve talked about. The most I think we can hope for is that Bobby Kennedy and the rest of his team at each of the independent agencies, whether it’s the FDA, NIH, CDC, whatever it is, HHS, in general, that they will address and expose some of these conflicts of interest and start right now eradicating those things, teasing them out. And I think rather than focusing on any one initiative, like decreasing the amount of fluoride or regulating the amount of fluoride in water or making ivermectin over the counter, We need to really expose the rampant fraud and corruption. So, yes, I do think they’ll be able to do it. But I have been reminded very recently in some communications I’ve had with people in Washington just how slowly and frankly how disorganized the whole thing is. You have to remember, you know, most of these people who are going to be stepping into new roles come January, you know, moving to Bethesda or moving to D.C. or moving to Atlanta to work at the CDC. This is, you know, not only are they moving themselves and their families, but it’s a brand-new job, a brand-new day, and it takes, you know, when you start a new job, you don’t just hit the ground running. It takes months to learn all the players and to figure out what it is you’re supposed to be doing. So I think, you know, people should just sort of prepare themselves that it’s not going to happen overnight.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. Steve, I’m going to ask you a question as soon as we come back, which is, you know, what can executively Donald Trump and his team do in some of these areas or not? I’m going to ask you that as soon as we come back. Affordable interest mortgages next, folks. Kurt Rogers, remember to call him any mortgage question. And as we go through this holiday season, there may be some things that you want to avoid debt-wise when it comes to a mortgage in 2025. 720-895-0500.
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SPEAKER 09 :
No liberal media bias here.
SPEAKER 03 :
This is Rush to Reason. And we are back, Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Dr. Kelly Victory with us today, as well as Steve House. And Steve, I asked you before we went to break, what can Donald Trump, the executive committee, and I get it, there’s, as Dr. Kelly said, lots of facets to this, and yes, things move slowly. Is there anything, though, that Donald Trump himself could fast-track?
SPEAKER 16 :
You know, John, if it were me and I had the ability, and I have to talk to a constitutional lawyer about this, but I would write an executive order on day one that would drop a small grenade into health care by ordering the delinking of pricing for PBMs so that PBMs could not link their cost or their price, their rebate structure to the price of the drug. They would have to become a service-oriented scenario where what they did was what they got paid for, not just, you know, if a drug cost, if it was an oncology drug and cost $30,000, what they get for that versus metformin at $80, it’s not fair to pay them on the price of the drug because the work involved, the process involved is fundamentally not any different. So I would do that right off the bat, and that would drive people crazy, but it would sure break up the industry a bit.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, so an analogy that people might understand better, because I think you’re exactly right, Steve. The analogy might be if you tip, there’s a reason why you don’t tip, for example, at a restaurant on a bottle of wine, because it doesn’t take the waiter. It’s no more difficult to open a $100 bottle of wine than a $20 bottle of wine. And why should they make five times more in terms of the tip? And that’s what the PBMs are doing. They charge a percentage. Now, the other thing that people don’t know, and Steve and I are well aware of this, is that the way the law was written, PBMs are allowed to charge a fee for the work that they do, for being that middleman, for brokering the deal, if you will, the same way that a realtor would.
SPEAKER 03 :
I got to start for just one second, Dr. Kelly. Why do we need them at all? Can you tell me why? Is there a justification? Is there a real, solid reason we should have them? I mean, does it benefit anybody at the end of the day, or is it just, frankly, there’s a middleman there and there always has been?
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, they do provide a service in the way, for example, that a realtor does. They do the paperwork. They do a lot of the stuff that you and I don’t know the intricacies of the legalities of the paperwork, so they provide a service. But they were supposed to do that for a determined fee, and it was 2.3% that they were allowed to charge. by law, but nobody in Congress has ever paid any attention to it, and many of them now are charging 100%. So it would be as if your realtor, rather than making a 5% or 6% commission on the sale of the house, instead was making an 80% commission on the sale of the house. Can you imagine what the house would cost?
SPEAKER 03 :
And really quick, make sure that I’m also explaining this correctly. The difference between what we’re talking about in a house is the house is your money that you’re spending and paying the realtor and so on. In the case of what, Stephen, you were talking about, in a lot of cases, it’s in a lot of cases, it’s tax dollars that are paying for that or your health insurance dollars that you’re paying for this paying for that. Am I correct?
SPEAKER 14 :
Exactly, and you end up paying more for the house because the person selling the house is saying, well, I’m not going to take it on the chin that the realtor is charging 80%. I’ll just jack the price of my house up. Well, when you’re buying a house, you have the choice not to buy the house if it’s too expensive. If it’s a drug that your child needs for his or her cancer or a medication that you need to treat your diabetes, you don’t have the choice. To not buy that drug necessarily. And so you are being fundamentally squeezed by the people who are trying to pass the cost on. So, yes, the PBMs did provide a service, but the service was number one was to be capped in what they could charge for it. And number two, as Steve rightly points out, the percentage should not be directly linked to the cost of the medication because some medications are wildly more expensive than others and there’s no more work for the PBM to broker the deal.
SPEAKER 03 :
Steve, as a moment ago, I just gave a commercial little ad for affordable interest mortgage. And I know in the mortgage brokerage end of things, there were some rules that came out, laws that came out not long ago to where they could no longer charge percentages. They make flat fees, I believe, in most cases, and they are limited to what that fee can be. So if we’re doing that, Steve, for mortgage brokers, why can’t we do the same here?
SPEAKER 16 :
We should do it here. In fact, if you see a couple of things, I’ll add it to Kelly’s comment. Sometimes the fee from the PBM is 3000 percent. So it’s not always under 100 percent. And then on top of that, you’re right. It should be a flat fee of some nature. However, most of the PBMs now are stock market listed there. You know, they’ve got investors in Wall Street and, you know, they’ve purchased the health insurance.
SPEAKER 03 :
All the more reason why we know it’s wrong.
SPEAKER 16 :
Right. So here’s an example that was kind of a turning point beyond. By the way, all American diabetics should gather together in a class action lawsuit, sue the Health and Human Services and the federal government against the safe harbor law that set a 2.3 percent fee and that was never enforced. That means diabetics have been paying 1%. boatloads more money than they should have for all these years because the federal government failed to enforce their own laws. But here’s the deal. Gleevec, and I know that Kelly knows this drug really well, in theory was the first $100,000 drug to come to the market. And people thought they were crazy, right? So PBMs come in and they thump their chest. They say, we’re going to get discounts of, you know, 80% off the drug. But they took the $80,000 discount and they gave it to your health insurance company who never lowered your premium ever. So it became racketeering. She described it perfectly right. So I’m going to say, well, all right, insurance car pharma, why don’t you make a drug that costs $80,000 like Harvoni? I’m going to buy it from you, put it on formulary by you giving it to me for a 55% or 60% discount, but I’m going to take a portion of that money and keep it for myself, make my investors happy. I’m going to give the rest back to the insurance companies because they’re asking me to allow it. And by the way, the only person who loses is the patient.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right.
SPEAKER 16 :
The patient loses big every time.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. Okay. I want to shift gears for just one second because you guys have some inside knowledge. And feel free to share as much or as little as you feel you can. But we’ve got cabinet picks that have come out. Of course, RFK Jr., we’ve talked about that. And there’s been many others as well. But then we also have Surgeon General, which right now the pick that Donald Trump has thrown out at least, I am not a huge fan of. I don’t think either one of you are as well. Why are we headed in a direction that I don’t feel we should be, Dr. Kelly?
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, I will refrain from saying too much about any individual candidates prior to their upcoming election. confirmation hearings, I agree with you. There are some choices that have been, let’s use the word, perplexing to me in terms of what their histories are when there are a few of us. And, you know, here Steve and I are just bantering around. I would guarantee you that Steve and I know more about the issues related to PDMs and the impact that they have had on drug pricing that any of the current cabinet nominees have.
SPEAKER 03 :
I’m not so sure that after listening to you guys as long as I have, I don’t have that much experience. I have more than they do, Dr. Kelly.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, and so I think that as all things in politics, they’re political. So many of these nominations are political nominations. And I think that President Trump would do well to stop making purely political nominations and appointees because there are people who have been deep in the trenches and certainly those of us who got it right during COVID, rather than people who clearly got it wrong. And he has nominated quite a few of those people to high positions. when they were people who were on the wrong side of history for the better part of the pandemic. So much of many of these appointees are political and are paybacks for things that they’ve done to support the president. And I don’t think that that puts us necessarily in the best position. All that said, I think that Bobby Kennedy Jr., who is going to be clearly the leader and setting the leadership on HHS and on the health care side in general, I think that he is an excellent pick, and although I don’t agree with every single one of his policies or initiatives, I think that directionally he is correct, and he will drive the bus, I think, in the right direction.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. Steve, you want to comment on that as well?
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah. And I just add one more piece to it. You know, Kelly’s right. But the other piece I would add to it is, you know, you stand up in a campaign and I think Donald Trump is a unique and amazing individual with a lot of opportunity to do things. But he stands up in a campaign and talks a lot about the deep state. Well, part of the deep state has always existed because political graft, you know, someone gets elected, I helped you get elected, and I put you in a position to give you back the favor of you helping me. That’s part of why the deep state exists. And I really wish, as Kelly said, he would look at people for their skill set and see what they’re talking about. I mean, quite frankly, I want the Surgeon General to be somebody who understands, you know, COVID-like events. major catastrophes and things that are happening because in Australia somehow we’ve lost 383 viruses over a hundred of them in the hantavirus and other categories this week I mean I don’t I don’t want to I mean well don’t do respect to primary care I just don’t want I want somebody who understands catastrophes and somebody who understands health well enough to teach I don’t want a surgeon general that looks like our last one that’s for sure because they’re not a good example in any respect
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah. And I, so I would say the current, just so that in case people who are listening, don’t know the current nominee and she has not been confirmed is Dr. Jeanette Nashwa. She’s a family practitioner. She went to a foreign medical school. She went to medical school in the Caribbean. Um, she, uh, worked at an urgent care center in New York city, uh, and was very much on the record for the duration of the pandemic. praising not only the vaccines and recommending that people continue to get the boosters, but praising censorship. She said that she applauded Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook for censoring people like me who spread, quote, disinformation. And she, quote, prayed to God that other social media platforms would do the same. She supported not only wearing one mask, but thought the two was better, agreed with the lockdown and the closure of schools. and strongly promoted things like social distancing. She now has done a 180 very, very late, just very recently, on a number of these issues. And I understand that she says that she was bamboozled, quote unquote, her word, not mine, that she was bamboozled and bought into it, and now she sees the light. I would like To say that that’s fine, I’m glad that she sees the light now, but I think we should be rewarding the people who got it right the first time.
SPEAKER 03 :
Absolutely.
SPEAKER 14 :
Who got it right at the beginning.
SPEAKER 03 :
Absolutely. Yeah, because that shows discernment on the front side, not the back side. Okay, really quick, because I know we’re going to have to take another break here shortly. Somebody texted again, and I know we’ve already explained this, but listeners are asking, would you please, Steve, again, explain what a PBM is?
SPEAKER 16 :
I think essentially what Kelly said was right. It’s like a real estate broker. So you have drug manufacturers who come out with new drugs constantly. It was 12 new Alzheimer’s drugs last month, for example. So the hospitals and pharmacies themselves do not have time. to figure out and negotiate directly with pharma companies like Pfizer and J&J. They don’t have the time to negotiate with them on pricing and distribution of the drug. So they hire a middleman, in this case called a pharmacy benefit manager. They literally manage how pharmacy benefits are playing out. And they set up a price structure. They are the ones who provide the rebates back. to the health insurance companies on the negotiated discounts. They get paid that way, but they also do a lot of the paperwork to bill for that drug. So they’ll help hospitals get the billing right so that they bill the insurance company who has agreed to pay for it. Quite frankly, if you have a high deductible, the insurance company is getting the rebate back. You’re paying for the cost of the drug anyway because your deductible is too high, and they’re not paying anything for it anyway. But that’s a side note. That’s basically how they do it, yeah.
SPEAKER 14 :
Another thing that they do, and people may be familiar with this, hearing that a particular drug, quote, isn’t on the formulary. It either is or isn’t on the hospital’s formulary. So hospitals set up a formulary, meaning what are the things that they stock in their pharmacy at the hospital? No hospital, no doctor’s office, no pharmacy stocks that. 100% of drugs that are available. They make a decision. So if a hospital needs to have a drug, for example, to treat influenza or a drug to treat whatever it is, the pharmacy, the PBM, is the one who goes and says, well, we’re going to stock this drug and this drug and this drug and not these other three. And a big part of the way they make those decisions is they say to drug company A, how much are you going to give me? I’ll put your antibiotic on the formulary, depending on how much you pay me.
SPEAKER 03 :
So in a lot of ways, Dr. Kelly, really quick, in a lot of ways, this isn’t much different than Kroger wanting to stock certain things, and even the shelf position of is a lot of times dictated by who’s kicking in the most for that shelf space and so on. As far as inventory control goes, it’s not much different is what you’re telling me.
SPEAKER 14 :
Correct. And if you go back to the time of the big racketeering scandals in New York City, it was because they were, quote, contrary to the people working for the city, you know, and said, well, I’ll give you the contract to do the roofing or the plumbing or the electricity city buildings. it depending on how much you pay me under the is a back alley deal you know how much you’re going to give me in the back alley because this other electrician company they’re going to give me you know 10 and you’re going you give me 12 great when you go back and see if i can get 13 they’re negotiating a kickback it’s called racketeering and that’s exactly what the pbms do they get kickbacks and that’s how they decide what drug they’re going to contract for a particular hospital or for a particular pharmacy.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. Makes total sense. And, again, whoever texted that, thank you. I hope I explained or we explained that well enough. I think we have. I mean, I’ve got a really good understanding of what happens here as far as that goes. And mainly, I guess, guys, because of my background even in the automotive side, there’s a lot of things that happen even internally with – different, you know, parts, distributors, and so on and so forth. And it’s really, I hate to say this, Dr. Kelly, it’s not a lot different in a lot of other worlds, although I will tell you that the markups and the money side of it is far different.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah. But and you’re right, though, it happens in many, many industries that how something gets priced. But generally what happens is when one side has to pay more, when that when the you know, the hospital has to pay more because the PBM, the middleman is taking a cut. And so all of a sudden that The prices on that drug are more because God knows a big pharmaceutical company is going to pass it on. They’re not going to take it on the chin. They’re going to say, fine, I’ll jack the cost of the drug up so that I can cover what I need to pay this extortionist called a middleman. I’ll jack up the price of my drug to cover that. And then it gets passed on to the hospital. The hospital says, well, I’m not taking it on the chin either. It’s going to roll downhill. I’ll pass it on to the patient. So the patient’s the one who’s always stuck holding the bag.
SPEAKER 03 :
Steve, it sounds like your idea, number one, of executive orders to get the process started, which I’m not in opposition of. I think that’s a great idea. Although to keep this moving forward in that direction, in other words, if he gets that done, let’s say, still we need some congressional support and a law, I guess you could say, that becomes permanent that would then have to be changed on down the road if another administration came in. Because as you know, the next president, if they don’t like what Donald Trump did in this particular area with a stroke of a pen, all of that could be reversed and we’re right back to square one. So I see this as, you know, to part one, get the problem immediately fixed if you can through executive action. And then after that, we need Congress to go to work and get this set in stone for good. Am I right, Steve?
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah. And, you know, the whole set in stone for good thing is kind of mushy these days. Right. Because you can wipe something out with an executive order. I mean, I think what happens is, I mean, truly, if you do this right, if you de-link it, if you peel it back to that two point three percent number or something rational like that, what happens is the industry is going to change. And it’s more than just Congress being lobbied to change it back. I mean, people are going to start to see the real value of this change in what’s going on because literally drug pricing should go down if you do it right. I mean, it has a huge impact on drug pricing. I think, you know, A, it starts out with a change because structurally you’ll make a change, and B, I think the industry will get used to it being done a new way, and then it’ll probably fight it itself. If you’re a hospital or if you’re, you know, a patient advocate, you’ll fight changing back yourself. So I’m not as worried about Congress. I just want to have enough time for people to see what happens when you do it.
SPEAKER 03 :
So in other words, once they start seeing the results, that will become permanent in and of itself.
SPEAKER 16 :
I think because it’ll become industry standard. I mean, it’s industry standard now at 100%, and people expect it. I don’t want them to expect it anymore.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. Great segue. We’ll stop there. We’ll come back, guys. I’ve got more questions. If you have a question, by the way, specifically, please let me know. 307-200-8222. Hi-Fi Plumbing is next. And again, if you’ve got electrical needs or plumbing needs, Hi-Fi Plumbing will take care of you. 877-WE-HI-5.
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SPEAKER 15 :
Now, back to Rush to Reason, presented by High Five Plumbing, Heating, and Cooling, where every call ends with a high five.
SPEAKER 03 :
And we are back, Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Dr. Kelly Victory and Steve House with us. And Steve, we’ve got a question that came in. I’ll direct this to you first, and Dr. Kelly, you can chime in afterwards. want to help or want to have a voice, want to chime in on some of the cabinet picks, for example. In this case, let’s talk, you know, Surgeon General. Is there any kind of a platform or a way for people to, you know, tastefully either oppose and or, you know, give kudos to somebody that’s been recommended already? Stephen, do we have anything in place like that at all?
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, I mean, the simple answer is yes. And there’s two things I would do. One is I would write a letter to my congressman. I mean, or to all four of the, you know, GOP congressmen in Colorado would take a letter from any of the listeners there. And you could send them a letter, tell them what their concern is and send it on to them. Now, do congressmen read every letter? They don’t. But it would be worthy. of the process. And the second thing is, if you know somebody on the Trump transition team, send them a note and tell them what their concerns are. Now, by doing so, you’re ultimately opposing Donald Trump. So I would rather than sending him a letter saying this person is not not capable or whatever, talk to them about what you’re looking for and what you might what you believe the skill set of someone is who would be a better choice rather than tearing down the other person.
SPEAKER 14 :
I agree with both those things. I would absolutely, however, put out, if you have specific people in mind, give those names. Don’t just say, I would like somebody who has these qualities. State the person’s name. The other thing is, do not overlook the power of social media. People like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy and God knows Bobby Kennedy Jr. and Donald Trump spend a lot of their day and their teams spend a lot of their days scouring social media correct so put those names out there tag you know somebody that you think is worthy and say this person please you know donald trump bobby kennedy jr whoever it is you know elon musk please consider this person as you know a uh a pick for your team this person would be an excellent choice for x y and z reasons i think social media i would never have said this obviously 10 years ago but in today’s world It’s far more important than you might realize.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, no, thank you, Dr. Kelly, for saying that. For all of you listening, your voice and some of the things that you put out there, and, you know, we see this all the time, Dr. Kelly and Steve, when somebody has a problem, for example, with an airline, and they’ll go to X and they’ll post something about it. In a lot of cases, you’ll get a faster response in doing that than by actually calling their 1-800 number. So, yes, it’s very powerful.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, we have teams that look at these.
SPEAKER 16 :
I would add something else to this equation, which is now is not the time for incremental change. And the Surgeon General is one example. I think the Department of Transportation is another. But let’s just focus on Surgeon General for a minute. We have wasted Surgeon General’s power for several decades, right? Because this is a person that should be saying what Bobby Kennedy himself is saying about health care. right so bobby’s talking about health not health care i mean he’s talking about processed foods fluoride all this other stuff right so we’ve had this bully pulpit with a person who has a title that could get into any room anywhere in the country and talk to credible people who are in the ag business in the food business in health care etc and we’re wasting the opportunity the same is true right if i made you department of transportation secretary john You would approach it from the point of view of someone who’s in a car, who deals with cars, who deals with congestion and traffic. Most of the time, Secretary of Transportation is being driven in a black SUV somewhere. They don’t know what it’s like. So we don’t need incremental change. I want a pit bull. And that job who can call people out and say, you know what? I work for the American people. I don’t work for the system. I don’t work for the absolutely hearted people who are working there who don’t want to hear the criticism. I want a pit bull. Absolutely. No.
SPEAKER 14 :
And that is exactly what I told the team. You know, I’ve been discussing this. With them for some time, I was disappointed with the choice that was made, but I would absolutely revolutionize and completely reform that wasted position because the average American cannot tell you who the Surgeon General was after C. Everett Koop. I believe that it’s a position that could be very meaningful if you had someone whose skill set was in communication and teaching and had the ability to take complex subjects and to break them down into lay terms, to have the ability to walk the walk and talk the talk and live the lifestyle that we want all Americans to do with regard to health and wellness. Somebody who’s not afraid to push back on big pharma, not afraid to push back on big ag to say we have got to do things differently and be willing to shake it up and risk the things that it takes to actually be a mover and a shaker. And I think that taking making a safe choice. is not the way to go. As Steve said, this is not the time for incremental change. We need somebody who’s going to go in there and be a heat-seeking missile.
SPEAKER 03 :
Absolutely. And really quick in the past, Dr. Kelly, I mean, you’re right. In fact, I had to even go look up our current Surgeon General, because you just don’t hear much from Mr. Vivek. And it’s not Vivek Ramaswamy, by the way. It’s Murthy. I mean, honestly, Dr. Kelly, I couldn’t have named that person. I had to go look it up because you’re exactly right. We don’t hear much from them.
SPEAKER 14 :
So think about this. The Americans just survived four-plus years ago. of the worst health care crisis, largely because of the way it was managed. Absolutely. But the reality is we just lived through a pandemic, and you can’t tell me the name of the surgeon general?
SPEAKER 03 :
And I’m on radio watching this stuff daily, by the way, so I’m even different than the average American, Dr. Kelly.
SPEAKER 14 :
what the heck was the guy doing for the last four and a half years?
SPEAKER 03 :
Exactly. Exactly. No, Steve, I mean, I can’t disagree with Dr. Kelly at all. I mean, it is a position that, again, I mean, I watch this stuff, you know, politically speaking and so on, on a routine basis, and I couldn’t tell you who it was before now.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, and think about this. If you got the bully pulpit and you’re the Surgeon General, you should be the one telling me that American women, 40% of American women are on antidepressants, 79% of Young people, the cancer rate is increased by 79%. You know, yada, yada, yada. There’s five or six major statistics that are an indication that our health is degrading very rapidly right now. The Surgeon General should be standing in the pulpit every single week somewhere calling out, why do we have this metabolic problem that’s causing all these issues, and no one’s addressing it whatsoever.
SPEAKER 03 :
No, you guys are spot on. I mean, this is a very important position.
SPEAKER 14 :
I can give you Donald Trump’s number.
SPEAKER 03 :
If I thought he would listen to me, I would call him. Trust me. Trust me. And there’s been several text messages that have come in that have agreed, Steve, with you and Dr. Kelly on, yes, contact your local representative, your senator. Senators do the confirmations, of course. And by the way, in this particular case with Surgeon General on the pick, there is a ton of… of conservative, not just regular media, but conservative media, I’ll just say backlash. I don’t know any other way to say it, guys. There’s a ton of backlash with conservative media. So trust me, this particular pick is getting a lot of heat on it because of not only, Dr. Kelly, some of the things that you have stated, but there’s even some stories going around right now to where this particular nominee had some issues with guns going off in the past and, and, and. I mean, it’s not looking very good. Let’s just say that.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah. Go ahead, Steve.
SPEAKER 16 :
Go ahead, Steve. unfortunately I think we’ve treated the Surgeon General’s job that way as well yeah and it’s just like give it to somebody for because they’re connected to a friend of yours which indeed which really is demeaning to the job and it delegitimizes the job agree it’s and we have the worst health status metabolic health status in we’ve ever had, probably worse than any nation in the world, we cannot delegitimize this job.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right, before I let you guys go, Steve, I’ll start with you. Dr. Kelly, I want you to chime in on this as well. Doge, we’ve got Vivek, we’ve got Elon, they’re going to do their best to go in and cut supposedly $2 trillion out of what we’ve got going on in Washington. Steve, when it comes to this topic, we talk a lot about health care between the three of us. What can they do in that area to actually save the country money? It costs us
SPEAKER 16 :
20 percent, 19, 20 percent to do billing and collection in health care. So 20 cents of every dollar for billing and collection. And in a restaurant, it’s three percent, four percent. Those guys need to go in and completely restructure how billing and collection works because it’s a trillion dollars. Imagine what you could do with a trillion dollars if you gave it to, you know, people who are focused on health like Bobby Kennedy, the surgeon general and others, instead of spending it just on moving money around and fighting payments.
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s ridiculous. So in other words, let’s get some more efficiencies in the way that we do billing, the computerization, the way things talk to one another and so on. I assume that’s what you’re talking about in and of itself, Steve.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah. So here’s what I mean. I had a CT scan. You guys all had a CT scan, which didn’t get billed to my insurance company for six weeks after I had it done. But they gave prior approval for me to have the CT scan after it was done and the bill was sent. They denied payment. That should be against the damn law. Because doctors spend 45 minutes getting prior approval, and then they get denied payment for it. It’s ridiculous.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I agree. And that’s some of the stuff that could be cleaned up. Dr. Kelly got a couple of minutes, and you’re in that world very much as a doctor. What else could they do to clean things up and make things more efficient?
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, I think one of the things that the statistics that came out just this past week about the number, it’s only 6% of total federal employees actually work on site. 94% are working remotely. 12% total of federal buildings are currently occupied. OK, 88 percent of the buildings, we’re spending 15 billion dollars on real estate, air conditioning, heating, janitorial services for buildings that are not inhabited where people aren’t working. That is insane. Every single congressperson should be held to account for this, Republican or Democrat. The idea that they are spending our tax dollars. To allow this to happen? You have got to be kidding me.
SPEAKER 05 :
Absolutely.
SPEAKER 14 :
I mean, this is absolutely.
SPEAKER 05 :
No, I agree.
SPEAKER 14 :
So that alone is just so, it is so egregious. And if I could walk into Congress, I would let them all have it with both barrels. Because I’m telling you, that is such a slap in the face for the American taxpayer.
SPEAKER 03 :
I agree. All right, guys, an hour goes by so fast. We’ll do part two next week because we’ve got a lot more to cover as well. Dr. Kelly, thank you so much. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER 14 :
Thank you, as always. See you next week.
SPEAKER 03 :
You’re very welcome. And Steve House, you as well. Thanks for setting all this up years ago.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, everybody write to Jim Jordan and tell him he spent $50 million investigating Biden and nothing happened. He should probably pay that back.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, amen. Great to be with you. Amen. Steve, I appreciate you very much. Have a great rest of your day. Veteran Windows and Doors is next. 40% off entry doors with free labor. Call Dave today. Find him at klzradio.com.
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SPEAKER 12 :
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SPEAKER 13 :
It’s time to leave your safe space.
SPEAKER 03 :
This is Rush to Reason on KLZ 560. And that is it for this first hour. We’ve got more hours coming your way, so please don’t turn the dial. Stay tuned, and we’ll be back here in just a moment. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 04 :
And may you grow to be proud Dignified and true And do unto others as you have done to you Be courageous and be brave And in my heart you’ll always stay Forever young Forever young Forever young Forever young May good fortune be with you May your guiding light
