Solutions From The Multiverse
Hosts Adam Braus (@ajbraus) and Scot Maupin (@scotmaupin) meet up each week where Adam brings a new idea to help the world and Scot picks and prods at it with jokes and questions. The result is an informative and entertaining podcast that always gets you thinking.
Solutions From The Multiverse
Solving Healthcare: Rebranding Medicare For All For the Baddies | S02 E28
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Discover the unexpected economic advantages of Medicare for All — a concept that may sound controversial but holds promise for both public welfare and corporate America. Join me, Adam Brous, alongside my insightful co-host Scott, as we unravel healthcare's Gordian knot. This episode isn't just a dialogue; it's an exploration of a groundbreaking perspective that sees Medicare for All not as a burden, but as a potential jackpot for the business world.
We're no strangers to the hefty price tags attached to private healthcare taxes, including premiums, co-pays, and deductibles. However, this time we're flipping the script and examining Medicare for All as a substantial tax break that could save a fortune for individuals and corporations alike. As we dissect policies from the Obama era to Biden's current administration, we reveal the surprising inertia of governance and propose a strategic realignment of Medicare for All as an economic reform poised to unite citizen welfare and corporate prosperity.
Wrapping up our provocative exchange, we delve into 'job lock' and its ramifications on the labor market. Imagine a world where businesses are freed from the financial shackles of providing health insurance, potentially triggering a surge in innovation and profit. We also tackle the transition for those employed in the private health insurance industry, ensuring their skillset's versatility paves the way for new opportunities within the reformed system. Tune in for a session that not only informs but also challenges your perspective on one of the most pivotal issues of our time.
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Email: solutionsfromthemultiverse@gmail.com
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Thanks to Jonah Burns for the SFM music.
Reforming Healthcare
Speaker 1You got a 45 pound weight . Yeah , I mean , yeah , you got kettle bells .
Speaker 2I see , I'm laying my eyes on your beautiful kettle bells as we speak .
Speaker 1You know what my kettle bells are being useful right now . Keeping the fridge closed , I saw that one is keeping a cabinet closed from a cat , one is keeping a table weighed down so that it doesn't fall over .
Speaker 2Okay , it's extended and the other one just sits there , I don't you don't kettle , I don't you don't bell the kettles . I keep telling myself I will , but I do a simple thing I just hold . It's a dumbbell , it's not a kettle , but I probably should get a kettle bell , but I just it's a dumbbell and oh is that was at my cue to be like hey , you've been , have you been working out ? Oh , you don't know , adam , have you been work ? Have you been what ?
Speaker 1is oh , have you been working ?
Speaker 2out , I've been weightlifting and doing these kind of calisthenic things and you know , last night I like barely slept . I slept like five hours because you were weightlifting all night .
Speaker 1I was just .
Speaker 2In the mirror like American psycho just be like .
Speaker 1Yeah yeah , listen to Huey Lewis plotting out some crazy murder plan .
Speaker 2You just described last night for me oh great .
Speaker 1And now you're here and so welcome to the last episode of solutions for the multi-verse everybody , apparently I'll be getting .
Speaker 2What a serial killed at the end of this . Yeah okay , my name's Adam Brous . My name is Scott Moppen . This is solutions from the multi-verse .
Speaker 1Every week , we come to you with a unheard of and new solution to the society's we toss it up in the air , we kick it around , we knock on the tires never heard of it before , unless you have , in which case it's bully for you , but you probably haven't .
Speaker 2Okay , today's solution is we're going back to one of my favorite things we haven't touched on a long time healthcare . Okay , our first solution was Nurse hotline right healthcare .
Speaker 1We've done healthcare ones . We're both on the same page as Thinking that our current healthcare system has a lot of room to get better for people who don't know .
Speaker 2I used to work for the leading electronic medical records company in the country . My , my , my mom built one of the greatest healthcare systems in the world . She , like , was one of the builders of it in its early days . Cool , my parents are all my parents are both doctors . My brother , two of my brothers , are doctors . Anyways , I know , when I worked at epic I ran hospital billing offices at like six of the largest health systems in the country with like thousands , like Tens of thousands of employees nice .
Speaker 2There were like hundreds of clinics and like many hospitals in in one of the systems and there's six of them that I worked for , yeah , and we , I got to go straight in . I could , I could look at all the billing . I could look . I ran reports all the time . What were the billing ? How is it working , you know ? So I can say I can actually with this , with this I can speak with authority . Okay , I actually can speak with authority on this you have like other things in this pot .
Speaker 1You have .
Speaker 2X , you have specific expertise . I do I do , and , and I know a little bit about politics too , so I can , so we can talk about politics . Okay solution today . What is it ? You know , this is what I call the American medical business private tax break and medical economic stimulus bill , which say that again .
Speaker 1The American run that run the MVP TB M E .
Speaker 2Oh the yeah the American medical business private tax break and medical economic stimulus bill .
Speaker 1Also called it's mouthful , also called the mouthful Medicare for all . Okay .
Speaker 2Yeah , so what so today's solution ?
Speaker 1I see why they go with that .
Speaker 2Yeah well , my solution today is we need to message Medicare for all completely differently than we're messaging it . But again , once again , the left is wrong . They're just bad at marketing , bad at branding right bad at like politics .
Speaker 2They're just like bad at everything , and that's why the left doesn't take over in the United States , because the left has wildly more popular . You know , it's a democracy . If you say we're gonna give you a bunch of free stuff , that should be the winning policy , right ? But it's not , which means they're doing it wrong , right ? That's my sort of conclusion . I yeah , from that first principle , anyways . So we're gonna rebrand Medicare for all and we're gonna rebrand it as two things attack a private tax break and a medical economic stimulus . A .
Speaker 1Private tax break and a medical economic stimulus . Yeah , okay , we're all primed for the idea of a stimulus , because we just went through one right and we liked it sort of except it was yeah botched and weird , but uh , yeah , so this one isn't even for regular people .
Speaker 2This is for corporations . Corporations are gonna make a huge amount of money with Medicare for all . This is what no one realizes , and the left doesn't .
Speaker 1I was like people love it when we give corporations , don't you ?
Speaker 2feel like , don't you feel like when you're gonna say let's do Medicare for all who's ? Who's against it ? Corporations ?
Speaker 1are people who the money , the money bands right , who make money on the big mistake , big mistake .
Speaker 2Medicare for all will make well , just get . It will be the one of the largest corporate bailouts , like handovers of wealth , in history , and this is what people don't say , for some reason . So let me explain how it works .
Speaker 1So the other group of people that are against Medicare for all are the people who think that like it would mean that they suddenly have some sort Of weird third-world medical Treatment options and it's just , I don't know . I was gonna say , as I lived in Japan for six years , had nationalized healthcare . It was wonderful , it worked so well and was it actually there ?
Speaker 2was it just the pair ? Was the government , like where the hospitals government employees ?
Speaker 1I don't know , I don't think . No , I think it was . The pair was government . I don't feel like they were . Yeah , I don't feel like every doctor was like the government employee , but only .
Speaker 2Britain does that and actually people complain about it because it's actually not very good right and so I would never advocate . I said right , like I know , oh yeah , but I would never advocate ever for like government employee . I mean , you could have some government hospitals . Okay and look like but it shouldn't be government hospitals , it should be private hospitals With government payer right with an insurance go , and Japan was far from perfect .
Speaker 1It wasn't perfect , but it was like it was so nice and this Amazing and the idea that you're gonna drop in quality of it . Suddenly no one's gonna do it's , it's ridiculous . It just doesn't happen actually you'll probably go up in , but there are people that definitely believe that and they go . No , we can't have Medicare for all , because then I'll have to wait nine months to see someone about an earring You're like .
Speaker 1That's not . They'll be like if I break my arm , I have to let it like heal at a weird angle and then they'll have to re-break it a year later , when they finally see me at the Emergency room and I lived in Germany .
Speaker 2Exactly the same experience like I , spraying the hell out of my ankle , like really bad . I thought I like destroyed my ankle and I went immediate to the hospital . They x-rated , they said you , you know , you have a bad sprain , go , you know . They gave me everything and left . It was no weight , nothing , just immediate . I .
Speaker 1I broke my first bone in Japan . I broke a bone in my foot , had to have a cast and like and see doctors and get x-rays and have learn a whole bunch of new Japanese vocabulary like internal bleeding I didn't .
Speaker 1I found my notebook recently with my notes from that time and like all my new vocab that I'd read and I was like oh , like internal bleeding , I'm like geez all these very specific terms , but yeah , like , and then I had physical therapy afterward and the bill to me , I think , was like under 50 bucks total and it was just like a processing thing . Yeah , it was crazy .
Speaker 2I was just like the nearest thing to Medicare for all is accountable care organizations like Kaiser Permanente , which is a huge health system that uses Epic . Actually , it's one of Epic's largest .
Speaker 1Is Kaiser . Good , I mean I have Kaiser .
Speaker 2The only complaint people have for Kaiser is that there's not very good mental health Like you only can meet a therapist once a month , which people with mental health issues say . That's probably not enough .
Speaker 1Which is yeah , okay , when they bought that old Arkham Asylum up on the hill and started taking over it .
Speaker 2They put a lot of criminals in there .
Speaker 1I mean it seems like maybe not the place to group them all together but I'm not a medical professional . Let's spread them out , I think maybe one hallway with all the most dangerous people that we've ever known Like dangerous in a way that they can all like talk to each other and very easily Talk to each other .
Speaker 2Oh my God , is that what happens up there ?
Speaker 1I feel like they could just be like the joker's , like hey , penguin , what's up ? Penguin's like leave me alone . But like they could plot things right , these criminal masterminds .
Speaker 2I agree , maybe we separate them . I think maybe even just like a community program , you know , maybe just keep them in their homes but have like community workers show up every day .
Speaker 1That's what I'm gonna push you for . Hey joker , how's it going ? I'm gonna push you for how are you ?
Speaker 2doing today ? Did you do okay today ? That's what I'm gonna push you for one of these days as a solution .
Speaker 1For what would you do for if Gotham criminals were real criminals in our society ? We could do fantasies . How would you deal with them ? How do you solve ? In a compassionate and or reasonable way . But what if you were actually ? You can't just be like I don't know . Shoot them all , cause that's not .
Speaker 2Wait , okay , medicare for all . We're not branding it properly . Why not ? Because we're pitching it as I mean . I think I'm compelled by this argument , which is that it's a moral , we have a moral imperative to like provide healthcare for everyone , and that there's a kind of practical rationality to it . Like it , our health system currently is really expensive and actually a Medicare fall system would be like significantly more affordable and just as good , if not tremendously better . Oh yeah , so . So there's like a , there's like a morality with a practicality . That's the current pitch , Like that's the burning pitch for Medicare for all , morality , practicality , okay , that never gets anything done in America . When you want something done , you don't say morality , practicality . Those are the opposite of what American laws are . It doesn't get anyone's juices flowing .
Speaker 2Exactly , If you want American laws , you got to say billionaires are going to make a shite ton of money , One and it'll like create like American power , dominance , like you know , economically or militarily . That's like the two things you have to prove to the federal government if you want an actual law passed . Wait what's the first one ? Like billionaires are going to make a ton of money Like rich people are going to get a lot richer .
Speaker 1You have to show that first .
Speaker 2And then you have to show that we'll be like militarily or economically dominant geopolitically over the world . Those are the two things that pass laws Like any law you look at in the last , like you know , 100 years , was basically just like we will rich people get super rich and we'll dominate the world , whether it's a market or military or whatever .
Speaker 1So you have to show the Medicare for all . We'll do this . That should turn around now that we have all these young people running for . Wait , who's running for president right now ?
Speaker 2Oh yeah , the two youngest people , a 35 year old and a 37 year old , fresh , new ideas out there , even a 55 year old would be 30 years younger than both of them . It's like a 50 year old .
Speaker 1You would be a young , yeah , 50 year old . The 50 year old would be like oh my God , 50 years old . Hey Pops what's up . Why don't you ?
Speaker 2pack away . Oh my God , I don't mind that they're old . I mind more about their policy . Really , I think there's old people with great . My grandma's pretty smart . Well , she was pretty progressive , she was like 90 . Here's what I don't like .
Speaker 1I don't like the people in power clinging on until the very bitter end . Yeah , that's not good and not fostering a normal transition to the younger and younger people , generation to generation . That's true . Yeah , I get it . You have power and you can keep it if you want it . But you know what , when you got power , you're right .
Speaker 2The person who gave it to you wasn't 89 .
Speaker 1It was like a normal thing .
Speaker 2You make a fantastic point , scott , like a fantastic point . The conversation about this is always about faculties and maybe policy . Are their faculty sharp enough to do the job Is the big question . The smaller question , which is also brought up , but it's still there , is are their policies kind of out of date or old because they're old ? But you're bringing up a far more fundamental point , which is the concept of the transition of power . Means that people with an inordinate amount of power voluntarily give it over to those with less power in order to keep like the democracy flowing .
Speaker 1They're
Medicare for Corporate Stimulus
Speaker 1hogging the ball . You shouldn't want to be president when you're 81 years old . You shouldn't want to be . There should be enough confidence in people who are 50 years old that you've helped build up that you're like cool guys , your turn , let me do some other stuff . You don't have to be in charge of everything , it's okay , that's a very good point .
Speaker 2I love that . I like that as a third leg of the stool of the criticism of you know .
Speaker 1Anyway , sorry , that's just my personal .
Speaker 2No , it's great , but let's talk about how Medicare for All could be rebranded to be like a corporate stimulus bill . So , that the evil people would think it was good To get through the hurdles .
Speaker 1So we have to convince the evil people .
Speaker 2So here are evil people , listen to them . So Medicare for All would be paid for for people who don't know . The bill that Bernie proposed , which I think is a good bill , proposed that Medicare for All would be paid for by a 4% income tax , flat , flat . So everyone would pay 4% more on their income tax . Okay , okay , so okay , people don't like taxes , whatever , but it would be . It would actually be less than you're paying in medical expenses , so you'd actually save money .
Speaker 1I believe that I'm fine .
Speaker 2So then this should be pitched as a what I call a private tax break . So you're currently paying government taxes and you're paying private taxes . And private taxes are all the services that could be more efficiently and cheaply provided to you by the government . But it are provided to you by Corporate . You know corporate America , right ? That's private taxes . Okay , so like medical insurance , for sure is a private tax . So is you know a bunch of other things , like when utilities screw you over and they could be public utilities In some ways . Housing , you pay a private tax because we don't have enough public housing to keep the prices in check and stuff . So anyways . But with health care , I would say that's a private tax . So you're paying a private tax of your health insurance premiums , your co-pays , your deductibles . If you pay . If we replace that with a public tax , you'll actually get a tax break . So it's a private tax break . So that would get the kind of people who are anti-tax .
Speaker 2Yeah . So it would at least be an argument to them that you could kind of throw in their spokes when they say , yeah , it's gonna raise taxes , up , up , up , up , up , up , up , up up . No , it's not yeah .
Speaker 1It's gonna lower taxes if you include private taxes the real way to do that would be like go back , look at your last year . How much did you spend on health care ?
Speaker 2Was it now than 4% of your ?
Speaker 1imagine that as a zero . And now are you happy or no ? Yeah , like yeah , and most people would look back and go , oh yeah , I'd be happy , right , exactly , I would be . But even this narrative .
Speaker 2No one says that I mean this could have been a solution on its own private tax . That could be a ver , a word in our lexicon politically that the left could use to explain this concept , because Americans just don't want to get screwed . That's what they don't like .
Speaker 1They don't like to get screwed labeling it as like the private tax of medical insurance .
Speaker 2Exactly , we're gonna do a tax break , a private tax break . You're being taxed by the insurance companies . Americans wouldn't know the subtle differences between a public tax and a private tax . They would just say , yeah , you just mean I'm getting railed like I'm getting screwed by some institution . That's a big faceless institution . So you say , yeah , you are getting railed by a faceless institution . It's called private health insurance , private , you know , for-profit right insurance and people of law .
Speaker 1Like you know , the criticism is that when they had the power to do something , what they did was they made a law where , instead of like getting rid of insurance Companies , they're like now everyone has to buy insurance .
Speaker 2Yeah , no , that's the wrong thing it's trying to , I understand but it's moving us toward the wrong goal post .
Speaker 1You know what I mean like I mean .
Speaker 2I mean Obamacare was Romney care . Let's just be straight . Like Obama was a black Republican , I'm just gonna throw that out there . Like his policies were just Republican policies that he like he , like you know wrapped in liberal silk and like sailed down the river to us . It's the same thing with Biden . Biden's just doing all Trump's policies . Trump came in said I'm gonna deport people and throw the wall in Mexico .
Speaker 2Biden has deported way more people than Trump and is building a wall . Bill enhanced border security in Mexico , but Trump came in and said we should do an industrial policy and rebuild the industrial base of the United States . He then left . Biden came in and did the inflation reduction act , which is a trade war with China , and an industrial policy , a giant industrial policy for the United States . It's just exactly the Trump platform . He's just making it happen now .
Speaker 1So almost like the government is on its own course . That can't be deterred by the measly will of the voters but new ideas .
Speaker 2I think new ideas can change it . So if we get this idea of a private tax , you say Medicare for all is actually a tax break for you it's a private tax break . Okay , so that gets the tax people , okay . So now we have the corporations who are like ooh , I had my corporation . Now you have to explain to the corporations . Corporations pay 67% of the health care premiums in the United States .
Speaker 1I was just gonna say , like imagine , to the corporation yes , look back in the year , how much did you spend on your health care for your employees ?
Speaker 2I can tell you the amount corporations that is your spend Each year spent eight hundred and fifty eight billion dollars on this this is only eight hundred fifty eight bill .
Speaker 1Only eight , five , eight by .
Speaker 2That's like only eight , five , eight be almost double our entire military spending each year . In what ? Every year Corporations pay this to private for-profit health insurance companies ? Uh-huh . So the the moment that Medicare for all is passed , all those corporations Can just keep all that money . They can just move their employees onto the government health care right . Stop paying those premiums and Then the the employee gets taxed four percent . Corporation Nothing , so so the corporations would get for free for doing nothing right eight hundred and fifty eight billion dollars what ?
Speaker 2that's bigger than FDR's new deal right just handed to them , and then it would the next year they get . They get it again like they just they would be a .
Speaker 1Good , don't have to spend it . Yeah , they would never have to spend that again .
Speaker 2I Well , it's like what the hell ? Why did no one ever say that Like ? Why didn't Bernie ever go and like talk to like corporate American chamber of commerce lobbyists and be like this is a huge corporate handout ? This is one of the biggest corporate handouts in history .
Speaker 1Because if someone's going to do that and I'm on the side of the people getting $858 billion a year , I'm going to pay some pretty good lobbyists myself to like . Follow Bernie Sanders to make it better than that to make a bet more to follow the other guys lobbyists around and be like yo yo yo . What are you saying ? Here's some , here's some money , here's a little briefcase full of cash , just but you would keep the money for it , but you would support it .
Speaker 2But they didn't support it . They did everything they could to stop it Right . Who did everything ? Corporate , corporate America didn't align itself with Bernie Sanders . I'm not , I'm , I'm I crazy . Of course they didn't right . They were . They believed as enemies and they were , and they took actions against one another . But Bernie could have just gone and said guys , this is one of the biggest corporate money grabs right ever and I want to do it for you . I'm here to do it for you . I'm literally going to move your expenses onto your employees . Yeah , that's what corporate America loves to do .
Economic Impact of Medicare for All
Speaker 2Why are they in the business of providing health insurance for their employees ?
Speaker 1It's crazy . You have to increase every company's revenue immediately by decreasing the amount of cost you have to Crazy and your employee overhead .
Speaker 2Yeah , sometimes people pay 10 , 20 percent of somebody's of somebody's salary is just the health insurance premiums they're paying . Yeah , also , there's a whole paperwork burden . All the small businesses would not have to let you save 30 employees and you're like let's provide health insurance for everybody .
Speaker 1I'm with you . This is crazy . Look , I'm with you .
Speaker 2But I'm saying that's . What I'm saying is that nobody ever frames it that way . That's why this is the new solution . Frame Medicare for All is not just good for people , which it is but for health care , which it is , starts hammering that it's good for freaking corporate America . They're going to get up almost a trillion dollars Get the Wall Street feeling .
Speaker 1you know those guys being like yeah , yeah , yeah , the stock market will go way up if there was Medicare for All Money , baby money . You know they're throwing it . You say hey , stock brokers .
Speaker 2Every year . From now on , corporate America will get a trillion dollars more profit , because that's what it would be . It'd just be profit , they would just be theirs .
Speaker 1Yeah , that would probably affect some stock prices , that's crazy .
Speaker 2I mean , I don't even know what the total amount of American profit is . This might be near , like , I don't know , some fraction of like the total amount of profit made every year . I have no clue and it would just be handed over . Now you could say well , the American , you know insurance companies would whatever , die off or whatever .
Speaker 1Okay , yes .
Speaker 2And then welfare are they providing to the world ? Like nothing . They're not providing any welfare , they're just middlemen , right .
Speaker 1So what's going to be the effect of that ? That happens sometimes , you know Like the Zeppelin industry had to go .
Speaker 2They went down in flames . Yeah , they had to find new things .
Speaker 1Blacksmiths had to figure it out .
Speaker 2It just happened . Sometimes that's right . Sorry private health insurance companies , Sometimes it's . I'm sorry , it looks like right now .
Speaker 1AI is about to go . Sorry , artists and writers , you're all done so . We're getting some . We're getting mediocre content churned out at a rapid pace . Try to keep up with that .
Speaker 2Is that what people are saying , like kind of a negative on AI ?
Speaker 1Well , that's the fear in art is that it's going to severely undercut all the ability to make it into a career or a job or living thing .
Speaker 2I see that , I see that , yeah , potentially .
Speaker 1And that it will also just that undercutting that will discourage people from going into it in the first place and then we're going to have just a giant downturn of like culture and art and interesting , good , entertaining things for people to make people think I don't know .
Speaker 2Yeah , that's rough .
Speaker 1Okay , but at least we have AI . I'm sorry , thank you .
Speaker 2So then there are . So I don't want to be fat fatuous about this , though I do want to talk about- .
Speaker 1Fatuous .
Speaker 2Stupid what you call me .
Speaker 1No , I did understand .
Speaker 2Yeah , I don't want to be like fatuous about it , Like , okay , so corporate America would say , yeah , sure , we would get that the first year , but the next year there would be . You know , it would eliminate what's called job lock . Right , People don't want to quit their jobs because they'd lose their health insurance .
Speaker 1This is like a large fraction of the American public who's working ? Right .
Speaker 2So they would say we don't want Medicare for all , because even if we got a trillion dollars for free the next year , you know , 10% of our employees would just quit because they have health insurance now and they don't need our stupid crap jobs , and then we would have to raise the cost of labor . How is that logical , though , in order to attract people to actually do those jobs ?
Speaker 1Because if you continue that line of thinking , then 10% of every company would quit and you would have all those people to fill in the 10% that like You'd have to raise wages .
Speaker 2The idea they won't come back without a higher wage .
Speaker 1No , but I'm saying you don't need those people back . It's like the idea of job lock is like I'm keeping these people , but if there's a lot more people floating around like free electrons , you can just- .
Speaker 2But you have to pay them more to attract them .
Speaker 1Well , you're just saved $800 billion in healthcare .
Speaker 2Okay so that's what I'm saying . So they would say , okay , yeah , for the first year , maybe we get that $800 billion , but the next year we'd have to raise wages . And the raise in wages over the next few years would probably be roughly , I mean efficient .
Speaker 1If you believe in the efficient market hypothesis , it would raise the wages by that same amount over the next few years .
Speaker 2So it wouldn't be forever . What I would say is that you could probably expect the first year for it to be , you'd get the whole amount or most of it , and then the second year you'd probably get like a third less , and then next year you'd get like a third less and a third less .
Speaker 2So it would taper off over the next like four or five years as American labor got more . I mean it does empower labor . When you can go on strike , your business that you're striking against can't stop your healthcare benefits and end the strike by ending your healthcare benefits . That's legal . That's crazy . That's not . That's actually legal . So that would go away . People wouldn't have job locks , so there'd be a lot of people like leaving their jobs to the healthcare now .
Speaker 1Do you think that's why corporations weren't for the thing initially ? Like is because it gives them that leverage . They make some blues . That leverage over labor , yep , wow , it's almost like company town . So gross , oh , it's disgusting .
Speaker 2It's like the company town . Oh , we'll pay you in company script and you can go down to the general store and it's like you know . Have you heard of that ?
Speaker 1No .
Speaker 2Back in the day they would have these company towns where they would pay you in US dollars , but they would also just like pay you part of your salary in the company's money . That could be redeemed in the general store of the city of the town .
Speaker 1Here's your Sears bucks . You can only use it at the Sears store , like imagine if Amazon paid people and they gave them like farther pay in Amazon gift cards .
Speaker 2So the idea , so what Bernie did was hey , it's a moral thing , hey , it's a practical thing , but what it should have been was we're going to blast the American economy like through the roof . The American economy is going to be unleashed by Medicare for all . They shouldn't even call it Medicare for all . They should call it , like I said , like a medical stimulus , like , like medicals , historic medical stimulus , economic stimulus package . Because that's really what it would be , because all that job lock , all those people leaving those jobs , would shoot up real wages . So now real wages would be climbing for everybody , right , you would also support unionization , which means also wages shooting up way more from that . And all those people in job lock , they hate their jobs . They're barely productive . That's what all the research shows . If you hate your job , you're like 10% productivity compared to someone who loves their job .
Speaker 1It's like no , yeah , you're not begrudgingly doing awesome at your work , which ?
Speaker 2means those people leave other people . You raise the salary , you fix the workplace , you fix it or you replace it with AI , whatever , and now all that value gets created . That's real value in the economy . So you actually create , you remove the value loss or just waste of , like job lock , and you lose the value loss , waste of for-profit health insurance companies , like the middlemen of those , and you get whatever actually is value additive work in the economy . We find out what that is Cause right now , we just don't know what that is Cause we don't allow people to actually discover it .
Speaker 1So yeah , it's massive .
Speaker 2And small businesses . If you want to start a small business right now , you get up to eight , 10 , 12 employees . There's this huge paperwork burden and tax and weird stuff . Provide health insurance for your workers . That would just be gone . It'd be so easy to go from 10 employees to 100 employees If you had no didn't have to do health insurance for all your freaking employees . So it would just be this huge , like a giant millstone around the American economy's neck . It would just be like snipping it and just off .
Speaker 1And it would just be crazy . Maybe Bernie Sanders rebrands himself as bling , bling Bernie . Yeah , okay , and he starts talking about it . He's like don't be a Lambo In every driveway .
Speaker 2I do love Bernie , but I do think and he's a genius politically .
Speaker 1He's also pretty old too , right ? Yeah , that's the best evidence that it doesn't matter how old people are . What I'm saying . Where's the young Bernie who ?
Speaker 2is that ? Well , Marianne Williamson currently is sort of trying to take on the mantle of a progressive , true progressive mantle . So she's sort of the young Bernie . She's like 60 , 70 or something . She's older too .
Speaker 1That's what I'm saying , Like where it's so the age shift is so wild .
Speaker 2Most progressive leaders in the past came from unions and Bernie kind of well , not Bernie really , but you know Robert Reich and Bernie to some extent . Well , bernie kind of just came up through the politics of like he was the mayor of the capital of Vermont and then became the congressperson , then the senator and then almost the president right . So he kind of came up the way you're supposed to . But anyways , this would . I think this would be a way better way to pitch Medicare for all , because it speaks to like the American psyche .
Speaker 2Not the American psyche in like 25 years from now , after we've like destroyed the entire climate and the economy and there's just like billionaires of all , not the Mad Max future .
Speaker 1Yeah , exactly those people might actually like Bernie .
Speaker 2They might be like , yeah , we should just have Medicare for all because we'd be so . We're so desperate at that point that we're just like do something to like save us . But right now we're still in this like people still have this consciousness of like America's gonna be great , it's gonna grow , it's gonna be . We're gonna stimulate the economy . We're not at like rock bottom where we need to like salvage the economy , which is , I feel , like Bernie , it's almost like a salvage . We're gonna salvage this broken system . Americans don't like that . They like to hear we're gonna grow , we're gonna lean into it and we're gonna push through and we're gonna like be on a frontier and we're gonna go further than we've ever gone . People love that .
Speaker 1So that's what this would frame it , as that's what this idea would frame Medicare all as , and the result is we get a way better healthcare system , way better , a way better Economy , it sounds like , and a way better like just a way better experience for everyone going through the process , everything is better and also it really helps with AI .
Speaker 2You know people are worried about AI and they don't know what's gonna happen . Is there gonna be unemployment , blah blah . One of the one of the absolute most baseline things we could do to be like , to be like ready for AI , is already have a public health system , like a public , you know , public option , public , government supported health insurance , universal Supported health insurance , because if you have that , if there is overnight you know some catastrophic thing we're overnight you have 20% unemployment . Yep , they all can still go to the doctor , right ? You don't . You don't have , even if they're homeless and who knows what , they can go to the freaking doctor , right .
Speaker 1It's important you don't have a second . A wave of people not being able to afford medication and life saving Operations causes all kinds .
Speaker 2Yeah , there's the comorbidities of that social horrible . So yeah , and they're all losing their jobs . And guess what ? Your job has ? Your health insurance , yeah , so this ? This is like , like the AI people are all libertarians , which is unfortunate . I've connected with a lot of the AI people recently , like the .
Speaker 1AI . What like people who are like worried you're connecting with a lot of AI People yeah , like people who are like worried about a .
Speaker 2I like hi Adam .
Speaker 1Can I help you ? What is your problem today ? Oh no you're like . Robots you're like . I need to solve some of the society's problems like that sounds great . I have a , do I my understanding is you want to solve society's problems . Is that correct ? You're like , yes , ai people that you're that's better than most AI's .
Speaker 2Actually , they don't usually ask clarifying questions and check in with you . They're usually just like here's a solution you know , here's what I think is right , you know . But yeah , so this . But it's strange , because all these AI people are all like libertarians , so they , so they think like , oh my god , we need like Charities or something , and I'm like what ? Like ?
Speaker 1we need government programs .
Speaker 2Like you're literally describing the onset of communism , like the , the principle that you know Mark said . I mean , I don't necessarily love centrally planned communism , but this is what the AI people are telling us . They're telling us they're gonna make computers that are so smart it can plan all society . That's called communism . Like that's what Mark said . Mark said Capital would get so efficient and so automatic that no one would have to work better and that would usher in Communism . They're describing that and yet none of them even know Mark's enough to realize that what they're saying is just communism . Well , anyways , that's the solution . Everybody kind of a boring politics .
Speaker 1No , I like this . Okay , I'm always good we get into medical . Yeah , refer , yeah , we just talked about Lamborghini's in every driveway . That's absolutely exciting . Adam , what color is your Lamborghini gonna be ?
Speaker 2Well , I'm green . No , yeah , with with lime green running lights underneath lime green with lime green lights .
Speaker 1Yeah , I mean , if you're gonna have a Lambo , what get ridiculous ? Right , I get ridiculous ludicrous . I think they say ludicrous has a Lambo .
Speaker 2No , that's like a thing , isn't it like Tesla has a ludicrous mode . What yeah , where you ?
Speaker 1like you're the guy who tells me about test . You told me that all the models I don't like love the word sexy . You know that's gross .
Medicare for All Benefits Everyone
Speaker 2All right , everybody remember Medicare for all . It's just the biggest corporate bailout ever , which I actually think is fine because it would be better for everyone . Everyone wins . The whole point is that this is not a fight .
Speaker 1Yes , this is everyone winning . This is not boring , this is cool .
Speaker 2No that's the whole point . Everyone wins . Medicare for all . There is no loser . Even big corporate America makes tons of well . Private health insurance loses , but they all can just go get jobs with their other corporate shills . You know , there's the other corporate shills We'll all be hiring .
Speaker 1There'll be a lot of swing jobs . Yeah , do stuff .
Speaker 2Yeah , we can do like a little transition . We could take some of that 800 billion and do a little transition for the and guess what ?
Speaker 1the insurance when they are looking for jobs . They're not going to be out of healthcare , they can . That's right . They'll have healthcare .
Speaker 2It'll be a lot better work that major health insurance corporations . Perfect technology skills , math skills , business skills , they'll be fine . Anyways , okay , we're done , all right , solely money , everybody Bye . You .
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