WEBVTT

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- So I'm Karen Greenstone. I'm a member of Medicare for All Indiana. And we've done these healthcare

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- conversations for many, many years. We did take years off during COVID, but here we are back again.

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- And I want to thank everybody for coming. So I know that there's a lot of anxiety right now, and we

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- want to acknowledge that.

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- our president is threatening to blow up a country. But if you could please turn off your cell phones

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- so they don't ding in the middle of the conversation, because we're here for a health care conversation

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- and whatever happens tonight, we're still going to need health care. There are cards on your chair for

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- questions and answers. And if you need a pen, raise your hand and we'll find a pen for you.

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- I want to point to the bathroom, which is over there down the hall. And there is also a water fountain

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- if you get thirsty. Quite honestly, we were hoping to have at least one woman on this panel.

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- But unfortunately, current ninth district representative Aaron Hochin declined our invitation. And Jim

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- Graham couldn't be here tonight. He's recovering from an illness and he had to cancel. But he's doing

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- better. So I want to thank our

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- co-sponsors with a short description because we have, I think, a really wonderful group of people who

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- have come together to help create this evening. The NAACP is committed to ending racial health disparities.

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- The NAACP recognizes that the roots of historic inequity run deep in fragmented public and private health systems.

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- and disadvantaged opportunities across lifespan. Our aim is not simply disease prevention, but to create

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- an inclusive culture of healthy people and communities. Our mandate is to drive equitable health outcomes

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- and transform health care through a comprehensive socioeconomic approach and valuing the whole person.

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- Brown Countians for Quality Health Care. Since 2011, Brown Countians for Quality Health Care

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- has served Brown County as a locally-led program dedicated to advocating for and connecting community

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- members with quality health care services. The League of Women Voters of Brown County and the

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- Bloomington-Monroe County League of Women Voters, along with the National League of Women Voters, believes

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- that a basic level of quality health care at an affordable cost should be available to all US residents.

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- Other health care policy goals should include

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- Equitable distribution of services, efficient and economical delivery of care, advancement of medical

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- research and technology, and a reasonable total national expenditure level for healthcare. And I would

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- like to say right here that one of the ways that the administration would like to pay for this war is

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- through cutting healthcare. The Indiana Rural Summit is committed to supporting candidates, community

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- leaders, and volunteers to give rural and small time

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- Hoosiers a voice, a choice, and a vote. Organizing Indiana is a resource hub focused on realizing a

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- common challenge. Many of us who are doing important work across Indiana, but often disconnected from

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- each other, duplicating efforts and missing key opportunities for collective impact. And you can find

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- Organizing Indiana at OrganizingIndiana.org if you're interested

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- connecting with folks that think like you do. And then Medicare for All Indiana. It's the Indiana chapter

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- of Physicians for a National Health Program, a national organization that works for a publicly financed,

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- not-for-profit, single-payer national health program that would fully cover medical expenses for all

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- Americans, improve Medicare for All. Students for a national health program, SNAP, S-N-A-H-P,

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- And this is my hope for the future, these medical students, they are terrific. There are chapters now

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- in 125 medical schools throughout the US, including several on campuses of Indiana University School

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- of Medicine. So, our moderator tonight is Dr. Mark Bauman, and I am honored to introduce him, and he will be

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- leading this conversation about the state of healthcare in the U.S. and Indiana. Dr. Bauman is a retired

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- pathologist, so he's spent a lot of time in the dark in his career. But tonight we're going to see the

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- light. We're going to see the light. Thank you. And he was a clinical associate professor emeritus at

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- the IU School of Medicine. He taught

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- pathology to medical students and healthcare policy to undergraduates at Indiana University for many

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- years. Having attended several of his healthcare policy classes as a guest, I found that he engaged

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- and encouraged the students and brought out the best in them. And he will bring out the best in us tonight.

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- Dr. Mark Bauman.

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- Thank you, Karen. I'm not sure what you're describing here, but thank you all for being here this evening.

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- Thanks to our four candidates. We have two goals this evening. First is to meet and greet our candidates.

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- These are candidates who were up for the election in the May primary, May 5th, for the ninth district

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- here in Indiana.

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- So we want to meet and greet them, get to know them. And secondly, we want to have a discussion about

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- health care in our country, state, and at the local level. I'm very pleased we have so many experts

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- in health care with us here. And that's each one of you in the seats who experienced the health care

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- system and know the good, the bad, and the ugly of it. So we'll have a format here. So those are our

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- goals. Let's take a quick look. Next slide, please, Rob. Take a quick look at our outline. Hold the

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- mic closer. Thank you. There we go.

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- If you four would want to turn your chairs around and even take a seat out here, if you're interested

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- in seeing the slides, that's fine. They have all received these slides before and know what's coming.

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- Our outline this evening is to give a quick overview of the 9th District, and then following that, that

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- would just be two to three minutes. Then each candidate will have two minutes to come up and

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- do a self-introduction. We do have a timer, and we will limit that to two minutes, please. Thank you.

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- Then there will be an overview of healthcare in the US, a broad overview of where things stand in our

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- country. That'll be followed by each candidate having four minutes of open microphone to respond to

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- that or to talk about whatever aspect of healthcare they want. Then we'll have the question and audience

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- section, and you have the cards on the chairs. Fill out your card with any question at any time.

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- Please be sure it is a question and not a statement because we want to give individuals the chance to

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- respond to those. And then at the very end, at about 820 or so, we'll have a two-minute segment for

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- each candidate to give a closing statement. Next slide, please, Rob. So our little civics history class

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- here. It may have been a little while since some of us have been in high school and we forget this.

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- Congress is a bicameral legislative body. It consists of the Senate and the House, of course.

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- In the Senate, there are 100 senators, two senators from each state. They are elected to six-year terms.

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- Currently, there are 53 Republican senators, 45 Democrats, and two independents. As you know, our two

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- senators in Indiana are Todd Young, who began his first term in 2017, and Jim Banks, who began in 2025.

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- Next slide, please.

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- The House is made up of 435 representatives, 435 members in the House of Representatives. Each representative

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- is elected to a two-year term. So as soon as someone gets elected, they're already beginning their next

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- campaign cycle two years from now. In the House, there are currently 217 Republicans, 214 Democrats,

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- one independent, and three vacancies.

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- The number of representatives from each state is dependent upon the population of that state. The larger

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- the population, the more representatives. Based on our population, Indiana has nine representatives

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- in the House. There are seven Republicans and two Democrats. The two Democrats are, the first one is

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- up in region one, up in the northwest corner of the state. The second one is in district seven, which

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- consists of part of Indianapolis. Next slide, please.

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- Our current U.S. representative is Erin Houchin, and she is the incumbent. And she was invited to attend

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- this evening, but declined the invitation. We have four candidates still with us here. We have one candidate

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- running as an independent, Mr. Floyd Taylor, and then three of the other four here, Brad Meyer,

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- Tim Peck, and Kelly, or Kyle Rourke. As Karen said, Jim Graham has a medical illness. He couldn't be

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- with us here this evening.

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- Next slide, please, Rob. OK. So now we'd like to move to the two-minute self-introduction. We'll go

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- in the order listed through the slides. The order here is drawn out of a hat, just so completely random.

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- So we'll begin here with Mr. Taylor. Thank you for coming. When I decided to run for Congress, I had

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- one concern that was repeatedly told to me. Rural hospitals were closing due to financing cuts.

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- And so I introduced a rural mobile health act, bringing medical services to communities that can't support

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- a hospital. Then came a challenge from my wife. If you think this is easy, fix Medicare. So I developed

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- a Medicare Comprehensive Care and Fair Premiums Act, expanding coverage to include dental, vision, hearing,

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- and full-cost prescription drugs

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- while eliminating income-based premium tiers and removing premiums for seniors that make under $100,000

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- a year. Building on that momentum and free from party or lobbyist influence, I crafted the Medicaid

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- Integrity Access and Accountability Act to strengthen program integrity and expand access to primary

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- and behavioral care. I also authored the Veterans Dimension Memory Care Access and Accountability Act,

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- guaranteeing timely

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- high-quality dementia-specific care for our veterans with enforceable standards and dedicated funding.

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- My signature legislation is the Main Street Health Compact Act, a comprehensive fraud-resistant patient-first

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- healthcare framework that replaces the Affordable Care Act, ensures universal access, eliminates denial-based

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- coverage restrictions, and enforces strict cost transparency while allowing private insurers to remain

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- part of the system.

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- All these bills deliver more health care coverage while costing less than any current plans. Thank you.

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- Hi. I'm Brad Meyer. I'm running for the US House of Representatives. You can't really understand the

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- problem until you've talked to the people that have to live with the results. Yes, sir. Sorry.

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- That's why I've had two universal health care forums, five roundtable discussions with people, and 15

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- town halls. And in those discussions, I've heard from people that have lost children because of insurance

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- denials. I've heard from mothers that are struggling to get care for their children because of the complexity

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- of the medical system. I've talked to adults with disabilities that are struggling in a denial-based

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- system to get the care that they need.

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- These aren't isolated incidents, and they're not an accident. They are the result of a system that uses

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- private care as a profit center and public care as a cost to be minimized. That's why I'm a member of

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- Physicians for a National Health Program. That's why Universal Health Care and Medicare for All is a

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- center point of my campaign, because I've looked at the facts.

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- But as it turns out, the facts aren't what's holding us back when it comes to health care. And when

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- you see what's really happening, you can't unsee it. We are stuck in a coercive relationship with a

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- for-profit health care system. And they say all the right things, but it never changes. They say, nobody

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- will ever take care of you like I'll take care of you. I know things are bad.

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- I'll change, just give me time. And everybody should have healthcare. But what this really is, is just

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- an attempt to stall. They're just keeping us trapped. And it's time for a change. Thank you. My name's

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- Dr. Tim Peck. I'm an emergency physician taking care of our neighbors here in southern Indiana. I'm

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- also an advocate in DC that put together a congressional

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- coalition of bipartisan congresspeople that got telemedicine passed for the United States over the course

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- of years, just in time for the pandemic where millions of people's lives were saved. It costs way too

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- much to go to work in this company, in this company as well as this country. It costs too much to go

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- to work in this country. There's the gas

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- that you need to get to work, there's the housing that you have, there's the childcare you need so you

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- can even have the time to go to work, there's the education that you had that you need to pay for what

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- you needed to get your job, there's the groceries that you have on your credit card, and then there's

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- the health insurance that comes out of your paycheck. And because of this, your health suffers. People

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- are forced to choose preservatives over fresh food. Second jobs over sleep, fatigue over exercise,

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- paying bills over filling prescriptions. Our government solutions are insufficient and designed poorly.

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- Medicare helps every aging and disabled individual in this country. Still, 20% of those citizens are

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- in medical debt. People lose their houses when they need long-term care or ICU stays. And still, there's

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- no dental, vision, or hearing coverage.

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- Obamacare gives workers health care, but subsidizes private insurance companies in the process. And

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- Medicaid and underinsured can't cover the bills of hospitals, and so therefore rural hospitals, like

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- the one in my own backyard, close. That is not a system. That is abandonment. I hope I can earn your

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- trust and your vote tonight, and look forward to a very good farm. Thank you. Thanks, Tim.

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- Kind of hard to go after, Tim. I mean, you know, doctor and all. Yeah, name's Kyle Roark. I'm a candidate

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- for Congress here at 9th Congressional District. Thank you. Thank you for the invitation this evening.

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- I'm a former assembly line worker, Chrysler, former US Navy officer. And I just want to say, first and

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- foremost, I've been very blessed in life to have good health care, either through the UAW or some of

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- the companies I've worked for.

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- been very fortunate in that respect. But a lot of folks aren't that unfortunate. And we need to present

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- policies that can help our folks in the 9th Congressional District. We don't need folks having to pick

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- between paying utility bills or grocery bills versus going to the hospital, right? This is the greatest

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- country on the planet. There's no reason we should have that in this country.

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- Some of my policies, obviously, I'm going to advocate for ACA subsidies to be reinstated. I think that's

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- the most pragmatic thing we could do quickly in January when we take back the House. I'm also advocating

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- for universal health care as a supplement to a private insurance policy. I'm concerned that if we go

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- down the path of universal health care right away, that it limits choice.

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- And we do have a Dr. Schroeder-Joner hands, too. So we have to have, the system has to be workable.

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- We have to have choice, but at a reasonable price, okay? I think we also need to look at antitrust

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- legislation with some of the big insurance companies, as well as some of the big prescription drug companies.

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- I think there's, like, we all know healthcare is expensive. Prescription drugs are expensive.

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- But there's a reason for that, right? There's something going on in the marketplace that's driving prices

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- up. And I would propose looking at some antitrust legislation to understand what companies are colluding

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- and what companies are pricing the market about time. Okay. Anyway, thank you very much. We'll talk

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- more. Appreciate it. Thank you very much for those introductory remarks. Appreciate it.

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- This is a very, very brief view of the U.S. health care system. Next slide, please, Rob. Buckle up because

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- here we go. You can evaluate a football team based on three components. You can look at the offense,

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- how it's producing points. You can look at the defense, how it's preventing points and number of turnover.

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- You can look at the special teams. Next slide, please, Rob.

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- You can think, you can evaluate any healthcare system in a similar fashion. You can look through three

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- lenses to evaluate a healthcare system. You can look at it in terms of the people's access to that system.

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- You can look at it in terms of the cost of the system. You can look at it in terms of the quality of

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- the system. Next slide please, Rob. So we'll do that here briefly. With respect to access, access in

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- our system means health insurance.

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- Where do we get our health insurance in the United States? There are multiple places. About 50% of the

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- people who have health insurance get that through their employer. An employer will pay part of the premium,

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- the employee pays part, the employee is also responsible for deductibles, co-pay, co-insurance, et cetera.

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- But employer-based, employer-linked insurance has been a part of the US healthcare system since the

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- early 1920s and then more so into the 40s and 50s.

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- No, go back please Rob. I'm not that fast. Medicaid is another means of insurance for people in our

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- country. Medicaid is a federally run insurance program run in conjunction with the states, individual

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- states, and those target people who are of low income. Medicaid has a subsection called CHIP, Children's

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- Health Insurance Plan, and CHIP

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- helps to provide insurance for children under 18 years of age who otherwise might not have insurance.

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- About 20% of the people with health insurance are covered by Medicaid. Medicare, you're familiar with

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- probably, that's a national federal health program available to people 65 years of age and over. It's

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- financed by

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- by you and by me and by our employers. Every paycheck you receive, 1.45% of your paycheck goes to CMS,

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- the Center for Medicare and Medicaid to support Medicare. Your employer also contributes 1.45%. This

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- is how Medicare is funded. If you have paid into that system for 10 years, and then you are eligible

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- to be enrolled in Medicare at age 65.

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- About 15% of the people with insurance are enrolled in Medicare. The vast majority of people over 65,

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- 90% plus, do have Medicare. But of the overall population, it's about 15% of people with health insurance.

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- People can have insurance through the military. If you're an active military member, you are enrolled

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- in TRICARE for yourself and for your family members.

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- If you received a general or an honorable discharge from your service, then that individual is typically

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- able to have healthcare through the VA Veterans Administration healthcare system for the rest of their

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- life. Maybe three to four percent of people get their health insurance through the military system.

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- There is a marketplace exchange.

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- and this is this kind of confusing area in here. The Marketplace Exchange was established by the Affordable

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- Care Act, which is the same thing as Obamacare, and that was enacted into legislation in 2010. One of

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- the components of ACA, the Affordable Care Act, was to establish state-based marketplace exchanges.

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- You can go to healthcare.gov, go to Indiana,

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- And you can see what plans are available from insurance companies that you can sign up for. You review

00:22:30.928 --> 00:22:37.011
- the options and click, click, click, enter your information and choose what you want. And so about maybe

00:22:37.011 --> 00:22:42.803
- seven to eight percent of people with insurance get it through the marketplace exchange. We'll come

00:22:42.803 --> 00:22:48.828
- back to this marketplace exchange in a minute. Finally, there's the Indian Health Services. Most people

00:22:48.828 --> 00:22:50.334
- have never heard of that.

00:22:50.530 --> 00:22:57.446
- There's the Alaskan Native Tribal Health System for people in that indigenous population. Marketplace

00:22:57.446 --> 00:23:04.159
- has about maybe 7%, 8%. Did I say that? So we have a wide variety here of places to get insurance.

00:23:04.159 --> 00:23:11.211
- Next slide, please, Rob. You'd think that everyone would have insurance. There's so many options. Well,

00:23:11.211 --> 00:23:18.331
- that's not the case, of course. Back in 2010, there were about 50, 5-0, 50 million people in our country

00:23:18.331 --> 00:23:20.094
- without health insurance.

00:23:21.378 --> 00:23:28.846
- By 2023, that dropped by about a half to somewhere in the area of 27 million people remain uninsured.

00:23:28.846 --> 00:23:36.460
- But that decrease in the number of uninsured people was due to the Affordable Care Act enacted in 2010.

00:23:36.460 --> 00:23:44.221
- The Affordable Care Act expanded eligibility for Medicaid. There are limits to your income to be eligible

00:23:44.221 --> 00:23:45.246
- for Medicaid.

00:23:45.474 --> 00:23:53.175
- What the Affordable Care Act did was to increase the amount of money you can make to be eligible for

00:23:53.175 --> 00:24:01.334
- Medicaid. That was one option. Another big component of the ACA was the establishment of those marketplace

00:24:01.334 --> 00:24:09.188
- exchanges, state-by-state marketplace virtual exchanges. It's kind of a complicated system because the

00:24:09.188 --> 00:24:14.526
- ACA helped make insurance affordable by offering premium tax credits.

00:24:14.626 --> 00:24:21.538
- You've probably heard of premium tax credits. A premium tax credit means that the tax you paid can be

00:24:21.538 --> 00:24:28.451
- used as a credit to pay an insurance company for your policy in the marketplace. So they're premiums,

00:24:28.451 --> 00:24:35.363
- they're tax credits used for premiums, a premium tax credit. That'll come into play in just a minute.

00:24:35.363 --> 00:24:42.750
- Next slide, please, Rob. We still have about 25, maybe 30 million people currently uninsured in our country.

00:24:43.330 --> 00:24:49.979
- And the prognosis for that situation is not good. The CBO, the Congressional Budget Office projects

00:24:49.979 --> 00:24:56.893
- that within the next eight years, an additional 14 million people will lose their health insurance that

00:24:56.893 --> 00:25:03.808
- they currently have. An additional 14 million people are projected by the CBO, the Congressional Budget

00:25:03.808 --> 00:25:10.523
- Office, that they will lose their health insurance. Well, what's going on? Two major components take

00:25:10.523 --> 00:25:11.454
- at work here.

00:25:11.618 --> 00:25:19.765
- The first is the Budget Reconciliation Package, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed

00:25:19.765 --> 00:25:28.235
- by the current president on the 4th of July, 2025. The legislation included multiple changes to Medicaid

00:25:28.235 --> 00:25:34.366
- with eligibility for Medicaid, some work requirements and other components.

00:25:35.074 --> 00:25:41.380
- It made some changes to the ACA marketplace eligibility. It made changes to Medicare policy. And it

00:25:41.380 --> 00:25:47.938
- made changes to CHIP, the Children's Health Insurance Plan. From those changes in the legislation, it's

00:25:47.938 --> 00:25:54.307
- projected an additional 10 people will lose their insurance that they currently have. Part one. Part

00:25:54.307 --> 00:26:00.740
- two was that what took place was the expiration of the enhanced premium tax credit for the Affordable

00:26:00.740 --> 00:26:03.262
- Care Act. What the heck does that mean?

00:26:04.354 --> 00:26:11.849
- That means that in addition to the regular premium tax credits in the original ACA plan, during COVID,

00:26:11.849 --> 00:26:19.199
- there were two acts passed, the American Rescue Plan, which you may have heard of, and the Inflation

00:26:19.199 --> 00:26:26.986
- Reduction Act plan. Those offered additional federal subsidies as premium tax credits. These were enhanced

00:26:26.986 --> 00:26:31.934
- premium tax credits on top of the ones that were already available.

00:26:32.738 --> 00:26:39.715
- that legislation had a lifespan to set to expire in December 31st, 2025. Congress had the option to

00:26:39.715 --> 00:26:47.040
- renew those enhanced premium tax credits. Congress voted to not renew those enhanced premium tax credits

00:26:47.040 --> 00:26:54.087
- so that extra subsidies were not available and the people paying on some of those marketplace plans,

00:26:54.087 --> 00:27:02.110
- their insurance will no longer be affordable to them. It's projected four million people will lose their insurance

00:27:02.434 --> 00:27:09.090
- by the expiration of those enhanced premium tax credits. You can go home and talk about enhanced premium

00:27:09.090 --> 00:27:15.430
- tax credits and people will be very impressed with you. Next slide please. Bottom line on access to

00:27:15.430 --> 00:27:21.770
- look at access in our healthcare system is that indeed the United States is the only industrialized

00:27:21.770 --> 00:27:26.334
- or developed democracy without universal healthcare. Next slide please.

00:27:27.266 --> 00:27:34.321
- Access, okay, this three-legged stool is one way to look at this. The three legs of that stool are access,

00:27:34.321 --> 00:27:40.651
- cost, and quality. If you don't have good structure for that stool, it's not going to function.

00:27:40.651 --> 00:27:47.377
- Next slide, please. Let's take a very quick look at cost. I'm almost done here. This is a complicated

00:27:47.377 --> 00:27:54.102
- slide a little bit, but look at that $29,000. $29,000 is the average price that a family of four paid

00:27:54.102 --> 00:27:56.542
- for healthcare expenditures in 2024.

00:27:57.122 --> 00:28:04.985
- $29,000 was the average price that a family of four spent on healthcare. That includes what, if they

00:28:04.985 --> 00:28:13.081
- have an employer-based policy, what the employer would have put in, it includes deductions, it includes

00:28:13.081 --> 00:28:21.411
- co-pay, co-insurance. $29,000 in 2024. Next slide, please, Rob. We can look at the cost by another method.

00:28:21.411 --> 00:28:26.238
- We can take all the money we spend on healthcare in one year,

00:28:26.946 --> 00:28:35.269
- all the healthcare expenditures as a numerator. We can look at the number of people in the country at

00:28:35.269 --> 00:28:43.674
- the time as a denominator. We can take that numerator divided by the denominator and come out with the

00:28:43.674 --> 00:28:52.078
- cost per person. We can take the healthcare expenditures in 2024 of $5 trillion divided by 350 million

00:28:52.078 --> 00:28:54.526
- people, and that comes out to

00:28:55.266 --> 00:29:02.697
- $14,775 per person that we spent on healthcare in the United States in that year. That's continuing

00:29:02.697 --> 00:29:10.128
- to go up. If we look at comparable countries, if we look at Switzerland, in that year spent $9,900.

00:29:10.128 --> 00:29:18.079
- Germany, Netherlands, Austria. If we look at comparable countries, the average of our comparable countries

00:29:18.079 --> 00:29:20.606
- average of healthcare was $7,800.

00:29:20.738 --> 00:29:27.283
- we were spending $15,000, almost twice the amount of money per person, on our healthcare system.

00:29:27.283 --> 00:29:34.233
- Next slide, please, Rob. Cost, that stool is even further unstable. Next slide, please. Well, if we're

00:29:34.233 --> 00:29:41.385
- spending this much, we would really expect we're gonna get a good return on our investment for our dollar

00:29:41.385 --> 00:29:48.132
- spent. So let's look at the quality and see if indeed we are getting our money's worth or not. Look

00:29:48.132 --> 00:29:50.494
- at this top, or the red line here.

00:29:51.170 --> 00:30:01.027
- This slide shows infant mortality rate in the US versus our peer countries. Infant mortality rate consists

00:30:01.027 --> 00:30:10.238
- of the number of infant deaths per 1,000 live births in which the child has died within one year of

00:30:10.238 --> 00:30:19.358
- birth. The infant mortality rate consists of the number of infant deaths within one year of birth.

00:30:20.098 --> 00:30:28.407
- per 1,000 live births. The United States infant mortality rate in 23-24 was 5.6. For every 1,000 babies

00:30:28.407 --> 00:30:36.555
- born, 5.6 on average did not live beyond one year. Other countries' rates were much lower coming down

00:30:36.555 --> 00:30:44.305
- here. Japan's infant mortality rate was 1.8. We're not taking good care of our infants, clearly.

00:30:44.305 --> 00:30:46.302
- Next slide, please, Rob.

00:30:48.738 --> 00:30:55.803
- One more slide here on quality. This is kind of hard to look at at first, but what we're looking at

00:30:55.803 --> 00:31:02.869
- are deaths, the number of deaths per 1,000 people who are under age 70 with respect to the cause of

00:31:02.869 --> 00:31:10.005
- death by different chronic diseases. We'll look at diabetes, liver disease, cirrhosis, and so forth.

00:31:10.005 --> 00:31:17.918
- We'll look at kidney disease, respiratory disease. These are the data. This is the graph for the United States.

00:31:18.498 --> 00:31:25.626
- These are the graphs for our comparable country. If we look at the number of deaths per 100,000 in diabetes

00:31:25.626 --> 00:31:32.226
- in the United States, it's somewhere around 10. In our comparable countries, it's here at four. For

00:31:32.226 --> 00:31:38.958
- liver disease, it looks like it's about 14, 15. In other countries, it is, what is that, eight or so.

00:31:38.958 --> 00:31:46.020
- Kidney disease is way up. You can see that compared to our comparable countries. Our management of chronic

00:31:46.020 --> 00:31:47.934
- disease is not good quality.

00:31:48.322 --> 00:31:56.904
- Next slide, please, Rob. Finally, life expectancy is a very simple thing to measure. What is, how long

00:31:56.904 --> 00:32:04.486
- can people expect to live in the United States? In 2021, we had a life expectancy of 76.1.

00:32:04.486 --> 00:32:12.818
- Our peer countries, the average life expectancy was 82.4. That is, I can't, is that 76? So 6.2, 6.3

00:32:12.818 --> 00:32:16.318
- years less than the average of our peers.

00:32:16.674 --> 00:32:24.066
- And Japan had an average age of 84 and a half years. So eight and a half years longer in Japan. Our

00:32:24.066 --> 00:32:32.196
- quality is not living up to what we might expect, right? Next slide, please, Rob. So our school is completely

00:32:32.196 --> 00:32:39.736
- unstable. Next slide, please. I'm done. I'm going to turn it over to you gentlemen to talk about some

00:32:39.736 --> 00:32:46.462
- of the problems we have and maybe some of the ideas and what we can do about this perhaps.

00:32:46.946 --> 00:32:59.711
- And we will go in reverse order here, please. I think Kyle will start with you. Thank you. What's good?

00:32:59.711 --> 00:33:12.230
- Yeah, I appreciate your time. So obviously, I got the data. I looked at it. And what popped out at me

00:33:12.230 --> 00:33:16.894
- was us versus Japan. I was like, wow.

00:33:17.282 --> 00:33:25.076
- Got the best quality, lowest cost. What are they doing over there? Wow, we need some of that. So anyway,

00:33:25.076 --> 00:33:32.797
- I did some research, and I looked into it. They have a universal health care policy, but they also have

00:33:32.797 --> 00:33:40.368
- good pricing. They have good pricing. Their health care policies are priced right. And the other part

00:33:40.368 --> 00:33:45.342
- of it is preventive care. They really focus in on preventive care.

00:33:46.018 --> 00:33:52.741
- And, you know, after I really got into it and I thought about it, I was like, yeah, they don't have

00:33:52.741 --> 00:33:59.598
- furniture in their houses. I mean, if you really think about it, right, breakfast, lunch, and dinner,

00:33:59.598 --> 00:34:06.522
- you're doing this, right? And then I did a little bit more research and I was like, what's the leading

00:34:06.522 --> 00:34:13.447
- cause of death in the United States of America? I kind of thought heart disease, cancer, falls, people

00:34:13.447 --> 00:34:15.262
- falling and breaking hips.

00:34:15.906 --> 00:34:24.571
- broken bones, from falling as they get older. And it's because of lack of mobility. So I really think

00:34:24.571 --> 00:34:33.320
- we need to advocate for policies that reward companies or institutions that emphasize preventive care.

00:34:33.320 --> 00:34:41.815
- For example, a company I currently work for, they give, I think it's $50 or $100 for a dental exam,

00:34:41.815 --> 00:34:44.958
- $50 or $100 for just a medical exam.

00:34:45.698 --> 00:34:53.933
- $50 or $100 for an EKG, what have you, right? That encourages folks to go to the doctor before something

00:34:53.933 --> 00:35:01.933
- bad happens, right, on a yearly basis. A dental exam is another opportunity where you could detect if

00:35:01.933 --> 00:35:09.776
- there's an issue. So I would advocate for rewarding those institutions, government or private, that

00:35:09.776 --> 00:35:13.854
- emphasize private healthcare or private incentives.

00:35:14.242 --> 00:35:20.733
- you know, 10, 1,000 or $1,200 off your health care bill in that institution. I think that's a good way

00:35:20.733 --> 00:35:27.161
- to go because it encourages, I mean, I don't know about you folks, but when they're sticking an extra

00:35:27.161 --> 00:35:33.715
- $1,000 in my pocket just to go to the doctor and get checked up, I'm going to go to the doctor. I mean,

00:35:33.715 --> 00:35:40.144
- so, I mean, that's one thing I'm going to look at, of course. And then also ACA subsidies, we need to

00:35:40.144 --> 00:35:41.278
- reinstitute that.

00:35:41.442 --> 00:35:50.947
- And then, of course, the enhanced premium tax credits. Get those back in there. Those are some big policies

00:35:50.947 --> 00:35:59.749
- that I'd advocate for. But I will say that from another policy perspective, what I would look at is

00:35:59.749 --> 00:36:08.990
- the cost of health care in general. It just feels like, whether it's insurance companies or prescription

00:36:08.990 --> 00:36:10.398
- drug companies,

00:36:11.522 --> 00:36:18.333
- Things are just too expensive. Why? Why are they too expensive? Well, from my experience, things are

00:36:18.333 --> 00:36:25.143
- too expensive because there tends to be like a monopoly in the market. There's something going on in

00:36:25.143 --> 00:36:31.887
- the market that they're driving prices up. So I would advocate for looking for policies, maybe even

00:36:31.887 --> 00:36:39.102
- antitrust policies or legislation that would break up some of these drug companies and insurance companies

00:36:39.102 --> 00:36:40.990
- that are driving things up.

00:36:41.250 --> 00:36:50.048
- There's a lot of good antitrust legislation out there on other examples for tech. We need to bring those

00:36:50.048 --> 00:36:58.428
- policies over for health care now. Other than that, those are kind of my policies. I will leave you

00:36:58.428 --> 00:37:06.807
- with one thing. I got out of the Navy when I was 50, 54 now. Oh, I'm out of time. OK, I'll tell you

00:37:06.807 --> 00:37:10.494
- that story next time. All right, thank you.

00:37:19.394 --> 00:37:26.831
- Health care is a human right. We all deserve health care. You all deserve health care no matter who

00:37:26.831 --> 00:37:34.863
- you are. I live in a rural health desert where our local hospital closed a few years ago. And that hospital

00:37:34.863 --> 00:37:42.523
- has no chance of opening up right now with the system of health care that we are seeing, with the big,

00:37:42.523 --> 00:37:47.134
- beautiful bill going through. And who wants to buy a hospital

00:37:47.682 --> 00:37:55.365
- and let people into that hospital if on January 1st, 2027, we're going to have millions more people

00:37:55.365 --> 00:38:03.585
- uninsured. But even right now, it's disproportionately affecting rural populations. 27 to 29% of truckers,

00:38:03.585 --> 00:38:11.498
- of farmers, of agricultural workers do not have insurance. We saw the rate up there being 7, 8, 9% for

00:38:11.498 --> 00:38:13.342
- the general population.

00:38:16.066 --> 00:38:23.869
- That's the reality that's playing out right now in our district everywhere. And let me tell you how

00:38:23.869 --> 00:38:31.828
- it looks outside of Bloomington. There are 18 counties in this district. You cannot deliver a baby in

00:38:31.828 --> 00:38:37.758
- Lawrence County at their hospital, in Salem Hospital, in Harrison Hospital.

00:38:38.050 --> 00:38:47.745
- Scott County Hospital. There is no hospital in Ohio. There is no hospital in Switzerland. You cannot

00:38:47.745 --> 00:38:57.343
- deliver in Dearborn County. You cannot deliver in Jennings County. You can't deliver a child there.

00:38:57.343 --> 00:39:06.654
- When I call 911 in where I am, where there's no hospital, the 911 system is in shambles as well.

00:39:07.202 --> 00:39:13.935
- After 6 p.m., they say, no one's coming. At our trunker treat in October, a little boy fell off his

00:39:13.935 --> 00:39:20.130
- shoulders. The mom came, or someone came and ran and got me. I went to the mother and said,

00:39:20.130 --> 00:39:26.930
- did you call 911? She said, no one's coming. And so I said, get in the car and drive to your nearest

00:39:26.930 --> 00:39:33.933
- emergency department, which is the emergency department that I work in, which is a standalone emergency

00:39:33.933 --> 00:39:36.222
- department serving our community.

00:39:37.314 --> 00:39:44.126
- And so that is the result of not having a hospital. It's a solution, not a great one. And so we need

00:39:44.126 --> 00:39:51.141
- change and we need a specific plan. If we, as I said, health care is a human right. If we expand health

00:39:51.141 --> 00:39:58.223
- care coverage to everybody right now, let's talk about what will happen. I want that to happen so badly.

00:39:58.223 --> 00:40:05.170
- But there is a first step of making immediate change when I got to Congress. And that immediate change

00:40:05.170 --> 00:40:06.654
- is taking down costs.

00:40:07.298 --> 00:40:14.458
- Because if we expand coverage to everybody, we're just expanding coverage that is so expensive to everybody.

00:40:14.458 --> 00:40:21.159
- So, get rid of prior authorization. The thing that stands in between me and all of you to get you the

00:40:21.159 --> 00:40:27.925
- test that you need. It is, bloats the system like no other. Monopolies should be broken up. Aetna CVS,

00:40:27.925 --> 00:40:30.750
- two Fortune 500 companies coming together.

00:40:31.170 --> 00:40:40.074
- Optum United, two Fortune 500 companies coming together and owning the whole spectrum of care, rising

00:40:40.074 --> 00:40:48.979
- our prices. There's antitrust that we can do today to go after them. Billion dollar pharma campaigns,

00:40:48.979 --> 00:40:58.494
- executive bonuses, shareholder payouts, your Medicare taxes go to that when it's taken out of your paycheck.

00:40:58.850 --> 00:41:05.299
- Part of that goes to insurance companies and pharma companies that are doing that with it. We should

00:41:05.299 --> 00:41:12.004
- audit that and make sure that never happens again. This needs to happen now, and the missing piece isn't

00:41:12.004 --> 00:41:18.453
- ideas, it's implementation. And so we need someone who will win in this district, who will work with

00:41:18.453 --> 00:41:24.967
- Republicans and Democrats to make these costs controlled so we can realize our progressive values and

00:41:24.967 --> 00:41:28.798
- everybody can have the healthcare insurance that they need.

00:41:29.090 --> 00:41:40.318
- Thank you. We are not going to untie this Gordian knot of red tape and complexity. We've got to cut

00:41:40.318 --> 00:41:51.659
- through it and come up with something new, which is Medicare for all based on something that already

00:41:51.659 --> 00:41:59.070
- exists and already works, which is Medicare. The big question is,

00:41:59.330 --> 00:42:05.736
- Why can't we just do this incrementally? Why can't we just do it one little piece at a time? And it

00:42:05.736 --> 00:42:12.142
- comes to my mind, there's an old family story that when my aunt was little, and I mean she was like

00:42:12.142 --> 00:42:18.677
- maybe this many or this many, my grandparents had company over. And she came padding out with a glass

00:42:18.677 --> 00:42:25.083
- of water, and the guy drank the glass of water, and she took it and went running back into the back

00:42:25.083 --> 00:42:28.414
- of the house, and she came back with another glass,

00:42:28.930 --> 00:42:37.506
- He started drinking it until my grandfather said, you know, she can't reach the sink. And as it turns

00:42:37.506 --> 00:42:46.083
- out, she was dipping out of the toilet. So in this analogy, the clean, drinkable water that goes into

00:42:46.083 --> 00:42:54.491
- a toilet is the good health care providers, doctors and nurses and people, provide and can provide.

00:42:54.491 --> 00:42:57.854
- And the toilet is the for-profit system

00:42:58.018 --> 00:43:05.763
- that that care has to flow through. It doesn't matter how good the care is, as long as it's going into

00:43:05.763 --> 00:43:13.733
- a system that's going to corrupt it. You break up a big health care monopoly, they'll reassemble. They'll

00:43:13.733 --> 00:43:21.478
- still manipulate. By the way, 100 people a year die at home falling off a furniture every year. That's

00:43:21.478 --> 00:43:26.366
- why I don't stand on chairs. And there's a lot of things that we

00:43:26.786 --> 00:43:34.265
- can do and should do. Value-based care, getting private equity out of medicine, telemedicine, these

00:43:34.265 --> 00:43:42.194
- are all very important things. We need to do them, but they are still subject to the corrupting influence

00:43:42.194 --> 00:43:49.972
- of the system. We need to replace the system. And Medicare for all isn't some great leap into the dark.

00:43:49.972 --> 00:43:55.806
- Half of us are pretty much covered under a public system anyway. And the core

00:43:56.226 --> 00:44:04.838
- is very simple. The core promise is very simple. You keep your doctor. You keep your health care. And

00:44:04.838 --> 00:44:13.282
- we get that layer of bureaucracy based on profit out of the middle. And we have to do this in a way

00:44:13.282 --> 00:44:21.979
- that's controlled. And a lot of people are afraid. How are we going to do this? Year one, no one loses

00:44:21.979 --> 00:44:25.694
- coverage while we enroll additional people.

00:44:26.306 --> 00:44:33.515
- We provide predictable funding to keep rural hospitals open. We expand broadband for telemedicine, because

00:44:33.515 --> 00:44:40.388
- telemedicine really is hugely important to the future of our medicine. In the second year, enrollment

00:44:40.388 --> 00:44:47.193
- expands while families keep their doctor. And by the third year, coverage is fully in place, and the

00:44:47.193 --> 00:44:53.999
- risk of you losing your home because you get sick goes away. We can do this. England did this in six

00:44:53.999 --> 00:44:56.222
- years, and three of those years,

00:44:56.418 --> 00:45:06.756
- They were fighting the Germans. Medicare was implemented in the 60s in one year using three by five

00:45:06.756 --> 00:45:17.197
- index cards. Healthcare system without bankruptcy isn't a dream. It's a reality everywhere but here.

00:45:17.197 --> 00:45:18.334
- Thank you.

00:45:28.866 --> 00:45:36.939
- I agree with everything these people have said. And I've already written the solutions, all of them,

00:45:36.939 --> 00:45:45.012
- solutions to all of the slides, solutions to all of their suggestions. I've written the legislation.

00:45:45.012 --> 00:45:52.446
- It's on my website at floyd2026.com. My Main Street Health Compact is universal health care.

00:45:53.602 --> 00:46:02.484
- It doesn't say universal health care anywhere in it. It doesn't say Medicaid for all anywhere in the

00:46:02.484 --> 00:46:11.541
- bill. And it still lets the insurance companies believe that they still have a voice. But it basically

00:46:11.541 --> 00:46:20.423
- totally wipes out any power they have. Most of them will be gone by the time it's fully implemented.

00:46:20.423 --> 00:46:22.270
- My Medicare reforms.

00:46:23.458 --> 00:46:32.298
- It pays for all costs if you make under $100,000 a year. Every single thing. Medical, dental, vision,

00:46:32.298 --> 00:46:41.050
- hearing, prescriptions. You don't pay for it anymore. It's 100% covered. I don't know if I have four

00:46:41.050 --> 00:46:49.630
- minutes worth of stuff to say about this because the solutions are there. They were easy to write.

00:46:49.826 --> 00:46:57.726
- If you like reading legislation, it's all available on my website. If you don't, I have plain language

00:46:57.726 --> 00:47:05.550
- explanations. I have the fiscal breakdowns, where the money's coming from, who's going to pay for it.

00:47:05.550 --> 00:47:13.450
- And most of these are cost neutral or save money. Yeah, I really don't have a lot more to add to that.

00:47:13.450 --> 00:47:17.822
- It's just I have all the solutions. They're all written.

00:47:17.922 --> 00:47:26.176
- It's legislation. It's text ready to drop on the floor and ready to go. That's it. Thank you. Thank

00:47:26.176 --> 00:47:34.678
- you for your responses and your comments. Appreciate those. We're already up with the Q&A session. Rob

00:47:34.678 --> 00:47:43.098
- is the head of the game. Thank you. So we have until 820. We have a good half hour here to have a Q&A

00:47:43.098 --> 00:47:47.390
- session. So you have on your chairs the index card.

00:47:47.586 --> 00:47:54.111
- If you need a pencil or pen, just raise your hand. If you've already filled out a card, just pass, hold

00:47:54.111 --> 00:48:00.573
- up your card if you already have a question written, and we'll have a couple, Rob will come around and

00:48:00.573 --> 00:48:07.348
- pick them up, and we'll sort through those quickly just so we're not, so we get, we're not having redundant

00:48:07.348 --> 00:48:13.622
- questions. We'll kind of sort them just a little bit, and then we'll begin that Q and A, so. Great,

00:48:13.622 --> 00:48:14.814
- thank you so much.

00:48:27.362 --> 00:48:35.181
- Yes. You had the $29,000, but you didn't say that included premiums, but I think you meant that. Yeah,

00:48:35.181 --> 00:48:43.304
- the question was on one of my slides, it was $29,000 annual costs. That includes premiums. It does include

00:48:43.304 --> 00:48:51.427
- premiums. It's the total health care expenditure for that average family, right? And there was a breakdown

00:48:51.427 --> 00:48:52.414
- of premiums.

00:48:52.706 --> 00:49:01.464
- It was like $15,000. The employer put in so much, the employee put in so much, and then we added, the

00:49:01.464 --> 00:49:10.050
- study added, I think it was like $3,900 for additional deductibles, copay, coinsurance. Yeah, yeah.

00:49:10.050 --> 00:49:18.808
- Where should we start, Rob? Okay. Okay, question is, I think I can read this. Just how do you propose

00:49:18.808 --> 00:49:19.838
- to simplify

00:49:22.498 --> 00:49:31.571
- to simply eliminate multi-billion dollar insurance companies? Okay. So how do you propose? Doctors can't

00:49:31.571 --> 00:49:40.384
- read you. Okay, so the question deals with multi-billion dollar insurance companies that how can, the

00:49:40.384 --> 00:49:48.766
- question is how do we eliminate multi-billion dollar insurance companies? I'll leave it at that.

00:49:50.818 --> 00:50:00.164
- Should we just go down the line here? Does anyone want to jump in first? Mr. Taylor, please. By building

00:50:00.164 --> 00:50:09.420
- a coalition of patients, health care providers, and small business owners who all benefit from reforms,

00:50:09.420 --> 00:50:17.342
- the current system serves only a few powerful interests at the expense of everyone else.

00:50:17.730 --> 00:50:26.154
- When people understand that these reforms provide better care at lower cost, political opposition becomes

00:50:26.154 --> 00:50:34.658
- unsustainable. Additionally, by maintaining a role for private insurance in the Main Street Health Compact

00:50:34.658 --> 00:50:42.684
- Act, we reduce motivation for them to oppose reform. So the first attempt to get universal nonprofit

00:50:42.684 --> 00:50:44.830
- health care, single payer,

00:50:45.250 --> 00:50:52.583
- happened in about 1947. So we're working on 80 years. That is a really hard question, right?

00:50:52.583 --> 00:51:00.783
- And for 80 years, we've been struggling with it. And if we don't finally admit that it's time and fight

00:51:00.783 --> 00:51:08.825
- for it, we're going to go another 80 years. And we're finally to the point that 50% of doctors are in

00:51:08.825 --> 00:51:13.950
- favor of a single payer system. And a lot of people are as well.

00:51:14.050 --> 00:51:20.615
- We're getting to critical mass, and we're going to have to make the change, and it's not going to be

00:51:20.615 --> 00:51:27.244
- popular with people that have a lot of money. But we have to do it, because the rest of us are dying,

00:51:27.244 --> 00:51:34.199
- literally. The insurance companies that we have in this country are some of the most powerful institutions

00:51:34.199 --> 00:51:40.893
- in the world ever. And a large part of that has to do with the fact that they can stuff money into our

00:51:40.893 --> 00:51:43.038
- pockets when we get to Congress.

00:51:43.522 --> 00:51:51.594
- So firstly is swearing off that you cannot take money from corporate packs, of which I have sworn off

00:51:51.594 --> 00:51:59.509
- that. And then we need tools that we have and tools that we don't have. One of the tools we have is

00:51:59.509 --> 00:52:07.739
- these are enormous companies, so enormous that they have violated trust rules. And we can litigate that

00:52:07.739 --> 00:52:11.934
- and legislate that. And finally, tools we don't have

00:52:12.130 --> 00:52:19.927
- is about making it so that, again, the money that comes out of your paycheck can't go to their bonuses,

00:52:19.927 --> 00:52:27.499
- can't go to their shareholder payouts. It can only go to the operations that they do and cover those

00:52:27.499 --> 00:52:34.997
- costs plus a little bit to break them down from having to be able to take money from us and instead

00:52:34.997 --> 00:52:39.870
- give money to people as their name implies, insurance companies.

00:52:41.922 --> 00:52:47.979
- Yeah, I mean, like I said earlier, I would strongly advocate for antitrust legislation. They did it

00:52:47.979 --> 00:52:54.158
- with John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil. They can do it for the big insurance companies. There's no

00:52:54.158 --> 00:53:00.276
- reason they can't do it. We've done it before. So we just have to have the will of the congressional

00:53:00.276 --> 00:53:06.394
- representatives to have committee hearings and actually go through the process, pull up every single

00:53:06.394 --> 00:53:11.422
- CEO of insurance companies in the country, bring them up there, have them testify,

00:53:11.618 --> 00:53:18.194
- Who's getting bonuses? Who's getting executive compensation? All those different perks they're getting

00:53:18.194 --> 00:53:24.962
- and find out what we can do from an antitrust legislation perspective to get the cost down. That's really

00:53:24.962 --> 00:53:31.667
- the only way we're going to deal with the billionaire or the billion dollar insurance companies. They're

00:53:31.667 --> 00:53:38.051
- not going to do it on their own. It's just like big tobacco, right? Same thing with big tobacco. We

00:53:38.051 --> 00:53:40.350
- had to do the same thing with them.

00:53:40.610 --> 00:53:48.920
- I would strongly take a hardline position on that, and it's well overdue. Thank you. Thank you. The

00:53:48.920 --> 00:53:57.313
- next question is, what are your plans to address health care disparities for communities of color in

00:53:57.313 --> 00:54:05.706
- Indiana? What are your plans to address health care disparities for communities of color in Indiana?

00:54:05.706 --> 00:54:10.110
- Brad, maybe we could start with you and go this way.

00:54:10.242 --> 00:54:17.893
- Come back. So the disparities for people of color and people that live in poverty are significant. In

00:54:17.893 --> 00:54:25.544
- the United States, we died six years earlier. In Indiana, we are a 39th for life expectancy. So we're

00:54:25.544 --> 00:54:33.270
- worse than the average in the United States. And if you are poor or a person of color, it's even worse

00:54:33.270 --> 00:54:39.646
- than that. That's one of the reasons that I'm an advocate for universal health care.

00:54:40.034 --> 00:54:48.390
- Everybody gets health care, rich, poor, black, white. Everybody gets health care. It shouldn't be based

00:54:48.390 --> 00:54:56.585
- on your socioeconomic status or your race or how much money you make. It is a human right. Thank you.

00:54:56.585 --> 00:55:04.780
- So there's a number of issues here, two issues to attack immediately. One is at the bedside. When you

00:55:04.780 --> 00:55:08.958
- look at giving pain medicines to African-Americans,

00:55:09.826 --> 00:55:17.317
- from doctors. Even if you yourself are black, you don't give as much pain medicines to black people

00:55:17.317 --> 00:55:24.883
- as you do white people. That has been proven. So it's not about one race and another race not having

00:55:24.883 --> 00:55:32.373
- good relations. This is about an education system and the biases that we have. So it starts with my

00:55:32.373 --> 00:55:38.366
- education in medical school and residency and making it nationally standardized

00:55:38.498 --> 00:55:45.418
- of what I need to learn to make that not happen. And secondly, Medicaid rates are abysmal. Doctors do

00:55:45.418 --> 00:55:52.678
- not want to take them. What we're seeing right now in southern Indiana in Floyd County is because Harrison

00:55:52.678 --> 00:55:59.666
- County closed its OB program, the Floyd County Hospital is preferentially taking private, insured, and

00:55:59.666 --> 00:56:06.518
- Medicare patients because they have such a full roster, they can have an excuse not to take them. We

00:56:06.518 --> 00:56:08.350
- need to raise those rates.

00:56:10.530 --> 00:56:18.359
- Yeah, back in 2023, Kentucky passed the Medicaid bill via Andy Beshear. I would advocate for a similar

00:56:18.359 --> 00:56:26.416
- policy in Indiana. I mean, obviously it's a state bill, but that directly impacts the 250% of the poverty

00:56:26.416 --> 00:56:34.321
- line. So basically anybody that makes under 78,000 a year will be eligible for that policy and for that

00:56:34.321 --> 00:56:38.654
- coverage. I think we need a policy like that in Indiana.

00:56:40.002 --> 00:56:49.160
- Honestly, I don't think Braun is gonna do it. Probably not gonna happen, but we need a policy like that

00:56:49.160 --> 00:56:57.967
- in Indiana for sure, because that definitely addresses those folks who are in that poverty area and

00:56:57.967 --> 00:57:07.037
- need that care. Yeah, thank you. I really don't have a specific solution to that specific problem, but

00:57:07.037 --> 00:57:08.446
- my rural mobile

00:57:08.610 --> 00:57:16.439
- Healthcare Act brings coverage to the people. You don't have to go to a specific place to get it. They'll

00:57:16.439 --> 00:57:23.899
- drive to your town, go to the post office, see a doctor. So if you're an all-black community, voila,

00:57:23.899 --> 00:57:31.581
- you have a doctor's office right there. My Main Street Healthcare Act gives everybody health insurance.

00:57:31.581 --> 00:57:36.382
- There are no more uninsured people. So anybody can get coverage.

00:57:36.930 --> 00:57:46.343
- coverage they need and the healthcare they need. Thank you. One thought occurs to me in terms of compensation

00:57:46.343 --> 00:57:55.157
- from insurance companies for healthcare provision. It is certainly not the case that each insurer pays

00:57:55.157 --> 00:58:04.313
- the same for each procedure throughout across the board. Remember, we have employer-based, employer-linked

00:58:04.313 --> 00:58:06.110
- healthcare insurance

00:58:06.530 --> 00:58:13.299
- Those are separately group plans with private insurers. Those private insurance companies will pay a

00:58:13.299 --> 00:58:20.135
- certain rate for a routine appendectomy without complications. Medicare will pay as determined a rate

00:58:20.135 --> 00:58:27.038
- for its reimbursement for a routine appendectomy without complications. It will be much lower than the

00:58:27.038 --> 00:58:34.007
- private insurance companies. Medicaid has its own rate for a routine appendectomy without complications

00:58:34.007 --> 00:58:36.286
- that it will pay to its providers

00:58:36.930 --> 00:58:45.022
- It is indeed much less than the Medicare rate. CHIP, Children's Health, and so forth. So part of the

00:58:45.022 --> 00:58:53.194
- conundrum here of the insurance companies is that the private insurance companies pay the highest for

00:58:53.194 --> 00:59:01.527
- their services. Many providers are reluctant to take, say, a 50% decrease in the compensation for their

00:59:01.527 --> 00:59:06.334
- services if everything were to go to Medicare, for example.

00:59:06.754 --> 00:59:13.856
- Now that wouldn't have to happen because Medicare could set its rate at whatever it determines it to

00:59:13.856 --> 00:59:21.099
- be. But as it currently stands, there's much greater payment from the private insurance companies than

00:59:21.099 --> 00:59:28.482
- Medicare would pay than for Medicaid would pay. So that comes into this mix. Any other comments on that?

00:59:28.482 --> 00:59:31.646
- Anything else to add on that? Anybody? Okay.

00:59:31.874 --> 00:59:38.358
- Because I think that's part of the equation. We think, well, what does it matter if you're covered by

00:59:38.358 --> 00:59:44.842
- Medicare, if you're covered by Medicaid? Well, it matters a great deal financially. And I think, Tim,

00:59:44.842 --> 00:59:51.580
- you pointed out that the Medicaid rates are often below the cost of care. So many hospitals cannot accept

00:59:51.580 --> 00:59:58.318
- Medicaid patients. Any hospital will take a combination of privately insured patients, Medicare patients,

00:59:58.318 --> 01:00:00.606
- and usually some Medicaid patients.

01:00:01.378 --> 01:00:08.748
- The Medicaid patients are essentially covered by the higher paying plans. But if your population is

01:00:08.748 --> 01:00:16.340
- essentially Medicaid based, you are not compensated enough to even cover your costs for those Medicaid

01:00:16.340 --> 01:00:23.710
- patients. So that's part of this whole process. Yeah, Brad and then Tim. So I was talking about the

01:00:23.710 --> 01:00:30.270
- Gordian knot of complexity. And I think that you gave a good example right there, right?

01:00:30.370 --> 01:00:37.828
- And there are things that we can, again, and should do in the current system to help reduce the disparities

01:00:37.828 --> 01:00:45.078
- in health care for both minorities and the poor and the rural. But it's always going to be cleaner water

01:00:45.078 --> 01:00:52.328
- going into a system that's going to contaminate it. And over time, it's going to drag it down. And we're

01:00:52.328 --> 01:00:56.126
- going to be right back where we were. Perfect example.

01:00:56.290 --> 01:01:04.064
- Infant mortality rate that you showed at one time was significantly higher. And then the government

01:01:04.064 --> 01:01:12.071
- got involved and they made changes. And it came down to about twice of what it was in other countries.

01:01:12.071 --> 01:01:19.845
- And then they said, done. And then it's been drifting back up. Any of these solutions we talk about

01:01:19.845 --> 01:01:26.142
- are all temporary in a system that causes contamination. The Medicaid rates are?

01:01:26.242 --> 01:01:34.245
- terrible, but Medicare rates are, say it this way, private insurance rates are as much as 250% of Medicare.

01:01:34.245 --> 01:01:41.803
- There is an enormous gap in between what private insurance is subsidizing our system versus Medicare.

01:01:41.803 --> 01:01:49.509
- So if we were to tomorrow drop everyone to Medicare, we would not be able to afford the system we have.

01:01:49.509 --> 01:01:54.622
- We need to fix the system to be able to expand Medicare to everyone.

01:02:01.602 --> 01:02:08.902
- Yeah, the system I've written up puts all these costs on a public dashboard. You can go look at it.

01:02:08.902 --> 01:02:16.274
- So when you find out that you're getting charged twice as much for an appendectomy as somebody else,

01:02:16.274 --> 01:02:23.866
- you can call them on it. All of the prices will have to even out because there's just no business sense

01:02:23.866 --> 01:02:28.830
- in paying twice as much for something you can get for half as much.

01:02:35.682 --> 01:02:42.984
- I always hate to admit this, but Dr. Peck is right. And he's right about a lot of things regarding

01:02:42.984 --> 01:02:50.729
- healthcare. It is true that there's big disparities and they have to be fixed. My anxiety or uneasiness,

01:02:50.729 --> 01:02:58.400
- as they say in sign language, is we're going to go another 80 years trying to fix that problem. We know

01:02:58.400 --> 01:03:00.318
- that there is a solution.

01:03:00.738 --> 01:03:07.563
- The rest of the world does it more effectively and efficiently, and we're going to have to walk and

01:03:07.563 --> 01:03:14.593
- chew gum at the same time. Physicians for a national health program have been working on this problem.

01:03:14.593 --> 01:03:21.418
- There is legislation in place, and we need to work on it. We need to fix it. But we can't stall and

01:03:21.418 --> 01:03:26.878
- delay and slow roll and say, we've got to fix this first. We've got to do both.

01:03:37.986 --> 01:03:44.965
- add to the mix here to the discussion that there's a lot of inefficiency in terms of administrative

01:03:44.965 --> 01:03:51.945
- costs in our current system. When you have numerous, numerous private insurance companies, each has

01:03:51.945 --> 01:03:58.994
- their own clients. They have their own staff doing the billing. A provider has to deal not only with

01:03:58.994 --> 01:04:05.974
- one insurance company, but dozens and dozens of insurance companies. And that physician, his group,

01:04:05.974 --> 01:04:07.230
- his or her group,

01:04:07.362 --> 01:04:14.997
- will have to provide numerous billers to negotiate. And those prices that the different insurance companies

01:04:14.997 --> 01:04:22.067
- give to that office are different. And each one is individually negotiated. And so we have a lot of

01:04:22.067 --> 01:04:29.137
- overhead expenses. And I don't have good data on this, but it's something on the order of maybe 25%

01:04:29.137 --> 01:04:36.702
- of that $5 trillion we spent is all on administrative overhead. Now, if anyone has a better number, please

01:04:36.994 --> 01:04:45.991
- But it's on that caliber, on that level of administrative overhead costs. We could still spend $5 million,

01:04:45.991 --> 01:04:54.819
- but we could get another $1.3 million, $1.3 trillion by eliminating perhaps all that redundancy in these

01:04:54.819 --> 01:05:03.480
- processes. That is one argument for a single payer system. Tim, please. I've seen numbers, 20, 25, 30,

01:05:03.480 --> 01:05:05.918
- 35% as well as the overhead.

01:05:06.242 --> 01:05:13.568
- I just want to make a point around original Medicare, right? Medicare without any insurance companies.

01:05:13.568 --> 01:05:20.752
- It has a ton of overhead as well. And it has privatization around it. So the people who actually cut

01:05:20.752 --> 01:05:27.865
- the checks for Medicare and pay the doctors and the hospitals, it's a private company that does it.

01:05:27.865 --> 01:05:33.982
- And those companies, most of them are owned by Blue Cross Blue Shield Anthem. And so,

01:05:34.274 --> 01:05:44.854
- The insurance companies have infiltrated even our original Medicare system. We need to clean it up in

01:05:44.854 --> 01:05:55.330
- so many different ways before expanding something that just gives them more favor. These numbers are

01:05:55.330 --> 01:06:03.006
- true and some people ask, you know, I've written all these bills and they

01:06:03.234 --> 01:06:12.939
- seem to cost a lot of money and how am I going to pay for them? That's how. The fraud, the waste, the

01:06:12.939 --> 01:06:22.644
- double billing, the abuse of the system, it costs so much money that just cutting it out pays for 50%

01:06:22.644 --> 01:06:32.254
- of the stuff I've proposed. These next few questions are related and it has to do with electability.

01:06:32.578 --> 01:06:43.494
- the electability specifically in the 9th district. So what plans do you have to be able to win the election

01:06:43.494 --> 01:06:53.804
- in the 9th district? And one question you would ask about in this gerrymandered district. No, I'm not

01:06:53.804 --> 01:07:01.182
- going to win. There's no chance I'm going to win. I mean, it's possible.

01:07:01.538 --> 01:07:12.049
- But at this point, I'm probably going to end up being a writing candidate and we all know the odds.

01:07:12.049 --> 01:07:22.560
- There's not a chance that I'm going to win. But I'm going to try and stranger things have happened.

01:07:22.560 --> 01:07:27.710
- Electability in southern Indiana is really about

01:07:28.738 --> 01:07:35.903
- two things, getting people that voted. We lost two to one in the last election, and that was pretty

01:07:35.903 --> 01:07:43.069
- common, but we lost actually worse than average, and we need to get 65,000 people to cross over, or

01:07:43.069 --> 01:07:50.378
- we need to get 120,000 people off the couch that didn't vote at all. And what it really comes down to

01:07:50.378 --> 01:07:57.758
- is that people are looking for a change. They want something better, and we need to start offering it.

01:07:58.114 --> 01:08:03.756
- We need to start fighting for the things that are going to make a difference in their life. We need

01:08:03.756 --> 01:08:09.454
- to help them understand why what we're offering will make a difference in their life, and we have to

01:08:09.454 --> 01:08:15.209
- be willing to fight for it. So, I don't think that we can come in with policies that say, well, we're

01:08:15.209 --> 01:08:21.189
- going to try to clean things up and we'll see what happens. That's not going to get people off the couch.

01:08:21.189 --> 01:08:26.718
- It's not going to motivate people. Okay? We have to offer them something real, and my time is up.

01:08:29.378 --> 01:08:35.562
- What I'm offering him is to have a hospital back in their backyard, in my backyard, to be able to call

01:08:35.562 --> 01:08:41.925
- 911 and have people actually show up, to be able to afford going to work with gasoline being so expensive

01:08:41.925 --> 01:08:47.929
- that they don't want to fill up their car to even get to work and childcare being so expensive that

01:08:47.929 --> 01:08:54.233
- they actually lose work, lose money for going to work. These are motivating factors. I've run a campaign

01:08:54.233 --> 01:08:56.574
- for now for three years building this.

01:08:57.250 --> 01:09:02.162
- And you see some people with my shirts on here that I did not ask them to and they show up because we

01:09:02.162 --> 01:09:07.267
- have 900 volunteers at this point. We've knocked on tens of thousands of doors. We are doing that, making

01:09:07.267 --> 01:09:12.227
- the calls. We're sending postcards. And if anyone would love to do that with us, please come to anyone

01:09:12.227 --> 01:09:17.284
- with one of these shirts and ask how to do it because they've done it. And we're going to do it together

01:09:17.284 --> 01:09:20.318
- and we're going to win this, not only because of our campaign,

01:09:20.418 --> 01:09:27.948
- because thousands of people are showing up to these No Kings events and getting out like they've never

01:09:27.948 --> 01:09:35.332
- gotten out before in this district. And we have DNA of Democrat in this district, and we can flip it

01:09:35.332 --> 01:09:43.155
- back to days like Lee Hamilton, God rest his soul, brought to us. Thank you. All right. So my electability

01:09:43.155 --> 01:09:49.662
- strategy is simple. It's this. I'm trying to put more money in people's pockets, period.

01:09:50.114 --> 01:09:57.216
- I'm trying to figure out a way to provide cost avoidance in terms of health care or allow them to save

01:09:57.216 --> 01:10:04.524
- money on gas prices, gross prices, rent prices, housing prices, and the like, period. And if you advocate

01:10:04.524 --> 01:10:11.488
- for those economic interests, you're going to pull in those independent voters. You're going to pull

01:10:11.488 --> 01:10:18.590
- in those disenfranchised Republicans, because that's the language they know. It's that simple. I think

01:10:18.590 --> 01:10:19.486
- in the past,

01:10:20.130 --> 01:10:26.926
- We, you know, Democratic Party, our party, we focus too much on other things. We have to focus on what

01:10:26.926 --> 01:10:33.656
- impacts people's lives right now. And it's those things I just mentioned. That is my policies. That's

01:10:33.656 --> 01:10:40.782
- my strategy going forward. And quite frankly, I don't think there's any other way to get those impenetrable

01:10:40.782 --> 01:10:47.710
- voters and those disenfranchised Republicans. We've got to speak in their terms. Okay, great. Thank you.

01:10:52.994 --> 01:11:00.846
- This next question deals with Medicare Advantage. And I'll give you my 30-second primer on Medicare

01:11:00.846 --> 01:11:09.168
- Advantage. Medicare A, B, C, and D. There's Medicare A, there's Medicare B. Medicare A pays for inpatient

01:11:09.168 --> 01:11:17.727
- hospital costs. That's what you pay into your system with each paycheck. Medicare Part B concerns outpatient

01:11:17.727 --> 01:11:19.454
- physician provisions.

01:11:19.842 --> 01:11:27.246
- the healthcare provider, not the institution as such. Medicare D, D is for drugs. Medicare Part D, you

01:11:27.246 --> 01:11:34.435
- select a healthcare plan and there I think at the latest count there were 1,160 available drug care

01:11:34.435 --> 01:11:41.982
- plans in the state of Indiana. If you can figure out which one is best for you, you come tell me because

01:11:41.982 --> 01:11:47.230
- I'd like to know how to do that. So you do need to select a Part D plan.

01:11:47.842 --> 01:11:55.877
- Now part A and part B and part D, not always part D, but those A and B will have deductibles, not deductible,

01:11:55.877 --> 01:12:02.817
- no, they will have deductibles and they will have co-insurance. And that doesn't have a limit.

01:12:02.817 --> 01:12:10.341
- So you are not, you're under-insured if all you have is part A, part B, and part D, so you need to get

01:12:10.341 --> 01:12:15.966
- a separate policy, a meta-gap policy, go out and buy another insurance plan,

01:12:16.322 --> 01:12:24.341
- a fourth one to cover the gaps, the insufficient components of Part A, B, and D. So welcome to the Medicare

01:12:24.341 --> 01:12:31.766
- world. You'll have four insurance plans going on. Or you can do Medicare Part C. Medicare Part C is

01:12:31.766 --> 01:12:39.562
- called Medicare Advantage. And that is set up such that the CMS, the Medicare office, will pay a private

01:12:39.562 --> 01:12:45.502
- insurance company a fixed amount of money, and then that insurance company will

01:12:45.762 --> 01:12:53.338
- take on essentially the risk for your healthcare. So there's a mechanism that simplifies many things

01:12:53.338 --> 01:13:00.838
- by the government simply offloading to a private insurance company payment for your expenses. There

01:13:00.838 --> 01:13:08.939
- are some problems with that, but I think that's fine. It's not fine, but I'll stop at that. So the question

01:13:08.939 --> 01:13:10.814
- is, what is your view of

01:13:10.914 --> 01:13:19.419
- of Medicare Advantage, and do some people see it as too unfair and capitalistic? Tim, may I start with

01:13:19.419 --> 01:13:27.841
- you, and then we'll go this way. I'm going to take 20 seconds, but I'm getting the word from the team

01:13:27.841 --> 01:13:36.429
- that Trump has taco'd, meaning that he has not bombed Iran. So that's what I'm hearing. So I don't know

01:13:36.429 --> 01:13:37.502
- the details.

01:13:38.850 --> 01:13:45.554
- I feel better. I don't know how everyone else does. So let's talk about Medicare Advantage for a second.

01:13:45.554 --> 01:13:52.002
- So one of the ways of weakening insurance companies is actually using Medicare Advantage as a lever.

01:13:52.002 --> 01:13:58.003
- Right now, when Medicare Advantage overcharges patients, and they make too much money because

01:13:58.003 --> 01:14:04.707
- they overcharged, then they get sued by the federal government. And then they settle for a lesser amount

01:14:04.707 --> 01:14:06.750
- than they actually charged for.

01:14:07.234 --> 01:14:14.357
- We need to put in rules that have real teeth so that when they overcharge, they actually owe us double

01:14:14.357 --> 01:14:21.618
- what they overcharged. Done. No litigation. Over. You cannot do that. That is a penalty. And CMS, Center

01:14:21.618 --> 01:14:29.086
- for Medicare and Medicaid Studies, is able to do that only if Congress writes that bill. So we'll write it.

01:14:32.994 --> 01:14:39.439
- Yes, I'll be the first one to admit, I don't know all the details of Medicare Advantage, but that's

01:14:39.439 --> 01:14:46.012
- okay. But here's what I do know. I'm one of those type of guys, if I don't know the answer, I'll find

01:14:46.012 --> 01:14:52.457
- the answer. And I'll just be honest with you and I'll be direct with you. But here's what I do know

01:14:52.457 --> 01:14:58.773
- about Medicare. We would be in real trouble if we didn't have Medicare. You know, it was enacted,

01:14:58.773 --> 01:15:00.062
- let's see, back in,

01:15:00.546 --> 01:15:08.366
- 64, 63, somewhere around there. 65, thank you, Doc. And it's been a blessing. So many people depend

01:15:08.366 --> 01:15:16.655
- on Medicare, including my parents, that help subsidize their private insurance or provide only healthcare

01:15:16.655 --> 01:15:24.866
- they have. So obviously going forward, I would support that policy wholeheartedly and Medicare Advantage

01:15:24.866 --> 01:15:26.430
- as well. Thank you.

01:15:36.354 --> 01:15:45.964
- My Medicare reform package eliminates it. I mean, it rolls A, B, and D into the primary Medicare, and

01:15:45.964 --> 01:15:55.480
- you don't pay anything if you make under $100,000 a year. Done deal. No Part C is even necessary. So

01:15:55.480 --> 01:16:03.582
- you heard his explanation, and it's complex. And we get hypnotized by the complexity.

01:16:04.034 --> 01:16:10.344
- My understanding of Medicare Advantage is that it's A and B, and then it has extra things in it that

01:16:10.344 --> 01:16:16.842
- other people like, right? And you mentioned that it's too capitalistic. I'm advocating for a government

01:16:16.842 --> 01:16:23.402
- system, but I actually believe in capitalism. Capitalism is a really powerful tool. It's like a chainsaw

01:16:23.402 --> 01:16:30.025
- that you can get a lot of productive work done, or you can cut your foot off with it if you're not paying

01:16:30.025 --> 01:16:33.086
- attention and controlling it the way you should.

01:16:33.538 --> 01:16:39.759
- right. And in medicine it doesn't belong. I think we're thinking too small. We keep coming back to we've

01:16:39.759 --> 01:16:45.743
- got these problems and we've got to do this first. Medicare didn't exist before 1964 and they fought

01:16:45.743 --> 01:16:52.082
- for it and they made a change and everything that is said about we can't move forward we can't do Medicare

01:16:52.082 --> 01:16:58.125
- for all because of this and because of that and because of the what about the insurance companies and

01:16:58.125 --> 01:17:03.102
- what about that. It's all been said before and they fixed it and they got Medicare.

01:17:03.490 --> 01:17:12.589
- Now it's Medicare for all. It's time. This will probably be the last question, because at 8.20 we will

01:17:12.589 --> 01:17:22.040
- conclude and then give two minutes for each foreclosing statement. All other, quote, comparable countries,

01:17:22.040 --> 01:17:30.962
- end quote, health care systems are built on a base of primary care physicians, a vanishing commodity

01:17:30.962 --> 01:17:31.934
- in the US.

01:17:33.410 --> 01:17:42.219
- How would you propose remedying this upside-down system we have of higher-priced specialty care? So

01:17:42.219 --> 01:17:51.292
- the question is, when we looked at the per capita cost for the U.S., it's almost twice the size of the

01:17:51.292 --> 01:18:00.894
- comparable countries, and it is suggesting that these comparable companies have an emphasis on primary care.

01:18:01.474 --> 01:18:08.852
- Whereas in the United States we have more specialists than primary care providers in part because the

01:18:08.852 --> 01:18:16.231
- specialists are highly compensated. Whereas primary care physicians are not as highly compensated. So

01:18:16.231 --> 01:18:23.537
- the question is how can we expand, I think the question essentially is how can we expand our base of

01:18:23.537 --> 01:18:31.422
- primary care physicians given the current reimbursement of higher payment for specialty care versus primary?

01:18:33.954 --> 01:18:44.547
- and training costs for throughout, at all levels for medical school through, okay, all right. Yeah,

01:18:44.547 --> 01:18:56.094
- okay, so that's, and throw in the cost of medical school, only an extra quarter million. No comment on that.

01:19:00.450 --> 01:19:06.603
- And obviously, the short answer is they're going to pay more, right? I mean, that's an easy one. But

01:19:06.603 --> 01:19:12.940
- I think the reality is we need to look at policies that support student loan forgiveness and or student

01:19:12.940 --> 01:19:19.215
- loan, low interest loans, right? We need to look at those policies to encourage folks to go into those

01:19:19.215 --> 01:19:25.307
- fields of primary care as opposed to cardiology or other. I mean, obviously, they're going to go in

01:19:25.307 --> 01:19:29.694
- those whatever they want. But we have to make it cost benefit for them.

01:19:30.018 --> 01:19:37.324
- to go into those fields. I mean, that's one thing. Obviously, if there's any regulatory hurdles, they're

01:19:37.324 --> 01:19:44.351
- probably not going to change much. I used to do Navy recruiting. I was a Navy officer recruiter. And

01:19:44.351 --> 01:19:51.309
- we used to assess doctors quite a bit. We used to come in the Navy. And they would basically serve.

01:19:51.309 --> 01:19:57.502
- We would pay for their medical school. And then after that, they'd go serve at the Navy.

01:19:58.210 --> 01:20:06.187
- But that was a great program because we would basically wipe away their medical debt, and then they

01:20:06.187 --> 01:20:14.164
- would go serve the Navy. So I'm advocating for the same type of policy for primary care. Thank you.

01:20:14.164 --> 01:20:22.141
- So it's a complex question, but simple. It could be simplified by bringing it up to two things. One

01:20:22.141 --> 01:20:27.486
- is burnout, and one is cost. So the cost of primary care education

01:20:27.778 --> 01:20:34.521
- is the same, similar to what I was just talking about about everybody else who's a working person right

01:20:34.521 --> 01:20:41.329
- now. It costs more to be a primary care physician than it does to make, that you make money as a primary

01:20:41.329 --> 01:20:48.072
- care physician for decades until you can get back into the black. And so I don't think it's forgiveness

01:20:48.072 --> 01:20:49.758
- for being a primary care.

01:20:49.954 --> 01:20:55.540
- In terms of loans, I just don't think you should pay for school if you are willing to be and sign up

01:20:55.540 --> 01:21:01.237
- to be a primary care doctor and then you dedicate yourself to it. Not only that, but burnout is a very

01:21:01.237 --> 01:21:06.934
- big deal. And I talked about prior authorization. I wish I had more time to tell you story after story

01:21:06.934 --> 01:21:12.520
- of coming out of a patient's room and kicking a chair because I'm so angry at what has happened with

01:21:12.520 --> 01:21:19.102
- the insurance company getting in the way of what that person needs. Again, we need to weaken these insurance companies

01:21:19.362 --> 01:21:27.321
- Prior authorization can be illegal. We can make that illegal through congressional election. Thank you.

01:21:27.321 --> 01:21:35.050
- So part of it is burnout and retirement, but also the pipeline coming in. Now, I'm not going to talk

01:21:35.050 --> 01:21:42.932
- about doctors. I'm going to talk about veterinarians for just a minute. 2,000 people applied to Purdue

01:21:42.932 --> 01:21:45.534
- to become vets, and they took 80.

01:21:47.298 --> 01:21:54.029
- Think about that. And the same type of thing happens with medicine. We definitely need the smartest

01:21:54.029 --> 01:22:00.962
- people we can to be doctors, right? I'm not saying that we should put a dunderhead in as a doctor, but

01:22:00.962 --> 01:22:08.232
- surely we can accept more and train more. And part of the healthcare system is to ensure that that pipeline

01:22:08.232 --> 01:22:15.030
- is there and robust. And we don't do that very well right now. Education for doctors shouldn't be so

01:22:15.030 --> 01:22:15.838
- burdensome.

01:22:16.162 --> 01:22:23.215
- $400,000 is a ridiculous number to go into debt. But it's a ridiculous number that all of our young

01:22:23.215 --> 01:22:30.902
- people are going through right now, and they're all experiencing debt, and they're all struggling. Education

01:22:30.902 --> 01:22:38.449
- is not the topic of this, but it's a huge thing that we need to fix for doctors and non-doctors. Honestly,

01:22:38.449 --> 01:22:45.854
- I don't have a solution. I will go with Tim Peck's solution. He's a doctor. He would know better than I.

01:22:46.626 --> 01:22:55.346
- I am highly paid for my specialty, so I really can't argue against paying somebody that obnoxious about

01:22:55.346 --> 01:23:03.731
- money to do something that nobody else can do. But there has to be a solution. I don't know what it

01:23:03.731 --> 01:23:12.368
- is, but there has to be one. Thanks. All right, that includes our Q&A. So each candidate will now have

01:23:12.368 --> 01:23:13.374
- two minutes

01:23:14.274 --> 01:23:21.655
- Let's take a 30 second breather. Just allow them to collect their thoughts in a minute. Each candidate

01:23:21.655 --> 01:23:29.037
- will have two minutes to give a closing statement. We'll give you a minute or two to put that together

01:23:29.037 --> 01:23:36.203
- in your head a little bit. Any other comments anyone would like to make in the interim? Anything we

01:23:36.203 --> 01:23:44.158
- really haven't done yet? You know, I could not grab the mic at some point. And thanks to Pam for keeping time.

01:23:44.258 --> 01:23:51.895
- Thanks for everybody to come out tonight. I think there's something like 64 people in the room. I'm

01:23:51.895 --> 01:24:00.219
- counting you Katz guys as well. Thanks to Katz for coming and filming all of this. Thanks for you candidates

01:24:00.219 --> 01:24:07.932
- for coming. Thanks to Mark Bauman. Let's give a big hand for Mark Bauman. I worked so hard to try to

01:24:07.932 --> 01:24:13.278
- make this event really comprehensive and useful and fair and whatnot.

01:24:13.602 --> 01:24:21.168
- Thanks to my wife Karen Greenstone in the back there. Karen, really, she was the one who said, we've

01:24:21.168 --> 01:24:28.733
- done this before. We should do it again. It's going to be a lot of work, but I'll take it on. And so

01:24:28.733 --> 01:24:36.374
- thank you so much. And this is a great crowd. I hope people have learned something. And OK, let's put

01:24:36.374 --> 01:24:42.366
- them up. We'll put their feet to the fire right now. There's their last chance.

01:24:43.490 --> 01:24:51.240
- Thank you. Kyle, is that okay if we start with you and work down this way? Okay. So yeah, once again,

01:24:51.240 --> 01:24:59.066
- thank you very much for giving me an opportunity to speak this evening. I just wanted to kind of focus

01:24:59.066 --> 01:25:06.663
- in on, you know, I'm going to fight for our folks here in the 9th congressional district, no matter

01:25:06.663 --> 01:25:11.678
- what, whether it's healthcare, wages, grocery prices, gas prices,

01:25:12.098 --> 01:25:18.749
- I'm going to try to make your lives a little easier. Am I going to promise you a Rose Garden and a French

01:25:18.749 --> 01:25:25.086
- latte and ice cream? No. I'm just going to get real on what we can deliver. And I believe it's going

01:25:25.086 --> 01:25:31.361
- to be tough to win this one. It will be tough. No question about it. Even if all the Democrats come

01:25:31.361 --> 01:25:37.823
- out, we've still got to pull in 20% of the voters of independence. But I think we can do that with the

01:25:37.823 --> 01:25:41.086
- right candidate and that centrist view that I have.

01:25:41.698 --> 01:25:50.549
- I'm ex-Navy, ex-blue collar. I put myself through college. I, you know, got four kids, raised in Indiana,

01:25:50.549 --> 01:25:59.400
- went to Purdue, of course. So did, so did Brad too, so. And I took on this opportunity because I'm deeply

01:25:59.400 --> 01:26:07.833
- worried about this country. I am, I'm deeply worried about this fall in terms of the election chaos.

01:26:07.833 --> 01:26:11.006
- And I want to try to help our people.

01:26:11.490 --> 01:26:19.081
- It's that simple. I can't emphasize it anymore. Some people ask why to do it, because I don't want to

01:26:19.081 --> 01:26:26.598
- live my life with regrets. I want to say I've done everything to help our people, either with health

01:26:26.598 --> 01:26:34.264
- care costs, ensuring democracy exists, ensuring a better life for children's future. It's that simple.

01:26:34.264 --> 01:26:39.102
- And if I could secure your vote, I would really appreciate that.

01:26:39.778 --> 01:26:51.467
- And please go out and vote November 5th. And please reach out and look me up on my website. And I appreciate

01:26:51.467 --> 01:27:02.405
- your vote. Thank you. So families are falling behind. It costs too much to work. And we need to focus

01:27:02.405 --> 01:27:09.054
- on that in order to relate to everybody across this district.

01:27:10.210 --> 01:27:16.480
- But we also need to focus on the fact that our rights are being infringed everywhere. That includes

01:27:16.480 --> 01:27:23.001
- our reproductive rights. That includes our First Amendment rights, our very right to live when it comes

01:27:23.001 --> 01:27:29.460
- to immigration reform. It also includes healthcare. Healthcare is a right. It is something that we can

01:27:29.460 --> 01:27:35.793
- relate to people on and saying your right is being infringed. It has been taken away from you. Don't

01:27:35.793 --> 01:27:38.238
- you want it back? But you need someone

01:27:39.266 --> 01:27:46.999
- who actually can talk to those people who had it taken away. I live amongst those people. I knock on

01:27:46.999 --> 01:27:54.962
- their doors, but I also see them in the bank. I see them in the Dollar General. We don't have a grocery

01:27:54.962 --> 01:28:02.925
- store anymore. We have a desert there, too. And so these conversations are live. They're real. And they

01:28:02.925 --> 01:28:07.902
- actually bring me a ton of hope right now. I think this district

01:28:08.098 --> 01:28:15.117
- is not only winnable, this district is something we can take back for years. Because not only can we

01:28:15.117 --> 01:28:22.137
- relate to all these people who are hurting and give them solutions, but then we can execute on those

01:28:22.137 --> 01:28:28.600
- solutions, hold these insurance companies accountable. Make sure everybody has healthcare by

01:28:28.600 --> 01:28:35.550
- first controlling these costs and getting to that point. We can do this only if we do this together

01:28:36.098 --> 01:28:46.359
- And I ask you to come out with me, knock those doors, make those phone calls. We can only do it together.

01:28:46.359 --> 01:28:56.523
- And if we do, we will take back this district. Thank you. Well, we're hypnotized by complexity and we're

01:28:56.523 --> 01:29:02.718
- told to go slow. The consequences are real. And you heard this.

01:29:02.914 --> 01:29:11.070
- People are dying six years earlier. We have high infant mortality for children. And 70% of medical debt,

01:29:11.070 --> 01:29:19.071
- bankruptcies, 70% are related to medical debt. And those people have insurance. Now, I'm not a doctor,

01:29:19.071 --> 01:29:26.917
- but I'm an engineer. And I spent my career on project management and system design. And this system,

01:29:26.917 --> 01:29:31.422
- this is a systems problem. And the system is the problem.

01:29:32.834 --> 01:29:39.725
- The conclusion is clear. We need single payer health care. We have to stop dinking around. Sorry for

01:29:39.725 --> 01:29:46.548
- the strong language. We have to stop dinking around with this. What's holding us back is psychology

01:29:46.548 --> 01:29:53.439
- and it's fear. We can address it by reducing risk and doing it in a controlled way. Even when we get

01:29:53.439 --> 01:30:00.535
- Medicare for all, it's going to be attacked and undermined because those forces are never going to stop

01:30:00.535 --> 01:30:02.718
- attacking no matter what we do.

01:30:02.946 --> 01:30:08.731
- And we've seen it with the Affordable Care Act, right? They made big improvements. You saw

01:30:08.731 --> 01:30:15.343
- the big improvements here. It cut the uninsured in half, and then they undercut it. And they undermined

01:30:15.343 --> 01:30:22.083
- it. And they tried 100 times in Congress and 60 times in the Senate to eliminate it entirely. And they're

01:30:22.083 --> 01:30:28.758
- going to do it again to any improvements that we make into this system. The system is the contamination.

01:30:28.758 --> 01:30:32.382
- That's why I'm advocating for a constitutional amendment

01:30:32.930 --> 01:30:38.984
- for health care. Because health care, let's be honest, it's not a right. It sounds good, it feels good,

01:30:38.984 --> 01:30:44.864
- we wish it was, but it is not a right. And that's why they can take it away from it. That's why they

01:30:44.864 --> 01:30:51.035
- were able to take away a woman's right to choose. That's why they're able to undercut. That's why they're

01:30:51.035 --> 01:30:56.914
- able to push down and try to make it harder to get care, because it's not a right. And until we make

01:30:56.914 --> 01:31:02.270
- it a constitutional right, they will always undermine it. I'm proposing big changes because

01:31:02.466 --> 01:31:17.035
- We have big problems, and we can do it. Yeah, I won't be on the primary ballot with these guys in May.

01:31:17.035 --> 01:31:31.038
- It's May, right? But I'll be on the general election ballot. And I have solved all these problems.

01:31:33.762 --> 01:31:41.499
- I don't really see how difficult it is. I know I'm not gonna win. I encourage you to visit my website

01:31:41.499 --> 01:31:48.403
- at floyd2026.com and look at the legislation because it's all there, it's all been solved,

01:31:48.403 --> 01:31:56.216
- it's all written, it's all analyzed. And if you want a few moments of humor, I wrote a fictional story

01:31:56.216 --> 01:31:59.326
- about what happens if I actually do win.

01:32:12.130 --> 01:32:19.487
- To conclude quickly, here's a couple key dates up here we've projected. If you want to vote in absentee

01:32:19.487 --> 01:32:26.844
- or mail-in ballot, that request deadline is April 23rd. That request has to be in by then. The absentee

01:32:26.844 --> 01:32:34.201
- or mail-in ballot must be returned by the primary election day, May 5th. Early voting begins April 7th,

01:32:34.201 --> 01:32:40.638
- all the way up to the day before, so we're there. And the May primary election is May 5th.

01:32:41.090 --> 01:32:50.663
- So please get all your friends and family to get out and vote and vote multiple times, right? One quick

01:32:50.663 --> 01:33:00.513
- plug is that a week from tonight on the 14th at 530 at the Monroe County Library, the concerned scientists

01:33:00.513 --> 01:33:10.270
- of IU are sponsoring these same folks to come and talk about the environment in a similar format as this.

01:33:13.122 --> 01:33:14.782
- Thank you all for coming and good night.