- So I'm Karen Greenstone. I'm a member of Medicare for All Indiana. And we've done these healthcare
- conversations for many, many years. We did take years off during COVID, but here we are back again.
- And I want to thank everybody for coming. So I know that there's a lot of anxiety right now, and we
- want to acknowledge that.
- our president is threatening to blow up a country. But if you could please turn off your cell phones
- so they don't ding in the middle of the conversation, because we're here for a health care conversation
- and whatever happens tonight, we're still going to need health care. There are cards on your chair for
- questions and answers. And if you need a pen, raise your hand and we'll find a pen for you.
- I want to point to the bathroom, which is over there down the hall. And there is also a water fountain
- if you get thirsty. Quite honestly, we were hoping to have at least one woman on this panel.
- But unfortunately, current ninth district representative Aaron Hochin declined our invitation. And Jim
- Graham couldn't be here tonight. He's recovering from an illness and he had to cancel. But he's doing
- better. So I want to thank our
- co-sponsors with a short description because we have, I think, a really wonderful group of people who
- have come together to help create this evening. The NAACP is committed to ending racial health disparities.
- The NAACP recognizes that the roots of historic inequity run deep in fragmented public and private health systems.
- and disadvantaged opportunities across lifespan. Our aim is not simply disease prevention, but to create
- an inclusive culture of healthy people and communities. Our mandate is to drive equitable health outcomes
- and transform health care through a comprehensive socioeconomic approach and valuing the whole person.
- Brown Countians for Quality Health Care. Since 2011, Brown Countians for Quality Health Care
- has served Brown County as a locally-led program dedicated to advocating for and connecting community
- members with quality health care services. The League of Women Voters of Brown County and the
- Bloomington-Monroe County League of Women Voters, along with the National League of Women Voters, believes
- that a basic level of quality health care at an affordable cost should be available to all US residents.
- Other health care policy goals should include
- Equitable distribution of services, efficient and economical delivery of care, advancement of medical
- research and technology, and a reasonable total national expenditure level for healthcare. And I would
- like to say right here that one of the ways that the administration would like to pay for this war is
- through cutting healthcare. The Indiana Rural Summit is committed to supporting candidates, community
- leaders, and volunteers to give rural and small time
- Hoosiers a voice, a choice, and a vote. Organizing Indiana is a resource hub focused on realizing a
- common challenge. Many of us who are doing important work across Indiana, but often disconnected from
- each other, duplicating efforts and missing key opportunities for collective impact. And you can find
- Organizing Indiana at OrganizingIndiana.org if you're interested
- connecting with folks that think like you do. And then Medicare for All Indiana. It's the Indiana chapter
- of Physicians for a National Health Program, a national organization that works for a publicly financed,
- not-for-profit, single-payer national health program that would fully cover medical expenses for all
- Americans, improve Medicare for All. Students for a national health program, SNAP, S-N-A-H-P,
- And this is my hope for the future, these medical students, they are terrific. There are chapters now
- in 125 medical schools throughout the US, including several on campuses of Indiana University School
- of Medicine. So, our moderator tonight is Dr. Mark Bauman, and I am honored to introduce him, and he will be
- leading this conversation about the state of healthcare in the U.S. and Indiana. Dr. Bauman is a retired
- pathologist, so he's spent a lot of time in the dark in his career. But tonight we're going to see the
- light. We're going to see the light. Thank you. And he was a clinical associate professor emeritus at
- the IU School of Medicine. He taught
- pathology to medical students and healthcare policy to undergraduates at Indiana University for many
- years. Having attended several of his healthcare policy classes as a guest, I found that he engaged
- and encouraged the students and brought out the best in them. And he will bring out the best in us tonight.
- Dr. Mark Bauman.
- Thank you, Karen. I'm not sure what you're describing here, but thank you all for being here this evening.
- Thanks to our four candidates. We have two goals this evening. First is to meet and greet our candidates.
- These are candidates who were up for the election in the May primary, May 5th, for the ninth district
- here in Indiana.
- So we want to meet and greet them, get to know them. And secondly, we want to have a discussion about
- health care in our country, state, and at the local level. I'm very pleased we have so many experts
- in health care with us here. And that's each one of you in the seats who experienced the health care
- system and know the good, the bad, and the ugly of it. So we'll have a format here. So those are our
- goals. Let's take a quick look. Next slide, please, Rob. Take a quick look at our outline. Hold the
- mic closer. Thank you. There we go.
- If you four would want to turn your chairs around and even take a seat out here, if you're interested
- in seeing the slides, that's fine. They have all received these slides before and know what's coming.
- Our outline this evening is to give a quick overview of the 9th District, and then following that, that
- would just be two to three minutes. Then each candidate will have two minutes to come up and
- do a self-introduction. We do have a timer, and we will limit that to two minutes, please. Thank you.
- Then there will be an overview of healthcare in the US, a broad overview of where things stand in our
- country. That'll be followed by each candidate having four minutes of open microphone to respond to
- that or to talk about whatever aspect of healthcare they want. Then we'll have the question and audience
- section, and you have the cards on the chairs. Fill out your card with any question at any time.
- Please be sure it is a question and not a statement because we want to give individuals the chance to
- respond to those. And then at the very end, at about 820 or so, we'll have a two-minute segment for
- each candidate to give a closing statement. Next slide, please, Rob. So our little civics history class
- here. It may have been a little while since some of us have been in high school and we forget this.
- Congress is a bicameral legislative body. It consists of the Senate and the House, of course.
- In the Senate, there are 100 senators, two senators from each state. They are elected to six-year terms.
- Currently, there are 53 Republican senators, 45 Democrats, and two independents. As you know, our two
- senators in Indiana are Todd Young, who began his first term in 2017, and Jim Banks, who began in 2025.
- Next slide, please.
- The House is made up of 435 representatives, 435 members in the House of Representatives. Each representative
- is elected to a two-year term. So as soon as someone gets elected, they're already beginning their next
- campaign cycle two years from now. In the House, there are currently 217 Republicans, 214 Democrats,
- one independent, and three vacancies.
- The number of representatives from each state is dependent upon the population of that state. The larger
- the population, the more representatives. Based on our population, Indiana has nine representatives
- in the House. There are seven Republicans and two Democrats. The two Democrats are, the first one is
- up in region one, up in the northwest corner of the state. The second one is in district seven, which
- consists of part of Indianapolis. Next slide, please.
- Our current U.S. representative is Erin Houchin, and she is the incumbent. And she was invited to attend
- this evening, but declined the invitation. We have four candidates still with us here. We have one candidate
- running as an independent, Mr. Floyd Taylor, and then three of the other four here, Brad Meyer,
- Tim Peck, and Kelly, or Kyle Rourke. As Karen said, Jim Graham has a medical illness. He couldn't be
- with us here this evening.
- Next slide, please, Rob. OK. So now we'd like to move to the two-minute self-introduction. We'll go
- in the order listed through the slides. The order here is drawn out of a hat, just so completely random.
- So we'll begin here with Mr. Taylor. Thank you for coming. When I decided to run for Congress, I had
- one concern that was repeatedly told to me. Rural hospitals were closing due to financing cuts.
- And so I introduced a rural mobile health act, bringing medical services to communities that can't support
- a hospital. Then came a challenge from my wife. If you think this is easy, fix Medicare. So I developed
- a Medicare Comprehensive Care and Fair Premiums Act, expanding coverage to include dental, vision, hearing,
- and full-cost prescription drugs
- while eliminating income-based premium tiers and removing premiums for seniors that make under $100,000
- a year. Building on that momentum and free from party or lobbyist influence, I crafted the Medicaid
- Integrity Access and Accountability Act to strengthen program integrity and expand access to primary
- and behavioral care. I also authored the Veterans Dimension Memory Care Access and Accountability Act,
- guaranteeing timely
- high-quality dementia-specific care for our veterans with enforceable standards and dedicated funding.
- My signature legislation is the Main Street Health Compact Act, a comprehensive fraud-resistant patient-first
- healthcare framework that replaces the Affordable Care Act, ensures universal access, eliminates denial-based
- coverage restrictions, and enforces strict cost transparency while allowing private insurers to remain
- part of the system.
- All these bills deliver more health care coverage while costing less than any current plans. Thank you.
- Hi. I'm Brad Meyer. I'm running for the US House of Representatives. You can't really understand the
- problem until you've talked to the people that have to live with the results. Yes, sir. Sorry.
- That's why I've had two universal health care forums, five roundtable discussions with people, and 15
- town halls. And in those discussions, I've heard from people that have lost children because of insurance
- denials. I've heard from mothers that are struggling to get care for their children because of the complexity
- of the medical system. I've talked to adults with disabilities that are struggling in a denial-based
- system to get the care that they need.
- These aren't isolated incidents, and they're not an accident. They are the result of a system that uses
- private care as a profit center and public care as a cost to be minimized. That's why I'm a member of
- Physicians for a National Health Program. That's why Universal Health Care and Medicare for All is a
- center point of my campaign, because I've looked at the facts.
- But as it turns out, the facts aren't what's holding us back when it comes to health care. And when
- you see what's really happening, you can't unsee it. We are stuck in a coercive relationship with a
- for-profit health care system. And they say all the right things, but it never changes. They say, nobody
- will ever take care of you like I'll take care of you. I know things are bad.
- I'll change, just give me time. And everybody should have healthcare. But what this really is, is just
- an attempt to stall. They're just keeping us trapped. And it's time for a change. Thank you. My name's
- Dr. Tim Peck. I'm an emergency physician taking care of our neighbors here in southern Indiana. I'm
- also an advocate in DC that put together a congressional
- coalition of bipartisan congresspeople that got telemedicine passed for the United States over the course
- of years, just in time for the pandemic where millions of people's lives were saved. It costs way too
- much to go to work in this company, in this company as well as this country. It costs too much to go
- to work in this country. There's the gas
- that you need to get to work, there's the housing that you have, there's the childcare you need so you
- can even have the time to go to work, there's the education that you had that you need to pay for what
- you needed to get your job, there's the groceries that you have on your credit card, and then there's
- the health insurance that comes out of your paycheck. And because of this, your health suffers. People
- are forced to choose preservatives over fresh food. Second jobs over sleep, fatigue over exercise,
- paying bills over filling prescriptions. Our government solutions are insufficient and designed poorly.
- Medicare helps every aging and disabled individual in this country. Still, 20% of those citizens are
- in medical debt. People lose their houses when they need long-term care or ICU stays. And still, there's
- no dental, vision, or hearing coverage.
- Obamacare gives workers health care, but subsidizes private insurance companies in the process. And
- Medicaid and underinsured can't cover the bills of hospitals, and so therefore rural hospitals, like
- the one in my own backyard, close. That is not a system. That is abandonment. I hope I can earn your
- trust and your vote tonight, and look forward to a very good farm. Thank you. Thanks, Tim.
- Kind of hard to go after, Tim. I mean, you know, doctor and all. Yeah, name's Kyle Roark. I'm a candidate
- for Congress here at 9th Congressional District. Thank you. Thank you for the invitation this evening.
- I'm a former assembly line worker, Chrysler, former US Navy officer. And I just want to say, first and
- foremost, I've been very blessed in life to have good health care, either through the UAW or some of
- the companies I've worked for.
- been very fortunate in that respect. But a lot of folks aren't that unfortunate. And we need to present
- policies that can help our folks in the 9th Congressional District. We don't need folks having to pick
- between paying utility bills or grocery bills versus going to the hospital, right? This is the greatest
- country on the planet. There's no reason we should have that in this country.
- Some of my policies, obviously, I'm going to advocate for ACA subsidies to be reinstated. I think that's
- the most pragmatic thing we could do quickly in January when we take back the House. I'm also advocating
- for universal health care as a supplement to a private insurance policy. I'm concerned that if we go
- down the path of universal health care right away, that it limits choice.
- And we do have a Dr. Schroeder-Joner hands, too. So we have to have, the system has to be workable.
- We have to have choice, but at a reasonable price, okay? I think we also need to look at antitrust
- legislation with some of the big insurance companies, as well as some of the big prescription drug companies.
- I think there's, like, we all know healthcare is expensive. Prescription drugs are expensive.
- But there's a reason for that, right? There's something going on in the marketplace that's driving prices
- up. And I would propose looking at some antitrust legislation to understand what companies are colluding
- and what companies are pricing the market about time. Okay. Anyway, thank you very much. We'll talk
- more. Appreciate it. Thank you very much for those introductory remarks. Appreciate it.
- This is a very, very brief view of the U.S. health care system. Next slide, please, Rob. Buckle up because
- here we go. You can evaluate a football team based on three components. You can look at the offense,
- how it's producing points. You can look at the defense, how it's preventing points and number of turnover.
- You can look at the special teams. Next slide, please, Rob.
- You can think, you can evaluate any healthcare system in a similar fashion. You can look through three
- lenses to evaluate a healthcare system. You can look at it in terms of the people's access to that system.
- You can look at it in terms of the cost of the system. You can look at it in terms of the quality of
- the system. Next slide please, Rob. So we'll do that here briefly. With respect to access, access in
- our system means health insurance.
- Where do we get our health insurance in the United States? There are multiple places. About 50% of the
- people who have health insurance get that through their employer. An employer will pay part of the premium,
- the employee pays part, the employee is also responsible for deductibles, co-pay, co-insurance, et cetera.
- But employer-based, employer-linked insurance has been a part of the US healthcare system since the
- early 1920s and then more so into the 40s and 50s.
- No, go back please Rob. I'm not that fast. Medicaid is another means of insurance for people in our
- country. Medicaid is a federally run insurance program run in conjunction with the states, individual
- states, and those target people who are of low income. Medicaid has a subsection called CHIP, Children's
- Health Insurance Plan, and CHIP
- helps to provide insurance for children under 18 years of age who otherwise might not have insurance.
- About 20% of the people with health insurance are covered by Medicaid. Medicare, you're familiar with
- probably, that's a national federal health program available to people 65 years of age and over. It's
- financed by
- by you and by me and by our employers. Every paycheck you receive, 1.45% of your paycheck goes to CMS,
- the Center for Medicare and Medicaid to support Medicare. Your employer also contributes 1.45%. This
- is how Medicare is funded. If you have paid into that system for 10 years, and then you are eligible
- to be enrolled in Medicare at age 65.
- About 15% of the people with insurance are enrolled in Medicare. The vast majority of people over 65,
- 90% plus, do have Medicare. But of the overall population, it's about 15% of people with health insurance.
- People can have insurance through the military. If you're an active military member, you are enrolled
- in TRICARE for yourself and for your family members.
- If you received a general or an honorable discharge from your service, then that individual is typically
- able to have healthcare through the VA Veterans Administration healthcare system for the rest of their
- life. Maybe three to four percent of people get their health insurance through the military system.
- There is a marketplace exchange.
- and this is this kind of confusing area in here. The Marketplace Exchange was established by the Affordable
- Care Act, which is the same thing as Obamacare, and that was enacted into legislation in 2010. One of
- the components of ACA, the Affordable Care Act, was to establish state-based marketplace exchanges.
- You can go to healthcare.gov, go to Indiana,
- And you can see what plans are available from insurance companies that you can sign up for. You review
- the options and click, click, click, enter your information and choose what you want. And so about maybe
- seven to eight percent of people with insurance get it through the marketplace exchange. We'll come
- back to this marketplace exchange in a minute. Finally, there's the Indian Health Services. Most people
- have never heard of that.
- There's the Alaskan Native Tribal Health System for people in that indigenous population. Marketplace
- has about maybe 7%, 8%. Did I say that? So we have a wide variety here of places to get insurance.
- Next slide, please, Rob. You'd think that everyone would have insurance. There's so many options. Well,
- that's not the case, of course. Back in 2010, there were about 50, 5-0, 50 million people in our country
- without health insurance.
- By 2023, that dropped by about a half to somewhere in the area of 27 million people remain uninsured.
- But that decrease in the number of uninsured people was due to the Affordable Care Act enacted in 2010.
- The Affordable Care Act expanded eligibility for Medicaid. There are limits to your income to be eligible
- for Medicaid.
- What the Affordable Care Act did was to increase the amount of money you can make to be eligible for
- Medicaid. That was one option. Another big component of the ACA was the establishment of those marketplace
- exchanges, state-by-state marketplace virtual exchanges. It's kind of a complicated system because the
- ACA helped make insurance affordable by offering premium tax credits.
- You've probably heard of premium tax credits. A premium tax credit means that the tax you paid can be
- used as a credit to pay an insurance company for your policy in the marketplace. So they're premiums,
- they're tax credits used for premiums, a premium tax credit. That'll come into play in just a minute.
- Next slide, please, Rob. We still have about 25, maybe 30 million people currently uninsured in our country.
- And the prognosis for that situation is not good. The CBO, the Congressional Budget Office projects
- that within the next eight years, an additional 14 million people will lose their health insurance that
- they currently have. An additional 14 million people are projected by the CBO, the Congressional Budget
- Office, that they will lose their health insurance. Well, what's going on? Two major components take
- at work here.
- The first is the Budget Reconciliation Package, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed
- by the current president on the 4th of July, 2025. The legislation included multiple changes to Medicaid
- with eligibility for Medicaid, some work requirements and other components.
- It made some changes to the ACA marketplace eligibility. It made changes to Medicare policy. And it
- made changes to CHIP, the Children's Health Insurance Plan. From those changes in the legislation, it's
- projected an additional 10 people will lose their insurance that they currently have. Part one. Part
- two was that what took place was the expiration of the enhanced premium tax credit for the Affordable
- Care Act. What the heck does that mean?
- That means that in addition to the regular premium tax credits in the original ACA plan, during COVID,
- there were two acts passed, the American Rescue Plan, which you may have heard of, and the Inflation
- Reduction Act plan. Those offered additional federal subsidies as premium tax credits. These were enhanced
- premium tax credits on top of the ones that were already available.
- that legislation had a lifespan to set to expire in December 31st, 2025. Congress had the option to
- renew those enhanced premium tax credits. Congress voted to not renew those enhanced premium tax credits
- so that extra subsidies were not available and the people paying on some of those marketplace plans,
- their insurance will no longer be affordable to them. It's projected four million people will lose their insurance
- by the expiration of those enhanced premium tax credits. You can go home and talk about enhanced premium
- tax credits and people will be very impressed with you. Next slide please. Bottom line on access to
- look at access in our healthcare system is that indeed the United States is the only industrialized
- or developed democracy without universal healthcare. Next slide please.
- Access, okay, this three-legged stool is one way to look at this. The three legs of that stool are access,
- cost, and quality. If you don't have good structure for that stool, it's not going to function.
- Next slide, please. Let's take a very quick look at cost. I'm almost done here. This is a complicated
- slide a little bit, but look at that $29,000. $29,000 is the average price that a family of four paid
- for healthcare expenditures in 2024.
- $29,000 was the average price that a family of four spent on healthcare. That includes what, if they
- have an employer-based policy, what the employer would have put in, it includes deductions, it includes
- co-pay, co-insurance. $29,000 in 2024. Next slide, please, Rob. We can look at the cost by another method.
- We can take all the money we spend on healthcare in one year,
- all the healthcare expenditures as a numerator. We can look at the number of people in the country at
- the time as a denominator. We can take that numerator divided by the denominator and come out with the
- cost per person. We can take the healthcare expenditures in 2024 of $5 trillion divided by 350 million
- people, and that comes out to
- $14,775 per person that we spent on healthcare in the United States in that year. That's continuing
- to go up. If we look at comparable countries, if we look at Switzerland, in that year spent $9,900.
- Germany, Netherlands, Austria. If we look at comparable countries, the average of our comparable countries
- average of healthcare was $7,800.
- we were spending $15,000, almost twice the amount of money per person, on our healthcare system.
- Next slide, please, Rob. Cost, that stool is even further unstable. Next slide, please. Well, if we're
- spending this much, we would really expect we're gonna get a good return on our investment for our dollar
- spent. So let's look at the quality and see if indeed we are getting our money's worth or not. Look
- at this top, or the red line here.
- This slide shows infant mortality rate in the US versus our peer countries. Infant mortality rate consists
- of the number of infant deaths per 1,000 live births in which the child has died within one year of
- birth. The infant mortality rate consists of the number of infant deaths within one year of birth.
- per 1,000 live births. The United States infant mortality rate in 23-24 was 5.6. For every 1,000 babies
- born, 5.6 on average did not live beyond one year. Other countries' rates were much lower coming down
- here. Japan's infant mortality rate was 1.8. We're not taking good care of our infants, clearly.
- Next slide, please, Rob.
- One more slide here on quality. This is kind of hard to look at at first, but what we're looking at
- are deaths, the number of deaths per 1,000 people who are under age 70 with respect to the cause of
- death by different chronic diseases. We'll look at diabetes, liver disease, cirrhosis, and so forth.
- We'll look at kidney disease, respiratory disease. These are the data. This is the graph for the United States.
- These are the graphs for our comparable country. If we look at the number of deaths per 100,000 in diabetes
- in the United States, it's somewhere around 10. In our comparable countries, it's here at four. For
- liver disease, it looks like it's about 14, 15. In other countries, it is, what is that, eight or so.
- Kidney disease is way up. You can see that compared to our comparable countries. Our management of chronic
- disease is not good quality.
- Next slide, please, Rob. Finally, life expectancy is a very simple thing to measure. What is, how long
- can people expect to live in the United States? In 2021, we had a life expectancy of 76.1.
- Our peer countries, the average life expectancy was 82.4. That is, I can't, is that 76? So 6.2, 6.3
- years less than the average of our peers.
- And Japan had an average age of 84 and a half years. So eight and a half years longer in Japan. Our
- quality is not living up to what we might expect, right? Next slide, please, Rob. So our school is completely
- unstable. Next slide, please. I'm done. I'm going to turn it over to you gentlemen to talk about some
- of the problems we have and maybe some of the ideas and what we can do about this perhaps.
- And we will go in reverse order here, please. I think Kyle will start with you. Thank you. What's good?
- Yeah, I appreciate your time. So obviously, I got the data. I looked at it. And what popped out at me
- was us versus Japan. I was like, wow.
- Got the best quality, lowest cost. What are they doing over there? Wow, we need some of that. So anyway,
- I did some research, and I looked into it. They have a universal health care policy, but they also have
- good pricing. They have good pricing. Their health care policies are priced right. And the other part
- of it is preventive care. They really focus in on preventive care.
- And, you know, after I really got into it and I thought about it, I was like, yeah, they don't have
- furniture in their houses. I mean, if you really think about it, right, breakfast, lunch, and dinner,
- you're doing this, right? And then I did a little bit more research and I was like, what's the leading
- cause of death in the United States of America? I kind of thought heart disease, cancer, falls, people
- falling and breaking hips.
- broken bones, from falling as they get older. And it's because of lack of mobility. So I really think
- we need to advocate for policies that reward companies or institutions that emphasize preventive care.
- For example, a company I currently work for, they give, I think it's $50 or $100 for a dental exam,
- $50 or $100 for just a medical exam.
- $50 or $100 for an EKG, what have you, right? That encourages folks to go to the doctor before something
- bad happens, right, on a yearly basis. A dental exam is another opportunity where you could detect if
- there's an issue. So I would advocate for rewarding those institutions, government or private, that
- emphasize private healthcare or private incentives.
- you know, 10, 1,000 or $1,200 off your health care bill in that institution. I think that's a good way
- to go because it encourages, I mean, I don't know about you folks, but when they're sticking an extra
- $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,
- so, I mean, that's one thing I'm going to look at, of course. And then also ACA subsidies, we need to
- reinstitute that.
- And then, of course, the enhanced premium tax credits. Get those back in there. Those are some big policies
- that I'd advocate for. But I will say that from another policy perspective, what I would look at is
- the cost of health care in general. It just feels like, whether it's insurance companies or prescription
- drug companies,
- Things are just too expensive. Why? Why are they too expensive? Well, from my experience, things are
- too expensive because there tends to be like a monopoly in the market. There's something going on in
- the market that they're driving prices up. So I would advocate for looking for policies, maybe even
- antitrust policies or legislation that would break up some of these drug companies and insurance companies
- that are driving things up.
- There's a lot of good antitrust legislation out there on other examples for tech. We need to bring those
- policies over for health care now. Other than that, those are kind of my policies. I will leave you
- 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
- that story next time. All right, thank you.
- Health care is a human right. We all deserve health care. You all deserve health care no matter who
- you are. I live in a rural health desert where our local hospital closed a few years ago. And that hospital
- has no chance of opening up right now with the system of health care that we are seeing, with the big,
- beautiful bill going through. And who wants to buy a hospital
- and let people into that hospital if on January 1st, 2027, we're going to have millions more people
- uninsured. But even right now, it's disproportionately affecting rural populations. 27 to 29% of truckers,
- of farmers, of agricultural workers do not have insurance. We saw the rate up there being 7, 8, 9% for
- the general population.
- That's the reality that's playing out right now in our district everywhere. And let me tell you how
- it looks outside of Bloomington. There are 18 counties in this district. You cannot deliver a baby in
- Lawrence County at their hospital, in Salem Hospital, in Harrison Hospital.
- Scott County Hospital. There is no hospital in Ohio. There is no hospital in Switzerland. You cannot
- deliver in Dearborn County. You cannot deliver in Jennings County. You can't deliver a child there.
- When I call 911 in where I am, where there's no hospital, the 911 system is in shambles as well.
- After 6 p.m., they say, no one's coming. At our trunker treat in October, a little boy fell off his
- shoulders. The mom came, or someone came and ran and got me. I went to the mother and said,
- did you call 911? She said, no one's coming. And so I said, get in the car and drive to your nearest
- emergency department, which is the emergency department that I work in, which is a standalone emergency
- department serving our community.
- And so that is the result of not having a hospital. It's a solution, not a great one. And so we need
- change and we need a specific plan. If we, as I said, health care is a human right. If we expand health
- care coverage to everybody right now, let's talk about what will happen. I want that to happen so badly.
- But there is a first step of making immediate change when I got to Congress. And that immediate change
- is taking down costs.
- Because if we expand coverage to everybody, we're just expanding coverage that is so expensive to everybody.
- So, get rid of prior authorization. The thing that stands in between me and all of you to get you the
- test that you need. It is, bloats the system like no other. Monopolies should be broken up. Aetna CVS,
- two Fortune 500 companies coming together.
- Optum United, two Fortune 500 companies coming together and owning the whole spectrum of care, rising
- our prices. There's antitrust that we can do today to go after them. Billion dollar pharma campaigns,
- executive bonuses, shareholder payouts, your Medicare taxes go to that when it's taken out of your paycheck.
- Part of that goes to insurance companies and pharma companies that are doing that with it. We should
- audit that and make sure that never happens again. This needs to happen now, and the missing piece isn't
- ideas, it's implementation. And so we need someone who will win in this district, who will work with
- Republicans and Democrats to make these costs controlled so we can realize our progressive values and
- everybody can have the healthcare insurance that they need.
- Thank you. We are not going to untie this Gordian knot of red tape and complexity. We've got to cut
- through it and come up with something new, which is Medicare for all based on something that already
- exists and already works, which is Medicare. The big question is,
- Why can't we just do this incrementally? Why can't we just do it one little piece at a time? And it
- comes to my mind, there's an old family story that when my aunt was little, and I mean she was like
- maybe this many or this many, my grandparents had company over. And she came padding out with a glass
- of water, and the guy drank the glass of water, and she took it and went running back into the back
- of the house, and she came back with another glass,
- He started drinking it until my grandfather said, you know, she can't reach the sink. And as it turns
- out, she was dipping out of the toilet. So in this analogy, the clean, drinkable water that goes into
- a toilet is the good health care providers, doctors and nurses and people, provide and can provide.
- And the toilet is the for-profit system
- that that care has to flow through. It doesn't matter how good the care is, as long as it's going into
- a system that's going to corrupt it. You break up a big health care monopoly, they'll reassemble. They'll
- still manipulate. By the way, 100 people a year die at home falling off a furniture every year. That's
- why I don't stand on chairs. And there's a lot of things that we
- can do and should do. Value-based care, getting private equity out of medicine, telemedicine, these
- are all very important things. We need to do them, but they are still subject to the corrupting influence
- of the system. We need to replace the system. And Medicare for all isn't some great leap into the dark.
- Half of us are pretty much covered under a public system anyway. And the core
- is very simple. The core promise is very simple. You keep your doctor. You keep your health care. And
- we get that layer of bureaucracy based on profit out of the middle. And we have to do this in a way
- that's controlled. And a lot of people are afraid. How are we going to do this? Year one, no one loses
- coverage while we enroll additional people.
- We provide predictable funding to keep rural hospitals open. We expand broadband for telemedicine, because
- telemedicine really is hugely important to the future of our medicine. In the second year, enrollment
- expands while families keep their doctor. And by the third year, coverage is fully in place, and the
- risk of you losing your home because you get sick goes away. We can do this. England did this in six
- years, and three of those years,
- They were fighting the Germans. Medicare was implemented in the 60s in one year using three by five
- index cards. Healthcare system without bankruptcy isn't a dream. It's a reality everywhere but here.
- Thank you.
- I agree with everything these people have said. And I've already written the solutions, all of them,
- solutions to all of the slides, solutions to all of their suggestions. I've written the legislation.
- It's on my website at floyd2026.com. My Main Street Health Compact is universal health care.
- It doesn't say universal health care anywhere in it. It doesn't say Medicaid for all anywhere in the
- bill. And it still lets the insurance companies believe that they still have a voice. But it basically
- totally wipes out any power they have. Most of them will be gone by the time it's fully implemented.
- My Medicare reforms.
- It pays for all costs if you make under $100,000 a year. Every single thing. Medical, dental, vision,
- hearing, prescriptions. You don't pay for it anymore. It's 100% covered. I don't know if I have four
- minutes worth of stuff to say about this because the solutions are there. They were easy to write.
- If you like reading legislation, it's all available on my website. If you don't, I have plain language
- explanations. I have the fiscal breakdowns, where the money's coming from, who's going to pay for it.
- And most of these are cost neutral or save money. Yeah, I really don't have a lot more to add to that.
- It's just I have all the solutions. They're all written.
- It's legislation. It's text ready to drop on the floor and ready to go. That's it. Thank you. Thank
- you for your responses and your comments. Appreciate those. We're already up with the Q&A session. Rob
- 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
- session. So you have on your chairs the index card.
- If you need a pencil or pen, just raise your hand. If you've already filled out a card, just pass, hold
- up your card if you already have a question written, and we'll have a couple, Rob will come around and
- pick them up, and we'll sort through those quickly just so we're not, so we get, we're not having redundant
- questions. We'll kind of sort them just a little bit, and then we'll begin that Q and A, so. Great,
- thank you so much.
- Yes. You had the $29,000, but you didn't say that included premiums, but I think you meant that. Yeah,
- the question was on one of my slides, it was $29,000 annual costs. That includes premiums. It does include
- premiums. It's the total health care expenditure for that average family, right? And there was a breakdown
- of premiums.
- It was like $15,000. The employer put in so much, the employee put in so much, and then we added, the
- study added, I think it was like $3,900 for additional deductibles, copay, coinsurance. Yeah, yeah.
- Where should we start, Rob? Okay. Okay, question is, I think I can read this. Just how do you propose
- to simplify
- to simply eliminate multi-billion dollar insurance companies? Okay. So how do you propose? Doctors can't
- read you. Okay, so the question deals with multi-billion dollar insurance companies that how can, the
- question is how do we eliminate multi-billion dollar insurance companies? I'll leave it at that.
- Should we just go down the line here? Does anyone want to jump in first? Mr. Taylor, please. By building
- a coalition of patients, health care providers, and small business owners who all benefit from reforms,
- the current system serves only a few powerful interests at the expense of everyone else.
- When people understand that these reforms provide better care at lower cost, political opposition becomes
- unsustainable. Additionally, by maintaining a role for private insurance in the Main Street Health Compact
- Act, we reduce motivation for them to oppose reform. So the first attempt to get universal nonprofit
- health care, single payer,
- happened in about 1947. So we're working on 80 years. That is a really hard question, right?
- And for 80 years, we've been struggling with it. And if we don't finally admit that it's time and fight
- for it, we're going to go another 80 years. And we're finally to the point that 50% of doctors are in
- favor of a single payer system. And a lot of people are as well.
- We're getting to critical mass, and we're going to have to make the change, and it's not going to be
- popular with people that have a lot of money. But we have to do it, because the rest of us are dying,
- literally. The insurance companies that we have in this country are some of the most powerful institutions
- in the world ever. And a large part of that has to do with the fact that they can stuff money into our
- pockets when we get to Congress.
- So firstly is swearing off that you cannot take money from corporate packs, of which I have sworn off
- that. And then we need tools that we have and tools that we don't have. One of the tools we have is
- these are enormous companies, so enormous that they have violated trust rules. And we can litigate that
- and legislate that. And finally, tools we don't have
- is about making it so that, again, the money that comes out of your paycheck can't go to their bonuses,
- can't go to their shareholder payouts. It can only go to the operations that they do and cover those
- costs plus a little bit to break them down from having to be able to take money from us and instead
- give money to people as their name implies, insurance companies.
- Yeah, I mean, like I said earlier, I would strongly advocate for antitrust legislation. They did it
- with John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil. They can do it for the big insurance companies. There's no
- reason they can't do it. We've done it before. So we just have to have the will of the congressional
- representatives to have committee hearings and actually go through the process, pull up every single
- CEO of insurance companies in the country, bring them up there, have them testify,
- Who's getting bonuses? Who's getting executive compensation? All those different perks they're getting
- and find out what we can do from an antitrust legislation perspective to get the cost down. That's really
- the only way we're going to deal with the billionaire or the billion dollar insurance companies. They're
- not going to do it on their own. It's just like big tobacco, right? Same thing with big tobacco. We
- had to do the same thing with them.
- I would strongly take a hardline position on that, and it's well overdue. Thank you. Thank you. The
- next question is, what are your plans to address health care disparities for communities of color in
- Indiana? What are your plans to address health care disparities for communities of color in Indiana?
- Brad, maybe we could start with you and go this way.
- Come back. So the disparities for people of color and people that live in poverty are significant. In
- the United States, we died six years earlier. In Indiana, we are a 39th for life expectancy. So we're
- worse than the average in the United States. And if you are poor or a person of color, it's even worse
- than that. That's one of the reasons that I'm an advocate for universal health care.
- Everybody gets health care, rich, poor, black, white. Everybody gets health care. It shouldn't be based
- on your socioeconomic status or your race or how much money you make. It is a human right. Thank you.
- So there's a number of issues here, two issues to attack immediately. One is at the bedside. When you
- look at giving pain medicines to African-Americans,
- from doctors. Even if you yourself are black, you don't give as much pain medicines to black people
- as you do white people. That has been proven. So it's not about one race and another race not having
- good relations. This is about an education system and the biases that we have. So it starts with my
- education in medical school and residency and making it nationally standardized
- of what I need to learn to make that not happen. And secondly, Medicaid rates are abysmal. Doctors do
- not want to take them. What we're seeing right now in southern Indiana in Floyd County is because Harrison
- County closed its OB program, the Floyd County Hospital is preferentially taking private, insured, and
- Medicare patients because they have such a full roster, they can have an excuse not to take them. We
- need to raise those rates.
- Yeah, back in 2023, Kentucky passed the Medicaid bill via Andy Beshear. I would advocate for a similar
- policy in Indiana. I mean, obviously it's a state bill, but that directly impacts the 250% of the poverty
- line. So basically anybody that makes under 78,000 a year will be eligible for that policy and for that
- coverage. I think we need a policy like that in Indiana.
- Honestly, I don't think Braun is gonna do it. Probably not gonna happen, but we need a policy like that
- in Indiana for sure, because that definitely addresses those folks who are in that poverty area and
- need that care. Yeah, thank you. I really don't have a specific solution to that specific problem, but
- my rural mobile
- Healthcare Act brings coverage to the people. You don't have to go to a specific place to get it. They'll
- drive to your town, go to the post office, see a doctor. So if you're an all-black community, voila,
- you have a doctor's office right there. My Main Street Healthcare Act gives everybody health insurance.
- There are no more uninsured people. So anybody can get coverage.
- coverage they need and the healthcare they need. Thank you. One thought occurs to me in terms of compensation
- from insurance companies for healthcare provision. It is certainly not the case that each insurer pays
- the same for each procedure throughout across the board. Remember, we have employer-based, employer-linked
- healthcare insurance
- Those are separately group plans with private insurers. Those private insurance companies will pay a
- certain rate for a routine appendectomy without complications. Medicare will pay as determined a rate
- for its reimbursement for a routine appendectomy without complications. It will be much lower than the
- private insurance companies. Medicaid has its own rate for a routine appendectomy without complications
- that it will pay to its providers
- It is indeed much less than the Medicare rate. CHIP, Children's Health, and so forth. So part of the
- conundrum here of the insurance companies is that the private insurance companies pay the highest for
- their services. Many providers are reluctant to take, say, a 50% decrease in the compensation for their
- services if everything were to go to Medicare, for example.
- Now that wouldn't have to happen because Medicare could set its rate at whatever it determines it to
- be. But as it currently stands, there's much greater payment from the private insurance companies than
- Medicare would pay than for Medicaid would pay. So that comes into this mix. Any other comments on that?
- Anything else to add on that? Anybody? Okay.
- Because I think that's part of the equation. We think, well, what does it matter if you're covered by
- Medicare, if you're covered by Medicaid? Well, it matters a great deal financially. And I think, Tim,
- you pointed out that the Medicaid rates are often below the cost of care. So many hospitals cannot accept
- Medicaid patients. Any hospital will take a combination of privately insured patients, Medicare patients,
- and usually some Medicaid patients.
- The Medicaid patients are essentially covered by the higher paying plans. But if your population is
- essentially Medicaid based, you are not compensated enough to even cover your costs for those Medicaid
- patients. So that's part of this whole process. Yeah, Brad and then Tim. So I was talking about the
- Gordian knot of complexity. And I think that you gave a good example right there, right?
- And there are things that we can, again, and should do in the current system to help reduce the disparities
- in health care for both minorities and the poor and the rural. But it's always going to be cleaner water
- going into a system that's going to contaminate it. And over time, it's going to drag it down. And we're
- going to be right back where we were. Perfect example.
- Infant mortality rate that you showed at one time was significantly higher. And then the government
- got involved and they made changes. And it came down to about twice of what it was in other countries.
- And then they said, done. And then it's been drifting back up. Any of these solutions we talk about
- are all temporary in a system that causes contamination. The Medicaid rates are?
- terrible, but Medicare rates are, say it this way, private insurance rates are as much as 250% of Medicare.
- There is an enormous gap in between what private insurance is subsidizing our system versus Medicare.
- So if we were to tomorrow drop everyone to Medicare, we would not be able to afford the system we have.
- We need to fix the system to be able to expand Medicare to everyone.
- Yeah, the system I've written up puts all these costs on a public dashboard. You can go look at it.
- So when you find out that you're getting charged twice as much for an appendectomy as somebody else,
- you can call them on it. All of the prices will have to even out because there's just no business sense
- in paying twice as much for something you can get for half as much.
- I always hate to admit this, but Dr. Peck is right. And he's right about a lot of things regarding
- healthcare. It is true that there's big disparities and they have to be fixed. My anxiety or uneasiness,
- as they say in sign language, is we're going to go another 80 years trying to fix that problem. We know
- that there is a solution.
- The rest of the world does it more effectively and efficiently, and we're going to have to walk and
- chew gum at the same time. Physicians for a national health program have been working on this problem.
- There is legislation in place, and we need to work on it. We need to fix it. But we can't stall and
- delay and slow roll and say, we've got to fix this first. We've got to do both.
- add to the mix here to the discussion that there's a lot of inefficiency in terms of administrative
- costs in our current system. When you have numerous, numerous private insurance companies, each has
- their own clients. They have their own staff doing the billing. A provider has to deal not only with
- one insurance company, but dozens and dozens of insurance companies. And that physician, his group,
- his or her group,
- will have to provide numerous billers to negotiate. And those prices that the different insurance companies
- give to that office are different. And each one is individually negotiated. And so we have a lot of
- overhead expenses. And I don't have good data on this, but it's something on the order of maybe 25%
- of that $5 trillion we spent is all on administrative overhead. Now, if anyone has a better number, please
- But it's on that caliber, on that level of administrative overhead costs. We could still spend $5 million,
- but we could get another $1.3 million, $1.3 trillion by eliminating perhaps all that redundancy in these
- processes. That is one argument for a single payer system. Tim, please. I've seen numbers, 20, 25, 30,
- 35% as well as the overhead.
- I just want to make a point around original Medicare, right? Medicare without any insurance companies.
- It has a ton of overhead as well. And it has privatization around it. So the people who actually cut
- the checks for Medicare and pay the doctors and the hospitals, it's a private company that does it.
- And those companies, most of them are owned by Blue Cross Blue Shield Anthem. And so,
- The insurance companies have infiltrated even our original Medicare system. We need to clean it up in
- so many different ways before expanding something that just gives them more favor. These numbers are
- true and some people ask, you know, I've written all these bills and they
- seem to cost a lot of money and how am I going to pay for them? That's how. The fraud, the waste, the
- double billing, the abuse of the system, it costs so much money that just cutting it out pays for 50%
- of the stuff I've proposed. These next few questions are related and it has to do with electability.
- the electability specifically in the 9th district. So what plans do you have to be able to win the election
- in the 9th district? And one question you would ask about in this gerrymandered district. No, I'm not
- going to win. There's no chance I'm going to win. I mean, it's possible.
- But at this point, I'm probably going to end up being a writing candidate and we all know the odds.
- There's not a chance that I'm going to win. But I'm going to try and stranger things have happened.
- Electability in southern Indiana is really about
- two things, getting people that voted. We lost two to one in the last election, and that was pretty
- common, but we lost actually worse than average, and we need to get 65,000 people to cross over, or
- we need to get 120,000 people off the couch that didn't vote at all. And what it really comes down to
- is that people are looking for a change. They want something better, and we need to start offering it.
- We need to start fighting for the things that are going to make a difference in their life. We need
- to help them understand why what we're offering will make a difference in their life, and we have to
- be willing to fight for it. So, I don't think that we can come in with policies that say, well, we're
- going to try to clean things up and we'll see what happens. That's not going to get people off the couch.
- It's not going to motivate people. Okay? We have to offer them something real, and my time is up.
- What I'm offering him is to have a hospital back in their backyard, in my backyard, to be able to call
- 911 and have people actually show up, to be able to afford going to work with gasoline being so expensive
- that they don't want to fill up their car to even get to work and childcare being so expensive that
- they actually lose work, lose money for going to work. These are motivating factors. I've run a campaign
- for now for three years building this.
- And you see some people with my shirts on here that I did not ask them to and they show up because we
- have 900 volunteers at this point. We've knocked on tens of thousands of doors. We are doing that, making
- the calls. We're sending postcards. And if anyone would love to do that with us, please come to anyone
- with one of these shirts and ask how to do it because they've done it. And we're going to do it together
- and we're going to win this, not only because of our campaign,
- because thousands of people are showing up to these No Kings events and getting out like they've never
- gotten out before in this district. And we have DNA of Democrat in this district, and we can flip it
- back to days like Lee Hamilton, God rest his soul, brought to us. Thank you. All right. So my electability
- strategy is simple. It's this. I'm trying to put more money in people's pockets, period.
- I'm trying to figure out a way to provide cost avoidance in terms of health care or allow them to save
- money on gas prices, gross prices, rent prices, housing prices, and the like, period. And if you advocate
- for those economic interests, you're going to pull in those independent voters. You're going to pull
- in those disenfranchised Republicans, because that's the language they know. It's that simple. I think
- in the past,
- We, you know, Democratic Party, our party, we focus too much on other things. We have to focus on what
- impacts people's lives right now. And it's those things I just mentioned. That is my policies. That's
- my strategy going forward. And quite frankly, I don't think there's any other way to get those impenetrable
- voters and those disenfranchised Republicans. We've got to speak in their terms. Okay, great. Thank you.
- This next question deals with Medicare Advantage. And I'll give you my 30-second primer on Medicare
- Advantage. Medicare A, B, C, and D. There's Medicare A, there's Medicare B. Medicare A pays for inpatient
- hospital costs. That's what you pay into your system with each paycheck. Medicare Part B concerns outpatient
- physician provisions.
- the healthcare provider, not the institution as such. Medicare D, D is for drugs. Medicare Part D, you
- select a healthcare plan and there I think at the latest count there were 1,160 available drug care
- plans in the state of Indiana. If you can figure out which one is best for you, you come tell me because
- I'd like to know how to do that. So you do need to select a Part D plan.
- Now part A and part B and part D, not always part D, but those A and B will have deductibles, not deductible,
- no, they will have deductibles and they will have co-insurance. And that doesn't have a limit.
- 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
- a separate policy, a meta-gap policy, go out and buy another insurance plan,
- a fourth one to cover the gaps, the insufficient components of Part A, B, and D. So welcome to the Medicare
- world. You'll have four insurance plans going on. Or you can do Medicare Part C. Medicare Part C is
- called Medicare Advantage. And that is set up such that the CMS, the Medicare office, will pay a private
- insurance company a fixed amount of money, and then that insurance company will
- take on essentially the risk for your healthcare. So there's a mechanism that simplifies many things
- by the government simply offloading to a private insurance company payment for your expenses. There
- are some problems with that, but I think that's fine. It's not fine, but I'll stop at that. So the question
- is, what is your view of
- of Medicare Advantage, and do some people see it as too unfair and capitalistic? Tim, may I start with
- you, and then we'll go this way. I'm going to take 20 seconds, but I'm getting the word from the team
- that Trump has taco'd, meaning that he has not bombed Iran. So that's what I'm hearing. So I don't know
- the details.
- I feel better. I don't know how everyone else does. So let's talk about Medicare Advantage for a second.
- So one of the ways of weakening insurance companies is actually using Medicare Advantage as a lever.
- Right now, when Medicare Advantage overcharges patients, and they make too much money because
- they overcharged, then they get sued by the federal government. And then they settle for a lesser amount
- than they actually charged for.
- We need to put in rules that have real teeth so that when they overcharge, they actually owe us double
- what they overcharged. Done. No litigation. Over. You cannot do that. That is a penalty. And CMS, Center
- for Medicare and Medicaid Studies, is able to do that only if Congress writes that bill. So we'll write it.
- Yes, I'll be the first one to admit, I don't know all the details of Medicare Advantage, but that's
- 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
- the answer. And I'll just be honest with you and I'll be direct with you. But here's what I do know
- about Medicare. We would be in real trouble if we didn't have Medicare. You know, it was enacted,
- let's see, back in,
- 64, 63, somewhere around there. 65, thank you, Doc. And it's been a blessing. So many people depend
- on Medicare, including my parents, that help subsidize their private insurance or provide only healthcare
- they have. So obviously going forward, I would support that policy wholeheartedly and Medicare Advantage
- as well. Thank you.
- My Medicare reform package eliminates it. I mean, it rolls A, B, and D into the primary Medicare, and
- you don't pay anything if you make under $100,000 a year. Done deal. No Part C is even necessary. So
- you heard his explanation, and it's complex. And we get hypnotized by the complexity.
- My understanding of Medicare Advantage is that it's A and B, and then it has extra things in it that
- other people like, right? And you mentioned that it's too capitalistic. I'm advocating for a government
- system, but I actually believe in capitalism. Capitalism is a really powerful tool. It's like a chainsaw
- that you can get a lot of productive work done, or you can cut your foot off with it if you're not paying
- attention and controlling it the way you should.
- right. And in medicine it doesn't belong. I think we're thinking too small. We keep coming back to we've
- got these problems and we've got to do this first. Medicare didn't exist before 1964 and they fought
- for it and they made a change and everything that is said about we can't move forward we can't do Medicare
- for all because of this and because of that and because of the what about the insurance companies and
- what about that. It's all been said before and they fixed it and they got Medicare.
- Now it's Medicare for all. It's time. This will probably be the last question, because at 8.20 we will
- conclude and then give two minutes for each foreclosing statement. All other, quote, comparable countries,
- end quote, health care systems are built on a base of primary care physicians, a vanishing commodity
- in the US.
- How would you propose remedying this upside-down system we have of higher-priced specialty care? So
- the question is, when we looked at the per capita cost for the U.S., it's almost twice the size of the
- comparable countries, and it is suggesting that these comparable companies have an emphasis on primary care.
- Whereas in the United States we have more specialists than primary care providers in part because the
- specialists are highly compensated. Whereas primary care physicians are not as highly compensated. So
- the question is how can we expand, I think the question essentially is how can we expand our base of
- primary care physicians given the current reimbursement of higher payment for specialty care versus primary?
- and training costs for throughout, at all levels for medical school through, okay, all right. Yeah,
- okay, so that's, and throw in the cost of medical school, only an extra quarter million. No comment on that.
- And obviously, the short answer is they're going to pay more, right? I mean, that's an easy one. But
- I think the reality is we need to look at policies that support student loan forgiveness and or student
- loan, low interest loans, right? We need to look at those policies to encourage folks to go into those
- fields of primary care as opposed to cardiology or other. I mean, obviously, they're going to go in
- those whatever they want. But we have to make it cost benefit for them.
- to go into those fields. I mean, that's one thing. Obviously, if there's any regulatory hurdles, they're
- probably not going to change much. I used to do Navy recruiting. I was a Navy officer recruiter. And
- we used to assess doctors quite a bit. We used to come in the Navy. And they would basically serve.
- We would pay for their medical school. And then after that, they'd go serve at the Navy.
- But that was a great program because we would basically wipe away their medical debt, and then they
- would go serve the Navy. So I'm advocating for the same type of policy for primary care. Thank you.
- So it's a complex question, but simple. It could be simplified by bringing it up to two things. One
- is burnout, and one is cost. So the cost of primary care education
- is the same, similar to what I was just talking about about everybody else who's a working person right
- now. It costs more to be a primary care physician than it does to make, that you make money as a primary
- care physician for decades until you can get back into the black. And so I don't think it's forgiveness
- for being a primary care.
- In terms of loans, I just don't think you should pay for school if you are willing to be and sign up
- to be a primary care doctor and then you dedicate yourself to it. Not only that, but burnout is a very
- big deal. And I talked about prior authorization. I wish I had more time to tell you story after story
- of coming out of a patient's room and kicking a chair because I'm so angry at what has happened with
- the insurance company getting in the way of what that person needs. Again, we need to weaken these insurance companies
- Prior authorization can be illegal. We can make that illegal through congressional election. Thank you.
- So part of it is burnout and retirement, but also the pipeline coming in. Now, I'm not going to talk
- about doctors. I'm going to talk about veterinarians for just a minute. 2,000 people applied to Purdue
- to become vets, and they took 80.
- Think about that. And the same type of thing happens with medicine. We definitely need the smartest
- people we can to be doctors, right? I'm not saying that we should put a dunderhead in as a doctor, but
- surely we can accept more and train more. And part of the healthcare system is to ensure that that pipeline
- is there and robust. And we don't do that very well right now. Education for doctors shouldn't be so
- burdensome.
- $400,000 is a ridiculous number to go into debt. But it's a ridiculous number that all of our young
- people are going through right now, and they're all experiencing debt, and they're all struggling. Education
- is not the topic of this, but it's a huge thing that we need to fix for doctors and non-doctors. Honestly,
- I don't have a solution. I will go with Tim Peck's solution. He's a doctor. He would know better than I.
- I am highly paid for my specialty, so I really can't argue against paying somebody that obnoxious about
- money to do something that nobody else can do. But there has to be a solution. I don't know what it
- is, but there has to be one. Thanks. All right, that includes our Q&A. So each candidate will now have
- two minutes
- Let's take a 30 second breather. Just allow them to collect their thoughts in a minute. Each candidate
- will have two minutes to give a closing statement. We'll give you a minute or two to put that together
- in your head a little bit. Any other comments anyone would like to make in the interim? Anything we
- really haven't done yet? You know, I could not grab the mic at some point. And thanks to Pam for keeping time.
- Thanks for everybody to come out tonight. I think there's something like 64 people in the room. I'm
- counting you Katz guys as well. Thanks to Katz for coming and filming all of this. Thanks for you candidates
- for coming. Thanks to Mark Bauman. Let's give a big hand for Mark Bauman. I worked so hard to try to
- make this event really comprehensive and useful and fair and whatnot.
- Thanks to my wife Karen Greenstone in the back there. Karen, really, she was the one who said, we've
- 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
- thank you so much. And this is a great crowd. I hope people have learned something. And OK, let's put
- them up. We'll put their feet to the fire right now. There's their last chance.
- Thank you. Kyle, is that okay if we start with you and work down this way? Okay. So yeah, once again,
- thank you very much for giving me an opportunity to speak this evening. I just wanted to kind of focus
- in on, you know, I'm going to fight for our folks here in the 9th congressional district, no matter
- what, whether it's healthcare, wages, grocery prices, gas prices,
- I'm going to try to make your lives a little easier. Am I going to promise you a Rose Garden and a French
- latte and ice cream? No. I'm just going to get real on what we can deliver. And I believe it's going
- to be tough to win this one. It will be tough. No question about it. Even if all the Democrats come
- out, we've still got to pull in 20% of the voters of independence. But I think we can do that with the
- right candidate and that centrist view that I have.
- I'm ex-Navy, ex-blue collar. I put myself through college. I, you know, got four kids, raised in Indiana,
- went to Purdue, of course. So did, so did Brad too, so. And I took on this opportunity because I'm deeply
- worried about this country. I am, I'm deeply worried about this fall in terms of the election chaos.
- And I want to try to help our people.
- It's that simple. I can't emphasize it anymore. Some people ask why to do it, because I don't want to
- live my life with regrets. I want to say I've done everything to help our people, either with health
- care costs, ensuring democracy exists, ensuring a better life for children's future. It's that simple.
- And if I could secure your vote, I would really appreciate that.
- And please go out and vote November 5th. And please reach out and look me up on my website. And I appreciate
- your vote. Thank you. So families are falling behind. It costs too much to work. And we need to focus
- on that in order to relate to everybody across this district.
- But we also need to focus on the fact that our rights are being infringed everywhere. That includes
- our reproductive rights. That includes our First Amendment rights, our very right to live when it comes
- to immigration reform. It also includes healthcare. Healthcare is a right. It is something that we can
- relate to people on and saying your right is being infringed. It has been taken away from you. Don't
- you want it back? But you need someone
- who actually can talk to those people who had it taken away. I live amongst those people. I knock on
- their doors, but I also see them in the bank. I see them in the Dollar General. We don't have a grocery
- store anymore. We have a desert there, too. And so these conversations are live. They're real. And they
- actually bring me a ton of hope right now. I think this district
- is not only winnable, this district is something we can take back for years. Because not only can we
- relate to all these people who are hurting and give them solutions, but then we can execute on those
- solutions, hold these insurance companies accountable. Make sure everybody has healthcare by
- first controlling these costs and getting to that point. We can do this only if we do this together
- And I ask you to come out with me, knock those doors, make those phone calls. We can only do it together.
- And if we do, we will take back this district. Thank you. Well, we're hypnotized by complexity and we're
- told to go slow. The consequences are real. And you heard this.
- People are dying six years earlier. We have high infant mortality for children. And 70% of medical debt,
- bankruptcies, 70% are related to medical debt. And those people have insurance. Now, I'm not a doctor,
- but I'm an engineer. And I spent my career on project management and system design. And this system,
- this is a systems problem. And the system is the problem.
- The conclusion is clear. We need single payer health care. We have to stop dinking around. Sorry for
- the strong language. We have to stop dinking around with this. What's holding us back is psychology
- and it's fear. We can address it by reducing risk and doing it in a controlled way. Even when we get
- Medicare for all, it's going to be attacked and undermined because those forces are never going to stop
- attacking no matter what we do.
- And we've seen it with the Affordable Care Act, right? They made big improvements. You saw
- the big improvements here. It cut the uninsured in half, and then they undercut it. And they undermined
- it. And they tried 100 times in Congress and 60 times in the Senate to eliminate it entirely. And they're
- going to do it again to any improvements that we make into this system. The system is the contamination.
- That's why I'm advocating for a constitutional amendment
- for health care. Because health care, let's be honest, it's not a right. It sounds good, it feels good,
- 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
- were able to take away a woman's right to choose. That's why they're able to undercut. That's why they're
- able to push down and try to make it harder to get care, because it's not a right. And until we make
- it a constitutional right, they will always undermine it. I'm proposing big changes because
- We have big problems, and we can do it. Yeah, I won't be on the primary ballot with these guys in May.
- It's May, right? But I'll be on the general election ballot. And I have solved all these problems.
- I don't really see how difficult it is. I know I'm not gonna win. I encourage you to visit my website
- at floyd2026.com and look at the legislation because it's all there, it's all been solved,
- it's all written, it's all analyzed. And if you want a few moments of humor, I wrote a fictional story
- about what happens if I actually do win.
- To conclude quickly, here's a couple key dates up here we've projected. If you want to vote in absentee
- or mail-in ballot, that request deadline is April 23rd. That request has to be in by then. The absentee
- or mail-in ballot must be returned by the primary election day, May 5th. Early voting begins April 7th,
- all the way up to the day before, so we're there. And the May primary election is May 5th.
- So please get all your friends and family to get out and vote and vote multiple times, right? One quick
- plug is that a week from tonight on the 14th at 530 at the Monroe County Library, the concerned scientists
- of IU are sponsoring these same folks to come and talk about the environment in a similar format as this.
- Thank you all for coming and good night.