When you're ready to ride Metro, we want you to know we're ready for you. Here are just a few of the people at Metro to tell you how we're doing our part to keep writers safe. Cleaning before half the Great Queen you have found halfs out of suns of statist no mask, no Metro need one. We have a few extras at Metro. We're doing our part to keep the DC area moving. Find out more at well
mata dot com slash doing our part story. Before we get into some healthcare talk, had an appointment yesterday with my son's doctor, who was a one of the best in the world at what he does. I mean, he's at a very very high level, which factors into this story. Okay, so my son needs this particular treatment and for whatever reason, the doctor told me that it's not covered by insurance. Likely he will write a letter. Now he's he's the best in the world at this right, but he will
write a letter. He said he usually gets turned down by insurance companies even though he's the best doctor in the world to who's recommending this And it's probably gonna cost me between thirty and sixty thousand dollars cash for this treatment for my son, which it's either he has a crappy life forever or I get this treatment. So it's not an option whether to do it or not. It's serious brain thing. But thirty to sixty dollars cash, even though the best doctor in the world says that
it is necessary. And you know, that's just where we are with insurance and stuff. That would just be ruinous to a lot of American families. Most of you can take out a home equity loan, I guess, or you would go fund me and have a you know, like people do you have a barbecue picnic and pupe people show you know whatever. But it's incredible what's covered and what's not the best in the world says, oh, yes, this is absolutely valid. This, this treatment is what is needed.
But the insurance company says, we'd like to that We're going to look at it for a couple of mornings. It's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Craig got Walls is an attorney at law benefit consultant. He is Craig the healthcare Guru. In a private text to me, he suggested, how about Craig the healthcare gangster. I thought that was not a great idea, um, but he sure knows what he's talking about. And and Craig, first of all, welcome, always good to
talk my friend. Thank you sir. Sorry to hear that story, Jack, that's not a good one. That's just interesting. But you know what occurred to me as I was thinking about chatting with you today that healthcare is the number one issue in politics these days other than I love Trump, I hate Trump, um And I heard a commentator say that mostly it's shouting slogans at each other and putting bumper stickers on our car either the health care is
a right or no socialism. Then the minute you get into details of any plan, your plan gets less and less popular. Um and and and yet it's something every single human being listening or participating in the show or whatever deals with on probably a monthly basis. It's not more. And so we're completely at sea at this about this issue that we all deal with all the time. It's kind of ironic. But anyway, and the older and the older you get, the more you deal with it, and
the more powerful of a voting block you are too. Yeah, that's a good point. So you send us some notes on what you wanted to talk about today and it's a great topic. Health insurers are collecting astonishing levels of detail on your life and it's costing you. What what's
going on? So you guys had you guys had a segment on your show recently that I heard a snip of, and it was about employer wellness programs and how people are voluntarily giving up a lot of their personal information by wearing these wearable devices that tell you how often they walk, how often they exercise, how well they sweep, etcetera.
And they're they're often doing that with their employer for something like two to three hundred dollars off of their insurance costs hundred a month something you wear a fitbit all the time and the your your boss, your company has access to all the info. Yes, and the reporting on that story was what was well done and it was accurate it but what what it what reminded me was that you guys are not aware of what's going on. So that's the stuff that people are consenting to write.
But you guys, we have never talked on your show about what's going on behind the scenes. How much information these entities are gaining on your life without your knowledge. So little history just really quick on this insurance, the theory of insurances that you're guarding against known or excuse me, unknown risks. Right if you if you already have cancer, you can't go buy insurance, or at least that was
the way things worked before Obamacare. Right, So once Obamacare came along, Obamacare said, okay, now you can no longer underwrite an individual based upon his or her health status. In other words, you can't ask them whether or not they have cancer. You just have to give them insurance. Well, as Jack has pointed out hundreds of times on your show, that's untenable. You can't do that. You can't just say, hey, we'll provide insurance for anybody who shows up. Wait till
you break your arms, then show up. So what hell? Insurance companies have been doing for the last decade and really for the last twenty years. But but Obamacare launched, it was, oh shoot, and here's a four trillion dollar industry and we have to be able to keep it going. And if we cannot underwrite based upon your health status, we must be able to underwrite, in other words, but
through toicate the risk based upon other things. So what Obamacare did not make illegal was looking at things like your age, your zip code, how often you watch TV, what magazines you get, whether or not you own a gun,
what ethnicity you are, et cetera. How do they know? Well, the spawn of Obamacare really coincides quite nicely with the launch of gigantic corporate data collection like Facebook and Twitter, all social media, all every every imaginable record you can think of, your divorce records, your marriage records, when you buy a home, when you refinance, your AT card scores, your Google searches. There are multi billion dollar corporations gathering that and creating a docier on each and every single
one of us. And the insurance companies are buying that info. They are they're renting it there. What an insurance company does and this is really inside baseball stuff, but what
they do is they'll take a census. They'll take a demographic profile of say your company with your thousand employees, and they will send that over to one of these data brokers like IBM, Watson or Millerman or Lexis, Nexis or optim and they'll run that census something just making I can say those names because they're published um and they'll say they'll say, tell me, tell me how many HIV s you've got in this group, Tell me how
far along they are, what drugs they take? Yeah, So that and then all of your insurance costs are then being adjudicated back up and built into your premiums based upon this data that may or may not even be accurate. And so one thing that's interesting to me about this is I've always wondered all this data that's being harvested from me, either legally or illegally, by all these companies.
I've always wondered, what's somebody gonna do with it? And so now I know one thing that's being done with it. Let me toss a bunch of examples out. Then we'll take a quick break, and I want to ask you the key question. Um, but I love these examples. Are you a woman who recently changed your name. You could be newly married and have a pricey pregnancy pending, or maybe you're stressed and anxious from a recent divorce, so
the computer models say, expense expense. Are you a woman who's purchased plus sized clothing, you're considered at risk for depression, mental health care expensive, among other things. Wow, So well that is interesting. Are they Are they doing it well? I understand you want to get as much data as you can to understand how much you ought to be charging. Um, I mean, if you're if you're ensuring a bit ausness that only hires four pounders, it probably be handy to
know that is an insurance company. Well, how about people that watch an extraordinary amount of television I don't exercise right right, that's built in there. That's built in there. By the way, you're your smart TVs are reporting that back, that's in your agreement. Is there any sales into these get on for my cat when I'm not at home exactly, see that. That's unfortunate, John, you're paying for that? So is anything the farious being done to individuals or is
it just a price estimation tool. The companies that are engaged in this activity become very uh shady and quiet and and and they obviously escape the facts when you start asking about individuals. But I have information that it is being used at the individual level. I know specifically, and I'm involved with a group of attorneys and other experts looking into the legality of this, because I'll just
say this, what insurance companies do now. We used to be able to generate a quote for a for a client with just a centis just said, you know, employee want as a male. At this age, we never gave any individual identifiers. Now insurance companies are requiring names when we when we so I'm submitting a quote for a three person company, they want all three hundred names with zip codes because they want to run it through this database. So I know, darn well they're using it at the
individual level. Wow. Well, and if they can they will, So exactly right. And it's interesting you mentioned there at some point um the information might not even be accurate. So I mean, it's it's it's troubling on a bunch of levels, but the impult they have on me might not be accurate. They gotten a wrong, wrong stuff at some point. That's exactly right. And remember I think you guys have talked about on your show as well. Sixty minutes did that piece on privacy in Europe. This is
illegal in Europe because you own your own data. What needs to look you guys know, I am not an advocate for more federal law, but what we need is we do need a law saying we own our own absolutely otherwise you have so so one author that approached this right, who's the biggest thing I keep interrupting you, but who's the biggest lobbyist in the entire country? Freaking Google.
There's a reason why we don't have that law in Europe does well Google, And health care is up there in the top five too, So you've got a really unholy A lot are going on right now. Yeah, health care is arguably the number one industry in the country. It's it's a fifth of our economy. So you've got seriously powerful players here working to to do this behind the scenes, and people just don't know this is going on. Yeah. Wow, okay, so a great great stuff interesting, uh you know, unknown
and and and important part of people's health care. And we'll we'll have you joined us again before too long, Craig to talk about the you know, whatever is next. That's the most interesting thing you've ever told us. I mean, that's some of the brask there. See if there was more. I'll be thinking about this well before, probably for the rest of my life. But that is really really interesting, not surprising and interesting. One author that looked at this
did a request from Lexis Nexis. Because you are allowed to request a limited set of the data they have his report came back, going back more than ten years, a hundred and eighty two pages of information on him, just one one company, one person, and eighty two pages. Other companies have boasted that they're collecting one thousand, five hundred facts about each individual, going all the way back
to the early nineties. Prophecy. Well, and yeah, now now this next generation who have had all their info out there since you know, birth, Really, jeez, what a dossier they'll have on on all those people when they're grown up.
Exactly which they started, and then they started in the ninth before social media, they started doing this on all of the public records, right, you're arrest record, your marriage record, your property records, your credit records, anything, make it get Then once social media kicked in, this has gone into hyper drive. Steroids Bill because that coincided with Obamacare of that said, now you can't even ask what you're bidding on when you quote for medical insurance anyway. So the
health industry said, whoa wha red flag. We've got to have a way. We've got to have a way to understand what the health risk is out there. So now instead of reporting your actual health risk that would be accurate you're getting. You're getting your premiums based upon these these markers for health that may or may not correlate very well with your health, like how much TV you watched and whether you want a gun, and whether you
like to ski? Yeah, maybe I spend all day watching those working out on the beach shows used to be so popular. What you used to call that soft core Hawaii bikini aerobics, spreading on the beach. Yeah, um uh wow, what do you like to ski? So that that'd be a tick up? And what you're gonna cost because you might break your leg or whatever. So this is a
great example of unintended consequences. I mean, the Obamacare was hoping to do away with any of that, and now we've got, you know, just like you said on steroids, version of what we used, right, and listen to strike a liberty loving note. Uh, it's obvious as privacy dies that if we were to give up our liberties or give more power to government, their ability to do evil with it would be so big, I mean, be so good because they know everything about everyone, every phase of
their life. I mean, lies Jack, when not the current generation. Yeah, I see, when you're nine years old, you you hurt your leg and in the youth soccer, I mean, come on, so yeah that yeah, I think you know, let's renew our dedication of the idea of not giving the government too much power the many weapons that they can make a movie about this and if that's really interesting, Craig got Wallace Craig, the healthcare guru does benefits and healthcare and law and that sort of thing for his clients,
and he's really really good at it. What's the best way to get ahold of you, Craig, um benefit dash revolution dot com is my blog, my blog blog and one other thing there, Joe. If your large company wants to avoid giving this information, contact the healthcare guru. I know a way around this, all right, Craig got Well, thanks a million, Craig, great to talk at as always. How fascinating and troubling is that I always wondered where
all that data was going. But hundredreds of pages all these companies, Who are you know they're selling your data? I always thought, who are they selling to? Who wants it? What they're doing with? Well, this is this would be the only one that they that needs to exist with some of money at stake. Right. We have to decide who owns your data clearly. I do own my own data, not clearly according to the lobbyists. When you're ready to ride Metro, we want you to know we're ready for you.
Here are just a few of the people at Metro to tell you how we're doing our part to keep writers safe. Cleaning before you've found halfs out of sounds of stakes. All my with a Metro, no mask, no Metro need one. We have a few extras at Metro. We're doing our part to keep the DC area moving. Find out more at will mata dot com, slash doing our part