The A&G Replay Wednesday Hour Three

And broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George Washington Broadcast Center.

Jack Armstrong and Joe Gatty arm.

Strong and get Kid and he.

Armstrong and Getty Strong and.

Welcome to a replay of the Armstrong and Getty Show. We are on vacation. But boy, do we have some good stuff for you?

Yes, indeed we do.

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Now on with the infotainment Can you transform your life?

Maybe you'd like to transform your life?

Maybe you wouldn't transform your life in just seventy days with the seventy five Hard, which I guess has been around for a couple of years, but I hadn't heard about it till now because one of my nieces said she's doing the sixty medium.

She made up her own list of how she's going to do it.

This is the seventy five Hard, A tactical guide to winning the war with your something or other. Before I get into some of it, what do you know about it?

Katie?

I know it's very difficult, and it requires I think two workouts a day. You have to do one inside, one outside. You have to diet seventy five here, well right right, right, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you scare.

You skipped right to the one that makes everybody say, well, never mind then, because on the list you go through some of them and you think I could do that. Drink a gallon of water per day. Okay, I'm not sure that it's going to do me any good, but whatever. Read ten pages of a self improvement book daily. If I get to choose the book, I can do that. Take a progress picture every day, okay, effortless, come up with a diet plan and follow it.

Okay, kind of trying to do that.

Two forty five minute workouts daily, one outdoors. Okay, well what else can we do? Because that ain't gonna happen. That's why none of these fitness resolutions work.

You take it way too far.

You're not gonna go to the gym and work out for an hour every day. You do it for a couple of days and you quit. You get a set modest two forty five minute workouts.

Yeah, I got it.

Even if you've got time, which I don't did be impossible. No way you're gonna do that consistently.

And with the diet there's no cheat meals and no alcohol for seventy five days. So forget your month of no alcohol, Joe, this is seventy five days.

You know. One of my good friends has for years and years, with almost no exceptions, he has and he's a drinking man. He's good at it. We've gone round and round. He drinks under Year's Eve. He does not have another drink until Saint Patrick's Day in mid March, virtually every year. I admire it. I'm not sure I want to imitate it, but I admire it.

Why does he do it?

Physical health, emotional health, doesn't want to be dependent on alcohol. I guess same reason I do it for a little while. He just takes it a lot further. He's in good shape too, for a guy of his age. And then we have another friend, actually a great mutual friend, who when confront he's a southern guy. When confronted with that news, he said, I haven't taken that long a break since I was eleven.

It's a different way to approach life.

But interestingly, in contrast to the hard seventy five, and the medium sixty and.

The leisurely thirty. We might have.

Something to talk about my daughter, my beloved twenty five year old who just today headed back to law school. Is she's using a nudgeword, which I would have mocked were my beloved daughter not doing it. And there's a piece in the Washington Post. Then they have a graphic that shows people unveiling their nudgeword, which includes.

Ease, pivot, wonder, pause, and bliss.

You got to back up a second.

Is this a term, I know, nudgeword? What does a nudgeword? Well, you're about to and I apologize.

A nudgeword can help you clarify your goals. It can symbolize your values, help you set intentions and guide your actions in most, if not all, areas of your life. How do you want to be or feel? For instance, do you want to be more playful? Balanced, or compassionate?

Playful?

Yes, I want to be more playful.

Who starts a new year? You know what I'm going to be in twenty five?

Playful? More playful? You know I would not phrase it like that.

I could definitely see somebody, perhaps me, saying, you know, I gotta stop worrying about crap that doesn't matter.

You got to lighten the hell up about a lot of stuff. So I get it.

Interestingly, though, my daughter's word that she keeps trying remind yourself of is sustainable and not like in the environmental Grita Tunberg bullcrap way.

But she's telling.

Herself, Look, don't start an exercise plan you can't possibly sustain.

I've always been.

Doing to diet that you can't live with.

Yeah, I've always been big on that, and I think that is a good idea, or you know, any kind of regimen, just yeah, start with something you could actually do right, right, Start small, see how it goes.

Increase a little bit. But and look, I've done the iron willed weight loss fitness thing a couple of.

Times and it's worked.

But it's not sustainable, right, and it's it's the problem with sustainable is it's so slow. You know you're gonna lose weight, but it's gonna come off really slow, but it'll come off and stay off and people want or.

It's a very lace you'll maintain.

Yeah, anymore, or you're gonna you know, you're you're gonna build muscle and look more fit. But it's gonna be real slow and it's gonna take a while. But once you get there, it's a it's certainly nice. That's a good one. Pensive will be mine.

Pensive. Try to be overall more pensive in the new year.

I think mine's vengeful. I'm gonna I'm gonna give people what they've earned.

A vengeful is your nudgeword.

People are gonna get what's coming to them.

Hit June July.

I'm gonna have not taken vengeance for a couple of weeks, and it's gonna be easy to give up. I'm gonna remind myself, Hey, this is my nudgework. Find somebody who's got it coming.

Start small. Remember that time in high school when you did the thing to me, Well, here's.

Here's your right.

Maybe it's just a store cluk clerk who's road And as you walk out, your hurl a tomato adam. Start small, Start easy, nay, sustainably vengeful.

You want to hear a good one. It's a little heavy speaking of a year ending slash beginning rituals. I was reading about this dude. He's like an entrepreneur and investor. It doesn't really matter who he is. But every year at the end of the year, his birthday happens to be December thirtieth, which I think factors. And but he does a little vacation over the holidays like many of us does. Does do we do? And he does what

And then he sets goals for the year.

You know, we have a boss who actually has a quote on his wall from of all people, Keith Partridge David Cassidy, TV star of the seventies. You don't need to know, you don't need to know where you're going with this. You don't need to know who that is. But he was as big a star in America as you can get for a while. And on his deathbed he said, I think it was his last words, so much wasted time, and our boss has that on his wall.

Yeah.

He was a resentful, bitter, alcoholic. Yeah, clung to the past and so much wasted time.

That's a good one. I don't, I don't. I don't think I have that to worry about it at this point.

Mast that's this guy's philosophy. What would your last words be and what do you have to do to make them?

Wow? You know what, it's been great as he sailed it.

That's what I want my last words to be.

Nailed it.

He wants a sense of peace, completion and that Look, my race is run and it was great.

Good luck y'all.

Or this is stressing me out, I know, big task.

I know.

I'll just summon my breath for one last boo. Yeah, I'm gone take one last bit of vengeance, Michael.

My last words will be pass me that pizza.

Yeah, one more, one more more pizza.

Yeah, I was you know, reading a book by a songwriter, doesn't matter who. But he's he's big on the you know, try to create one new thing a day, and how to do it. Of course, his job is writing songs, so we write songs. But nobody has ever on their deathbed said I wish I hadn't written that poem, or I wish I hadn't tried to unless it's you know, did something horrific, But go ahead and try and fail, don't don't you know, be next to this entrepreneur guy

You know, the whatever that thing was with having a nudge word grateful would be a really good one to to try to stay in.

But of course for everything there must be a backlash, and that's the people who somehow are so swept up in crazes they've like taken that to an extreme and like refuse to acknowledge things that needed to be fixed in their lives.

What and so I've been reading lately.

There's the great the pressure to be grateful has now become so shut up.

But some shot up shot.

Yeah, I go into the office every day in my boss balls and I'm it's your work.

I need a name.

I'd be grateful.

I want to I want the name.

Of where you whoever wrote that, you read that. I'm going there today. I'll get on a plane. I don't care if the weather's bad. Michael driving, I'm gonna choke.

Them, and you'll take your vengeance.

It's healthy.

I'm going to punch that person right in the throat.

That is the most annoying fact. That is the single most annoying thing I've ever heard, certainly this year. You know what people take grateful to the danger of being too grateful.

I can see the headline the cite. Oh shut up, you nailed it.

You nailed it, and Katie I can probably get an amen out of you. See what the bitter old man doesn't understand is this stuff is so much more a part of young women's worlds, Oh yeah, than dudes. It's like they tell this anecdote. It's actually pretty funny. I don't see if I can find it. Woman's walking through the store and they got a display of like dish towels, and the dish towels are emblazoned gratitude. And this woman's comment is all right, now, even my.

Dish towels are badgering me. These things become such a craze.

Oh yeah, in ways that you know, I hear stuff like that and I think, yeah.

Whatever, that's for you, goodbye. I'm busy.

Yeah, I think it's a good idea. But if you got it on your towels, I don't know. For whatever, that's just a little too much for me.

Armstrong Heetty, the Armstrong and Getty Show.

Here's something I realized today, and I think this is the first time in twenty fifteen is now ten years ago, so probably not in the last nine and a half years. The name I heard the most as I went through all my different channels on TV and radio was not Donald Trump for the first.

Time in nine and a half years.

Wow, the Muskmellon Elon Musk everywhere, no matter what you flip to Elon Musky, line Musky, Len Musk, the way it was, it's always been Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Right, that's part of the whole Trump thing.

So it's Trump adjacent.

But it's interesting, So does Trump get like thirty percent credit for each mention of Elon Musk because you know, it's.

Like a pyramid scheme. He recruited Elon's exactly share of his mentions. And by the way, I'm sorry if you have more on that go. I was gonna say that I really really wanted to get to our honorary honorary general general manager, which was.

Dudes playing women's sports. Fellas, you had a good run. You whooped up on those girls.

You showed them men are better at everything, including being female athletes.

You won all those medals.

You stood on the grand stand with your attempt at makeup and your manly physique and jaw and the rest of it, and really showed those stupid girls.

But I'm afraid all good things must come to an end.

It's fun while lest it wasn't.

Yeah, next, prisons.

You know fifteen percent of female inmates are dudes.

No, it is not. Yes, it can't be bad.

Yes, all the blue stints where all you have to do is self identify.

Just because comes time to go into prison.

You're a bad You're a bad dude like corn Pop, and you have to go to prison. And you think you know, I'd rather be in a chick prison than a dude prison. I mean, there ain't no girls. I've seen those prison movies. This ain't gonna be fun. I think I'll go on the prison where the girls are.

You're much less likely to get your arse kicked or get shived or you know, have to get into some brutal gang to protect yourself. Sexual opportunities are a little better also as well. I was getting there. I was getting there, Valentino or what's what was the old lover?

Uh? What was the the old It doesn't matter, stupid old reference. But anyway, Yeah, I was gonna get to the love first. I want to make sure my ass doesn't get kicked, if you don't mind.

Fifteen percent, that's crazy.

Casanova, that's what I was looking for.

Fifteen percent.

I'll have to do about a bad dude.

Those statistics. The Free Press was writing about that. Wow, that is something. Wow, it's insanity. And I well, because they've been convinced that to be woke is to be a good person, and they really want to be a good person.

They really really want to be a good.

Person, an independent thinker who asserts herself when she sees something wrong.

Not so much. I want to be accepted. I want to be told I'm a good person.

That's a huge percentage of population are desperate for that. So I'm not paying close attention to the whole Elon Musk thing, but the way it's portrayed by the left.

Tell me if I'm right or wrong. If I'm I could be wrong.

If I'm wrong, that's fine.

But this whole unelected bureaucrat attempting to the word they used at MSNBC yesterday, got the federal government, which is a word I love. I mean you you were using it like prejudicially to scare people. I think got away. That pfect What a great word, Kenny, Kenny accompliate. Where do I set up for him gutting the federal government? That sounds awesome. Wait a minute, honey, I need to turn this up and listen. Yeah, that sounds fantastic. But

Yes, yeah, exactly. He is making recommendations to his boss. He is an advisor, so this is just a presidential advisor.

Fits in with my This is the first time I've heard somebody's name more than Trump in nine and a half years hearing Elon's name all the time. So they must the left must feel like as a political win, making Elon.

Musk a bad guy is better than.

Making Trump the bad guy, because Trump's the guy who wants this done, is ordering it, and is the then signing off on the recommendations.

Yeah.

Well, Trump just got elected and not only whooped tiny in the Swing States, won the electoral college handily, but won the popular vote, which really shocked Democrats. And they've been that he's the Antichrist and is going to come eat your infant since twenty fifteen or twenty fourteen.

And so perhaps the.

Smartest horses over there on the left side of the island following me are saying, look, let's go after Elon. Maybe we can get people's attention because he's rich and evil, and they like the superhero movies where there's a rich, evil super villain.

Maybe we can stir people up with that. They're desperate for a message.

Yeah, I wonder how well it's working. Maybe it's working. I don't know what most people think about Elon. I know what I think.

Jack, Armstrong and Joe The Armstrong and Getty Show, The Armstrong and Geeddy Show.

They literally are trying to take healthcare away from millions of Americans at this very moment, in the dead of night.

Oh my god, Oh my god.

It's a party of monsters.

That's why they're having the Republicans.

They're monsters.

That's why they're having the one am vote tonight on the big beautiful bill to try to slide through in the darker night, the cutting back on Medicaid.

And so the Republicans who are actual vampires can come out to vote too.

Because you know, the sun is down.

So Craig Gottwalls originally Craig the Obamacare lawyer, because when Obamacare was in the works and passed, Craig would talk to us about it, longtime friend of the show, and everything he said was true, and virtually everything he predicted happened, in contrast to most of the coverage of it, which was garbage. Well, Craig is now Craig the healthcare Guru, and we're going to talk a little bit about Medicaid, among other things.

Craig Gottwals, how are you, Craig.

I'm good, how are you, gentlemen, terrific?

Thank you very much.

So what do you make of Hakeem Jeffrey's quote there and what is the reality of medicaid?

Well, it underscores just how we can never give anything to the government. This is why we can't have nice things. Right. So, in nineteen sixty five, the federal government passed Medicare and Medicaid, and specifically with respect to Medicaid, the whole idea was, man, we need a safety net for like single moms with disabled children who are falling through the cracks. We need we need this mechanism to just capture the most disadvantaged among us, to help them out and to give them

Whoa for babies born?

So originally forty one line the disabled, the utterly unable to help themselves, and now it is approaching half of us.

Is that because we have so many more single moms with blind babies?

Or what does happen.

Well, you know you you you know better than I Jack. This is entitlement creep, government creep at its finest. I mean you when we when this really took off and became insane was with Obamacare in you know, the early

And in a bizarre twist, correct me if I'm wrong, the federal government compensates the states at a much higher percentage for able bodied dudes smoking pot on their parents' base on couch than they do for actual like disabled people in blind babies.

Yeah, no, that's exactly right. So that was the that was the Obamacare bride because because Medicaid already covered all those people we were trying to protect, you know, when we started this thing in the sixties. So it covered all those people that had disabilities, single moms, et cetera, the blind, the disabled, but it didn't cover just underemployed

With the child.

I'm thinking to somebody I know specifically who is like a regular person with the job and is doing it the normal way, and they're incredible men. Medical bills they got right now because they've had some health problems. That's very galling that they have these high medical bills with insurance and everything, as opposed to if you got on some sort of government plan, it'd all be covered.

And Craig, I'm going to leave it up to your judgment how much you want to get into this. But there are all sorts of other perverse incentives that this law has caused states, you know, taxing hospitals to raise the amount spent, but then they get it back from the federal government. Then they give it back to the hospitals. I mean, it's byzantine.

Yeah, let me just give you a couple of nuggets on the cost of it, just just because what's happened is employers pay two to three times the cost of a hospital visit, as Medicare and Medicaid do. So when you are on Medicare and Medicaid, you go to the hospital, you pay X. If you're on an employer sponsored plan, you pay two to three times X.

Wow, the state bill is I was just talking about.

Thus the bills. But even with that reality, gentlemen, if you're on Medicare, that cost per taxpayer is about eleven thousand per year, if you're on Medicaid, it's ninety four hundred per year, and for employer sponsored people it's eighty seven hundred per year. So even with that, granted, employer sponsored coverage generally younger, generally healthier. We get that. But even with this tremendous cost shift to the hospitals, it

With medicare the bullet train of medicine.

Yeah, it's the bullet train of medicine. And now that there are some people making noises that, gee, we ought to trim back the edges a little bit and get these able bodied adults off of it, you of course get the grand standing of politicians, even those on the right, screaming that it's murder in the streets.

So Medicare is the one we all get when we cy cynical it will.

Medicare is the one we all get when we turned sixty five. But Medicaid is the one at the downtrodden earth.

Or folks allegedly.

Yeah, yeah, hey, Craig, I want to do the numbers you did for Medicaid too. So in nineteen eighty seven, Congress projected that Medicaid would make special relief payments to hospitals of less than a billion dollars by nineteen ninety two, under a billion dollars. The actual cost was seventeen billion,

I pity you.

And that one was in a five year span, Joe, that was their eighty seven projection for ninety two.

Oh my god, you're right.

Yeah, that wasn't well.

And one of the problems.

One of the problems is, you know, all government programs grow, and you know the high cost and good intentions and all that sort of stuff.

But in this case, you've got the added.

Part that there's a bunch of people that want the government to run all of healthcare. So they love the they're pushing the expansion. It's not just like normal bureaucratic creep. They're pushing it. The more people cover, the more you can make the argument of well, we're already government healthcare anyway, let's just flip the switch and go full on single pair.

You're absolutely right, and the single payer I'm just here to tell you the single payer path is a good thirty to fifty percent more expensive now those costs are hidden because of the way the money slashes around. But you've only got one payer of health care in America that actually cares what it costs, and that's employers. That's it. The insurance companies don't care because the way Obamacare is written,

I don't know how we ever get this fixed because like I, uh, you've probably been listening to know.

I got whooping cough.

So I've been to the doctor, like yeah, four or five times, eight different medications, all these different bills, most of them tiny.

I don't have the slightest idea what anything cost.

Or I'll get a bill, I know, I'll get a bill in a month for one hundred and eighty bucks or five hundred and eighty bucks, I don't know, and then I'll just pay it.

And nobody has any idea, and the randomness of those of us who have employee you know, insurance, we don't know if we're getting ripped off or good price or whatever.

So it's it's complicated, no discouraging, Go ahead, Craig.

Yeah, and it's it's not health jack by the You know a lot of people think that, hey, I have Purple Cross as my insurance, and so whether I go to Stanford or El Camino or good Sam for this particular shoulder surgery should be about the same price because I have a Purple Cross PPO contract. Right, It's not you can pay ten thousand for that shoulder surgery or fifty thousand for that shoulder surgery with the same exact

Yeah, we're talking to Craig Gottwaals, Craig the healthcare guru. Craig, I feel like at this point in the interview we how to give people the local suicide hotline number.

I mean, because it's so discouraging.

So we've you know, described this incredible, mountainous, wasteful, enormously expensive government program out of control. And if you, as say a Republican, a Chip Roy, for instance, say hey, can we have thirty five year old guy smoking pawn on his parents couch please pay a thirty five dollars copay when he goes to the doctor, you have Hakeem Jeffrey screaming you're literally taking healthcare away from millions of Americans.

Yeah, that's that's.

One problem, though the other problem is that's a Democrat. He got Josh Howey, a Republican writing an opera. Holly has lost his soul. I hope he gets hit by a car abhorror violence. Josh Holley writes, I think in the New York Times last week, you know Republicans, hey do not cut any of this. It's a bad political move. So where does that leave you?

Yeah, it's you. At this point, gentlemen, I put my head down. I don't even listen to the big the big picture anymore, and I just try and help one employer at a time. It's just and I get individuals that contact me and they ask me what do I do? And I say, buy as little inferent sick and by the highest deductible, go ahead.

Don't get sick is your recommendation.

Don't get sick, but find a doctor, find a doctor who's left the system, and engage in something called direct primary care, where you give them anywhere from seventy five to two hundred dollars a month, you treat, you work with them, and then God forbid, you have something giant happen. You have the highest deductible you can stomach to go deal with that issue. But you've got to cut insurance and government payments out as much as you can and work directly with doctors. And the good news is that

Well, I love the idea of starting at that point in our next conversation with you, Craig, and talking about that, because one of the things I was going to bring up if we have time, and we don't unfortunately, but some of the unholy uh vertical integration of the giant healthcare companies where they own the doctor, they own the hospital, they own the pharmacy, they own the pharmacy benefit manager, which is an unholy, murky cesspool of God knows where

Sounds great, gentlemen, have a wonderful day.

Yeah, thanks, Craig. Appreciate the time. Craig.

You have to come on all the time and bear bad news.

I mean it's like, yeah, I just you know, as a realist, you've unlike the Biden family, the one thing you must do is understand reality or or your your helics.

I've been saying too, Craig, and he usually agrees. For years. I think the realist view is we're going to end up single payer healthcare. Uh, it's just when When does Yeah, I suppose so.

But in every single health single payer healthcare system, people who can afford it go outside and right right, got to learn those ropes, don't folks, It'll be okay.

Don't get sick. Just don't get sick or break anything. That's the answer.

Stay here.

It's Jack Armstrong and Joe, the Armstrong.

And Getty Show. The Armstrong and Getty Show should have.

Been a couple of great government works, things that got out of control and cost gazillions of dollars and never got finished. In my lifetime, I remember Boston's big dig, hearing about that my whole life, decades and decades and decades, wasting tons of money. Uh, Alaska's famous bridge to Nowhere.

Already in Richmond too. I must point out.

Part of the reason it's getting a bunch of a national attention.

Now.

New York Times did a.

Story last Sunday, the Associated presses on it, and The Dispatch did a story yesterday. Is the CHSRA. That's the California High Speed Rail Authority. They put out new numbers just recently, and their own new numbers have now increased the total cost to one hundred and thirty five billion dollars. When taxpayers agreed to this, it was thirty three billion. It's now one hundred and thirty five billion. It's more than one hundred billion dollars more than originally proposed.

It was.

We were supposed to be writing it five years ago. It's supposed to be done in twenty twenty. I have not written into view. They're now saying if it.

Comes anywhere near the original promise, it will be north of two hundred billion dollars, mark my words.

And they said in their most recent statement it may take two more decades to complete most of the San Francisco to Los Angeles segment, two more decades to complete most so they're not even saying in two decades they can complete it right. And I don't know if you know about travel, but you really need the whole thing. Like if I'm going to New York this summer, I need to get all the way there. Most of the way doesn't do any good.

It's either get you to Indianapolis.

It's really an all or nothing proposition whenever you travel somewhere, am I going there or not? But I thought this was really interesting and I can't believe this hasn't gotten more attention. This is from the chsri's own plan. It is now going to connect to towns on the outskirts of both major metros. It's not going to take you from San Francisco to Los Angeles. It's going to take you from Gilroy, which if you live in the area, you know eight very close to San Francisco, and.

That is the outskirts of the outskirts of the out.

It's seventy miles southeast of San Francisco.

To I just chail.

It will take you just under two hours to drive from Gilroy to San Francisco as we speak.

To Palmdale, which is thirty seven miles northeast of the edge of Los Angeles, and in Los Angeles traffic, it would take you several hours to make that drive. So instead of the city centers, it's going to take you from Gilroy to Palmdale.

That will save construction time and.

Money, but it will need mean the writers will need another hour or more to get into the cities. That is an incredibly generous statement. I would say a minimum of three to four hours on a good day, all told, an.

Hour and a quarter from Palmdale to LA right now all told.

Economist Scott Summer estimates that this.

New setup would require at least a seven hour series of trains or cars for someone to get from downtown San Francisco to downtown Los Angeles. Instead of the original promised three hour one train trip and seven hours on the best, everything broke your way, it would take seven hours.

It is the greatest failure of democracy I've ever witnessed.

Arm Strong and