Andy Schoonover I CrowdHealth: The Healthcare System Is SCAMMING You | DSH #1769

You got to figure it out the lifestyle issues to reduce the chronic condition.

It's not going to get reduced by medication. That's the challenge that we have in our system right now.

I mean, I'd imagine they got to be stressed out their minds because when I have a full calendar of calls,

I'm freaking out and they're just seeing a patient every eight minutes, five days a week.

Yeah. And it's one of these doctors' offices has four or five people in them doing billing.

Just edit expense for them. The average doctor spends somewhere between 16 and 18 hours a week

fighting with health insurance plans. So imagine spending two days of your week just fighting

the paid. I mean, it's a totally inefficient system. For us, we enable our members to go and

just pay direct credit card. Boom. The doctor is paid. The doctor will give you a way better rate

because they don't have to fight to get paid. They get it right now as opposed to two or three

months from now. And it's just a better system if you could pay your doctor directly. Exactly.

All right, guys, we got Andy Schoon over here today. CEO of Crowd Health. We're going to talk

health insurance. Hot topic right now. Yeah. I'm sure you're busy right now. Everybody's talking about

it. Government's just shut down over it. It's the right time to be talking about health care.

Yeah, open it enrollment right now too. Yeah. So exactly. We're busy. We're busy.

The shut down the primary reason was because of this. I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah, I mean,

the Democrats wanted to extend these subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. The Republicans didn't.

Ultimately, we're back up and running. The subsidies are still a question mark. So we'll see.

But it impacts 20 million people. So it's a pretty big deal. Geez. Yeah. Affordable Care Act. So

20 million people are on that. 20 million people are getting subsidies next year that may not get

subsidies next year. So this was something that started during COVID. Government said, hey,

people are struggling. We need to help them with their health insurance. And so it started,

I think, in 21. And then it got extended once. And they're going to try to extend it again.

So we'll see if that happens. If that doesn't happen, I do pretty well. Given I'm an alternative

to the Affordable Care Act. So everybody's thinking about it right now for sure.

So how the price has gone up because of this? Oh, yeah. They're up big time. Damn.

I got to find a new provider right now. 50 to 75% for a lot of people next year.

I mean, the worst one I've seen, $5,600 a month for a family of five. You said $5,600?

5,600 holy crap. So they're paying almost $70,000 a year just for health care.

That's actually insane. Why is that one so insane? Is that like a special plan?

A special area location that just is really, really expensive to do health care in?

That's nuts. The previous one, the biggest one I saw was $4,000. So $4,000, which is awful too.

So, you know, me and my family had just checked in. It was going to be somewhere between 14 and

1600 a month. I'm paying, yeah, I was going to say I'm paying close to a thousand right now

a month for my wife and I. Yeah. And we're not even on the best plan. Yeah. We're on like a,

I don't even know. It's hard to gauge what's the best, you know? Yeah. There's a lot of

language you have to learn. Yeah. Well, a lot of these terms of service are like 130 pages long.

Yeah. And so they're like, yeah, read this before you sign up. You're like, what?

I'm not reading 130 pages. This is worth of, you know, health insurance legalese. Yeah. So,

yeah, I mean, we would have paid somewhere around, you know, $20,000 a year-ish,

you know, and with my company, we're paying about 6,000. Wow. So we'll save almost $15,000

over the next year by just doing it in a different way. And you get the same benefits. That's

the 20k. Same, same stuff. No way. Yes. And there's no networks. So you don't have to figure out,

like, what hospital do you want to go to? What doctor do you want to go to? All that kind of

stuff. That was my issue with my plan. Yeah. Because I had to go to the ER once and we were looking

up like where the insurance gets accepted and we couldn't figure it out. Which is the last

place you, the last thing you want to do when you're going to the ER is be like, what hospital can I

go to? Yeah. I could barely move in bed because I had this severe pain. Yeah. We're like,

we couldn't figure it out. So we actually didn't go. I mean, that's the ridiculousness of,

of our health care system. Yes. So you literally have to figure out what hospital to go to for an

emergency visit. Because I knew if I went to one that wasn't covered, I would have paid five

figures. Yeah. Just for being there. Yeah. For sure. For sure. I saw that. You can't go into the

hospital without paying five figures. I mean, you, you walk into it and you're pretty much five

figures. Someone I know went for a panic attack. It was over $10,000. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. I mean,

I, I, I unfortunately went like a year and a half ago and I was having, I was actually on a podcast

like this. Really? And I started saying something and I couldn't put a sentence together. Wow.

And so my dad had a stroke four years ago. So I thought I was having a stroke. So I went to the ER

and yeah, it was like $20,000, $22,000. And it ended up being a migraine. And they knew that

after about an hour of being there. But they kept me over just, just because no way. And you know,

the craziest story is that I got the bill and, you know, I show up and they're like, we're

going to put an IV in you. So they put saline in you. I was like, I'm a dehydrated. They're like,

no, you're not dehydrated. We just do it because it's what we do. I'm like, all right, fine. I was,

I didn't even think about it. You know, it's just like this little bottle of water basically,

you know, and I get the bill and they charge me $5,000 to have this little bottle of water. It's

literally saltwater stuck into your arm. And so I went on Amazon and I was like, I wonder how much

I can buy this bottle of water for? It was eight bucks. No way. So what cost me eight bucks

of Amazon? They charge me $5,000 for it. That's insane. Which is absolutely ridiculous. And so

that's the, you know, atrocity that is, that is United States health care. Yeah. And I was watching

you on another show. These insurance companies can't really negotiate the prices down, right?

Nor do they really want to. And that's the craziness about our system. You know, people are like,

health care is so complex. But I say it's not that complex when you really understand it because

you have the, the sellers of health care, which are these big hospital systems, they want the price

to go out. Obviously, they want to make as much money. That's fine. It's capitalistic. I get it.

But the insurance companies, very few people know this. The insurance companies want the price to

go out. And so, so why is that? Well, the government in their infinite wisdom said insurance

companies, you can only make 15% profit on our premiums. So we'll just say my fan just ease

of math. My family is $1,000 a month. Insurance companies can only make $150 of that 1,000.

The problem with that is how do they grow their, their profit? How do they grow it by 10%,

150 to 165? Well, they need premiums to go from $1,000 to $1,000. Wow. So they actually want the

price to go out. Interesting. And so that's why when you have the buyer of health care and the

seller of health care, both wanting the price to go out, the price goes up. You know, you don't

need a PhD in economics to figure that one out. That makes sense. So they have to, if the prices

don't go up, they'll go out of business. Yeah. I mean, it's inflation. Yeah. In essence,

yeah, they need the prices to go out. Yeah. I mean, if you look at it the other way, if the price

went down 10%, their profit would go down 10%. Which they probably couldn't take. Which they,

which they, which they don't want. They want their profits to go out. These are four profit,

come, the biggest ones are four profit companies. So they, they want to make as much profit as possible.

Yeah. So that's the screwy nature of, of health care. And, you know, unfortunately,

the patient is the one that's kind of left with the, the bag, right? And so that's the challenge

that we're facing. That's crazy. Yeah. I find it challenging as like someone's self-employed too.

I feel like it's a little harder to navigate. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Because you have to, you,

you don't have many options. You have to go to the Affordable Care Act. And as we're seeing these

huge price increases for next year, it's like you're, it's a one-stop shop. It's the only,

you're only other option or you can go uninsured. Yeah. And I'm one of the few people out there

that said more people should be uninsured as opposed to less people. If you are uninsured,

you are actually paying attention to what the prices are. And so you will actually, you know,

shop for prices. You'll actually go and look for, you know, the, a good price. Yeah. And so our,

our entire system is based upon people actually being able to see what the prices are. And then

making decisions based upon that. Whereas normally, you're just laying down your insurance card

and the insurance plan deals with it. And as a result of that, prices are inflated. Yeah. I'd be

very curious. The average person that's uninsured compared to someone insured, what the differences

there are. Yeah. Or the prices are significantly different. Yeah. We've got 17,000 people in our

community. All of us are uninsured. And we're getting prices that are about 50% better than United

Healthcare. What? The same service. 50% better. Yeah. You think United Healthcare, which is the

seventh largest company on the planet by revenue, would use that might of that bulk, you know,

that size to be able to negotiate prices down, but they don't. And so that's why we as uninsured

patients actually have more power than United Healthcare to negotiate prices. Wow. So you could get

a bill and you can actually negotiate the hospital. Yeah. Little did I know that you can negotiate.

What's the process for that? Well, with us, we actually have a team of people who will negotiate it.

We have actually some attorneys on our team and things that can go and negotiate it for you.

So you don't have to go and do it. And so, but typically if you're if you're not a part of this,

you just call and be like, I'm not paying that. You know, like you can really say, like, I'm not

paying that bill. That's absurd. Yeah. And you can even like stick your bill into chat GPT now and

be like, what should what is a fair price for this bill and chat GPT or clot or whatever will tell

you, you know, what the what the fair price is. Wow. And you can be like, no, I'm not doing it.

I'm not paying it. And so they could then decide to sue you, but the hospitals don't do it. They

don't sue. They don't not normally. It's a bad look for them. It's a bad look. You know, a lot of

these hospitals are nonprofit hospitals. So it's a bad look for a nonprofit hospital. They'll be going

and suing an uninsured patient. Right. So they just don't do it. And so they, you know, they,

and even to do it, it's really expensive for them. And so they're like, okay, there's a $20,000 bill.

It's going to cost me $20,000 to fight it. So why don't we just take a reasonable rate for this.

And 99% of the time they'll they'll take a reasonable rate as long as you give something,

something reasonable. Because even out of reasonable rate, they're still making money. They're still

making money. Yeah. So why would they care, you know? Yeah. Exactly. So like you're ripping them off.

Yeah. I mean, and it's we're not asking for zero or asking for is just a reasonable rate. Yeah.

And there's a number of ways to do that. But the hospitals have to survive for the system to

survive. So it's not like you should underpay the hospitals, but you should pay a fair rate for

what the hospital is providing you. I'll tell you about a fair rate for a bag of saline solution

is not $5,000. Right. Maybe 50 maybe maybe 50. You know, and so that's that's ultimately what we're

trying to do is is get these these these hospitals to pay a or to charge a fair rate for sure.

Is this an America problem or do you see this happening in other countries? It's mostly an

America problem. Okay. Yeah. I'm always interested with how other healthcare is doing in other

countries. Yeah. I mean, it's you kind of have to, you know, choose your your negative. Like you

can do price quality or speed, you know, pick two or three. Yeah. And in the United States,

I was chosen kind of quality and speed and the price is really, really high as a result of that.

I would still argue that the United States has the best, you know, healthcare on the planet.

And, you know, there's a reason why the the Saudi royals have entire, you know, wings of hospitals,

you know, rent it out is because they come to the United States to get all their healthcare.

And so, you know, we unfortunately, the price is the the that part that gets us. But it's because

of bureaucracy. A lot of that time, the Bureau, it's the bureaucracy. There's a crazy

chart that you'll see on on X once in a while, where over the last 30 years, the number of

doctors have actually stayed flat. Where the number of administrators are up like 30 fold.

Wow. And so it's it's a crazy chart to look at. But it just shows all the bureaucracy and

administration and healthcare and 30 to 40% of healthcare is just administrative BS.

That could totally be getting rid of. But it's it's, you know, somewhat mandated by the government

to do some of this stuff. So, yeah. Do you think AI is going to impact that job market?

I mean, I ultimately, I think, you know, I think Elon just came out with something last week that

like, yeah, all your surgeons are going to be, you know, robots. And they're going to be way

better than your surgeon could be. These are these are way more precise. And so I think over the

next couple of decades, we're definitely going to see a huge transition from, you know, humans

doing some of this stuff to robots doing this stuff. I think we're seeing it already start with AI

where people are going to chat GPT and saying, I have X, Y, and Z going on with me. What could it be?

I just put my blood work in yesterday. Yeah. You can, yeah, literally take your blood work. And

instead of going to doctor, that's what I do. I go and give my labs. I shoot it into to chat GPT.

And they're like, well, this, this, and this are great. This one's a little bit on the edge,

you know, look out for this. And I don't even need a doctor to do that. Yeah. So I think that's

going to a road kind of the number of people in medicine is going to a road over the next decade.

And hopefully it ends up being, you know, beneficial to ask through lower prices, although

I'm sure the government will figure out a way to keep prices, you know, going up. Yeah, it's a big

business for the whole country, right? I think it's a, it might be the biggest revenue.

$5.6 trillion is what we spend on on healthcare. Holy crap. Yeah. It's the biggest revenue from

our country. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, it's the biggest industry on the planet, basically. It's

United States healthcare. If US healthcare was an actual country, it would be the fourth largest GDP.

Wow. So it's like United States, China, Japan, and then it would be US healthcare. That's so nuts.

That's how much we spend on healthcare in this country. I believe it though. Yeah.

When your average order value is tens of thousands of dollars per person. Yeah. That adds up. Yeah.

I think there was like four or five years ago, Prince William and Kate had their baby at like the number

one hospital in downtown London. It was like the Ritz Carlton of hospitals. And apparently it was

like $9,000 for them to do it at the best place on the, you know, in the country to do it. And the

average for the United States to have a baby is 18,000. And so it's twice as much. And so you got

to see something is going on here where if you can do this in downtown London for half the price

of what the average is in the United States, something is wrong. Yeah. And so it's the bureaucracy

of the system, unfortunately, that's sucking up all of our healthcare dollars. I'd love to see

the breakdown of that 18k. Yeah. Like where it's going to. You know what I mean? It's almost none of

it's going to the doctor. That's terrible. Yeah. Of the healthcare dollar spent, only eight percent

goes to the doctor. What? Because they're on a salary. They're on a salary. I guess they get a bonus,

but yeah, it's it's all to other stuff. Yeah. It's to big buildings and it's to administration and

building and all those kinds of things. So doctors must be frustrated about that, right? Oh yeah,

they're leaving in droves. You've talked to a lot of them. Yeah. I've talked to hundreds of doctors

over the last five years. And they're super frustrated. And they all want to get out. I saw

another stat that 40% of doctors would exit the system if they could. No way. So and then a lot of

doctors are exiting the system already because of just retirement. So they're taking early retirement.

They're like, I'm done with this. That's crazy. So yeah, because I saw, I think you said this on

another show. Doctors sees a patient every 10 minutes on average. Yeah. I think it's eight minutes.

Eight minutes. So they're not building relationships anymore with their clients. Exactly. And there's

no way you can get into how are you sleeping? How are you working out? What are you eating? You know,

the things that actually are impacting your health. They're like, what's wrong? Okay. Well, let's

figure out how to get rid of those symptoms by medication. And so it's a pharma first solution,

which, you know, just delays the issues. It doesn't resolve the issues. So, you know, 80% of our

chronic conditions are because of lifestyle issues. And so, you know, you got to figure out the

lifestyle issues to reduce the chronic conditions. It's not going to get reduced by medications.

100%. So that's the challenge that we have in our system right now. Yeah. I mean, I'd imagine they

got to be stressed out of their minds because when I have a full calendar of calls, I'm freaking out.

And they're seeing a patient every eight minutes, five days a week. Yeah. And one of these doctors

offices has four or five people in them doing billing. So it's, it's, it's just addicts at expense for

them. Wow. The average doctor spends somewhere between 16 and 18 hours a week fighting with health

insurance plans. That's crazy. So imagine spending two days of your week just fighting to get paid.

Right. I mean, it's a totally inefficient system. So, you know, for us, we enable our members to go

and just pay direct credit card. Boom. If doctors paid, the doctor will give you a way better rate

because they don't have to fight to get paid. They get it right now as opposed to two or three months

from now. And it's just a better system if you could pay your doctor directly. Exactly. Yeah.

And so that's what we're trying to do. Yeah. So you see a shift towards that model right now. Yeah.

And actually, I think the best doctors in the world are going to be cash paid doctors over the

next five to 10 years because they can. They were like, you know what? If you want to come see me,

you got to pay in cash. But I'm not I'm not fighting health insurance companies. And we're

already seeing it through things like concierge medicine and direct primary care where these

these primary care doctors like I just want to be a part of the system anymore. And so you're

going to have to pay me in cash to come and see me. And so the best doctors are going that way,

which leaves the system with the worst doctors. And so, you know, I see a kind of a health care

death spiral happening right now. The health cares are off in the bottom. Yeah. Every time I've got

my blood drawn, I bruised terribly. Yeah. You know, it's it's it's it's not good when you get down

there towards the towards the top. Yeah. It's rough out here. Yeah. I've heard some really

horrible stories in hospitals out here, dude. Yeah. Well, and Vegas is known for having

less than stellar hospital systems. No offense to Vegas. But what states are the best right now that

you've seen? You know, Texas does really well. You know, New York does pretty well. You know,

those are kind of the two that are known to be a little bit better than. So they're way better than

the others. You know, California is fine, depending upon what where you go. Vegas is known or,

you know, Nevada is known for for being not good Washington state is actually known for really good

really good docs, but it's really expensive. And so it's it's one of those things where there are

some states that are really low cost. But you can pay for what you pay for. Yeah. Yeah.

Um, all right. What was I going to ask? Oh, insurance claims. So one in five are being denied.

Yeah. One in five. I actually, um, you know, I started the company called crowd health because

I unfortunately was one of the five. My my daughter, who is one at the time, was having

recurring infections. And so he went to the ear nose and throat doc who's like, she got a hole in

her ear drum. And I was like, okay, so what do we do? He's like, no big deal. It's a 10 minute

procedure, 15 minute procedure. And so, you know, let's go in network. We had to go in

network because I had Obamacare plan. Um, going network, we got it done. We got the bill,

you know, it was $8,000 for 15 minutes. I was like, holy crap. You know, $8,000 for 15 minutes.

And then I got a note for my insurance company a few weeks after that saying it was medically

unnecessary. And so they weren't going to pay for it. Wow. And I was like, hold on a second.

My daughter has a hole in her ear drum. Like, how is this not medically necessary? And so I fought

with them for, you know, two rounds of appeals. And at the end of the day, they're like, nope,

we're not paying for it. And so I had a stroke and $8,000 check to get this procedure paid for.

Geez. And there's that that point. I was like, screw this man. Like, I'm not doing this anymore.

So I call my health insurance company is like, I quit. Like, you guys aren't going to pay my

bills. I'm not paying your bills. And so I looked at my wife and I was like, we're uninsured.

And she looked at me as like, are you nuts? And so it was over like the next six months to a year.

I figured out like that if I could pay these doctors directly, I could get way better rates.

Because of what we talked about, you don't have to deal with all the health insurance, you know,

BS. And ultimately I was like, I bet other people would like this too. And so that's why I started

the company is is if we can pay our doctors directly without a government or the insurance plan

or your employer in between you and your doctor, they'll give you way better rates. Wow.

And so that's the secret sauce of what we do is just enabling people to pay directly

for big bills or small bills. And we've had dozens of cancer cases and

NICU babies and automobile accidents and heart surgeries and comas and all kinds of stuff

that we've been able to get funded for these people. They can go and pay directly.

Shout out to today's sponsor, Quince. As the weather cools, I'm swapping in the pieces that actually

gets the job done, that are warm, durable and built to last. Quince delivers every time with

wardrobe staples that'll carry you through the season. They have false staples that you'll

actually want to wear like the 100% Mongolian cashmere for just $60. They also got classic fit

denim and real leather and wool out of wear that looks sharp and holds up. By partnering directly

with ethical factories and top artisans, Quince cuts out the middleman to deliver premium quality at

half the cost of similar brands. They've really become a go-to across the board. You guys know how I

love linen and how I've talked about it on previous episodes. I picked up some linen pants and

they feel incredible. The quality is definitely noticeable compared to other brands.

Layer up this fall with pieces that feel as good as they look. Go to Quince.com,

slash DSH for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. They're also available in Canada too.

They don't have the insurance or the doctor and the hospital doesn't have to deal with the

insurance company. They're getting way, way better rates than like I said, even United

Healthcare. That's incredible. So childbirth, for example, were you able to get that cost down?

Yeah, big time. The average is 18. I think we're probably at like 11. Wow. Something like that.

That's a lot. So it's a lot. And that includes prenatal labor and delivery and postnatal.

So it's not even in Apple's Apples comparison. So we're actually doing a lot better than that.

Just in terms of labor and delivery because labor and delivery is 18,000. I don't know what ours is,

but our entire kind of birth cost is like 11. But we also have a lot of people doing it at home

and birthing centers and things like that too. So yeah, it's significant. The discounts are

significant. There's a birth issue right now in this country. Nobody's having babies. Yeah.

Elon's talking about this a lot. He's picking up the pace right now. Is that like 11 now?

Yeah, it's something like that. I don't know what the numbers up to. I can't keep track.

I think a big reason though is the cost. Yeah, I think so too. I mean, there's obviously a lot of

health issues, but I think even myself I'm planning out the cost. Yeah, and a lot of people are

sitting here being like, look, I can't even afford to put groceries on the table. How can I afford to,

all right, you know, the home ownership is down significantly amongst people in their 30s and

their 40s. And so if I can't buy a home, if I can't buy groceries, then why am I going to have

kids? And so that's one of the problems that I think we're facing. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of people

go bankrupt from medical issues every year. Yeah. Well, that's one thing I found is I was like, man,

I had $8,000 because I've been super fortunate to pay that. But the vast majority of the United

States doesn't have $8,000 to sit in a way to pay for something that was, you know, pretty benign.

Right. And so what I found is that 250,000 families every year go bankrupt due to a health event,

even though they have health insurance. So these are people with health insurance that are going

bankrupt. And it's because of these denials, 20% are denied, almost 20% is 19% last year,

or these huge deductibles, you know, for your ACA plan that you're going and looking at,

you're probably going to have for you. I know you're married now. So it might be more,

but it's going to probably be $5,000 to $8,000 of deductible. That sounds about right. And so

people don't have the $5,000 of deductible. So I tell people like, look, if you don't have enough

cash in the bank to pay for your deductible, you're paying for something you actually can't use.

You know, you're paying for health insurance, but you can't really use because you don't have

enough to pay to the deductible. That's a problem. And so that's the challenge that we have right now.

So you know, for us, it's like, you pay the first $500 of any health event. So you get cancer,

it's $500, you know, the ER, it's $500. And so we were like, how can we keep people from going bankrupt

due to a health event? And so 250,000 people in the last year have gone bankrupt due to a health event

with us, with crowd help, zero have gone bankrupt due to a health event. And so that's one of the

big things that we're trying to alleviate is these bankruptcies doing due to a health event.

I mean, the last thing that you want to do when you have a big health event, you go to the ER is

like, oh crap, I got to figure out how to come up with $6789, $10,000 to pay for this thing.

In addition to being there and worrying about your own health, the stress of that alone,

the stress of those two things together magnify your health event. And so that's what we're trying

to alleviate. Yeah, I mean, I just got an MRI and you could visibly see the stress on my body

for this and MRI. Yeah, for sure. It's a killer. Yeah, for sure. And you know, MRIs are a great

example where I don't know what you paid for your MRI. Actually, a lot. A lot. Right. So $4,000.

$4,000 and MRI should cost about 300 bucks. No way. Yeah. Holy crap. So we actually have an app

where you can go and we're like, where's an MRI near me? And it'll it'll show you like all the

places that you could get an MRI. And it'll show you at the prices of that MRI. And I just looked

at it the other day. MRI with brain MRI with contrast was like 275 bucks. No way. And you paid

$4,000 because you went through an health insurance. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. So they're marking it

up 10 X 10 X. Dude, that's nuts. They're probably doing that for everything. Yeah, everything.

I haven't found anything in which they're not marking up significantly. Yeah, even blood work.

I bet too. They're marking up. Oh, yeah, blood work before I when I had insurance, my blood

work, my annual blood work was something like 600 bucks. I get it now for like 125 bucks.

You can just walk into class and get it. Walk into class or lab core or one of those places and

get it. And if you're paying, you know, in cash directly, you're getting way better rates.

Wow. This is nuts, man. I can't believe more people aren't talking about this, honestly.

I know. I think pressing you, I'd imagine. Well, you know, I one of your producers

are talking to me beforehand. They're like, how is the health insurance company's not smashed you?

Yeah. And so, you know, they give more and lobbying. They give more to political campaigns than

anybody else out there. I don't know. You know, I call it the medical industrial complex. It's,

you know, pharma health insurance companies and hospitals. And so they've got a lot of power,

a lot of sway. And so what they do is they report me to the state regulatory agencies. Wow.

And so every time I deal with one of those, then, you know, it's a hundred thousand dollars,

I have to pay to get those things, get those things satisfied. And so far, you know, we had a

bunch of them. We're, we're about a thousand. So, you know, they tried to suppress us by saying,

oh, well, you guys are doing something illegal, which is totally not true. And now I have proved

by a lot of agencies who came and did a full, you know, audit of what we do. And they're like, yeah,

you're right. You're not, you're not breaking any of our laws. So we're, we've been

pretty successful so far. Wow. Thanks for taking on this fight, man. You're impacting a lot of

people. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to get you signed up before the end of the summer. I think I'm sold.

Yeah. Talk after this. Yeah. Uh, I've only had two strikes on my YouTube channel. They've both

been for medical reasons. Really? Yeah. I had it debate with like a holistic doctor and a big

pharma guy. That one got a strike. And then a holistic guy got me another strike. So it's amazing

that even YouTube will will strike you. Yeah. We'll look at who funds theirs. Yeah. Exactly.

They're advertising them. Well, the pharmaceutical companies are the big funders of, you know, TV,

out of the media. Yeah. And so they're the ones that are pulling strings. Yeah. They got a lot.

I've had clips on every platform. Take talk Instagram Twitter get deleted or walked for medical

misinformation. Yeah. It was bad during the pandemic. Really bad. I believe it. I believe it.

Yeah. It was terrible. So, um, and I'm sure we'll, as we get better, we're, we're at 17,000 people

who are using crowd health right now, um, you know, as we get bigger, we'll, we'll have more of those

hurdles. But I always say, like, again, your producer is like, man, you're, you're starting a

revolution. And I was like, yeah, what's, what's, what's, we need to revolutionize healthcare.

Because nobody else is doing it. Yeah. Everybody's bought out. Um, and so they're offered to buy

you out once you get to certain. Yeah. And when health freezes over, I'll, you know, sell out to

a health insurance plan. You know, there's no, no way I'm doing that. Yeah. It's ironic. Right.

Yeah. Exactly. So, yeah, I mean, look, throughout history, we've seen small groups of people

have revolutions, right? They always start from a small group of people. Um, and so it's like,

we're, we're trying to gather a small group of people relatively small to revolutionize the

healthcare space. I mean, we're doing a, a, a damn good job so far. Is it the worst it's ever been?

You think throughout history? I know. It's the worst it's ever been. Wow. It's the worst it's

ever been. And that's because of just money, you think? Money. For the love of money is a good

valuable capitalism, I guess. Yeah. Well, it's actually the side effect of not having capitalism

within healthcare. These are no market forces to push this down. You know, you went and got your

MRI. I'm pretty sure you didn't shop for it. You didn't go and figure out like, where's the best

place to get an MRI? An MRI is pretty much a commodity. Like every MRI machine is the exact same.

Right. So why should one person pay 4,000 and other pay pay 300? Like that doesn't make any sense.

I can tell you exactly where to go, but you don't care because the insurance company is paying for

it. And so when you're shopping with somebody else's credit card, you don't really care what

the prices are. You don't care what you get. And they don't tell you so after. They don't tell you

until after. So there's no transparency. And so what we're trying to do is like, no, no,

it's increased transparency. So people actually know what it costs, nowhere to go, what the best

place is for relatively the same quality. What is the best place for the best price? And as a result

of that, our members are paying a half to a third of what they would pay with a health insurance

company. So that's and so it takes one more step. Yeah. So people who are willing to take that one

more step are saving a crap load of money. Like I said, we're going to save somewhere between 10

and 15,000 dollars next year as a result of this. So it's saving. We just hit 50 million dollars saved

from our members, have saved in health care costs. So that's 50 million dollars out of the pockets

of health care companies in and into the pockets of patients. And that's the way it should be. Yeah.

So we're working hard on it. I like your system because there's people online saying they want

free health care, but I don't think that works. No, free free health care kind of goes back to my,

you know, my kind of three things that you have to worry about, right? If you want low price,

you either get low quality or low speed. And we see in Canada, which is, you know, our

neighborhood of the North, who has, you know, quote unquote free health care, they pay for it in

taxes. But you have to wait six or nine months to get an MRI in many places. That's a long time.

Yeah, I mean, there's one on on X the other day where this woman thought she had potentially had

a brain tumor. And she had to wait, I think it was nine months by then you could be dead.

By then you could be dead. There was another story. I think it was during COVID. So maybe it was a

little bit different, but the guy broken his leg. And the bone by the time he was able to go and

get an X ray, the bone had had already refused in the wrong, wrong way. So it'd be easy to have a

cast. And so they had to break his leg again these days, they waited so long. And so you hear

these stories and you're like, I mean, I understand the, the emotion behind that, just have the

government pay for it. So it's a way lower price. You're going to pay for it in one way or the other.

Yeah. Um, so, you know, I think our way is the best. I've noticed when a pattern, whenever you

rely on the government to pay for anything, it doesn't seem to work out. It always goes up.

There's another chart out there that shows over the last 20 years, the inflation by different

types of services and anything that the government touches is like, you know, up into the right,

you know, TVs, cell phones, cars, all those things where the government doesn't get involved or

not too involved at least, those prices have gone down. Healthcare, college tuition, you know,

those types of things where the government is really involved, those have gone and skyrocketed

over the last, you know, two to three decades. Yeah. So it's like, let's keep the government out

of it. That's just my approach. I'm a libertarian. So it's like, keep the government out. Let us make

our own decisions. And I think ultimately that that produces much, much lower prices. Yeah.

I think it's very needed what you're doing. It's also for doctors too, because they're in so much debt.

Now they can make their money back a little quicker, right? Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So they, because they

don't have the all the administrative stuff of billing, you can get bailed or, you know, get paid

right away. Yeah. I think the average doctor debt right now is insane. I got a couple friends

in medical school right now, stress out other minds. Yeah. Because they're in 300,000 dollars at that.

Yeah. And everybody thinks that doctors are paid too much and all these kinds of things.

It's like, guys, it's 8% of our spend. Yeah. You know, you can cut doctors pay in half.

And it would now be 4%. I mean, it was like, what are you doing? You know,

and we want the best doctors here. Yeah. We want to pay them enough.

They do go through oftentimes, you know, a decade or more of training to get the doctors.

And they should get paid for that. Absolutely. So lots of challenges going on there. Yeah.

You mentioned Obamacare earlier. So do you think that was a failure? Obamacare? Yeah.

I mean, I think we're seeing it now. It's called the Affordable Care Act. There's kind of a joke

that whatever the bill is called, it does the exact opposite. All right. And so I think that,

ultimately, what we're seeing and even the Democrats are saying this now where they're saying,

yeah, this is an unaffordable for people. So I think we're all agreeing that the Affordable

Care Act is not affordable. And so, yeah, it's been a total disaster from my perspective.

Is it still shut down or not, the government? No, we just started back up, I think, this week.

So did snap go away? I know that was a big deal. I think it went away for a week or two. Got it.

So it's back. It's back. They're only subsidizing cheap groceries. It's not like, it's like

Diet Coke and Frieda's. Yeah. So that's making your health work worse. It's making your health

worse. And in fact, our United States, when you compare it to other what they call OECD

countries, which is kind of all, you know, the first world countries, we're twice as obese as

other OECD countries. And so that, and if you're obese, your costs are about 5X, what your

costs would be if you are of normal weight. And so we've got an obesity epidemic in the United

States, which is, you know, impacting health care costs. I mean, if you think about it, just like

a very tangible example, if you have a knee replaced and you're 400 pounds, that's very

different than if you get a knee replaced and you're 180 pounds. It's just way more weight and

way more stress on your knee. And so the fail rate of those are much, much higher. Not to mention

diabetes and chronic conditions and things like that that come with obesity. So we've got not only

a price problem in the United States, we have a health problem in the United States. So with

crowd health, we actually give people discounts if they get, if they're healthy. So you can take

three different tests. So two are blood tests, so you can get them at the same time, which is

a fasting insulin test, which basically is like how well is your body processing the carbohydrates

in the sugars. The second one is like, it's called C-reactive protein, which is just a measure of

how inflamed your insides are. And the third one is visceral fat. So this is not the fat that hangs

out around your waist. It's the fat that hangs out in between your organs. And that's the one that

has a pretty significant impact on chronic conditions. And so if you take those three tests and you're

in the top core tile for two of the three, you get 20% off of our of our service. So if you think

about, we're not insurance, but if you think about car insurance, right? If you're a good driver,

you pay less. If you're a bad driver, you pay more accountability, right? Yeah, you can't do that

in healthcare. It's actually illegal for health insurance plans to discriminate

that's based upon your health status. It should be more accountable, I think. Exactly. And

incentivize people to be healthy. If people feel it in their pockets, you know, in their bank accounts,

then I think more people will be, you know, interested, more interested in getting healthy.

Well, they don't want to do that because they lose money, right? No, that's true. A ton of money.

Yeah. Yeah. Because they don't want to be preventative. There's no incentive for the system.

You know, the pharmaceutical, if you're healthy as opposed to sick, the pharmaceutical company makes

less money. The insurance company makes less money. The hospital systems make less money. And

so the medical industrial complex makes less money if you're, if you're healthy. So it's all these

perverse incentives within healthcare that I think is driving these, these, these huge, you know,

price increases. Yeah. Yeah. They want you sick. They want you on meds. The average elder leaves on

what eight plus medication. It's something crazy like that. Yeah. They're putting my friends in

their thirties on statins. Yeah. It's nuts. We don't want to get dinged on YouTube. Yeah. I'm

talking about statins. I have to learn that one now. It's a pet peeve of mine. I got wickedly high

cholesterol. I'm a meat eater. And I don't take statins because I refuse. Yeah. I refuse to.

But if they, if they saw your results, they would recommend it. Oh, yeah. For sure. Yeah.

And it's funny enough when you stick mine in a chat GPT, they're like, get on statins.

That was like, I got nobody in my family ever has had a heart attack. Yeah.

You know, for the last two or three generations, like, I'm not going to have a heart attack

because of, you know, high cholesterol. So it's a whole nother. Yeah. A whole nother conversation.

Yeah. When I import my results on chat GPT, I say, how can I treat this naturally? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's great. Great tip. That medication. Great tip. I don't want to be on 20 pills when

I'm 68. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't seem fun. All right. So that's where can people

sign up for all this? Yeah. It's join crowdhealth.com. And in essence, what we've done is we put together

now 17,000 people who are funding each other's healthcare expenses as opposed to an insurance

company funding your expenses. And so if I have a huge expense like, you know, cancer treatment

or something like that, we actually go out to the community and say, hey, you know, this guy in

Texas has cancer, you know, will you help him? And so we asked them once a month to help

somebody else in the community, which is pretty cool because now I can give my money.

Sean can give his money directly to me as opposed to an insurance company where you have no

idea where that money is going. Your money comes directly to me. And that's pretty cool.

So we have people being like, man, it's cool that I can like, I know I'm helping with a pregnancy.

I know I'm helping with a cancer case as opposed to sending your check to the United

Healthcare. Do you have no idea? In fact, we have people, man, who it's crazy to me,

when you change that system, we have a lot of pregnancies in our community. But with that,

we have a lot of miscarriages. And so we'll send out a request to the community to help this

person who just had a miscarriage because there's costs associated with that. And we inevitably,

we have people come back at women typically who are like, man, I've been through that. I know what

that's like. I know the pain that they're going through. You know, and so instead of sending them

a hundred bucks this month, can I send them 200 bucks this month? Well, it's like, you would never

call United Healthcare and be like, can I send you more this month? Right? And so it's like bringing

humanity back to healthcare, which I think, you know, these big insurance companies have kind

of stolen from us. Oh, yeah. And it was, it's, this is how it was back in the day. If you think

about like the agrarian communities of the United States, like you have these communities who gather

around each other and help each other out in the time of need, but it's gotten disintermediated,

if you will, or yes, intermediate by having an insurance company in between. So we lose track of

our people in our community. So we're trying to bring that community component back to healthcare.

Like we've done this 28,000 times over the last four and a half years, and 99.9% of them have

gotten fully funded as opposed to, you know, 20% of them got denied by, you know, health insurance

companies. We're doing way better than health insurance companies and getting these bills paid.

And it's a totally different system. So I was going to ask at first, it must have been difficult

because you didn't have the numbers, right? Yeah, fortunately, thank God, we were able to get those

those bills paid early on too. So, and now that we have 17,000 people, when I see a cancer case,

I'm like, all right, let's go. Yeah, you know, how much is that typically for cancer? I mean,

it's hundreds of thousand holders. I mean, here's the craziest story is we had a guy in Montana

last summer. He was fishing and he was in bear country. So he had a 44 in his holster. And he

leaned down, the gun fell out of his holster, hit a rock, went off, bullet went into his calf,

out the back of his calf, into his thigh, out the top of his thigh, into his chest and out the back.

And so he was in middle of nowhere, Montana. You know, thank God his, his wife was with him.

So she runs up to the top of the hill because she didn't have self-reception. Calls 911, a helicopter

comes in and plugs this guy out of the stream in the middle of Montana. He goes into the hospital,

he goes into a coma. He has to drive back home to California because they won't let him on

an airplane with his condition. He gets sepsis on the way there. Oh my god. And so this was a,

you know, almost a million dollar bill. And so we got that bill and we have, like I said,

a team of negotiation people who will negotiate it, including attorneys. And we negotiated that

down to like 225. Wow. And so the community got that funded easily without a problem. Damn. Yeah,

that's a powerful community. Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, this can work for even the very,

very large, large bills. So, you know, because we've had dozens of cancer cases, stage four,

you know, bad stuff. So it's, it's working. Dude, this is incredible. I'm, I'm deeply moved by this,

honestly, hearing this. Yeah. Well, I really love what you're doing. I appreciate it. Yeah.

Healthcare is such like a, people don't like talking about it, you know. No, other than you,

it's not, it's not, it's not a sexy thing. But it's got to, I mean, it's, it's the number one

expense line item on a lot of people's, you know, budgets. Yeah. They're, they're, they're family

budgets. And so somebody's got to do something about it. And so I'm just trying to grab a gather

group of people who are like, man, I'm tired of this. Like I'm tired of this insurance game,

you know, let's, let's do something different. And, and so far, we have 17,000 people that have raised

their hand and said, yes, we'll probably, we're sitting here in November. We'll probably have

somewhere between 22 and 25,000 people by the end of the year. So it's growing rapidly. And more

and more people are like, okay, I'll give it a shot. It's a little bit scary to not have health

insurance. But we've been so programmed to want to have something. Yeah. For sure. Since we're a

little, like you got to have health insurance. You know, you tell your mom and dad, you're like,

I don't have health insurance. They like freak out. Exactly. And so it's like if, if we can convince

people through, you know, trust and all those things that that we can get these help them get

these bills paid, then I think we've got something here that could be, you know, millions of people

ultimately. And that's what we're trying to do. Let's do it. If we have millions of people,

we could change the system. We could change the system. Yeah. So I think I'm in, man. So

let's do it. I'll sign up. Let's do it. We'll put a link in the video as well, guys.

Anything else you want to close off with here? I've got some fun questions for you. If you want

to. Oh, you got some fun. Yeah. Some non-health related questions. Fun ones to end. Yeah.

All right. Let's do it. Is it is a true 80% of your net worth is in Bitcoin?

80% of my liquid assets are in Bitcoin. Wow. How long have you been doing that for?

2021. So I got in, you know, in 2021, it kind of went up a lot and then kind of came back

down a lot. I think that it bottomed out at like 17,000, 17,600, something like that. And so

fortunately, I was, I got in near the bottom. I think my cost basis is in the mid 20s.

Wow. And so I just, you know, we're in a situation now. A lot of it because because of

healthcare, where the government continues to print money. And people don't realize that when

the government prints money, your goods and services go up through inflation. Yep. And so there's

only one. And it's clear. Elon has, I think, shown like you can't go in there and change the

government from within. They're just not wanting to cut costs. Yeah.

He's everybody wants their piece of the pie. And so once you start taking away those pieces of

the pie, people get really upset. And so you can't reduce the deficit. And I think we're in kind

of a free fall on our currency. And, you know, Bitcoin is, I think is the, is the answer to it.

You can't produce more Bitcoin. I mean, it is, it is maxed out 21 million. You can't produce more.

And so I think that this type of asset is going to be the future. And every currency in the,

in human history has failed. At some point, it's usually around 200 to 250 years after it was,

it was started. And guess what? We're at 250 years after it started. So I think the dollar is

doomed ultimately. And so I put the vast majority of my, my liquid assets in, in Bitcoin. I mean,

I still have my house. I have my company and things like that. I can't put that in Bitcoin. But,

yeah, all my, yet, but all my liquid assets are, are most of them my liquid assets are in Bitcoin.

Yeah. There's some people selling the houses for, for Bitcoin, these days though. Yeah. Yeah.

They're selling their houses. They're buying Bitcoin. And they're going in renting because they think

that grand card own. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's awesome. Yeah. I think it's the right. And look,

we're, we're sitting at, you know, 90,000 or a little under 90,000 today. It was at one 15 or 117 or

something like that, 120, maybe even the high. I don't even really look at it. It doesn't phase me.

I look at it maybe once a week. And my wife is like, what happens? I was like, then this,

this is not for next year or the even following year, like over the next five to 10 years,

this is going to be worth a crap load of money because of just the, the direction our country's

going. Yeah. I agree. I definitely agree with that. I love crypto. Shout out to Bitcoin. Change my life.

I got in pretty early too. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. Is it true Mark Zuckerberg rented

your house? That he did. That's crazy. What year was that? So have you seen the movie, the social

network? Yeah. And so there's a sub plot in the movie where Eduardo goes to his dad and asked for

$16,000 to pay for this house that to move his buddies from Zuckerberg and his buddies from Boston

to Silicon Valley. Well, I was at business school between my first year and second year. We were

looking for somebody to rent the house. And Mark Zuckerberg literally shows up at our house,

hands us a check. And so our house is that house and so from that work. No way. Yeah. That was our

house. So you know, there was no zip lines from the chimneys or anything like that. But

you know, it was funny because I came back from my my summer internship. And there was a receipt

for Mark Zuckerberg for the Ritz Carlton in New York. And one of my buddies was worked for the

company that was the first funders of Facebook. And so I take this receipt and I think I'm super

smart. I go into him and I was like, man, can you believe Mark Zuckerberg is spending his money

on the Ritz Carlton in New York? And he kind of looked at me. He's like, it's going to be okay.

Like he knew. Like, but this is back in the day where you it was like you had to have a .edu

email address. Yeah. There were only in six schools. And so six or eight or something like that.

And so, you know, I had no idea that Facebook would be worth, you know, trillions of dollars.

But he knew. Yeah. So it was a pretty funny, pretty funny story. I saw him a couple of

months ago and I told her, we talked about that story. He's like, yeah, I knew. I knew it was

going to be huge. I wasn't worried about the $500 receipt from the Ritz Carlton.

That's not so you went to the same school as him or as my buddy as Mark. No, Mark went to Harvard.

I went to Stanford. But he, you know, when he was out there in Boston, he realized that Silicon

Valley is where he needed to be for Facebook to thrive. So he moved his entire company to Silicon

Valley. And so we were the first stop for him in our house for that summer. Did you talk to him

at all or not? Yeah, I met him once. Yeah, I met him once. My buddy who was there actually took

the check from him. Okay. So it was pretty cool. You got to meet it. That's crazy. Who would have

known it? And then a bunch of my classmates went and worked for Facebook and made a gazillion

dollars because, you know, 2005, 2006, his one for Facebook to really take took off. Yeah.

So yeah, pretty, pretty funny story. That tech bubble was not. What do you think would fit

with this supposed AI bubble? Do you think it's actually a bubble? I think it's too early to tell.

I mean, I'm, I'm a little bit older than you. I'm 46. Yeah. So I saw, you know, what happened

in the internet, you know, late 90s or early 2000s. It feels a lot like that. And so I think it's

we're in a bubble. I think it's to be one of those things where you're going to have, you know,

a couple dozen companies who do really, really well. And then the rest of them are going to fade away.

Yeah. It's my guess. But I think they're just betting on having those top 10 or 20 companies

because if you do, you're going to make a crap load of money. And so that's why VC works. Right.

You bet on a lot of them. And a few of them are going to work out. And that's where you make all your

money. So I think that's what they're doing right now. Yeah. Because none of them are profitable.

Yeah. Which is crazy. None of them are profitable. Like I've always been like, I've run my stuff

pretty lean like I try to profit ASAP, you know, my companies. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the build out for

this is tremendous. I think that open AI just said they're going to spend like a trillion dollars

or something like that over the next like decade to build out their infrastructure. And so there's a

lot of infrastructure costs that go along with this. And so it's going to it's TBD TBD. We'll see how it

plays out. Andy, thanks for your time that I man. Yeah. Thanks for having fun to be here. Can't wait

for you to join us at crowd health. Yeah. We'll join. I'll see you south by this or next year. Let's do it.

Let's do it, man. Check them out guys. Check out the link you're interested in joining. I'll see you guys

next time. Peace. Nice. I hope you guys are enjoying the show. Please don't forget to like and

subscribe. It helps the show a lot with the algorithm. Thank you.