The 2026 Session with Monica Church

Oh my god, it only took three months to get you back in here, but you came back in.

I feel like you think it was intentional, but we did try a few times.

I feel like you're busy.

I feel like you're a busy lady.

I took on this leadership role.

Are you a leader now in the Democratic Party?

What's a leadership role?

Not in the Democratic Party, just in life.

Always in life.

But no, I took on the Tottakiles role as the Communist Chair.

Gotcha.

And it comes with a lot of meetings.

A lot of meetings.

A lot of meetings.

So many meetings.

The first time you and I met last session was a really eye-opener for me.

Because you were like, listen, man, Idaho is the West.

Idaho used to be the domain of, you know, we got more Mormons, lesbians, and guns than

anyone.

And it was this, again, eye-opener me because I'm constantly learning about Idaho culture.

I'm constantly trying to understand what being an Idaho means.

And if somebody said a similar sentiment to me recently, which was like Idaho's becoming

this nanny state.

And I thought about you, the second I heard it, I'm like, wow, like I don't know how

to orient to this.

But we are the West.

And there was, there were immense freedoms here.

And we have to marry that sentiment with this ever-evolving world, you know, representative

Hill said it on a show recently.

He was like, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, we wouldn't have to run these bills.

But like the world has changed.

It's like, how do we marry the traditional Idaho of freedom and liberty and self-reliance

and autonomy to the current world we live in, which is complex and weird and polluted

with like mind viruses and insanity?

Like how do we come together as Idahoans and reestablish a self-articulated character

that we can, that reflects our tradition and our future and move forward together?

That's a lot for Tuesday morning.

That we're just going to talk about Idaho power in large loads, but I mean, we can start

there if you want.

I guess I would fundamentally disagree with the supposition that, you know, things have

drastically changed.

I think that we, as Idahoans or Idaho lawmakers, take on a lot more of the federal issues,

which I think is very different than in the past, you know, even to, you know, representative

Hill's point, I asked him in committee one day, you know, when, because he's made the

statement, I said, well, when was it, you know, when, when was it good?

When was it perfect?

And when did the world exist, where none of these things were going on?

And, you know, I had two answers, one was, you know, right after World War II, and then

the other one was, you know, 1989, and I thought, 89 specifically.

89 specifically.

It was a draw year.

Yeah.

I thought 89.

First year of George H.W.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, eight years of Reagan and two recessions and, um, right before the savings and loans

crisis.

Yeah.

You know, you're after women were allowed to, you know, have their own bank accounts without

having their father sign for them.

Is that a thing?

Yeah.

That was a thing.

In 88, you gained the right to your own bank account.

Yeah.

In Idaho, we're like nationally.

I don't know if it's nationally.

I just know this is a, this is a talking point that my, my mother was a single mother for,

you know, a few years in my early childhood and talked a lot about, you know, how she

wasn't allowed to have her own bank account or credit cards that she had to have her father

sign for them.

Um, you know, even though living alone and, you know, having a small child, but to the

point that you are a small person, I imagine, I was a small child.

No, actually, you know what, I wasn't.

I was this big in fifth grade.

I played basketball.

I beat Derley.

Okay.

But, you know, back to, you know, I just don't know that things have fundamentally changed.

I think that we just are, you know, paying attention to the wrong, you know, parts of

our society.

And if we just got back to hanging out with our neighbors, I know we've talked about

this before, you know, the bowling alone idea.

I think that's just re-situate ourselves to what's going on right in front of us.

And be good to each other, um, honestly, there's so many pieces of legislation in the session

that are either outside of Idaho's purview, constitutionally, or bordering on it, creating

a, you know, a conflict that will just end up in, you know, legal case after legal case.

And most of those, I would argue, are by design, like coming from these outside groups who,

you know, use these laws as opportunities to create test case to get to the Supreme Court

in order to either create a new, you know, policy through the courts or to overturn, you

know, longstanding opinions of the courts.

And Idaho is just such an easy target because we are a citizen's legislature because, you know,

we don't have staff, we, you know, we come in hot.

We don't have a lot of rules about how many bills you can bring, who can bring bills.

Um, so it's, you know, it's, I mean, it's a really fertile ground for outside manipulation.

Yeah.

You know, I'll give you here.

This is a story that will, you know, get your blood boil and I won't, because it's still,

it's still going on the legislature, but hey, how much longer do you think we have?

Somebody said by the end of this week.

Oh, I, I mean, it depends, it depends on if you're talking to a senator or a house member,

or a leader.

They said it's shutting down their committees, right?

No.

No.

No, they were closing doors.

I mean, they still have quite a few house bills to hear, but they still have to get quite

a few of their own bills across.

So I, I always go with the Secretaries pool and, and they're at Tuesday, Wednesday next

week.

So I'm going to go with that.

But you got me off track.

What was my time?

I'm sorry.

Uh, something that was going to boil my blood.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

There was a, there was a piece of legislation and it like at one time, I had five different

lobbying firms like texting me who had already, you know, come and talk to me about this

particular piece of legislation and of course, everyone else, but they're like texting during

the sending emails.

I mean, just very, very, you know, interested and, you know, you realize that this isn't,

this has nothing to do with Idaho.

This is, this is a lobbying bill.

It was even brought by a lobbyist who presented the entire thing and answered questions, you

know, on, on behalf of the lawmaker and was this an Idaho lobbyist or like a national

based?

Well, so they're, they're lobbyists for national based companies.

Right.

There we go.

Right.

There we go.

This is a tech issue.

Sure.

And so you've got all these different firms who are competing for, you know, third party

for profit, uh, you know, tech brokers and tech companies to come into Idaho to do, you

know, whatever it is.

And it's like, you know what, this is, this is a lobbying fight.

Like, I don't need talking points.

Like, whatever, you know, lobbyist wins is obviously the best lobbyist here.

Like, these are not, this is not an Idaho based issue, um, you know, we're not talking about

water supply.

We're not talking about, you know, we're talking about which tech company is going to come

in and, uh, you know, get a deal, get the contracts, you know, for $50 million.

Exactly.

And so you've got, you've got the growth of that.

You've got, I mean, there's a lot of money in those kind of, um, you know, policies and

decisions that I think brought in the erosion of what we're really there to do.

I mean, we had some really great pieces of legislation that I think are like old Idaho,

like getting rid of the requirement for the registration to, you know, sticker on the

back of your license plate.

Um, you know, these are things that are outdated and not needed.

Uh, you know, or, I don't know if you've representative sodders, you know, slalom ski

deregulation.

What?

Like these are, you know, state policy, uh, you know, up north, there's a lake where you

can, you know, slalom ski and folks that love to do that do it really early in the morning

and the problem is that you by law have to have three people, you know, you have to have

the driver, uh, you know, the watcher and a boat and, you know, the skier.

And so they wanted to remove the watcher for a very, you know, specific time period early

in the morning, um, from sun up to like 9 a.m.

So that they could go out there and, you know, just slalom ski, um, without the required

regulation of that third person watching.

Yeah.

I mean, these are, you know, this is an Idaho issue.

That's what kids be kids.

Get out there.

Kids be kids or, you know, middle age men.

Whatever.

I don't think I have a mirror, like a rear view mirror in that boat.

Yeah.

You know, you hear about these things and you're, of course, we've got budget issues and,

and that's our number one constitutional duty is to, you know, make sure to fund, uh,

you know, our services and public education.

But otherwise, like, what are we doing talking about all these national issues?

They're dividing us for, again, by design, but not for any, uh, you know, better men

of Idaho.

Yeah.

No.

Yeah.

So I just don't fundamentally think that things have changed in Idaho or the, Idaho is

changed.

We're just not paying attention to the things that we should be.

I, uh, I agree with that.

I don't, I'm not a, um, I'm a nobody, but I do know about a lot of bills and some that

I was talking to, uh, one individual about had verbiage in there about sheriff's departments,

which is hilarious because we don't have sheriff departments in Idaho.

We have sheriff offices because not all states have sheriff's as elected individuals.

So their departments in those states.

But the bill was essentially drafted somewhere else, enacted somewhere else and just brought

directly over to Idaho without even doing the common courtesy of Idahoing it.

Yeah.

And you just changed sheriff department to sheriff office.

And again, just a broader, you know, uh, um, point of these bills have nothing to do

with Idaho.

You know, one problem that I've thought about, uh, that, you know, kind of harkens back

to former conversations we've had is I, I keep thinking about like why people that, like

myself that move here are just reproduce this cultural shock over and over and over.

And I think at least part of it, not all of it, but at least part of it is that people

move here for a lot of times people describe themselves as political refugees.

I'm not the first person point set.

This is a very common thing.

I'm a political refugee.

I'm a political, okay, fine, man, whatever.

No problem.

They're not moving here because they're like my uncle lives near a priest lake and like

I came here in the summers.

And it was great.

They're not moving here because they're like, you know, I've always wanted to move here.

I come up here every year to go out content and like find them and live here.

They're not moving here because they're like, I love the school system and I love the

volunteerism.

They're not, they're moving here for political reasons, which means they have no ties to

actual Idaho culture and experiences.

That's one.

So their purview, their, their whole orientation is like politics or what they think Idaho

politics are because most people don't actually know, right?

Then they move here.

They sell a house in SoCal or wherever they sell their house and they have a little bit

of money and they're not driven towards local employment immediately, right?

Or they come with a job that they're transporting themselves back to.

So they're not driven into the community to gain financial, you know, support, right?

So they don't go meet co-workers.

They don't go and like meet the people that, you know, are the customers and come in

at, you know, like the little boutique shop.

They don't do that.

They're just, they're like, no, like, so they're not driven into the community.

When you come here as a retiree, you're not driven into school events.

So you're not, you don't have any touch points to what's actually going on in the community.

And your whole orientation moving up here is I want a lower cost of living and politics

that politics the way I think politics should be, even though they don't know how politics

are here because like who knows how your property taxes derived.

And then you make you, you have votes and local elections around, you know, again,

like funding EMS services and you don't even understand that your community has doubled

in size, but you haven't doubled your budget, right?

That creates this shock when they finally come outside, like I eventually did, right?

And I'm not saying I follow all of these things, but like I, I understand that I wasn't driven

out of my community to like go find employment right away.

And that prevented me from learning a lot quickly and understanding who the people and

Idaho were quickly.

It took years for me to do that.

And I only learned it because I met people like you on this show, right?

This is I think one of the core problems.

We need to find a way for people moving here to get in touch with like, we're working

on reducing the number of people from slum water skiing from three to two, like these

are Idaho problem.

Like we have these water issues.

These are Idaho problems.

We have aquifer recharge.

We have, you know, like all of these things, but instead of doing that, they, they orient

themselves to national political talking points because that's what they're experiencing

on their phones.

And they don't actually orient themselves to like rangeland ecology.

I mean, I think, well, first I had a funny conversation, you know, water cooler conversation,

even though we don't really have water cooler, but it's been Nalgene fans.

I have people understand it, where the bunch of lawmakers, all who, you know, have, at

some point in time in their lives, moved to Idaho.

And, you know, they were kind of having this kind of conversation, only kind of tongue

and cheek and, you know, about, you know, making sure that Idaho doesn't become, you know,

California.

And one of the other lawmakers said, and it just really stuck with me, who also, not

you know, originally from Idaho, but, you know, he said, you know, I, I let Idaho change

me.

I didn't try and change Idaho and, you know, that he didn't get into politics in Idaho and

tell me a much later after he had, you know, moved to the area.

And so I, you know, it, I don't know who to blame or what to blame.

I know who to blame.

I know who to blame.

I mean, I, I like to blame right to work.

We've had that conversation.

I truly believe that one of the, the greatest mistakes that we made as a, as a country was

to kind of remove the opportunity for folks to, you know, come together and create community

where otherwise it's just, you know, work, sleep, eat, repeat.

So I, you know, I think that there's value and value lost in that.

But I, you know, I don't know how we, we always talk about it.

There should be like a, you know, Idaho boot camp when, when you come into Idaho, you

don't learn everything from, you know, bad driving, like inability to merge, which is

an Idaho thing.

It's like a generational Idaho problem to, you know, just, I mean, there's a lot of things

that I think people don't know about Idaho or that it moves at a glacial pace if you're

coming from a, you know, a state that moves a lot quicker that not only industry, but

also law making moves a lot quicker that we're just a little slower.

I mean, we're really speeding up right now.

And I think a lot of that has to do with people not, you know, taking the time to really

engage with why we want it to be at a glacial pace.

But yeah, I don't know, I don't know how to fix that except to, you know, keep on talking

and, and hope that eventually those that are so deathly paranoid that Idaho is going

to become something that they are, in essence, creating through their paranoia, we'll calm

down and get out to a state park and, yeah, that campaigns about to kick off, it's going

to be great.

I am, yeah, and some of the, some of the, I don't know, vitriol, I don't know what it is

toward our parks department and fishing game and, you know, some of these other entities

this session has been really disheartening.

I had Ron Davies, one of the commissioners on from fishing game commissioners yesterday.

Also Justin Webb from Wildlife Management.

These are complex issues.

No, and I don't understand with parks and rec, it's like, okay, they charge money to

like, you know, get a parks pass and some stuff.

And they have these resources that are incredibly state parks that they have to maintain.

And if they want to increase the cost of people engaging in these services, like any restaurant

was like a cost more to make this burger than I originally, burger's gone from a 10 bucks

to 11 bucks because like, you know, costs, right?

But the state legislature won't allow the parks and rec department to increase the cost

of like the park sticker, even though the, like, the parks has to maintain this stuff because

like, we don't want to increase taxes.

Like, it's not a tax.

Nobody has to buy this.

We're just saying if people are gaining admissions into this area, like, we need a little

more money to, you know, engage us like, we're not about taxes.

Like, it's not a tax.

No, no, nobody has to buy this.

Like, they don't, but we're just going to say like, instead of $10 for the year, it's

going to be like $15 for the year and it's going to help us maintain like the telescope

and the, you know, the, the ponds and the wildlife, they're like, we don't like taxes.

I agree with that.

I agree with that.

Which part?

Which part?

I mean, $10, but that it's, it's a ridiculous idea that we can't increase that in order

to maintain that.

And it's like a ticket for admissions.

But I did hear recently, which actually made a lot of sense and I did not know this,

that there's a member of the party empowers leadership who was around when that sticker

was created, who, you know, it made a Bush era, you know, slogan that I will never increase

the price or we, you know, as the state will never increase the price of the, that parks

pass.

Yeah, but Bush went against his primary campaign promise in like three days.

I know.

I didn't get it.

I didn't get reelected.

That's true.

Yeah.

So.

But how many people were around when that promise was made?

I, I don't know and I don't know to what extent that would be used against this individual

in a re-election campaign.

But it did at least make a little more sense as to why we are so, you know, bent against

increasing that parks pass.

Um, can I ask you something, why not go full aggro against anybody full aggro, full aggro

against anybody coming in from out of state?

Like if you're driving a white escalade with plates from, you know, where it's a thousand

dollars for your park pass.

So it, it, oh, that kind of aggro, I was like, in the 90s, when the first wave of, you

know, Southern California's, uh, Californians moved up to Northern Idaho after like the Rodney

King situation.

There was this like full aggro like where people were, you know, like keen cars and it was,

you know, it was pretty violent and, um, not very civil.

Uh, but, you know, I don't know how, how sad for America, you had a bunch of people

who just saw their entire city burn and riot and they're like, I need to go to a better

place in the country and they moved to Idaho and they get trashed by other Americans.

I want to be like, you go, you go do it.

I was just born there.

I had nothing to do with it.

LA burned.

I'm trying to raise babies.

You go live there.

Yeah, I think, you know, I, like, it's just like the situation now, um, you know, if

you, if you come in with some of your humility and some, you know, opportunity to, to engage

with the community, uh, it's probably different.

You know, I don't know.

I, uh, I, I, yeah, I did not live in, in Northern Idaho at the time.

I, I lived down here, um, and it was a different place down here too.

I, I mean, the 80s and, you know, early 90s in this part of Idaho was, was not, um, was

not the, you know, safe, happy place, um, that it was later, you know, there was still a

lot of growth and there was a lot of issues at that time.

But a couple of recessions during the Reagan era will do that at any state.

Did you know that the first white person born in Idaho was born of two, uh, California

parents?

That's a weird thing to know.

Oh, I'm saying is California is becoming here for a long time.

I talked to historians and stuff, man.

I'm like, I don't know what you want me to, I got a garbage brain.

But that's true.

That's an interesting, it's an interesting problem.

The, uh, the Northern migration from that state has, has been, you know, consistent since

the gold rush.

Well, and there's nothing wrong with it.

There's nothing wrong with migration or immigration.

There is nothing wrong with it.

It is about, you know, acclimating to your culture and taking it in and being a part

of your community.

Like I said, you know, uh, that, that, uh, lawmaker that said, you know, Idaho, I let

Idaho change me.

I didn't try and change Idaho.

Um, I, we should do that wherever we go.

You know, you don't go into a new job and just like act like you know everything, um,

you know, you try and figure out where the clicks are.

What's going on, um, you know, who is the best snacks?

Like, you know, who's going to gas up like, you take some time.

You don't just go in, you know, guns ablaze and, um, you, if I may ask a quick question

on policy, you had a, a bill or sentiment, I can't remember exactly what the progress of

it was around transparency in, in the medical field and insurance, right?

Homeowner's insurance, homeowner's insurance, were you extending that to medical insurance

to or, or medical care?

Um, so that is an interesting question.

And if you're bringing up what, uh, representative monks talked about on your show recently

about the Colorado bill and the, you know, the transparency that they created and kind of

their, uh, hospital, you know, charge rates, um, it was, it was that bill, um, we took

language, we Idahoed it, you know, took out some of the regulations, you know, made it

a lot more business friendly, but it was the same principle, um, and Colorado had done

it for homeowners insurance.

Well, all, um, property insurance, but specifically one of the issues, you know, we were

trying to solve was the increased rates and, um, you know, all these people being non-renued

based on this fire risk without having to know what, you know, what is the risk and

how are you calculating it?

Right. And how can we mitigate it?

Yeah.

And how can we mitigate it?

If there are mitigation opportunities, how do I do that?

So I, it was fine.

I was listening to, to his interview and I was like, you think that's a good idea.

Where were you?

The day that I presented that in, in, in committee, um, did I presume it did not pass?

So we, there was a group of us that have been working on this insurance issue for almost

two years now.

And we knew going into this session, we had, you know, three pieces of legislation, um,

and the first one was, you know, likely to, to be, uh, you know, kind of an easy move

that the second one, the transparency modeling that has been done now in multiple Western

states and is now currently in the process and in many more Western states was going to

be a heavy lift and that the third one was, was probably, you know, dead on arrival.

Uh, and that's where we're going to leave it.

You know, so the first one, that's the 60 day notification for any individual that's

going to be non-renewed, either for a, you know, business or as a private homeowner,

you should be notified, um, actually, I know it was the last state.

We had no notification like you could get a non-renewal notice.

So I say like, you lost your insurance two days ago when I mailed this.

Yeah, exactly that was legal.

It's problematic, problematic, uh, and businesses were 45 days.

So we changed that to 60 days for, for everyone.

Got it.

And, uh, you know, the good start, it's a good start, uh, I, I really wanted the transparency

modeling, you know, it's not, it's not about changing things.

It's about giving consumers the information they need to make the best decisions.

Uh, if I know why I'm a fire risk, uh, either based on my community, maybe based on the

fact that I, my community hasn't funded a fire district.

And so, you know, our, our time to, uh, you know, putting out a fire is, is much

higher than other places.

Maybe it's because, um, you know, I live in a community that hasn't done, you know,

roof or other mitigation efforts, like whatever it is.

Again, they're judging us on something.

There is something that they're deciding that, that this is a fire risk.

Um, so let's just know what, you know, what are those risk factors so that if there's

mitigation, um, possibilities, we can do it.

And then if I do mitigate, whether as a community or as a house that I can turn

that into my insurance provider, now they don't have to do anything.

That was the bill.

You know, we've made it very much a may, um, you know, or if applicable is what I

called it an if applicable bill.

Um, you know, they could say, all right, I see that.

I see what you have done.

Either as a community or as an individual, um, and because of those efforts, we

will recalculate using this model that, you know, we have and, you know, hopefully

either lower your rates or maybe there's not a non-renewal.

Uh, and again, this is, it's being done in, in other states, but we, we're

unsuccessful in getting it out of committee.

Uh, so it's stuck there for the time being, but, but it's a conversation.

Lost, but not forgotten.

Lost.

It's not even lost.

I know where it is.

I know where it is.

It's in the black hole of the drawer.

Yeah.

I think you recently had the owner of that drawer on this morning.

Could have been, could have been we never know, you know, you know, you know, it's

really funny.

I get to meet everybody like in a vacuum, so I'll have somebody on and be like, Oh,

that was a great conversation.

Then I'll get a text later.

It's like, do you know what that person did?

Like, no, I don't know what happened.

No, I, I mean, I, I'll do respect, um, this was pretty big in Idaho, but where

we do not regulate, uh, a lot of industries, but like I said, we had zero on even an

insurance company issuing a notification, uh, before a non-renewal.

So to go from zero to, I'd like to, you know, I'd like to see what's, you know, in

your wallet is, I mean, that was a pretty big jump.

Uh, and so we've got some work to do and there were good conversations and I'm not

giving up, not giving up.

Um, you know what I really want to do with, uh, the medical field is use the

strategy and find out what the 10 most common medical procedures or needs are of

people like in the Treasure Valley.

And then use that list and go to every single medical provider and be like, can

you give me how much a cash pay for these things would be?

And that's, I mean, that is like, and then just have, is it federal law that they

have to provide that information ahead of time?

And there was a, a big package of kind of those reform bills that, that they have

to make it available.

I don't know how available it is, but they do have to make it available.

The charge master, you know, how much, um, you know, a colonoscopy, uh, which

is a job repair, you know, top 10, um, they do have to do that.

It's just, and I think that was one of the points of the Colorado legislation, which

again, would have been the same for the, um, for the homeowners insurance is put

that on a website.

We have a department of insurance, um, put it on a website.

So it's easily accessible and let people just know that you're not, you're not

advocating for one or the other.

They compete based on knowing that people are going there and looking at these kind

of things, right, 1000% and they will, you know, they will regulate themselves.

I mean, that's the goal right of a, you know, free market is that you provide

transparency and these companies regulate themselves.

That was probably the craziest part of that committee meeting on my insurance

bill was how hard folks tried to convince themselves, um, that transparency

denies the, you know, the free market, the opportunity to, to, you know, do

its thing.

It's like consumers choosing based on a set criteria is literally the free

market, like let people know, oh, it's going to cost this much, but maybe I see

that I get, you know, I get too night stay or, you know, whatever it is in the

hospital, um, or it's closer to my house or, you know, whatever it is, right?

Or like say you're delivering a baby, God bless it, right?

Like you want to know, okay, where does my doctor, does my doctor that I've been

seeing this entire time is my doctor in this location, it's my doctor working

two locations because my doctor can deliver baby at hospital A and hospital B,

but hospital B is going to be $10,000 in hospital A is only going to be four.

Yeah.

Then it's like, okay, uh, doctor, can you come with, can we schedule it here?

Can we plan on being there or like, you know, I don't, I don't know.

This is how it works.

And if so many people start to go one direction, the other is going to look and

say, what are they offering?

Is it just price?

Is it, you know, other things?

I mean, that's, that's the whole idea, um, you know, making it so easy for

one industry by not allowing any transparency and letting them monopolize.

It's not the free market.

It's literally the opposite.

Right.

So, um, I, I really,

the, the anxiety I get around, I don't want to say anxiety.

I had a conversation with somebody recently who's running for, for a national

office and he brought up really quickly.

It was like, we, there's no reason we can't be providing.

Like medical care is so expensive, medical insurance is so expensive.

There's no reason we can't be providing this for our citizens.

And I was like, okay, so it's expensive.

We should be providing it.

And I'm, I don't know anything about like that nuance.

What I realized is the reason he was saying we should be providing this is

because when we look at it, it's really expensive.

And what he's saying is you should no longer have to look at it.

We, it should be cared for over here.

But what I realized, and I brought this up with somebody earlier.

I'm like, look at this cup of coffee's 10 bucks.

And I'm like, this is too expensive.

And he said, you're right.

We should take care of that for you.

That doesn't actually decrease the cost of the cup of coffee.

He's just saying, we'll pay for the $10 instead of you paying for the $10.

But now I have no faith that the actual cost of the coffee has gone down.

It's just coming out of tax dollars instead of me paying for it personally.

And thinking about that, I'm like, no, I actually want to keep paying for this.

I want the freedom to buy this coffee or a different coffee.

What I want is to figure out how to beat up the $10 and get it from like,

you know, is there another coffee shop that's not $10?

Is there a coffee shop that's $2?

And if there is and the coffee's good enough, I'll just start going there.

And then the $10 place will have to square with that problem of me no longer patronizing them.

And you know, this is how the market works, right?

But the problem is that people are like, okay, thanks have gotten,

the coffee's gotten so expensive, you should no longer even have to worry about.

We're just going to supply it for you.

It's like, I don't think that beats up the cost.

Yeah, but that's what we do.

I, you know, this is another.

I don't know when I became insurance lawmaker, but

well, it's something that matters to everyone.

Right.

This is a bipartisan thing.

We try and we're like, oh, you know, we, we can't have, you know,

the state funded healthcare or state funded whatever, you know, insurance,

exchange or property insurance or whatever it is, whatever insurance you have.

Because it's, you know, socialism.

And they say, well, what do you think group rates are in an insurance,

you know, group like, I mean, just collective bargaining.

Yeah, exactly.

It's the same thing.

Well, everybody puts in money.

Everyone's paying in.

Some people are using a lot more than others.

You know, when somebody uses more, everybody has to pay more,

even if they've never used it, like it's the same principle.

You pay in, you know, all the time in this large group,

and it's based on caring for other people,

knowing that you probably didn't use that amount of money that you paid

in year to year, and somebody else probably used 10 times the amount that they did.

And that's how the insurance rates are determined.

They're just smaller groups and a large difference.

I mean, we have a different definition of socialism.

Okay, the idea of a pool of people pulling their money together

for the benefit of paying less on a whole because there's a large group of

you and you're all paying in, knowing full well that some people are paying in

and getting nothing in return.

And some people are paying in and getting a lot in return.

Distributed risk, like, of course, and you get.

So what about just get rid of all that?

And let's just actually go to the hospital and have to pay that cost.

Like, maybe the price will come down if it was an, you know, individual decision.

I don't know.

But like what's the alternative?

Either I give the insurance company and I say, I don't want to think about it anymore.

So I'm just going to pay my deductible or I'm going to let it come out of my check

because it comes through my employer and I don't want to think about it.

Well, I think one of the alternatives that is cropping up, you know,

it's just a basic one, like the boutique health care, where like you're a doctor, right?

You're a boutique health care.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So like individuals and like, what does this look like?

I don't know what it physically looks like, but I do know that they're,

so say your family practice doctor, right?

And you're like, look man, because family, cost of medical care, cost of medical insurance

has skyrocketed, right?

Have the doctors been reaping the benefits?

An inflation adjusted doctors make no more than they made 30 years ago.

So like the doctor is like, wait, man, I'm not getting 10X.

Why is the cost 10X?

One of the alternatives then is doctors saying, okay, look man, I'm a family practice guy.

All right, or gal, whatever.

This is what I'm going to do.

I got to practice.

I got a little office.

I'm going to offer direct care, boutique care, which is, hey, you can purchase a plan from me

directly.

And it's only like, I have a friend who did this.

They canceled their, their broader insurance.

They have only catastrophic insurance now, which is still super expensive,

even though they're young and healthy.

They canceled their broader insurance and they bought $100 per adult per month insurance,

boutique insurance through a direct provider.

So this direct provider is like, hey man, you come in as many times as you want,

call me as many times as you want, you get as many labs, you want your kids are free.

And this provider has, I don't know, like say 300 of these people.

So the provider is making $30,000 a month at $100 per adult.

And, you know, like, they can, I mean, I don't know.

I mean, if you can do that, that's great.

I mean, the problem becomes litigation.

You know, I know that specifically, my OB was, had done, you know, that.

I moved out of, you know, a big hospital into private practice.

I moved back a lot because of the laws in Idaho.

And, you know, thanks, the Lord, she's still here.

But a lot of it was liability.

You know, there's just so.

Well, running a business first, working with a business is very different.

So if you're saying about medicine, sure, but there are a lot of people,

like I have physicians in my family.

One of them very much likes private practice and the other one does not.

And it's not a matter of, it's not a matter of liability.

Not that you're wrong with your OB, but it is a matter of

Oh my God, I have to make payroll.

Like I don't want to worry about making sure the insurance premium is paid.

I don't want to work like I just want to collect a check and go home at night.

Like running a business is very different than working for a business.

No, you're right.

I just, you know, I'm to get back to like Idaho laws.

You know, we, another thing from these out of state billmills that you're like,

could you do a little more than just erase the state?

You know, all these private right of actions.

Yeah, it's just I would feel it would be very difficult for me,

either individually or, you know, my children or whoever to say.

Yeah, it's a good idea to have a business that has a lot of possible liabilities,

especially if there are laws in Idaho that allow for, you know,

individuals, you know, right to, to civil action against you for things that are

sometimes out of your control or you don't even know about.

Yeah, having a large group.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, it would be great.

I like the idea of Boote Celtic.

But that would, again, we'd have to go back to this idea of community.

We'd have to go back to, we'd have to have trust.

I'd also like to have, you know, our little markets back.

I do not want to have to drive to the grocery store.

I didn't have to do that as a kid.

I don't like doing it now.

How about get some Idaho produce and produce in the Idaho stores?

I talked to this guy Matt Fuchsim from Charlie's produce.

And he broke down why you never see Idaho potatoes at Albertsons or Costco.

And it's like, why we grow them right there?

That's Brian, the potato farmer.

And it's like, yeah, Brian's potatoes are never actually put into our larger market systems

because they're actually getting their produce from distribution centers that aren't even in

the state of Idaho.

And they're just grabbing whatever produce is closest to them and then shipping it to us.

And so again, to your point, when you were a kid, you probably had a lot more options

for produce and food that were derived from Idaho.

We are a big country and trade, you know, the financing of trade and the comparative advantage.

We act more like a bunch of different, you know, countries and more like a European union

than we used to.

And yeah, I mean, I wish we could keep all of our produce here and be able to just buy

what we need, but that costs would be significantly higher if we're not, you know,

playing into the game as well.

And we're blessed in Idaho to have a lot of what we need independently.

But that also then takes away from the economic advantage of selling it to people that don't.

I don't know.

You know, we need, you know, we need Albertsons.

Oh, sorry.

No, not so much.

I like the Marines.

I very much enjoy the Marines.

Those guys feel like they got my back.

What we need is, you know, how there's like a little organic standard Albertsons,

where it's like the organic produce, we need an Idaho stand.

We need to stand that that has exclusively produce grown and sourced from Idaho.

I do think that Idaho or the Albertsons does have that.

But I mean, I'm a big fan of the little farmer stands.

You know, my favorite one is on a Broadway.

And it's been around again since I was a kid.

But, you know, those little farmer markets where it's

from the community and they bring them a little tenting on them talking about.

Yeah, you know what I want to do?

I want to do like six-foot strawberry silo, like tube things.

You ever seen those?

Or it's like the six-foot four-inch-round plastic tube,

and they like drill holes in it, fill it with dirt,

and then they have like the strawberries growing out.

And it's just like a strawberry column.

Go up and down this, what I would really like.

You could have that on your property now.

I know.

You would need to plant now though.

I'm also...

The strawberries are a tough fruit.

Why?

They take a long time to grow and like,

it's kind of like tomatoes sometimes.

It's like you're right there.

And then that frost comes and you're like,

do that.

That's what you're just hitting me really hard.

You are a thousand percent right.

And it's sad.

I know you spent so much time.

But with strawberries, if you don't do it at the exact right time,

you miss the window of them really.

We're coming up.

We're coming up.

We're coming up on my Idaho anniversary.

Not the anniversary of when I moved here,

the anniversary of when I moved onto an acre and a half,

and like started my actual Idaho journey.

I'm still waiting for that cow.

Oh, Bella?

Yes.

Yeah, I got a funny picture I can't say to you.

I got a little Bella.

Anyway, you have committee date.

I know you've got to get going.

At 8, 830 and 9, if you can believe.

I can believe.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's a wild time over there.

I have eight interviews today.

So we're all working.

All right, all right.

Will you come on after the session's over?

Yes.

And name names.

Just kidding.

Just come back on.

Can we have a post session drink?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Last time we drink.

We will not do that.

You went hard.

Full aggro.

Like 1990s and quarterly.

Are we going to talk about the mighty,

mighty Boston?

So you're like, no, locker rooms.

You know, I think there's plenty of blame to go around

for the all the people that were in the room.

But we'll put the sunglasses back on

and we'll actually have a drink and just,

man, I, this session, I did a lot better than last session

for a number of reasons.

I also got really hammered for a bunch of reasons.

And it's, it's great.

Like it's all part of this crazy experiment

that's United States.

And we're in, you know, Idaho,

which is I think the best state in the nation.

And like it's just a really amazing time to be alive.

And I'm very happy to be a teeny, teeny, tiny,

insignificant part of it.

But I am part of it, which I'm very excited about.

I'm, you know, bless you, Matt, Todd.

I've been a fan.

I've been a fan a long time.

So I will come back on, um, watch that

canvassing bill.

No, let's see what happens there.

Is that, is that still alive?

Yeah, it's not lost and forgotten.

No, it is not lost and forgotten.

Well, it's still alive.

I can't wait, I cannot wait.

I will have done since January 1, 200 episodes by the end of this session.

It is like, I was looking at it last night.

I'm like, I'm like 15 away.

Here we go.

That's, well, congratulations.

Thank you.

You've been a huge part of it.

God bless you.

Yeah.

Um, go get your committees and we'll do it again a couple weeks.

All right.

Thanks.