Latest / Predictable with Stu Burguiere / Ep 1153 | Minnesota Democrats Are Diverting HOW MUCH to Somali Terror Groups?! | Guest: Avik Roy

Transcript

Ep 1153 | Minnesota Democrats Are Diverting HOW MUCH to Somali Terror Groups?! | Guest: Avik Roy · Predictable with Stu Burguiere

• 0:01
  Stu does America.
• 0:06
  Follow the show on YouTube,
• 0:07
  Youtube.com/Stewdo America.
• 0:10
  Be sure to subscribe,
• 0:11
  hit the bell for notifications.
• 0:13
  Avik Roy is here to explain why now is the perfect time
• 0:16
  to deregulate Obamacare.
• 0:18
  Speaking of healthcare,
• 0:19
  President Trump has his own proposals,
• 0:21
  uh,
• 0:21
  that he's going to be bringing up.
• 0:22
  We'll look at the latest there,
• 0:24
  but we're gonna start by doing the great Minnesota tax scam.
• 0:28
  Already ripples of this happening across the country,
• 0:32
  and the president.
• 0:32
  The president is talking about it.
• 0:33
  Trump moves
• 0:35
  to end temporary protected status for Somalis.
• 0:37
  Well,
• 0:37
  why is he doing this?
• 0:38
  Minnesota under Governor Walls says President Trump
• 0:41
  is a hub
• 0:42
  of fraudulent money laundering activity.
• 0:44
  I am,
• 0:45
  as President of the United States,
• 0:46
  hereby terminating,
• 0:47
  effective immediately,
• 0:48
  the temporary protected status for Somalis in Minnesota.
• 0:51
  Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of a great state,
• 0:53
  and billions of dollars are missing.
• 0:55
  Send them back to where they came from.
• 0:56
  It's over,
• 0:57
  President DJD.
• 0:59
  So there's a lot going on there,
• 1:00
  of course,
• 1:00
  Tim Walls,
• 1:01
  who,
• 1:01
  you know,
• 1:02
  I really.
• 1:03
  Hoped
• 1:04
  that I'd never have to talk about again after this,
• 1:07
  you know,
• 1:07
  previous campaign.
• 1:08
  He's so irritating and annoying,
• 1:10
  and you know it was nice to see him kind of just drift off into the never world.
• 1:13
  I mean,
• 1:14
  Kamala is already gone
• 1:16
  in that range.
• 1:17
  You'd think walls would be even farther,
• 1:18
  but unfortunately he's still running a state,
• 1:20
  so occasionally we have to discuss him.
• 1:21
  He says it's not surprising that the president
• 1:23
  has chosen to broadly target an entire community.
• 1:27
  This is what he does to change the subject.
• 1:30
  I mean he didn't say it that intelligently,
• 1:31
  but I'm I'm just reading what he says in his
• 1:34
  voice.
• 1:34
  Um,
• 1:34
  OK,
• 1:35
  so
• 1:35
  what does this all come from?
• 1:38
  Uh,
• 1:39
  there's a lot,
• 1:39
  some of this has been known,
• 1:40
  but a lot of it has been uncovered by Chris Ruffo.
• 1:43
  Chris Ruffo,
• 1:43
  of course,
• 1:44
  a reporter,
• 1:44
  he,
• 1:44
  he writes for the City Journal,
• 1:45
  has a big piece on this,
• 1:47
  uh,
• 1:47
  along with,
• 1:48
  uh,
• 1:48
  Ryan Thorpe.
• 1:49
  I will remind you,
• 1:50
  uh,
• 1:50
  by the way,
• 1:51
  that Chris Ruffo has the newest show on Blaze TV.
• 1:53
  You should check this out.
• 1:54
  It's called Ruffo and Lomez.
• 1:56
  It's available now as part of your Blaze TV subscription.
• 1:59
  I believe it's available,
• 2:00
  you know,
• 2:00
  on YouTube and other places as well.
• 2:02
  So check it out.
• 2:02
  Ruffo and Lomez and Ruffo,
• 2:04
  uh,
• 2:05
  Chris Ruffo is one of the,
• 2:06
  you know,
• 2:06
  big conservative
• 2:07
  leaning reporters who unearths this stuff all the time.
• 2:10
  He's,
• 2:10
  you know,
• 2:11
  taught us many,
• 2:11
  many things
• 2:12
  over the past few years that we've been talking about constantly.
• 2:14
  So
• 2:15
  him having a show on Blaze TV,
• 2:16
  great,
• 2:16
  and his reporting here really,
• 2:17
  really impactful.
• 2:19
  Uh,
• 2:19
  let me give you some of it.
• 2:20
  Uh,
• 2:20
  this is about,
• 2:21
  uh,
• 2:22
  Minnesota,
• 2:22
  all the problems going on there.
• 2:23
  What caused Trump to want to move in this direction.
• 2:27
  Here we go.
• 2:27
  If you were to design a welfare program to facilitate fraud,
• 2:30
  it would probably look a lot like
• 2:32
  Minnesota's Medicaid Housing Stabilization Services Program,
• 2:36
  HSS program,
• 2:37
  first of its kind in the country,
• 2:38
  launched with a noble goal,
• 2:39
  as they always are,
• 2:41
  to help seniors,
• 2:42
  addicts,
• 2:42
  the disabled,
• 2:43
  and the.
• 2:43
  Mentally ill,
• 2:44
  secure housing.
• 2:45
  It was designed with low barriers to entry,
• 2:47
  uh oh,
• 2:48
  and minimal requirements for reimbursement.
• 2:50
  Uh oh.
• 2:51
  Nonetheless,
• 2:52
  before the program went live in 2020,
• 2:55
  officials pegged its annual estimated price tag at $2.6 million.
• 2:58
  Now what is,
• 2:59
  how do these stories go?
• 3:01
  If I were to tell you
• 3:02
  a program is supposed to cost $2.6 million
• 3:05
  what would be your first thought about what the program will cost?
• 3:09
  Your thought is at least
• 3:12
  directionally accurate.
• 3:13
  Whether whether you actually
• 3:14
  had the scope of what I'm about to tell you
• 3:17
  might
• 3:18
  might be doubtful because it's hard to predict this bad of a situation.
• 3:22
  Costs quickly spiraled out of control.
• 3:24
  In 2021,
• 3:25
  the program paid out more than $21 million.
• 3:27
  That's 10 times what it was supposed to be valued.
• 3:29
  In the following years,
• 3:30
  annual costs shot up to $42 million.
• 3:32
  That's 20 times,
• 3:33
  then to $74 million 330,
• 3:37
  35 times the value,
• 3:38
  then 104 million.
• 3:40
  Now we're up over 40 times the value.
• 3:43
  Uh,
• 3:43
  during the first six months of 2025,
• 3:45
  payouts totaled $61 million.
• 3:47
  You've put that out on pace,
• 3:49
  you're going to be breaking the record
• 3:50
  yet again.
• 3:51
  It's supposed to cost $2 million this year,
• 3:53
  probably costs
• 3:54
  125,
• 3:55
  130.
• 3:56
  Million dollars.
• 3:57
  So that's,
• 3:58
  but that's like normal government
• 4:00
  waste,
• 4:00
  right?
• 4:01
  It's just,
• 4:01
  they all,
• 4:02
  all these programs always cost way more than they say they're going to.
• 4:05
  It's a little bit more than that in this particular case.
• 4:07
  On August 1st,
• 4:07
  Minnesota's Department of Human Services.
• 4:10
  Moved to scrap the HSSS program,
• 4:12
  noting the payment to 77 housing stabilization providers have
• 4:16
  been terminated this year due to credible allegations of
• 4:20
  fraud.
• 4:21
  Joe Thompson,
• 4:21
  the then acting
• 4:23
  attorney for the District of Minnesota,
• 4:24
  went even further,
• 4:25
  stated the vast majority of the HSS program was
• 4:28
  fraudulent.
• 4:29
  On September 18th,
• 4:30
  Thompson announced criminal indictments for HSS fraud
• 4:34
  against six members of Minnesota's Somali community.
• 4:37
  Thompson made it clear that it's just the first round of charges
• 4:40
  for the fraud.
• 4:41
  So
• 4:42
  what's going on here?
• 4:44
  A lot of different things,
• 4:45
  but the main focus of this is this particular community became
• 4:49
  expert
• 4:51
  at
• 4:52
  defrauding the government of Minnesota.
• 4:54
  Now,
• 4:54
  you might say,
• 4:55
  well,
• 4:55
  wait a minute,
• 4:55
  of course they defrauded
• 4:56
  the government of Minnesota,
• 4:58
  it's led by the dumbest men on the planet,
• 5:00
  and that is true,
• 5:00
  that's a good part
• 5:02
  of,
• 5:02
  of the story,
• 5:04
  not included in the report.
• 5:06
  However,
• 5:06
  at any point.
• 5:07
  And that might be because they really believe Eric
• 5:10
  Swalwell is the dumbest person in our society.
• 5:12
  So that's a very defensible point here.
• 5:14
  They're also like reporters and actually reporting facts,
• 5:16
  not just saying things like I do.
• 5:17
  Uh,
• 5:17
  Thompson said many firms enrolled in the program operated
• 5:20
  out of dilapidated storefronts and rundown office buildings.
• 5:23
  Perpetrators often targeted people recently released from rehab,
• 5:26
  setting them up for Medicaid services
• 5:28
  they had no intention of providing.
• 5:31
  Thompson noted many owners of companies engaged in HSS fraud
• 5:34
  had other companies through which they build other Medicaid programs.
• 5:37
  This is a web.
• 5:38
  Such as the EID EIDBI autism program,
• 5:43
  the Adult rehabilitative Mental Health Services Program,
• 5:46
  the integrated Community Support Program,
• 5:48
  the Community Access for Disability Inclusion,
• 5:50
  BCA services,
• 5:50
  other Medicaid waived services.
• 5:52
  This is one of the problems with
• 5:54
  our approach to talking about
• 5:56
  certain types of health problems.
• 5:59
  Many of them are real,
• 6:00
  right?
• 6:01
  They're real problems like autism is a real thing,
• 6:03
  uh,
• 6:03
  you know,
• 6:04
  mental health concerns are a real thing.
• 6:06
  The problem which makes it difficult for
• 6:08
  a government to be involved in those problems
• 6:11
  is that they're very difficult to define.
• 6:13
  You know,
• 6:13
  autism,
• 6:14
  for example,
• 6:14
  is a,
• 6:14
  is a collection of
• 6:17
  different
• 6:18
  symptoms,
• 6:19
  right?
• 6:19
  That's how they diagnose this.
• 6:20
  It's not like a blood test,
• 6:21
  right?
• 6:21
  You don't get a blood test and say,
• 6:22
  oh,
• 6:22
  you have autism.
• 6:23
  That's not the way it works.
• 6:24
  Famously,
• 6:25
  we talk about a spectrum when it comes to autism these days,
• 6:27
  and so
• 6:28
  some people are really,
• 6:29
  you know,
• 6:29
  very much on the fringes of that spectrum.
• 6:31
  Some people are very much like in the middle of it,
• 6:33
  right?
• 6:33
  You have people who are really suffering obviously noticeable circumstances.
• 6:37
  Some people not really.
• 6:38
  Like you talk to them and they seem
• 6:41
  without any concern at all.
• 6:44
  You know that doesn't mean they don't have it.
• 6:45
  That doesn't mean that those things aren't real,
• 6:47
  but it's very difficult for the government to define whether they're real or not.
• 6:50
  And when someone says they have autism and they're affected on the spectrum.
• 6:54
  It's very difficult to prove that to be incorrect,
• 6:57
  right?
• 6:58
  So
• 6:58
  what the Somali community here has decided,
• 7:01
  and along with this housing scandal,
• 7:04
  is to a lot of people who fit into those programs can be slid in there,
• 7:08
  very difficult to prove that they're not on that particular
• 7:11
  spectrum,
• 7:12
  and then therefore
• 7:13
  money can flow
• 7:14
  to these companies.
• 7:15
  And again they're setting up
• 7:17
  arrangements where money comes in for the government to pay for the services
• 7:20
  and then these people.
• 7:21
  Also on
• 7:21
  the companies
• 7:23
  that are charging
• 7:24
  the initial group
• 7:26
  for those services,
• 7:28
  so they're kind of benefiting on both sides of this.
• 7:30
  September 18th,
• 7:31
  the same day the HSS fraud
• 7:33
  charges were announced,
• 7:35
  the US Attorney's Office
• 7:36
  reported that a man named Abdullah Noor Jassau almost
• 7:40
  picked that name for my son.
• 7:43
  What a coincidence,
• 7:44
  had become the 56th defendant
• 7:46
  to plead guilty.
• 7:47
  In the $250 million feeding our Future
• 7:51
  fraud scheme.
• 7:53
  What is feeding our
• 7:55
  feeding our future?
• 7:57
  Do you want the future to be hungry?
• 7:59
  No,
• 7:59
  you want to feed the future.
• 8:01
  That's why we have programs called Feeding Our Future.
• 8:04
  I'm sure it worked really well,
• 8:05
  right?
• 8:06
  Right?
• 8:07
  Founded in 2016,
• 8:08
  Feeding Our Future was a small
• 8:10
  Minnesota nonprofit that sponsored daycares and after-school programs to enroll
• 8:15
  in the federal child nutrition program.
• 8:17
  And,
• 8:18
  are you against nutrition,
• 8:19
  you bastard?
• 8:21
  The organizations that Feeding Our Future sponsored
• 8:24
  were primarily owned and operated by.
• 8:26
  You're gonna be surprised to hear.
• 8:29
  Members of Minnesota's Somali community,
• 8:31
  huh.
• 8:32
  In 2019,
• 8:33
  Feeding Our Future received $3.4 million in federal funding distributed by the,
• 8:37
  uh,
• 8:37
  distributed,
• 8:37
  uh,
• 8:38
  or dispersed,
• 8:38
  excuse me,
• 8:39
  by the state.
• 8:40
  In the months after the COVID-19 pandemic began,
• 8:43
  however,
• 8:44
  the nonprofit rapidly increased its number of sponsored sites
• 8:48
  using fake meal counts,
• 8:49
  doctored attendance records,
• 8:51
  and fabricated invoices.
• 8:52
  The perpetrators of the fraud ring claim to be serving thousands of meals a day,
• 8:58
  7 days a week to underprivileged children.
• 9:00
  Well,
• 9:00
  that's great,
• 9:01
  right?
• 9:02
  Underprivileged children,
• 9:03
  thousands of them a day.
• 9:04
  Thank God we're helping all those people.
• 9:05
  You know,
• 9:06
  I've heard
• 9:07
  almost,
• 9:07
  I was just listening to Mom Donnie say this,
• 9:09
  100,000 children are homeless in New York City.
• 9:11
  We have to make sure they're fed,
• 9:12
  right?
• 9:14
  We won't question that number right now.
• 9:15
  In 2021,
• 9:16
  Feeding Our Future received nearly $200 million in funding.
• 9:19
  Remember when it started at $3 million?
• 9:21
  Remember that?
• 9:22
  In reality,
• 9:23
  the money was being used to fund
• 9:25
  lavish lifestyles,
• 9:26
  purchase luxury vehicles,
• 9:27
  and buy real estate in the United States,
• 9:30
  Turkey,
• 9:31
  and Kenya.
• 9:32
  Several individuals involved in feeding our future,
• 9:37
  the scheme they donated to or publicly appeared with,
• 9:40
  guess who?
• 9:42
  Ilan Omar,
• 9:43
  a
• 9:43
  stunning development.
• 9:45
  She's a Somali-born congresswoman and star
• 9:48
  of multiple music videos.
• 9:51
  That's right.
• 9:52
  5,
• 9:52
  well,
• 9:52
  actually I think it's only 1,
• 9:53
  but Maroon 5.
• 9:54
  If you ever wanna watch,
• 9:55
  uh,
• 9:55
  Ilhan Omar in her prime,
• 9:57
  watch her in the Maroon 5 video.
• 9:59
  Uh,
• 9:59
  Omar's deputy district director,
• 10:01
  Ali
• 10:02
  Issay,
• 10:03
  uh,
• 10:04
  advocated on behalf of Feeding Our Future.
• 10:07
  Omar Fateh,
• 10:08
  you remember him?
• 10:08
  He was a former state senator who recently ran
• 10:10
  and just barely lost for the Minneapolis mayor,
• 10:13
  lobbied against,
• 10:13
  uh,
• 10:14
  lobbied Timmy,
• 10:15
  Timmy Walls
• 10:16
  in support of the program,
• 10:17
  and one of the accused,
• 10:18
  Abdi Noor Salah.
• 10:21
  Served as a senior aide
• 10:23
  to Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frye.
• 10:25
  He's the one that actually beat Fateh in that election,
• 10:27
  in a very close election.
• 10:28
  Just days later,
• 10:29
  on September 24th,
• 10:31
  US Attorney Joseph Thompson announced his
• 10:32
  office's first indictment in yet another
• 10:34
  fraud case.
• 10:36
  Yeah,
• 10:36
  this is a web
• 10:37
  we're talking about.
• 10:37
  This time scheme involved federally funded autism services for children.
• 10:42
  Now
• 10:42
  this is how the scheme operated.
• 10:44
  The accused is a woman named
• 10:45
  Asha Farran
• 10:47
  Hassan,
• 10:48
  which again was almost Ainsley's name.
• 10:50
  Uh,
• 10:50
  a member of Minnesota's Somali community
• 10:53
  who has also been charged in the Feeding Our Futures scam,
• 10:56
  she's alleged to have played a role in a $14 million fraud scheme
• 10:59
  perpetrated against Minnesota's early intensive
• 11:02
  developmental
• 11:03
  and behavioral intervention
• 11:06
  program.
• 11:07
  Hm.
• 11:09
  This is a tough one here,
• 11:11
  because,
• 11:11
  you know,
• 11:11
  they're getting involved in a real problem and
• 11:13
  trying to milk it for every dollar possible.
• 11:15
  This is
• 11:16
  how you defraud the government,
• 11:17
  right?
• 11:19
  They have been doing it for a long time,
• 11:21
  allegedly.
• 11:22
  Hassan and her co-conspirators approached parents in the Somali community
• 11:26
  and recruited their children into autism therapy services.
• 11:29
  It didn't matter,
• 11:30
  prosecutors suggested,
• 11:31
  if a child did not have an eye to autism diagnosis,
• 11:35
  Hassan would facilitate a fraudulent one.
• 11:38
  Now this is.
• 11:39
  An unfortunate part of all of this is that a lot of times real
• 11:42
  resources can come to you if your child is affected with something like autism.
• 11:46
  They can come in a program that is really,
• 11:47
  really helpful and beneficial to your kid,
• 11:50
  um,
• 11:50
  but not being on the spectrum doesn't get you access to that.
• 11:53
  So,
• 11:53
  I mean,
• 11:53
  there are plenty of people who are like,
• 11:55
  well,
• 11:55
  look,
• 11:56
  I don't know that my kid is,
• 11:58
  you know,
• 11:58
  what I've seen,
• 11:59
  you know,
• 12:00
  what I've seen with some kids with autism who are really suffering,
• 12:03
  but I mean these,
• 12:04
  these benefits would
• 12:05
  help them,
• 12:06
  and I wanna help my kid.
• 12:07
  And there's a lot of people who are really honest and really trying hard,
• 12:10
  uh,
• 12:10
  to get their kid help.
• 12:11
  That's not what we're talking about here.
• 12:13
  What we're talking about here
• 12:14
  is something very difficult,
• 12:16
  difficult,
• 12:16
  difficult,
• 12:17
  you know,
• 12:17
  difficult.
• 12:20
  Sorry,
• 12:20
  I,
• 12:20
  you have to understand,
• 12:21
  I,
• 12:21
  I suffered through a terrible Eagles loss last night.
• 12:23
  I'm not,
• 12:24
  I'm not coherent at this point.
• 12:25
  Uh,
• 12:26
  much like the HSS program,
• 12:27
  autism claims to Medicaid in Minnesota
• 12:29
  have skyrocketed in recent years.
• 12:31
  Have you heard this story before?
• 12:33
  From 3 million in 2018 to 54 million in 2019 to 77 million in 2020,
• 12:39
  to 183 million in 2021,
• 12:42
  to 279 million in 2022,
• 12:46
  to 399 million in 2023.
• 12:50
  Wow,
• 12:50
  I mean that makes the other program look like,
• 12:52
  you know,
• 12:53
  nothing.
• 12:53
  This is really
• 12:55
  accelerating,
• 12:55
  and of course we've heard a lot about the cases of autism rising.
• 12:58
  Uh,
• 12:59
  may very well be true,
• 13:01
  and there's many,
• 13:02
  many reasons.
• 13:02
  You probably have 12 of them you already believe.
• 13:04
  I won't bother
• 13:05
  going into uh the argument over that,
• 13:07
  but it,
• 13:07
  this is part of it,
• 13:08
  it's a small part of it,
• 13:09
  I think.
• 13:09
  I don't,
• 13:10
  you know,
• 13:10
  I don't think it's the main part of the autism story,
• 13:12
  but it is
• 13:12
  a part of it,
• 13:14
  especially in this particular community,
• 13:15
  because
• 13:16
  it's exploding at rates we're not seeing anywhere else.
• 13:19
  Uh,
• 13:19
  the number of autism providers in the state spiked from 41
• 13:22
  to 300.
• 13:23
  28 over the same period with many Somali
• 13:25
  community establishing their own autism treatment centers,
• 13:29
  citing the need for culturally appropriate programming.
• 13:32
  See,
• 13:32
  the normal doctors that just actually go after the autism
• 13:35
  thing and try to help your family with it,
• 13:37
  they weren't saying they weren't culturally sensitive,
• 13:40
  to Somali citizens,
• 13:42
  so they just needed their own,
• 13:43
  nothing to do with fraud
• 13:45
  whatsoever.
• 13:46
  I want you to know that,
• 13:47
  not fraudulent.
• 13:49
  By the time the fraud scheme was exposed,
• 13:50
  1 in 16 Somali 4-year-olds in the state had reportedly been diagnosed with autism,
• 13:55
  a rate more than triple the state average.
• 13:57
  Now
• 13:58
  maybe you think there's something genetic
• 13:59
  going on here.
• 14:00
  I'm going to argue it is not genetic.
• 14:03
  I'm going to argue the opposite of that,
• 14:05
  that it was likely.
• 14:07
  Allegedly
• 14:08
  fraud,
• 14:09
  right?
• 14:09
  You go there,
• 14:10
  Somali,
• 14:11
  uh,
• 14:12
  citizens are opening up the autism centers.
• 14:13
  They're going to kids that are saying,
• 14:15
  Hey,
• 14:15
  you're 4 years old,
• 14:16
  you sure look like you have autism.
• 14:18
  If you have autism,
• 14:19
  we're going to make a lot of money and you might make some too.
• 14:21
  And so parents are putting their kids in
• 14:23
  these programs and reaping the benefits of them.
• 14:26
  At your
• 14:27
  expense,
• 14:28
  a
• 14:28
  network of fraud schemes which form a web that has stolen billions
• 14:31
  of dollars in taxpayer money involve
• 14:32
  many members of Minnesota's Somali community.
• 14:35
  Feeding Our Future,
• 14:35
  HSS autism services cases are far from the only examples.
• 14:39
  At least 28 fraud scandals have surfaced since Walls was elected governor
• 14:44
  in 2019.
• 14:45
  And
• 14:46
  you know,
• 14:46
  while Tim Walls isn't part of the Somali community,
• 14:49
  to my knowledge.
• 14:51
  Maybe he was,
• 14:52
  I don't know.
• 14:52
  Well,
• 14:52
  maybe,
• 14:53
  that's where he,
• 14:53
  you know,
• 14:54
  maybe he like he likes to hang out there.
• 14:55
  I don't know.
• 14:55
  Maybe he likes Somali food quite a bit.
• 14:57
  The issue here is not necessarily that he's part
• 14:59
  of the Somali community or part of these frauds,
• 15:01
  but what he is very key to
• 15:04
  is overlooking them.
• 15:05
  Because he's afraid,
• 15:07
  terrified if you will,
• 15:08
  to bring up any of these complaints.
• 15:10
  Everybody knows this stuff is going on in the state.
• 15:13
  But nobody wants to admit it.
• 15:14
  Nobody wants to call them out because you'll be called a racist,
• 15:17
  you'll be called,
• 15:18
  you know,
• 15:18
  culturally insensitive,
• 15:20
  and of course these people,
• 15:22
  you know,
• 15:22
  donate to the Walls campaign and they're running in many of the same circles.
• 15:27
  Somali fraud rings have sent huge sums of remittances or money transfers.
• 15:32
  From Minnesota to Somalia,
• 15:33
  and this is where the case gets a little bit darker,
• 15:34
  because
• 15:35
  while Tim Walls might seem like the worst person humanity has ever produced,
• 15:39
  there are actually worse people across the globe,
• 15:42
  and these fraud scandals are not only helping the people
• 15:45
  in the Somali community that are committing fraud and
• 15:48
  telling their kid they have autism when they don't.
• 15:51
  I,
• 15:51
  you know,
• 15:51
  what's going on here?
• 15:52
  It's nuts.
• 15:54
  But
• 15:55
  according to reports,
• 15:56
  an estimated 40% of households in Somalia get remittances from abroad.
• 16:00
  In 2023 alone.
• 16:02
  The Somali diaspora has sent back $1.7 billion more
• 16:07
  than the Somali government's budget for that year.
• 16:10
  There's not much of a government honestly in Somalia,
• 16:12
  uh,
• 16:13
  but
• 16:13
  that's pretty impressive.
• 16:14
  You're sending back more money from the
• 16:16
  United States than their entire government budget.
• 16:18
  Some of the money that has been directed to an even
• 16:20
  more troubling destination is the al Qaeda linked Islamic terror group
• 16:24
  Al-Shabaab.
• 16:26
  Yes,
• 16:27
  according,
• 16:27
  and it sounds like a delicious dish,
• 16:28
  it isn't.
• 16:30
  When you go to a restaurant and you order the al-Shabaab.
• 16:34
  Bad things might happen,
• 16:35
  just so you know.
• 16:36
  According to multiple law enforcement sources,
• 16:38
  Minnesota's Somali community has sent untold
• 16:41
  millions through a network of hawalas,
• 16:43
  an informal clan-based money traders that would have wound up in the coffers
• 16:47
  of al-Shabaab.
• 16:49
  Here's the money quote.
• 16:50
  All right,
• 16:51
  you're ready for it?
• 16:52
  This is what
• 16:53
  it's not me saying this.
• 16:55
  This is what they are saying as they look at the entire scope
• 16:58
  of this scandal.
• 16:59
  Federal counterterrorism sources confirm
• 17:02
  that millions of dollars in stolen funds have been sent back to Somalia,
• 17:06
  where they ultimately land in the hands of al-Shabaab,
• 17:10
  as one confidential source put it,
• 17:12
  the largest funder of al-Shabaab.
• 17:15
  Is the Minnesota taxpayer.
• 17:19
  Just want to thank Tim Walls.
• 17:22
  I just want to
• 17:23
  think about what I just said.
• 17:25
  A,
• 17:26
  a branch of al Qaeda
• 17:28
  in Somalia is operating
• 17:30
  with the money coming from you if you live in Minnesota as a taxpayer.
• 17:35
  And given the choice
• 17:37
  of any human being on the planet
• 17:40
  to become Vice President of the United States,
• 17:42
  Kamala Harris
• 17:43
  chose the head of that state.
• 17:48
  You,
• 17:49
  you can't make it up.
• 17:50
  Honestly,
• 17:50
  it is absolutely
• 17:52
  incredible.
• 17:52
  By the way,
• 17:52
  you might think the police were like,
• 17:54
  gosh,
• 17:54
  we're gonna come down on these guys.
• 17:56
  We're gonna make sure they know
• 17:58
  if
• 17:58
  anyone in the Somali community is doing this,
• 17:59
  you're,
• 18:00
  you're in big trouble.
• 18:01
  You'd think you'd get that speech from,
• 18:04
  uh,
• 18:04
  from the police.
• 18:04
  This is the speech we actually got.
• 18:06
  Watch.
• 18:07
  The Somali community here in Minneapolis has been
• 18:10
  welcoming and has shown love towards me,
• 18:12
  and I appreciate it.
• 18:14
  Over the last 3 years we have been working
• 18:16
  together
• 18:17
  to try and address some of the real serious problems that we have in our community.
• 18:22
  We have to be honest at times with the problems that we're having in our community,
• 18:25
  and we need our community.
• 18:26
  To help us fix those problems together because it's real and it's serious
• 18:31
  at the same time,
• 18:33
  if people have taken anything that I have said
• 18:36
  out of context in a way that's caused harm,
• 18:39
  I apologize and I'm sorry for that because that's not my intention at all.
• 18:42
  I'm,
• 18:43
  I'm sure it's not,
• 18:43
  by the way,
• 18:44
  we had to cut out the Somali translator
• 18:46
  that was associated with all of those comments.
• 18:49
  Look,
• 18:50
  it's tough to be a cop.
• 18:51
  It's tough to be in that situation.
• 18:53
  I'm sure,
• 18:54
  you know,
• 18:54
  bringing these things up is not easy.
• 18:56
  I don't think you need to apologize for enforcing the law though,
• 18:59
  and,
• 18:59
  and not quite what he was doing,
• 19:00
  but it,
• 19:01
  it was,
• 19:01
  it was bordering on it.
• 19:02
  It was a little close,
• 19:03
  a little closer than I wanted him to be.
• 19:05
  Look,
• 19:05
  the bottom line is there's massive fraud going on in these communities.
• 19:08
  Uh,
• 19:08
  Trump has called it out.
• 19:09
  A lot of people have called it out.
• 19:10
  Christopher Ruffo,
• 19:11
  uh,
• 19:11
  as well.
• 19:12
  It needs to be taken care of.
• 19:13
  And like,
• 19:14
  if you think about how bad this is for,
• 19:16
  you know,
• 19:17
  for
• 19:18
  people who really need these benefits,
• 19:19
  right?
• 19:19
  These are all gonna be put under the microscope.
• 19:21
  And again,
• 19:21
  it's kind of hard to prove,
• 19:23
  right?
• 19:23
  Like you're trying to say,
• 19:24
  oh,
• 19:24
  my kid has these problems.
• 19:26
  You know,
• 19:27
  we shouldn't be stealing money from kids who actually have the problems
• 19:30
  and giving them to terrorist groups.
• 19:32
  I mean,
• 19:32
  do I have to even make these arguments?
• 19:34
  Do I have to say these sentences?
• 19:35
  And yet Tim Walls is going to stand there and make sure
• 19:39
  that the culturally inappropriate
• 19:42
  things don't happen.
• 19:44
  Uh,
• 19:44
  to his voters,
• 19:46
  which are largely in communities like the Somali community.
• 19:50
  So there's a lot of controversy there
• 19:52
  and a lot to follow,
• 19:53
  lots of threads to pull on
• 19:55
  there.
• 19:55
  Chris Ruffo's doing that again.
• 19:56
  The show is Rufo Lomez.
• 19:58
  It's right here on Belize TV,
• 19:59
  part of your Blaze TV subscription.
• 20:00
  I would encourage you to go to studiosAmerica.com.
• 20:02
  SueoAmerica.com.
• 20:04
  There you can get access to the entire network if you sign up uh through that link.
• 20:07
  SueoAmerica.com.
• 20:09
  Save,
• 20:09
  I think,
• 20:09
  20 bucks when you do so,
• 20:11
  and you get access to lots of great shows,
• 20:13
  of course,
• 20:14
  including the new one from Ruffo and Lomez.
• 20:15
  We're gonna talk healthcare here in a moment.
• 20:17
  Avik Roy is gonna join us with a new proposal
• 20:20
  coming up next.
• 20:31
  I'm kind of like angry at sports right now after last night,
• 20:33
  I'll be honest with you,
• 20:34
  right now it's a great time for sports fans to get all the stuff going on.
• 20:39
  Uh,
• 20:39
  with football on Thanksgiving,
• 20:41
  uh,
• 20:41
  right around the corner,
• 20:42
  as Glenn would point out to you,
• 20:43
  uh,
• 20:44
  the dog show
• 20:45
  is also coming up,
• 20:46
  and that's always adorable.
• 20:48
  I don't know,
• 20:48
  uh,
• 20:49
  I,
• 20:49
  I don't know if you can go,
• 20:49
  um,
• 20:50
  more or less on prize picks on particular dogs in the Westminster Dog Show.
• 20:54
  We'll have to ask,
• 20:54
  we'll have to check in on that one.
• 20:55
  I will say prize picks is a great way to stay engaged with
• 20:57
  all the stuff going on because there's so much.
• 20:59
  All you have to do is open the app,
• 21:01
  pick at least 2 player projections,
• 21:02
  and choose whether one.
• 21:04
  Each one of the players will be more or less on a particular stat projection,
• 21:08
  right?
• 21:09
  25 points,
• 21:10
  more or less.
• 21:11
  That's it.
• 21:12
  That's your lineup,
• 21:12
  and it only takes a few seconds to put together.
• 21:14
  Price fix is available in 45 states now,
• 21:16
  and they've added features that will make the experience even more flexible.
• 21:20
  There's early payouts,
• 21:21
  uh,
• 21:21
  so you can lock in a win if your lineup starts strong.
• 21:24
  There's flex play.
• 21:25
  It gives you more room for error.
• 21:27
  There's power play that gets you the big.
• 21:29
  Returns
• 21:30
  and you can use stacks,
• 21:31
  which is like selecting the same athlete
• 21:33
  up to 3 different ways in one lineup
• 21:35
  for multiple stat categories.
• 21:37
  Deposits and withdrawals are fast and secure and
• 21:39
  easy and supported by most major payment methods,
• 21:42
  so moving your money in and out is really,
• 21:44
  really easy.
• 21:44
  I will say it's a lot of fun,
• 21:47
  and you know if you happen to be a person who had to suffer through a just
• 21:51
  personally debilitating,
• 21:53
  horrible defeat of your Philadelphia Eagles as they blew
• 21:56
  their game against the Dallas Cowboys last night.
• 21:58
  Um,
• 21:59
  you're gonna find much more enjoyable,
• 22:00
  honestly,
• 22:01
  even if you lose,
• 22:02
  you can lose all your money,
• 22:04
  uh,
• 22:04
  on your lineup that you put in your 1st $5 lineup.
• 22:07
  You know,
• 22:07
  I completely suck and get all of the answers wrong.
• 22:09
  It'll still be better than what I had to deal with last night.
• 22:12
  Download the Price Fix app today.
• 22:13
  Use the code Stew,
• 22:14
  get $50 in lineups after you play that 1st $5 lineup.
• 22:17
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• 22:19
  get $50
• 22:20
  in lineups after you play your 1st $5 lineup.
• 22:22
  Price fix is a lot of fun.
• 22:23
  You're gonna love it,
• 22:24
  and
• 22:25
  it's good to be right.
• 22:28
  Happy to welcome Avik Roy back on the program.
• 22:30
  He's co-founder and chairman of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity.
• 22:34
  He also has a new piece out
• 22:36
  at National Review.
• 22:37
  Now is the moment to deregulate Obamacare.
• 22:40
  Be sure to check it out.
• 22:42
  Ovik,
• 22:42
  thanks so much for coming back on the program.
• 22:43
  Appreciate it.
• 22:44
  Hey Stu,
• 22:45
  always good to be with you.
• 22:46
  Yeah,
• 22:46
  I appreciate you coming back on.
• 22:47
  I,
• 22:47
  I,
• 22:47
  I found your article really interesting and your approach interesting.
• 22:51
  Uh,
• 22:51
  I wanna get into
• 22:53
  what,
• 22:53
  what the plan is here,
• 22:55
  but let's start at the beginning because
• 22:57
  I'm a big believer that the issues with the shutdown
• 23:01
  were less from the Democratic side,
• 23:02
  less about the actual approach of what they want to do with healthcare,
• 23:05
  of course they always want more money.
• 23:07
  But it was more about focusing the country on the issue of healthcare
• 23:11
  because they know that performs really well for them and bad for Republicans.
• 23:15
  Why is that?
• 23:17
  Well,
• 23:17
  uh,
• 23:18
  I think that Democrats,
• 23:19
  to their credit,
• 23:20
  have a vision of where they wanna take the healthcare system,
• 23:23
  and they argue that their vision would lead to lower
• 23:27
  costs for Americans.
• 23:28
  Republicans,
• 23:29
  on the other hand,
• 23:29
  don't have a strategy for what they wanna do with the healthcare system.
• 23:32
  They're Almost always reacting to what Democrats want to do and saying,
• 23:36
  well,
• 23:36
  we don't like what the Democrats want to do,
• 23:38
  uh,
• 23:38
  but what's our vision for reducing your healthcare bills?
• 23:41
  They're,
• 23:41
  uh,
• 23:41
  they come up empty,
• 23:42
  and I think
• 23:43
  on that issue as a result,
• 23:45
  voters tend to trust Democrats more than Republicans,
• 23:47
  and it doesn't have to be that way.
• 23:49
  Yeah,
• 23:49
  you you you kind of try to set forth a path here to,
• 23:52
  to change some of this and,
• 23:53
  and,
• 23:53
  uh,
• 23:54
  and go,
• 23:54
  go through this.
• 23:55
  I want to get into it
• 23:56
  because.
• 23:57
  You know,
• 23:57
  there was this moment here with the shutdown and,
• 23:59
  and like we act like we're past the shutdown thing,
• 24:01
  we're really not,
• 24:01
  right?
• 24:02
  This is a short term funding situation,
• 24:03
  so we're right around the corner from probably having
• 24:05
  to deal with all of this all over again.
• 24:07
  We're entering an election year,
• 24:09
  you know,
• 24:10
  uh,
• 24:10
  the subsidies from the ACA are going away,
• 24:13
  these enhanced subsidies,
• 24:14
  um,
• 24:15
  so
• 24:16
  how do we attack this?
• 24:17
  How should we approach this?
• 24:18
  How should we think about it?
• 24:21
  Well,
• 24:21
  uh,
• 24:22
  there's a couple of things to say.
• 24:23
  The first is,
• 24:23
  what's the vision,
• 24:24
  going back to your earlier question,
• 24:26
  and I would argue that the vision Republicans should have
• 24:29
  of what a free market healthcare system could look like,
• 24:32
  given the fact that you're not gonna repeal 80 years of healthcare policy,
• 24:36
  you have to live with the system we have and evolve it into something better.
• 24:39
  What that vision.
• 24:40
  could look like is very simple.
• 24:42
  The biggest middleman in healthcare,
• 24:43
  the reason why healthcare is more expensive in
• 24:46
  America than any other country in the world,
• 24:48
  is because we depend on our employers or the government to buy the
• 24:51
  health insurance for us rather than shopping for it ourselves like we do
• 24:55
  with car insurance or homeowner's insurance or any other kind of insurance you buy.
• 24:59
  So the thing we have to do if we want to
• 25:01
  have a free market healthcare system or something that looks as,
• 25:04
  as much like a free market healthcare system as possible.
• 25:07
  Is evolve the current commission of the
• 25:09
  healthcare system we have into one where everybody
• 25:11
  is shopping for their own health insurance
• 25:14
  on their own.
• 25:15
  And yes,
• 25:15
  if you're vulnerable or really poor and can't afford it,
• 25:18
  we'll offer you some sort of help
• 25:20
  to afford the health insurance.
• 25:21
  But you start with everyone buying their own health insurance.
• 25:23
  Today,
• 25:24
  that's only a small number of people.
• 25:25
  Basically,
• 25:26
  it's the people who need Obamacare,
• 25:28
  who are the ones shopping for their own health insurance,
• 25:30
  and that's the market that Obamacare wrecked.
• 25:33
  Yeah,
• 25:34
  I mean it is interesting and like you mentioned here,
• 25:36
  you,
• 25:37
  you know,
• 25:37
  it's difficult to go back and,
• 25:38
  you know,
• 25:38
  revise 80 years of,
• 25:39
  of
• 25:40
  health policy,
• 25:40
  which is
• 25:41
  true,
• 25:42
  but like that seems to me when you talk about employer-based healthcare,
• 25:46
  that seems to be one of the harder things to turn over in this system,
• 25:50
  right?
• 25:50
  Like I mean this is kind of the foundation.
• 25:52
  It's what we all kind of expect when you change jobs,
• 25:54
  you have to go to your,
• 25:55
  what's my new healthcare going to be?
• 25:57
  You're always thinking about that.
• 25:59
  I agree it's a terrible system.
• 26:00
  How difficult would that be to unwind?
• 26:03
  Well,
• 26:03
  you know,
• 26:03
  it's interesting,
• 26:04
  it all started with World War 2.
• 26:05
  There were all these wage controls in World War 2 that FDR imposed,
• 26:08
  and then
• 26:09
  after the war was over,
• 26:10
  they lifted the wage controls,
• 26:12
  but a lot of people were getting health insurance for their
• 26:14
  employer cause it was a way around the wage controls.
• 26:16
  I could only pay you so much in salary,
• 26:18
  but I could offer you health insurance that
• 26:20
  was basically not counted towards your wages.
• 26:23
  And then when Eisenhower came in after the war,
• 26:25
  he said,
• 26:26
  well,
• 26:26
  we won't count that as income,
• 26:28
  so it's totally excluded from taxes,
• 26:30
  which means for every $1 I give you in salary,
• 26:32
  maybe 50% of that goes to the government and taxes of one kind or another.
• 26:36
  But with health insurance,
• 26:37
  if I give you $1 health insurance,
• 26:38
  you get $1 of health insurance,
• 26:39
  which means it's worth twice as much to you.
• 26:42
  As your actual wage income.
• 26:43
  That incentivized more and more people to
• 26:45
  get health insurance through their employer.
• 26:47
  It incentivized people to not pay attention to
• 26:49
  what they were paying for their health insurance,
• 26:50
  cause it was taken out of their paycheck before they even saw it.
• 26:53
  And
• 26:54
  that's what led to the system we have today.
• 26:56
  So you can't
• 26:57
  repeal that per se.
• 26:59
  John McCain proposed that in 2008,
• 27:01
  and Obama crushed him on it.
• 27:02
  So you can't repeal it,
• 27:03
  but what you can do.
• 27:05
  if you deregulate Obamacare,
• 27:07
  if you reform or replace or repair
• 27:10
  the regulations in Obamacare that made
• 27:13
  individually purchased insurance so expensive,
• 27:16
  then,
• 27:17
  you have a better alternative to employer-sponsored insurance.
• 27:20
  The first Trump administration,
• 27:21
  they actually uh proposed and implemented a rule
• 27:24
  that says employers instead of buying health insurance for you,
• 27:27
  can give you the dollars
• 27:29
  yourself and put it in an account for you to go shop your
• 27:32
  Insurance.
• 27:33
  Today,
• 27:33
  not as many people as could be using that,
• 27:35
  use it,
• 27:36
  because
• 27:36
  if your employer gives you the money to buy your own insurance,
• 27:39
  but the insurance you buy on your own is no different than
• 27:41
  what you get from your employer,
• 27:42
  then what's,
• 27:43
  what's the point of doing all that extra work.
• 27:45
  But,
• 27:46
  if you deregulate Obamacare,
• 27:48
  Such that Obamacare,
• 27:49
  the,
• 27:49
  the plans that are offered in individually
• 27:51
  purchased insurance are actually a lot less expensive
• 27:54
  than employer-based insurance,
• 27:55
  then I bet you'll see a lot of people voluntarily migrate to that market.
• 27:58
  You'll see a lot more employers say,
• 27:59
  you know what?
• 28:00
  Why should I be in the business of offering health insurance to my workers if
• 28:04
  I can just give people 5000 bucks a year or 10,000 bucks a year,
• 28:07
  pick your number,
• 28:08
  and let them shop for their own coverage and
• 28:10
  keep the change if they find a better deal.
• 28:11
  Mm,
• 28:12
  yeah,
• 28:12
  uh,
• 28:12
  people like to keep the change idea.
• 28:14
  That's definitely true.
• 28:15
  Um,
• 28:15
  so how do we get to this point because
• 28:18
  we were pitched the Obamacare,
• 28:21
  of course we call it,
• 28:21
  but you know it's the Affordable Care Act.
• 28:23
  Like the whole pitch behind it was this was supposed to be affordable,
• 28:27
  and you know very early on,
• 28:29
  uh,
• 28:29
  many conservatives argued,
• 28:31
  I think correctly,
• 28:32
  that
• 28:33
  the way this thing is structured
• 28:35
  is going to lead to cascading bad results when it comes to costs,
• 28:39
  and you know we were laughed out of the building,
• 28:40
  we were called all sorts of names for it.
• 28:44
  Can you,
• 28:44
  did that wind up coming true?
• 28:45
  Is that why we're in this problem in the first place?
• 28:48
  He has to,
• 28:49
  as you know,
• 28:49
  cause,
• 28:50
  uh,
• 28:50
  you know,
• 28:50
  you and I have known each other a long time.
• 28:52
  I mean,
• 28:52
  I was right there.
• 28:53
  I was getting yelled at by Ezra Klein and Paul
• 28:55
  Krugman and all those guys for making this point in
• 28:57
  2010,
• 28:58
  2011,
• 28:58
  2012,
• 28:59
  and here we are.
• 29:00
  And I take no pleasure in being right,
• 29:02
  cause a lot of people are suffering because
• 29:03
  of these incredibly high premiums under Obamacare.
• 29:06
  Under Obamacare,
• 29:07
  the premiums that you pay for health insurance nearly
• 29:10
  have nearly tripled,
• 29:11
  and the deductibles have more than doubled.
• 29:13
  And by the way,
• 29:13
  Obama,
• 29:14
  when he ran in 2008,
• 29:16
  the same year he crushed McCain for his ideas,
• 29:18
  Obama promised
• 29:20
  that
• 29:20
  the average family of four would save $2500
• 29:24
  per year because of his plan.
• 29:26
  The opposite's happened.
• 29:27
  Actually,
• 29:27
  the average family's health bills
• 29:29
  have increased by $10,000.
• 29:32
  Since
• 29:32
  the Affordable Care Act,
• 29:33
  the so-called Affordable Care Act went into effect.
• 29:35
  So that's the bad news,
• 29:37
  and as you said,
• 29:38
  it,
• 29:38
  it vindicates those of us who are pointing,
• 29:40
  uh,
• 29:41
  you know,
• 29:41
  pointing this out in the beginning,
• 29:43
  but it doesn't absolve us of the responsibility to try to fix it.
• 29:46
  And when Republicans are in charge,
• 29:48
  they can't just point fingers and yell at Democrats and say,
• 29:51
  see,
• 29:51
  you caused this problem.
• 29:53
  They actually have to fix the problem,
• 29:54
  otherwise,
• 29:54
  when the Democrats are in charge,
• 29:56
  they're just gonna throw more subsidies at it and paper over and bail out
• 30:00
  the problems they created.
• 30:01
  So it's up to Republicans to deregulate Obamacare,
• 30:03
  and what I
• 30:04
  worry about is that there are
• 30:05
  some Republicans who are saying,
• 30:07
  uh,
• 30:07
  let's not do the hard work of trying to deregulate Obamacare,
• 30:10
  let's just give the people.
• 30:11
  People,
• 30:12
  these subsidies,
• 30:13
  but in a different form,
• 30:14
  so they can spend,
• 30:15
  spend it on non-insurance expenses,
• 30:17
  like,
• 30:17
  OK,
• 30:18
  you can get,
• 30:18
  you know,
• 30:19
  your checkup,
• 30:19
  your prescription drugs or things like that through a health savings account.
• 30:22
  That's great,
• 30:22
  like,
• 30:23
  health savings accounts are part of the solution,
• 30:24
  but at the end of the day,
• 30:25
  we've gotta make health insurance cheaper.
• 30:27
  If you have a $2000 health savings account,
• 30:30
  But you have a $100,000 hospital bill,
• 30:33
  that health savings account is not gonna take you very far.
• 30:35
  So we've got to fix insurance.
• 30:37
  We've got to deregulate insurance in that National Review article
• 30:40
  you mentioned at the beginning,
• 30:41
  I've got some ideas on how to do that.
• 30:43
  Yeah,
• 30:43
  cause I mean,
• 30:43
  I will,
• 30:44
  I'll be honest with you,
• 30:44
  a lot of times I get frustrated and I'm just like,
• 30:46
  look,
• 30:46
  I don't want anything to do with this stuff.
• 30:48
  Like this is a terrible system.
• 30:49
  It wasn't my idea.
• 30:51
  They built it.
• 30:52
  Like I want to tear the whole thing down.
• 30:54
  As you point out,
• 30:54
  that's not always the most pragmatic and actually achievable solution,
• 30:58
  so.
• 30:59
  You lay out a bunch of stuff here
• 31:01
  changes that we can make to current policy that will at least improve the situation
• 31:06
  pretty dramatically.
• 31:07
  Can you kind of walk us through it?
• 31:10
  Absolutely.
• 31:10
  So,
• 31:11
  there are a couple of things that Obama,
• 31:13
  so there's like,
• 31:14
  there's dozens if not hundreds of regulations,
• 31:17
  one size fits all regulations that Obamacare imposed
• 31:20
  on the market for people who buy insurance on their own,
• 31:23
  meaning they don't get it from their employer,
• 31:24
  they don't get it from the government.
• 31:26
  It used to be those markets were regulated state by state,
• 31:29
  every state had its own rules,
• 31:30
  some states were more
• 31:31
  liberal,
• 31:32
  small l,
• 31:32
  more free market.
• 31:33
  And some were more restrictive,
• 31:35
  uh,
• 31:35
  and today it's all basically,
• 31:37
  you know,
• 31:37
  a one size fits all system governed by Obamacare.
• 31:40
  Now,
• 31:40
  of those hundreds of rules,
• 31:42
  there's a couple that are particularly important,
• 31:44
  that really drive the vast majority of why
• 31:48
  the Obamacare premiums are so high compared to what it was like pre-Obamacare.
• 31:52
  There are two in particular that I would highlight.
• 31:54
  The first is that Obamacare said,
• 31:57
  we need to overcharge young people.
• 32:00
  Because we think that by overcharging young people,
• 32:02
  that will create the money
• 32:04
  to help fund
• 32:05
  costlier insurance for people who are in their 50s and 60s.
• 32:08
  That was the first thing they did.
• 32:10
  The second thing they did
• 32:11
  was they said,
• 32:12
  we're gonna overcharge healthy people.
• 32:15
  To theoretically provide the money
• 32:18
  to,
• 32:18
  to fund healthcare for the sick.
• 32:20
  So,
• 32:20
  you know,
• 32:20
  you hear Democrats say all the time,
• 32:22
  oh,
• 32:22
  Obamacare
• 32:23
  helps people with pre-existing conditions,
• 32:25
  they,
• 32:26
  you know,
• 32:26
  they couldn't get insurance before,
• 32:27
  now they can,
• 32:29
  and Republicans want to take that away.
• 32:31
  Well,
• 32:31
  that's not,
• 32:32
  that's not exactly what they did.
• 32:33
  Yes,
• 32:33
  they required insurers to offer insurance
• 32:36
  to people with pre-existing conditions,
• 32:38
  but you know what,
• 32:38
  if I'm an insurance company and you still have
• 32:41
  a genetic disease that costs $100,000 a year to,
• 32:44
  to pay for,
• 32:45
  I can offer you insurance and just say it's gonna cost $100,000
• 32:48
  right?
• 32:49
  You know,
• 32:49
  that's,
• 32:50
  that's not the issue here.
• 32:51
  The issue is that
• 32:52
  Obamacare said all you healthy people who are
• 32:54
  paying a couple $100 for insurance before,
• 32:56
  now you're gonna have to pay triple or quadruple to fund
• 33:00
  that person who's got the $100,000 healthcare bill.
• 33:03
  And that's not how insurance is supposed to work.
• 33:04
  The way insurance is supposed to work,
• 33:05
  it's supposed to protect you against the risk that you might get sick,
• 33:09
  not the risk that other people might get sick.
• 33:11
  So,
• 33:12
  that's the thing that,
• 33:13
  that basically drove all the healthy people out of the Obamacare market.
• 33:16
  They couldn't afford insurance anymore.
• 33:18
  And once you drive the healthy people out and there's nobody else to fund the sick,
• 33:21
  what happens?
• 33:22
  Insurance costs more and more,
• 33:23
  cause you have to raise the premiums,
• 33:25
  prices higher,
• 33:26
  in order to pay for all those healthcare bills for
• 33:29
  uh the sicker people.
• 33:30
  So,
• 33:30
  all that to say that
• 33:31
  by overcharging young and healthy people,
• 33:33
  Under Obamacare,
• 33:34
  who also need to buy insurance,
• 33:35
  by the way,
• 33:36
  these are uninsured people who are freelancers or
• 33:38
  the working middle class or low-income people.
• 33:40
  They need to buy insurance too.
• 33:42
  Their insurance is now unaffordable,
• 33:44
  so you've punished young and healthy uninsured people
• 33:46
  to theoretically fund coverage for
• 33:49
  older and sicker uninsured people.
• 33:50
  That makes no sense at all.
• 33:52
  So,
• 33:52
  what you wanna do instead is you wanna unwind that and say,
• 33:55
  you know what?
• 33:56
  We're gonna let young and healthy people
• 33:58
  pay an actuarially fair price for insurance,
• 34:01
  meaning,
• 34:01
  like,
• 34:02
  if you go to,
• 34:03
  if you're healthy,
• 34:03
  you're 27 years old,
• 34:04
  you probably go to the doctor once a year,
• 34:07
  you know,
• 34:07
  you should have an insurance that reflects that level of healthcare consumption.
• 34:11
  And
• 34:11
  then what you do is for those sick and elderly people who need extra help,
• 34:15
  You do a high-risk pool,
• 34:17
  what's called reinsurance.
• 34:18
  It's a special kind of high-risk pool
• 34:20
  that
• 34:21
  basically
• 34:22
  is a lot more elegant and more efficient than what Republicans have,
• 34:25
  have talked about in the past,
• 34:26
  where
• 34:26
  you sign up for healthcare,
• 34:28
  you sign up for insurance on what we now call healthcare.gov,
• 34:31
  and if you're healthy,
• 34:32
  you get a healthy price.
• 34:34
  If you're a sick person,
• 34:35
  you get
• 34:35
  a,
• 34:35
  a reasonable price,
• 34:37
  that's directly subsidized by the taxpayer.
• 34:40
  And that way,
• 34:41
  We're directly covering the cost of pre-existing
• 34:44
  conditions rather than forcing this small segment
• 34:46
  of like 10 million healthy and young uninsured people to pay for it.
• 34:50
  And that makes the premiums lower for everybody.
• 34:52
  So if you want to buy insurance on your own and not get it from your employer,
• 34:55
  everyone will have an affordable option,
• 34:57
  as opposed to now where nobody has an affordable option
• 34:59
  because Obamacare has had this kind of socialized system that doesn't work.
• 35:03
  And then this,
• 35:03
  you know,
• 35:04
  could improve things,
• 35:05
  uh,
• 35:05
  as you point out,
• 35:06
  it's not like the,
• 35:07
  you know,
• 35:07
  that maybe the conservative dream,
• 35:08
  but it is,
• 35:09
  it can improve things.
• 35:10
  There is a trade-off here involved in this,
• 35:13
  and,
• 35:13
  uh,
• 35:14
  you know,
• 35:15
  let's talk about the trade-off and let's talk about
• 35:17
  how we stop it from being an eternal,
• 35:19
  uh,
• 35:20
  negative,
• 35:21
  uh,
• 35:21
  as far as conservative approach goes.
• 35:24
  Yeah,
• 35:24
  so,
• 35:24
  um,
• 35:25
  some of these,
• 35:26
  some of the regulatory reforms that you need to
• 35:29
  make to Obamacare to really drive the premiums down,
• 35:31
  not all of them,
• 35:32
  but some of them
• 35:33
  require 60 votes in the Senate,
• 35:35
  6-0.
• 35:36
  Under our current rules with the filibuster,
• 35:38
  there's certain things you can do through reconciliation,
• 35:41
  uh,
• 35:41
  because they're just purely tax and spend things,
• 35:43
  that's what you could do with 50 votes in the Senate through reconciliation.
• 35:46
  But anything that involves regulation that isn't
• 35:48
  really so much a budgetary reform,
• 35:49
  but a more of a regulatory reform.
• 35:52
  That requires 60 votes in the Senate,
• 35:54
  which means with this current Senate,
• 35:56
  where there are 52 Republicans,
• 35:57
  you need at least 8 Democrats.
• 35:59
  And so,
• 36:00
  how do you get those 8 Democrats
• 36:02
  to sign on
• 36:03
  to a deregulatory agenda for Obamacare?
• 36:06
  You gotta give them something,
• 36:08
  and I argue in that National Review piece that
• 36:11
  the thing you can give them is this temporary
• 36:13
  1 to 2
• 36:14
  year extension or partial extension
• 36:17
  of those Obamacare,
• 36:18
  those Biden era enhanced Obamacare subsidies.
• 36:21
  So just to,
• 36:22
  to refresh the,
• 36:23
  the viewer,
• 36:24
  uh,
• 36:24
  there's the original Obamacare subsidies that were passed along with the
• 36:26
  original law in 2010 that went into effect in 2014.
• 36:30
  The premiums kept going up and up and up,
• 36:32
  and then,
• 36:33
  uh,
• 36:33
  Biden,
• 36:34
  when he was in charge and the Democrats had Congress during COVID,
• 36:37
  they passed a so-called emergency or temporary enhancement
• 36:42
  of those subsidies,
• 36:43
  making it a lot cheaper for uh a,
• 36:46
  you know,
• 36:46
  a person to sign up for Obamacare cause the
• 36:48
  taxpayer was throwing a lot more money at it.
• 36:50
  And those,
• 36:50
  uh,
• 36:51
  those enhanced subsidies are the ones that are set to expire
• 36:54
  at the end of this year that Democrats are now agitating
• 36:57
  to have continue.
• 36:57
  And so my argument is,
• 36:59
  you can
• 37:00
  keep them going for existing enrollees,
• 37:03
  grandfather the existing enrollees,
• 37:04
  so their premiums don't spike.
• 37:06
  But phase them out for everybody else,
• 37:08
  meaning anyone who needs to sign up in the future.
• 37:10
  And then over time,
• 37:11
  they'll start to peter out in terms of the spending,
• 37:14
  but you have this permanent deregulation
• 37:16
  by again making health insurance more affordable for younger and healthy people.
• 37:21
  There you go.
• 37:21
  Uh,
• 37:21
  that's the proposal from Avik Roy.
• 37:23
  You can read about it in the National Review.
• 37:24
  He's the co-founder and chairman of a
• 37:26
  Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity.
• 37:29
  And I'm trying to take an actual pragmatic approach.
• 37:31
  What can we actually improve here?
• 37:32
  It's outlined in National Review.
• 37:34
  Now is the moment to deregulate Obamacare,
• 37:37
  which is a very laudable goal.
• 37:39
  Avik,
• 37:39
  thanks so much for coming on the program.
• 37:40
  It's been,
• 37:41
  it's great to see you and great to talk to you.
• 37:43
  Thanks,
• 37:44
  appreciate it.
• 37:53
  So it's funny,
• 37:53
  I,
• 37:53
  I,
• 37:54
  uh,
• 37:54
  scheduled this Ovik Roy interview you just listened to or watched
• 37:58
  uh last week because I really like him and he's a smart guy who,
• 38:02
  who,
• 38:02
  you know,
• 38:03
  actually talks about policy,
• 38:04
  which almost never happens anymore in our society.
• 38:07
  Um,
• 38:07
  and
• 38:09
  he pitched this thing as if basically like,
• 38:10
  hey,
• 38:11
  we've got this trade-off of a couple of years of dealing with these subsidies,
• 38:13
  but let's get some real permanent reform as a trade-off for that.
• 38:19
  After I scheduled the interview,
• 38:20
  uh,
• 38:20
  and this morning we're looking through the news and we get this,
• 38:22
  White House is to pitch Trump Obamacare extension
• 38:27
  with limits.
• 38:28
  So what appears to be happening here is that Trump
• 38:32
  is going to propose a couple of year temporary
• 38:35
  addition,
• 38:36
  the same thing Ovik was uh was proposing
• 38:38
  of these healthcare subsidies.
• 38:41
  However,
• 38:41
  what I'm looking at the details,
• 38:43
  it doesn't appear that he's going to be getting as much in return.
• 38:46
  One of the things that they're going to ask for
• 38:49
  is a limit on who can get the subsidies.
• 38:51
  So a temporary,
• 38:52
  you're going to shrink the amount of people who can get the subsidies down to,
• 38:55
  I kid you not,
• 38:56
  700%
• 38:58
  of the poverty line.
• 38:59
  Look,
• 39:00
  if you're at 700% of the poverty line,
• 39:01
  you've got nothing to do with poverty.
• 39:03
  It's not,
• 39:04
  they're not in the same category,
• 39:05
  but.
• 39:05
  I guess we're going to do that now.
• 39:08
  I think Obamacare initially kept it at 400% of the poverty line.
• 39:11
  Now we're going to 700%.
• 39:13
  Which is still
• 39:14
  again,
• 39:14
  worse than Obamacare,
• 39:15
  like the thing we're asking for is worse than regular Obamacare.
• 39:19
  I don't even know what we're doing anymore here,
• 39:21
  at least with what Ovik was saying,
• 39:23
  we're getting long-term reforms here.
• 39:24
  This is just a limitation as to what we're paying out.
• 39:27
  Also,
• 39:27
  enrollees would pay a minimum premium payment,
• 39:30
  which is a pretty good,
• 39:31
  um,
• 39:32
  addition
• 39:32
  to this,
• 39:33
  but again,
• 39:33
  nothing really permanent,
• 39:34
  nothing,
• 39:35
  no big deregulation.
• 39:36
  Effort there unfortunately.
• 39:37
  So
• 39:37
  we'll see where this thing ends up.
• 39:39
  Hopefully's proposal will get a little bit more
• 39:42
  traction in this debate.
• 39:44
  Doge has been disbanded again.
• 39:46
  I,
• 39:47
  I will admit I had some high hopes for this.
• 39:49
  I really hoped something would come out of this,
• 39:51
  mainly because,
• 39:52
  you know,
• 39:52
  seeing Elon Musk's approach to his own business,
• 39:54
  I thought maybe he could bring some of that to government.
• 39:56
  Obviously that didn't work out.
• 39:57
  He got ejected from government.
• 39:59
  Um,
• 39:59
  really,
• 39:59
  the savings never really materialized.
• 40:02
  I will say,
• 40:03
  uh,
• 40:03
  if you happen to be early on some of the markets on Calci or Polymarket and said,
• 40:07
  hey,
• 40:07
  I don't think we're going to actually spend a lot
• 40:09
  less this year than we did in previous years,
• 40:11
  there are times you could make some serious returns on that,
• 40:13
  and,
• 40:14
  you know,
• 40:15
  hopefully you did.
• 40:16
  A judge dismisses James Comey and Letitia James cases.
• 40:19
  Not a huge surprise here,
• 40:20
  though I will say
• 40:22
  they can file,
• 40:22
  they will refile these.
• 40:23
  I think they will appeal them and refile them.
• 40:25
  They were,
• 40:27
  they were dismissed without prejudice.
• 40:29
  I will say,
• 40:30
  uh,
• 40:30
  you know,
• 40:31
  I think the way that
• 40:33
  a big problem with what we're having right now,
• 40:35
  I think in the Trump administration with some of these issues,
• 40:37
  some of it's normal Washington annoyances in these courts,
• 40:40
  some of it is just process,
• 40:41
  and a lot of times Trump has an idea he really wants to pursue,
• 40:44
  but the Processes are always buttoned up
• 40:47
  because he's putting people in charge of
• 40:49
  these things that aren't really experienced in these
• 40:51
  areas and sometimes they make mistakes and it seems to have happened in this case.
• 40:56
  We'll see if they can
• 40:57
  put it all back together and refile these charges once again on the other side,
• 41:01
  but that is probably what we're looking at as far as next steps.
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• 41:55
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• 41:59
  with dreams,
• 42:00
  some in my own household,
• 42:01
  uh,
• 42:02
  but even more important than all of these things,
• 42:04
  it,
• 42:05
  it tastes great.
• 42:06
  It's like hot chocolate and it's delicious,
• 42:08
  and they like a cinnamon one.
• 42:09
  And a brownie batter one and the caramel,
• 42:11
  it's like a salted caramel.
• 42:13
  Really good.
• 42:14
  Shopbeam.com/stew.
• 42:16
  Shopbeam.com/stew.
• 42:18
  Use the code stew,
• 42:19
  get 50% off.
• 42:21
  Uh during the Beam cyber sale,
• 42:22
  you can grab Dream for 3250.
• 42:24
  This is,
• 42:24
  uh,
• 42:25
  there's a catch to it,
• 42:26
  and you have to basically get it quickly because it's only available until this.
• 42:30
  Uh,
• 42:30
  batch sells out,
• 42:32
  but then
• 42:33
  why not
• 42:34
  get a great night of sleep with Beam.
• 42:35
  Beam's cyber sale,
• 42:36
  $1.08 dollars per night.
• 42:37
  Go to Shobeam,
• 42:38
  B E A M
• 42:39
  Shobeam.com/to.
• 42:41
  Beam
• 42:42
  today it's Shobeam.com/Stew.
• 42:47
  OK,
• 42:48
  here's what happened.
• 42:50
  You heard the term,
• 42:51
  maybe if you're into crypto,
• 42:52
  uh,
• 42:53
  uh,
• 42:53
  not your keys,
• 42:54
  not your coin.
• 42:56
  Basically,
• 42:56
  if you don't have the keys,
• 42:58
  like you're holding your Bitcoin on an exchange or something,
• 43:00
  it's not really yours.
• 43:01
  Like you have to have that stuff.
• 43:03
  If you don't have it,
• 43:04
  bad things can happen.
• 43:05
  Well,
• 43:05
  cryptographers,
• 43:06
  uh,
• 43:07
  the International Association of Cryptologic Research,
• 43:09
  here they are,
• 43:10
  look at how fun of a party this looks like.
• 43:12
  They were having an election and they were like,
• 43:14
  hey,
• 43:14
  we'll,
• 43:14
  we'll use,
• 43:15
  you know,
• 43:15
  cryptological
• 43:17
  methods to do this.
• 43:19
  Unfortunately,
• 43:19
  they held the election and now they can't decrypt the results.
• 43:24
  Because they lost one of the keys,
• 43:25
  so now I have to just redo it.
• 43:27
  Ah,
• 43:27
  that's sad.
• 43:28
  Oh well,
• 43:28
  not as sad as what happened to the Eagles last night.
• 43:30
  Black Friday,
• 43:31
  right around the corner.
• 43:31
  Right now,
• 43:32
  get $40 off,
• 43:32
  40 bucks.
• 43:33
  Blazetv.com/do.
• 43:35
  Black Friday 40 is the code.