Latest / TFTC: A Bitcoin Podcast / #681: The Health Insurance Death Spiral Is Here with Andy Schoonover

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#681: The Health Insurance Death Spiral Is Here with Andy Schoonover · TFTC: A Bitcoin Podcast

• 0:00
  And it's that time of year again, we meet again.
• 0:01
  Open enrollment is here.
• 0:04
  Everybody's favorite time of the year.
• 0:06
  It's not because of Thanksgiving or Christmas.
• 0:07
  It's because of open enrollment.
• 0:10
  Well, we've been texting pretty frequently over the last couple of months, because obviously
• 0:15
  we've worked together closely for the last four years.
• 0:19
  I've been a crowd health member for the last four years.
• 0:22
  I've had two babies on it.
• 0:23
  And I've been texting you behind the scenes.
• 0:26
  Like, I think this is the year for crowd health.
• 0:27
  If you're looking at the zeitgeist out there, the selfie videos and cars of people complaining about the cost of health insurance, it's getting untenable.
• 0:41
  And you were saying right before we have recorded that you think we're in a health insurance death spiral.
• 0:50
  Yeah, I was trying to think back of when we first talked.
• 0:54
  I think it was three years ago, maybe.
• 0:56
  I think four years ago.
• 0:58
  Four.
• 0:58
  I think when we first talked, we had like 2,000 customers or 2,000 community members.
• 1:04
  And now we're at 15,000.
• 1:08
  We'll have somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 by the end of the year.
• 1:13
  And so, yeah, I mean, I think you're right.
• 1:15
  I mean, this is the year of the health insurance death spiral.
• 1:18
  And I think what's happening is people are finally realizing that the Affordable Care Act actually wasn't affordable.
• 1:24
  and premiums are going up wickedly fast.
• 1:31
  And people are just opting out of the system.
• 1:33
  Like the Bitcoiners are opting out of the fiat system.
• 1:36
  I think the rest of folks are opting out of the healthcare space.
• 1:44
  So the worst one we've seen thus far is $5,600 a month for a family of four.
• 1:50
  That's the record so far.
• 1:52
  Yeah. So this is I was just looking at some tweets before we hopped on it.
• 1:57
  They're not hard to find. If you search ACA premium, it's insane.
• 2:03
  This is trucking czar. Only employee of my business. This is not, I repeat, not sustainable.
• 2:08
  This is my renewal notice for just health insurance per month before Obama.
• 2:13
  And there's some harsh language in there.
• 2:15
  but for him and a five dependents,
• 2:19
  it looks like he's going to be paying 32,
• 2:22
  almost $3,300 a month.
• 2:24
  It's his business.
• 2:24
  So he's eating that chunk too.
• 2:27
  He's going to have to pay $2,600 a month out of pocket from his paycheck
• 2:31
  just to support this.
• 2:35
  Yeah.
• 2:35
  I mean,
• 2:35
  that family with us would be like seven 50 a month.
• 2:40
  Yeah.
• 2:40
  And I didn't know.
• 2:41
  I didn't,
• 2:42
  I didn't see the deductible on that,
• 2:43
  but you know,
• 2:44
  ultimately,
• 2:44
  you know,
• 2:45
  that that guy's paying what thirty thousand dollars a year or something like that.
• 2:48
  And then he's got to pay the deductible on top of that.
• 2:51
  So he's probably forty thousand dollars into his health care before the the insurance company pays a dime.
• 2:59
  Yeah. And here's another one.
• 3:00
  Which is.
• 3:02
  There's Blue Cross Blue Shield.
• 3:05
  Nine options.
• 3:06
  Is that Illinois too?
• 3:09
  It's a health insurance.
• 3:11
  I don't know where this guy is, but deductible, $8,600, $12,000, $3,000, paying upwards of $3,500 a month.
• 3:22
  Why is it getting this bad?
• 3:26
  Yeah, I mean, I think what we're seeing ultimately is that, you know, back almost 15 years ago,
• 3:33
  this Affordable Care Act was supposed to be, you know, make things affordable.
• 3:35
  But in fact, what it did, it is made things way more expensive.
• 3:38
  And it was masked, you know, for the last four years because of the four or the I think it was American Rescue Plan that that basically gave subsidies to the people who were I think it was like 400 percent of the of the poverty level or something.
• 3:56
  And and so it masked all these huge, huge changes.
• 4:00
  And so what what's happening is now these subsidies are going away.
• 4:04
  And so all the healthy people are going, what the health insurance plans actuaries are doing is they're assuming that all the healthy people are going to exit the system, which means you're only having unhealthy people left in the system.
• 4:17
  And therefore, they're going to have the jack up rates to make up for the healthy people subsidizing the unhealthy people.
• 4:25
  I mean, that's the only way that health insurance works is healthy people subsidizing unhealthy people.
• 4:30
  Right.
• 4:30
  And so the mechanics just don't work when all the healthy people exit the system.
• 4:35
  So that's ultimately what's going down here.
• 4:38
  You know, we see above inflationary rates for all the medical services and things like that.
• 4:42
  But that's not what's going to increase ACA by 18 percent.
• 4:46
  I mean, it's a chunk of it, but that's not what it is.
• 4:50
  It's more just the population of patients within these plans are getting sicker.
• 4:56
  Does the government have a plan to solve this?
• 5:00
  No.
• 5:00
  There's no there's no plan to solve this. I mean, even I won't say who, but I saw a state rep or excuse me, a U.S. rep at my funny enough, my my daughter's schools fundraiser.
• 5:15
  So I went up to him. I was like, what's the what's the what's the option? He's like, we have none. We have the Republicans have no alternative.
• 5:22
  They have no solution to the to the problem. And I don't think anything iterative gets there.
• 5:30
  I mean, I think I said it last time I got a whole bunch of shit for it because everybody online is like you.
• 5:34
  And I said, burn. We got to burn the system down and start over again because there's no iterative way of getting back to, you know, something that's actually feasible.
• 5:42
  You know, and then the left basically says, oh, this shows we have to have Medicare for all.
• 5:47
  And we know what happens when the government gets involved in this stuff. Right.
• 5:51
  So we're either at what we have or Medicare for all. And the Republicans really haven't put together, you know, a plan for, you know, what there is.
• 6:01
  But I don't like government involvement in anything we do, but I think that people maybe should have a choice where let us healthy people have access to private plans of healthy people.
• 6:11
  And we're going to pay way, way less. And maybe there's some government subsidization of the sick or something, you know, like maybe there's a hybrid system here that works.
• 6:19
  Again, I know we're all Bitcoiners.
• 6:21
  Like, I don't want the government involved.
• 6:23
  But like at some point, like, you know, for these sick people, unless we want to continue
• 6:28
  to subsidize them, let's let them let's let the healthy people have our plans and the
• 6:33
  unhealthy people have their plans.
• 6:35
  And, you know, if that's not enough of an incentive to stay healthy, I don't know what
• 6:39
  it is.
• 6:40
  Right.
• 6:40
  Like the last thing you want to do is jump on a government, you know, unhealthy person
• 6:44
  plan.
• 6:44
  So it would have to be government subsidized, which means it's a taxpayer type of deal.
• 6:48
  But I think it's actually going to be less than what they're spending on the ACA this year.
• 6:52
  So I think it's not, you know, massive amounts more money going out the door.
• 6:59
  But I think there's got to be some kind of significant change to the system to get this thing right sized, because I don't I don't see any other options, honestly.
• 7:07
  I wonder if everybody can join CrowdHealth, that would solve it.
• 7:10
  Yeah. I wonder if Trump's I'm sure you saw the announcement earlier this week, I think it was yesterday or the day before about discounted Zempick.
• 7:19
  Like, do you think they're seeing this problem?
• 7:22
  And to your point, what is driving the cost up is the unhealthy people.
• 7:27
  And was this Zempick move like, OK, let's make Zempick cheap for people so that we can try to make them skinnier.
• 7:33
  And I don't I'm not going to speak to the efficacy of Zempick.
• 7:36
  I know there's many people are for it and many were against it.
• 7:39
  and many who believe that there hasn't been enough time to really understand how it affects people in the long term.
• 7:47
  But I think I would not be shocked if the Zempick discounts that the government is sort of forcing on the market is a recognition of,
• 7:56
  OK, we've got these massive health care costs are only ballooning and they continue to balloon.
• 8:01
  They're predominantly driven due to the fact that we have to provide health care to people that are willfully unhealthy, obese, have heart disease.
• 8:09
  I mean, look, I think that there's something to be said for people who are significantly overweight, who have diabetes and all these other conditions to take something like this to get them down to a weight that's manageable.
• 8:26
  Once they get down to that weight, I don't know how you'd structure this, but like once they get down to this, that weight, then they're like, OK, now you've got to pay it for yourself for yourself.
• 8:36
  Like, so it's not a burden on others or you've got to keep the weight off, right?
• 8:42
  Like you can't go back because everything that I've seen is, you know, as epic is great until you get off it.
• 8:47
  Then you gain all the weight back.
• 8:48
  So, you know, I don't think we're in a structure where you can pay a thousand dollars a month or whatever it is.
• 8:53
  I know that he said he's going to bring it down to what, 150 or something like that.
• 8:58
  You just can't continue to do that without, you know, the person making the lifestyle choices, having some skin in the game.
• 9:05
  you know because if that happens it's you and i the taxpayers are going to pay this and for the
• 9:11
  rest of their life which is not scalable we just can't we just can't do that right um so i think i
• 9:18
  think people have to pay out of their pocket for it at some point or they're going to make lifestyle
• 9:22
  changes i think the latter would be preferable that's why but for sure 100 yeah but i think that
• 9:31
  But, you know, incentives are everything.
• 9:33
  So if you're stuck with this situation, which you have to make a lifestyle change or you have to come out of pocket for 200 bucks a month or whatever it ends up being to the consumer, then I think incentives might change some some some lifestyle changes.
• 9:45
  I don't know if 200 bucks a month or 150 or whatever it is, is enough, but I know it's got to hit their pocket.
• 9:50
  Yeah. Well, this is something you focus on pretty heavily at CrowdHealth is making sure that community members are doing their best to remain healthy as well for the benefit of the wider community.
• 10:05
  Yeah. I mean, I ultimately think that the healthy people should be paying less than the unhealthy people. You know, I think in many parts of society, people are like, oh, that's awful for you to say. But look, you know, if people are putting in the work to be healthy, then they should be paying less. They should be paying less for healthcare services than the people who are unhealthy. Right.
• 10:26
  And so, you know, we've got a we got a program at a crowd health where we've got three different tests that you can take.
• 10:32
  And if you are in the top quartile for those tests, I mean, you know, in the top quartile healthiest, then you get a 20 percent discount on on your crowd health.
• 10:40
  So in essence, those who are taking better care of themselves are paying less.
• 10:44
  And ultimately, I think that's that's the case.
• 10:45
  I think we talked before on your other part on previous podcasts where, you know, you do that for help for for car insurance.
• 10:52
  you know you these car insurance yeah you like you know stick something in your in your car or
• 10:58
  you have an app or something that shows how good of a driver you are if you're a good driver you
• 11:02
  pay less if you're not a good driver you pay more i mean that seems like a reasonable a reasonable
• 11:06
  thing but for health care for some reason it's you know appalling to a lot of people that i would
• 11:11
  even even recommend that um but i think ultimately that's where we have to go so people feel it in
• 11:17
  their pocketbooks or else they're just they're they're going to the grocery store with somebody
• 11:20
  else's credit card yeah right no and to my point of the uh opening sort of statement like i feel
• 11:29
  like this year particularly i don't know if you're seeing it and observing it yourself but it feels
• 11:34
  like with these preview increases it's gotten to the point where it's forcing many people to
• 11:41
  seriously reconsider whether or not they want to engage in health insurance because it's beginning
• 11:46
  that materially hit their pocketbooks. Yeah, I think that's right. And that's what I think is
• 11:52
  kind of why people are forecasting the death spiral of health insurance.
• 11:57
  What are the incentives for me, right? If I'm going to pay $2,000 a month, so $24,000 a year,
• 12:04
  plus a $10,000 deductible, $34,000. If I'm a healthy person, I look at that and say,
• 12:09
  what's the probability that I'm going to have $34,000 worth of healthcare expenses this year?
• 12:15
  and and for most of us it's incredibly low you know half a percent a percent something like that
• 12:22
  and so people just do the math and bit no bitcoiners are great at this and and work on
• 12:26
  probabilities and most people are being like it's just not worth it i'm just going to self-fund
• 12:30
  and if god forbid something happens i'll you know try to negotiate the shit out of it
• 12:35
  and you know ultimately that's what we do at crowd health and we probably should have just
• 12:39
  like a negotiating uh product like hey if you're uninsured and you just want us to help you negotiate
• 12:44
  We should have a negotiation product. But, you know, I think that's I think that's the mindset that people are taking right now.
• 12:51
  And so I think a lot of people are just going to dump health insurance and start paying paying on their own, which ultimately I think is a good thing, because I think people need to to, you know, need to feel the the consequences of the health care decisions that they're making.
• 13:05
  and well this is a whole other aspect of it and why i love our ongoing conversations
• 13:11
  i mean i sent you this tweet i forget it was yesterday or the day before but that
• 13:15
  individual mucund mohan tweeted that he took one of his hospital bills and fed it to claude
• 13:24
  and basically it highlighted how the hospital was double triple quadruple
• 13:31
  charging him for things that didn't make any sense.
• 13:34
  And it was able to reduce his bill down by like 85%
• 13:37
  just by giving him some advice on how the system actually works.
• 13:41
  So you have this inflated cost being driven by the unhealthy member of societies
• 13:46
  that are driving actual cost up.
• 13:48
  And then you have this sort of administrative bloat and what it goes,
• 13:53
  would you call it fraud?
• 13:55
  Like whatever it is that is.
• 13:57
  I mean, I would call it fraud.
• 13:58
  Yeah. Fraud on top of it by the hospital system. So try to gouge you for even more.
• 14:04
  Yeah. I mean, we we we also have our internal, you know, AI platform that we don't we use.
• 14:13
  We don't use Claude. We use a different kind of platform built on another LLM.
• 14:18
  That's all, you know, HIPAA compliant and stuff. So I'm not giving away data that does the same thing.
• 14:23
  but we pair it with what we know that hospital has done in the past.
• 14:29
  So it basically looks for shenanigans that they've done in the past.
• 14:35
  Plus, what have they been willing to negotiate to in the past?
• 14:39
  So if you combine just kind of fraudulent billing activities with what they've tried to do in the past
• 14:45
  with what they've been willing to take in terms of payment in the past,
• 14:49
  that I think is the magic trio where you can get the absolute best prices.
• 14:55
  And that ultimately what what we what we good at is getting that that best price Because you can you can you know take a fifty thousand dollar bill and say you made one mistake and it goes down to forty two thousand dollars which is awesome
• 15:09
  But how do you get it down to something actually manageable?
• 15:13
  Because the forty two thousand is still probably four hundred or five hundred percent, you know, higher than Medicare, which you should be at kind of one hundred and twenty five to one hundred fifty percent of Medicare.
• 15:23
  Maybe that's a fair price.
• 15:24
  And so if you don't know that, then, you know, how are you going to really negotiate that bill?
• 15:30
  Because that's why I think errors is one component of a broader negotiation picture that we really use on our side to ensure that that our members are getting the best price.
• 15:40
  So I think this, you know, I think it is fraudulent.
• 15:43
  I, you know, you, I was in Bitcoin Commons just a year and a half ago and I had my issue where I had, you know, I thought I was having a stroke.
• 15:53
  And thank God Parker was right outside the office.
• 15:57
  I was like, Parker, call 911.
• 15:58
  I think Will actually called 911 or, you know, one of the two of them did.
• 16:02
  And, you know, I went to the hospital and they put me in on an IV, even though I wasn't dehydrated.
• 16:09
  So it was an IV.
• 16:10
  I was on an IV for 12 hours.
• 16:11
  It was a thousand milliliters.
• 16:13
  I can buy that off of Amazon for $8.
• 16:16
  The hospital can buy it for $2.
• 16:18
  I got charged $5,000 for a bag, a thousand milliliter bag of saline solution.
• 16:27
  That's insane.
• 16:29
  Well, saltwater, it's saltwater people like that.
• 16:32
  That's what that's what this is.
• 16:34
  And that's that's the egregiousness of these hospitals when they try to do this crap.
• 16:38
  What percentage of bills have errors like this or fraudulent like this?
• 16:43
  80. Yeah, 80, 80 are very, very clear, I would say there's another 10% that you can make a really
• 16:51
  good argument. Because a lot of times they use these billing codes, and they they try to jack
• 16:58
  the system so they can upcode you. So you know, for example, if you go to the ER, there's five
• 17:03
  codes that they can use. And it's goes from one to five, not to bore you, but like one to five,
• 17:09
  And like 80 percent, 80 some odd percent of our bills are nine are the fours or the fives, which meaning there's like critical life threatening.
• 17:19
  Like those are the two. I mean, I've seen somebody go into the ER with a broken finger and get critical or life threatening coded.
• 17:28
  Yet yet they say, you know, they do all these tests and things on you to say, oh, well, we thought, you know, there might be too much loss of blood or something.
• 17:38
  And so that gets it to that critical area.
• 17:40
  But they're all they're trying to do is get as much money out of the insurance companies as possible.
• 17:44
  So we see that stuff all the time.
• 17:47
  Yeah, all the time.
• 17:48
  And we've we've talked about we've talked about this in the past, but for the benefit of anybody who's coming to our large and growing show was not listen to an episode with Andy yet.
• 18:00
  But can you describe the dynamic between the health insurance company and the health provider and what their incentives are, the level of collusion or sort of cooperation there is between the two?
• 18:15
  Yeah. So, you know, back in 2009, the Affordable Care Act went into place.
• 18:21
  Um, and you know, what they did is they said, they told the hospitals, like the federal government
• 18:27
  told the hospitals, you can, or excuse me, the insurance companies, you can only make 15% of
• 18:31
  revenue as profit. So, you know, it's a thousand dollars of premium for this month for my family,
• 18:38
  they can only profit $150. And the thought process behind that, right. All these smart,
• 18:43
  you know, lawyers in DC thought, oh, well, we can't have health insurance plans,
• 18:49
  gouge their members and make a ton of money off of their healthcare. So I'm going to limit the
• 18:56
  amount that you can profit. Well, the problem with this is that most of these health insurance
• 19:01
  plans are for-profit organizations, right? So they want to get their 150, they want to grow at 10%
• 19:06
  to 165. What does that mean? That means your premium has to go from $1,000 to $1,100.
• 19:12
  So your insurance plan, the buyer of healthcare wants the price to go up.
• 19:19
  The sellers are these big hospital systems. They clearly want the price to go up.
• 19:23
  So, you know, you don't have to kind of say you don't have to be a safety in Ph.D. in economics to understand if the buyer and the seller of a product want the price to go up.
• 19:34
  Guess what? The prices go up. And so, you know, that's ultimately what's happening is there's this there's this wink wink between the hospitals and the health insurance plans that, you know, the hospitals won't raise prices too fast.
• 19:46
  So there's no regulatory intervention. Health insurance companies won't push back when you, you know, increase prices five or six percent every year, which on a compounded rate, as we all understand, is like massive.
• 19:58
  And then you'll see these entanglements once in a while where the hospital, you know, tries for seven or eight or nine percent increases and the health insurance plan pushes back.
• 20:07
  And I think it's more theatrics than anything. But yeah, yeah, you have the buyer and the seller of health care both having an incentive for the price to go up.
• 20:14
  You know, and so in essence, we have a principal agent problem, right? They're supposed to be our agent. The health insurance plans are supposed to be our agent trying to get us the best price, where what happens is they're actually benefiting, benefiting for the prices going up over time. So those are the perverse incentives within within health care. And so what I tell people is, Marty, Andy, I've got more negotiating power against these, these hospitals than United Health Care, which is the seventh or eighth largest company on the planet.
• 20:42
  And, you know, so I can get way better prices.
• 20:46
  Our members are getting prices that are about 50 percent better than United Healthcare as individuals.
• 20:54
  Yeah, that's how that's how screwed up our system is.
• 20:56
  And going back to your point about United Healthcare and the fact that ACA was really trying to make it so these health insurance companies weren't gouging their customers at the end of the day.
• 21:09
  and you had this principal agent problem that has existed.
• 21:13
  That's one thing I didn't realize until somebody tweeted out earlier today.
• 21:18
  But if you go back and you open up, you know, your health care's stock chart going to max.
• 21:28
  We have ACA implemented here, around here.
• 21:33
  It was trading at below $100.
• 21:37
  It's up almost 300%.
• 21:38
  Obviously, it's down bad this year, but it's obvious that their profits have gone up significantly since the ACA was instituted.
• 21:47
  Yeah, if you look at all the health insurance plans, you'll see that.
• 21:52
  Yeah.
• 21:52
  Yeah.
• 21:52
  I mean, these were behind the scenes.
• 21:55
  These health insurance plans love this because, in essence, they're getting paid directly by the government for stuff that they hadn't been paid for in the past.
• 22:03
  And so this ACA marketplace was a whole new marketplace for them that they gorged upon.
• 22:10
  The other thing that was going on there, too, is there a privatization of Medicare, which typically we really love privatization.
• 22:17
  I think in the Bitcoin community is all about taking it away from the federal government.
• 22:21
  But in essence, what this is, is this is just a federal program being administered by a for-profit entity.
• 22:28
  And so you actually have the worst of both worlds, which is, you know, a government funding with a private entity trying to maximize profit, which means there's some gaming between that that happens.
• 22:39
  And the reason why it's down this year, UnitedHealthcare is down this year is, you know, they have been found to be gaming the system.
• 22:47
  And, you know, there's a there's a chart.
• 22:52
  I don't know. It was maybe six months ago, maybe nine months ago, something like that, where they showed the percentage of people within UnitedHealthcare who have diabetes was something like five or six times the national average.
• 23:03
  and it's because they figured out a way to code all of these people as diabetics.
• 23:10
  So they get paid more from the government.
• 23:13
  So it's a total gaming of the system.
• 23:17
  The government pays them based upon how sick they are.
• 23:20
  And so United went and basically said, all these people are way sicker, you know, than
• 23:24
  they actually were by all this, you know, in creative coding.
• 23:27
  So they get paid more by the government for these folks.
• 23:30
  So they kind of they are being investigated by the DOJ now for, you know, basically fraudulent Medicare billing.
• 23:41
  So let me add allegedly, allegedly.
• 23:45
  So UnitedHealthcare doesn't come and sue me.
• 23:48
  Allegedly, that's what they're doing.
• 23:49
  But again, I'm back to the principal agent problem.
• 23:52
  Like you said, you would like these programs to be private.
• 23:56
  But since there's a tight partnership between UnitedHealthcare and the government, it's not really that private.
• 24:03
  And then UnitedHealthcare, UnitedHealth, excuse me, has all the incentive to create that moat, that regulatory moat.
• 24:10
  It's like, no, the partnership is us and the government, nobody else.
• 24:13
  And we're going to bleed the taxpayer dry, allegedly.
• 24:18
  Yeah, that's exactly what's going on.
• 24:21
  And, you know, then we had Luigi, you know, at the end of last year, I think it was December of last year, maybe, which I think did.
• 24:29
  And I'm wholly against it. It did. It did shine some light on some of the things that, you know, these big health insurance plans were doing.
• 24:37
  And so I think they've gotten a new level of scrutiny from others that combined with the ACA subsidies running out, combined with, you know, this government shutdown.
• 24:48
  I think there's a lot of scrutiny on these health insurance plans right now. And that's why we're just we're overwhelmed with what the number of people calling us, you know, looking for a real, real alternative.
• 25:00
  Because we've built something, you know, based upon, you know, as much as we could Bitcoin principles, which is like the incentives have all got to be aligned for the system to work.
• 25:09
  And so, you know, typically health insurance plans, they bring in premiums, they have claims and everything in between is profit.
• 25:17
  So what do they want? They want the premiums to go up and they want the claims to go down. Right. So to maximize their profit.
• 25:22
  And so, you know, we set up and I thought a lot about this when I started the company is like, how do you how do you incentivize the system, you know, have incentives aligned?
• 25:29
  And so we're just a subscription fee. You know, it's like, let's just you subscribe to be part of the membership.
• 25:35
  And therefore, we have the incentive to keep prices down so that more people, you know, come and join us.
• 25:41
  we also have an incentive to get your your bills paid because it doesn't directly impact our yearly
• 25:47
  profits but if we don't get a bill if i don't get marty's you know pregnancy paid and marty goes on
• 25:52
  twitter and says crowd health sucks they didn't pay my bill like that that's the worst thing ever
• 25:57
  that could happen for me you know startup so i have all the incentive in the world to to get
• 26:01
  these bills paid so just to be clear i was oh sorry yeah they know what i meant uh i know i know
• 26:10
  But we've, yeah, it's 2025, Marty. You never know.
• 26:13
  We've successfully had two children paid for their births via, via crowd health.
• 26:18
  It's been an incredible experience. And you just said like for us, we're a family of five now.
• 26:23
  I think we're paying 750 a month. We supplement that with direct primary care all in.
• 26:29
  It's like 900 and 950 a month for a family of five, which we're going above and beyond with the direct primary care as well.
• 26:36
  We don't necessarily need that. We just like to have that.
• 26:40
  I think you guys are $6.95 a month, but same thing.
• 26:45
  And direct primary care, too, which basically is a subscription fee to a doctor that you can call anytime.
• 26:53
  If you're a member of CrowdHealth, I don't know if you're doing this, Marty, but you can submit $300 of that to the crowd, and it's fully eligible for funding.
• 27:03
  We like these subscription-based businesses because they don't have any incentive to see you sick.
• 27:08
  no i mean that's that's the bottom line and everybody else is getting paid out there to
• 27:14
  see you sick because they're a fee-for-service type of situation like the the doctor that you
• 27:19
  go to if they see the more times he sees you you become a recurring revenue stream whereas you know
• 27:24
  marty's dpc doctor is paying every every month and he's got an incentive to see you healthy because
• 27:30
  if you're not healthy he's you're calling him a lot which means it's you're more expensive to him
• 27:35
  so he's trying to he or she is trying to keep you healthy the incentives are aligned there so we're
• 27:40
  we're huge advocates of dpc direct primary care yeah i mean and it's one of those things too
• 27:46
  where there is such a mental barrier for people and i know i was i wasn't apprehensive but i was
• 27:52
  like okay this is new when i first joined crowd health four years ago and then when i originally
• 27:57
  joined we had dpc in austin we were living there as well and it's a bit foreign and it seems like
• 28:04
  you're taking a risk. But once you get onboarded and you live the experience for three months,
• 28:10
  six months, it's like, oh, this is a much better experience. I don't know how this wasn't the way
• 28:16
  I was doing it before. I'm never going back. And I imagine that is the biggest hurdle for
• 28:21
  CrowdHealth as a company is really getting people over that mental barrier of believing that there
• 28:28
  is a better way. Health insurance isn't the only way to do things.
• 28:31
  yeah i mean the the biggest barrier is uh people like what what happens if the what
• 28:40
  money have the big one like the other big health event um and i think ultimately what's changed for
• 28:46
  us over the last year is we've had enough big health events where people are finally comfortable
• 28:51
  that we can help them get big health events paid i mean i don't know if i talked about it on the
• 28:56
  last one but the the guy who uh did i talk about the guy who shot himself in the last one that we
• 29:00
  we talked about i don't recall and i feel like i would recall that too so i don't think you did
• 29:04
  yeah well we had we had a guy in montana over the summer who uh who is who is uh fishing in montana
• 29:13
  and he had a 44 in his revolve in his holster and he caught a fish he leaned down and the 44
• 29:19
  fell out of his holster hit a rock perfectly and the gun went off and the bullet went into his calf
• 29:27
  out the back of his calf, into his thigh, out the top of his thigh, into his chest and out the back.
• 29:34
  Totally destroyed his gallbladder, destroyed his intestines.
• 29:38
  You know, he said he looked down on his chest and green stuff, I think it was bile,
• 29:42
  was basically coming out of his chest.
• 29:45
  So we, you know, his wife was with him, thank God.
• 29:50
  You know, she took off her shirt.
• 29:51
  He thought he hit the femoral artery.
• 29:53
  So she tied a shirt around his thigh ran up to the top of the hill called 911 A helicopter came in and pulled him out of the stream basically to get him to the hospital He went into a coma at the hospital And you know I think he was in
• 30:11
  the coma for two or three weeks, something like that. And then he had to drive home from Montana
• 30:15
  to California because they wouldn't let him on an airplane. He got sepsis on the way home.
• 30:20
  And so, you know, that was almost a million dollar bill. And the crowd funded that with no problem.
• 30:27
  Um, and so I think that, you know, most of the people have to just get over the hurdle of like,
• 30:32
  what if something really catastrophic happens? You know, we got a person at MD Anderson right now,
• 30:36
  who's got stage four melanoma or something, something like that. I think it's melanoma.
• 30:42
  Um, and so we've, we've taken care of dozens of cancer patients and, you know, these other big
• 30:47
  events. And so it's like, man, we can do this. Like the community can do this. We've got 15,000
• 30:52
  people. We'll probably have somewhere between 20 and 25,000 people by the end of the year.
• 30:56
  that's a big group of people to be able to get these bills funded so we've shown over 25 000
• 31:03
  bills that we can get these things get these things funded right that's the that's the biggest
• 31:08
  hurdle for people to get over i think is is can you get the big bills funded well and you've been
• 31:14
  really beating the drum on next in your outward marketing is that like health care should be
• 31:19
  deflationary and you alluded to it earlier but that's the goal and as the community scales
• 31:24
  it should be able at least your monthly payment to come down significantly and obviously you guys
• 31:30
  are negotiating bills on top of that so the sticker price um is heavily discounted in many
• 31:37
  cases i think that's one of the best things you guys do on on x is highlight all the discounts
• 31:43
  you're able to get your yeah or yeah our prices are six to eight percent lower depending upon the
• 31:49
  month this year than they were last year. So something is wrong with the system when you're
• 31:54
  seeing 18% premium increases, but we're seeing prices drop by 6% to 8%. So, you know,
• 32:04
  come join us, help us continue to change this. The more people we have on the boat,
• 32:10
  the better it's going to be, the faster the prices are going to drop from my perspective.
• 32:14
  So. Yeah. Do you think this is the year that many people wake up to this?
• 32:25
  If there's if if our phone calls are any indicator, yes.
• 32:31
  I mean, I was on the phone for two hours today doing sales calls.
• 32:35
  You know, I'm the I'm the CEO. I'm doing sales calls.
• 32:37
  And funny enough, the last guy that I talked to found out us from your podcast is like, how do you find out about us?
• 32:43
  He's like, oh, yeah, TFTC.
• 32:45
  I was like, yeah, I'm talking to Marty this afternoon.
• 32:46
  He's like, well, tell him I said hello.
• 32:48
  So Jeremy, I think is his name, said hello.
• 32:50
  He's a listener of yours.
• 32:50
  He probably will listen to this.
• 32:53
  You know, we're getting people from all over the place.
• 32:55
  We're still about 20 or 25 percent of our customers are Bitcoiners, which is awesome.
• 33:00
  And man, if we can get more Bitcoiners, then we can do some phenomenal things on the Bitcoin side that I think could change not only, you know, health care, but the Bitcoin system or the financial system.
• 33:11
  Excuse me.
• 33:11
  um you know so we we're we're i'm dying for more bitcoiners because they're the best customers too
• 33:17
  um you know they're not entitled they're like awesome they like they understand you know how
• 33:23
  the system works um so it's cool to have bitcoiners as a part of the community um and so yeah i think
• 33:31
  this is the year i think this is the year that it happens so we got we got more customers in the last
• 33:36
  four days of October than we did in any other month in 2025. That's insane. Is that four days?
• 33:43
  Is that purely because of open enrollment or just, um, only, only, uh, of we, we, we signed up, um,
• 33:52
  1500 customers in October. Um, so we almost signed up as many, you know, customers in October as I
• 33:59
  had total when I was with you. And I think we had been two years into it. Um, something like that.
• 34:04
  only 90 of them were open enrollment people.
• 34:08
  Only 90 of them had one one start dates,
• 34:10
  which tells me that the vast majority of those people
• 34:12
  are learning about the company and jumping on
• 34:15
  as opposed to doing it just for open enrollment.
• 34:20
  So I think that's an indicator of something good happening this year.
• 34:28
  Yeah. I mean, we've talked about it in years past
• 34:29
  about how Bitcoin can help this model,
• 34:32
  But how has that thinking around Bitcoin being used in this model evolved over the last year specifically?
• 34:40
  Yeah, I mean, this year I've started to have conversations with hospital systems about accepting Bitcoin.
• 34:47
  And I've got some very large hospital systems, ones that you would probably recognize the names of, who are at least interested in accepting Bitcoin.
• 34:57
  which I think is an incredible step.
• 35:03
  And ultimately what we want to do is
• 35:05
  we want to get enough Bitcoiners within the community
• 35:09
  who are willing to receive and then pay in Bitcoin
• 35:13
  and then enough of these hospital systems
• 35:15
  who are willing to receive in Bitcoin
• 35:17
  to create some Bitcoin circularity within healthcare.
• 35:22
  The number just came out for total healthcare spend this year
• 35:25
  and it's 5.6 trillion.
• 35:27
  And so, man, if we can just make a little dent in that $5.6 trillion of paying in Bitcoin, that would be pretty special.
• 35:36
  In our database of Bitcoin doctors, doctors who want to accept Bitcoin is growing.
• 35:41
  And the more people we have as a part of CrowdHealth, the easier it is to get those doctors orange-pilled because now we have the supply and the demand, right?
• 35:51
  So it's a little bit of a chicken and an egg.
• 35:55
  But that's why I'm so passionate about getting more Bitcoiners involved, because I need people who want to pay in Bitcoin to be able to get people who want to receive in Bitcoin.
• 36:04
  And so that's ultimately what we're working towards.
• 36:06
  So I think in the next 12 to 24 months, we're going to see a significant change in the way that we operate in terms of integrating Bitcoin into what we do.
• 36:17
  You know, right now we're working with Fold. You know, the Fold guys well, where you can not to get into too much of the mechanics, but ultimately, you know, we don't ask you for the full amount every single month because if the community is doing really, really well, then we allow you to keep that money.
• 36:36
  You know, with the insurance system, if the company, if the community is doing really, really well, the insurance company makes the money.
• 36:43
  In our case, you make the money, but there's a kind of a margin between our maximum ask and what we actually ask.
• 36:51
  So for an individual, we ask 140 total max, but we only asked for 85 last month.
• 36:58
  So that remaining, what is that, 55 is automatically stacked in your fold account.
• 37:04
  so it's sent to your fold account converted to bitcoin and stacked and so it's almost like a way
• 37:11
  to you know stack sats by also playing your your health care you know and fortunately we started in
• 37:16
  2021 and you know so it was a great time to be stacking bitcoin in in the latter half of 2021
• 37:22
  when it kind of took that big that big debt and so we've been stacking the entire way so i think
• 37:27
  people have made probably you know hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars by stacking
• 37:34
  sats with crowd health as a result of just this little cool component of Bitcoin. But we're trying
• 37:39
  to integrate Bitcoin more into everything that we do. I mean, it's an important part of my life.
• 37:44
  80% of my liquid assets are in Bitcoin. So it's important to me to see it succeed.
• 37:50
  We do have a little bit of a Bitcoin treasury. It's not massive. I'm trying to talk my board
• 37:55
  into growing that. But we're all in on the Bitcoin side. And in fact, all of our Bitcoin members,
• 38:02
  You actually get a care advocate internally at CrowdHealth who is also a Bitcoiner.
• 38:07
  And so you can chat Bitcoin and health at the same time.
• 38:09
  But he knows how Bitcoin operates.
• 38:12
  And he was at the Bitcoin conference in Vegas last year.
• 38:15
  And he'll be there again in April.
• 38:19
  The Fold integration has been incredible because I have it turned on.
• 38:24
  Oh, you do? Cool.
• 38:25
  I'm on my CrowdHealth account and I'll open fold because I use the debit card just to check the rewards balance.
• 38:32
  I'll notice my other Bitcoin balance is higher than it was before.
• 38:35
  I'm like, oh, yeah, CrowdHealth is just passively.
• 38:38
  Passively.
• 38:38
  It's like set it and forget it.
• 38:39
  You're just stacking Bitcoin and you don't even think about it.
• 38:42
  It's a pretty cool thing.
• 38:44
  Yeah.
• 38:45
  Do you think – I mean, we talked about it earlier.
• 38:49
  Does the government have any plans to change this?
• 38:51
  No.
• 38:52
  So it seems like health insurance, the industry, as you said, could be in a death spiral if all these healthy people are leaving the plans.
• 39:01
  What are these health insurance companies going to do?
• 39:02
  What are these hospital systems going to do?
• 39:04
  Is this going to be, I mean, I know people gave you flack for saying it last year when you were on, but I agree with you.
• 39:11
  I think we need to burn the system down and re-architect it from the ground up.
• 39:15
  Do you think this spiral is a forcing function for more distributed health care that actually makes sense and is affordable?
• 39:22
  I mean, I think I think we step back, right? Like, why? Why does the government not have any really good solutions? It's because the health care spends more on lobbying than any other industry between insurance, pharma, hospitals.
• 39:40
  They have a massive amount of lobbying in D.C., and so they want to continue the status quo because they're all making a crap load of money with the status quo.
• 39:51
  So I don't think things change there.
• 39:54
  You know, I really do believe that there's probably something here in terms of, you know, who owns Congress and the presidency in the next cycle, because I would say that probably, you know, if if this thing swings left, it's probably on a path to Medicare for all.
• 40:13
  You know, so we'll all have, you know, government, you know, insurance.
• 40:18
  And that's a pretty scary thought from my perspective.
• 40:22
  So I sure as hell don't want, you know, the government to be in between me and my my doctor.
• 40:26
  Like, that just doesn't sound fun.
• 40:28
  I don't want the government having access to all my medical records.
• 40:31
  That that is kind of totally contrary to what, you know, Bitcoiners believe and what I believe.
• 40:37
  But I think, you know, unless we come up with a really good solution, I think that that's going to be the only other option.
• 40:44
  I mean, look, I'm naive in some ways, probably, but.
• 40:48
  I'm hoping over the next couple of years, like we can really grow into something that says like, hey, if we can build systems to enable people to pay their doctor directly for small or big bills, like, why don't we do it this way?
• 41:02
  Right. Like, I don't I don't think big insurance has to be the way.
• 41:07
  So we're pouring a crap load of money into getting the word out there so that we can build big enough.
• 41:15
  Because I think back in 2010 or whatever, when Tesla was making its run, I don't think anybody would have been able to say, oh, well, the majority of cars being sold are going to be EVs.
• 41:28
  And now here we are.
• 41:30
  It's not a majority, but it's getting there.
• 41:33
  You know, and so I think that a lot of these innovations come out of things that people come up with that they're like, there's no way in hell this is going to happen.
• 41:41
  I think our model is significantly better.
• 41:43
  And if our model is used by everyone, we can take that five point six trillion and cut it in half.
• 41:48
  I mean, it's, you know, probably a couple of trillion dollars a year cut out of the system.
• 41:53
  And that would take a lot of food off the table for for people.
• 41:56
  But I mean, it would also enable us to balance our budget and lower taxes and all those types of things, too.
• 42:02
  So I truly believe our model can work, you know, at scale for just about anybody if given the opportunity.
• 42:10
  I don't know. I don't know what other option the government.
• 42:13
  I mean, I don't I haven't heard any options out of the government that make as much sense as this.
• 42:18
  Well, you mentioned it would take food off the table of people, but that's.
• 42:23
  In my mind, I imagine it would be the unproductive administrative layer that's been injected into the health care system.
• 42:31
  that really doesn't nerve the money at the end of the day.
• 42:35
  Well, dude, I haven't said this publicly,
• 42:38
  but I had my first death threat about a month ago.
• 42:44
  You know, we had this guy who was, you know,
• 42:46
  parking outside of my house.
• 42:49
  And yeah, and ultimately I got a note that says,
• 42:55
  I'm going to effing kill you all.
• 42:57
  and so
• 43:00
  you know
• 43:01
  ultimately the police got him
• 43:03
  thank god
• 43:04
  but you know
• 43:07
  and all the police would say
• 43:09
  is he has an ideological difference with the
• 43:11
  company
• 43:11
  I don't know what that means
• 43:14
  they wouldn't give me any more information than that
• 43:16
  but I mean I think you start
• 43:18
  taking off people's food
• 43:20
  off of people's table
• 43:21
  or their inability to put food on the table
• 43:24
  and you piss off a lot of people
• 43:26
  and and and that's just gonna happen um so i think you know we're there's this great like
• 43:37
  quote in moneyball and i don't know if you ever seen moneyball yeah i've read it too yeah it's like
• 43:43
  the first guy through the door is always or through the wall is always bloodied you know
• 43:49
  it's like everybody who's got their hand on the steering wheel you know the hand on the stick you
• 43:53
  know, driving the is is pissed when you upset the way that they do business, you know, the way you
• 43:59
  play the game, you know, and it's people are upset. You know, I think more and more if we not only
• 44:05
  have 15,000, but if we have 150,000, you know, I think more and more people are going to be upset
• 44:10
  about it. And so, you know, not to play the victim or whatever, but we had to like increase security
• 44:15
  in our house and and all these kinds of things, you know, load the guns and, you know, I'm sorry
• 44:22
  to hear that it's terrifying take some protection um and and look i i can't say with 100 certainty
• 44:28
  was around you know the health the medical industrial complex being pissed but there's
• 44:32
  there's enough evidence there that they're really ticked at what we're doing and um so we just
• 44:37
  gotta deal with that so what my kids were freaked out as you can imagine my seven and nine year old
• 44:44
  when the cops you know are all over your house like that's a pretty traumatic you know experience
• 44:50
  So it was it was it was quite a couple of days in the Spoonover household.
• 44:56
  Well it fascinating as it is I mean you mentioned Luigi Maggioni Obviously we don condone that Obviously we don condone death threats against you either But it looks like both sides are sort of fighting for control over over this system or the options to access health care
• 45:13
  And I witnessed this first firsthand, not a death threat, but like people who in the health care industry that like to chirp at you guys when we collaborated on LinkedIn to post the AI.
• 45:28
  video that we made and I saw
• 45:30
  obviously I was getting tagged in the comments and there was a bunch of
• 45:32
  healthcare industry
• 45:34
  people trying to throw shade at CrowdHealth
• 45:36
  so you can tell you guys are certainly threatening them
• 45:38
  yeah like tell me you're a part
• 45:42
  of the medical industrial complex without telling me
• 45:44
  you're a part of the medical industrial complex
• 45:46
  like it's very very clear that the people
• 45:48
  who are getting paid by the system
• 45:50
  think that CrowdHealth is
• 45:52
  crap and a scam and all
• 45:54
  these types of things
• 45:55
  and anybody who is impacted by the system, the me's and you's of the world are like, dude,
• 46:02
  this is awesome. And there is a very clear line between the two. You can tell, you know, and so,
• 46:10
  yeah. And I think the, the, the, the medical industrial complex elites and the academics
• 46:15
  and all of these people are throwing shade and all the people who've been a member of crowd
• 46:20
  health and been like, this is amazing. Like we have, you know, 500 reviews on, on trust pilot
• 46:27
  and, you know, 492 of them are really, really good. And if you go and look at United healthcare,
• 46:33
  it's like the exact opposite. Right. So we must be doing, doing something well. Um, and, and keeping
• 46:40
  not only like loving people, our members well, and I hope that you and your, your wife and your
• 46:45
  little one felt you know love through your process um but doing it at a much much lower cost than
• 46:51
  these these health insurance plans yeah much much lower cost much lower you get a personal
• 46:57
  health advocate by the way the the latest app update is incredible the ux the ui oh good it's
• 47:03
  very easy do you know who your advocate is um name is escaping me off the top of my head but i will
• 47:10
  check right now it is um
• 47:17
  alexis oh yeah oh wait no that's for uh no no no you're a bitcoiner you're a bitcoiner so you
• 47:27
  have narum probably narum yes that's what it is yeah narum's awesome he's freaking awesome
• 47:32
  dude let me tell you a quick story about narum um so this little kid um was in in colorado
• 47:39
  and he was hiking with his dad and he fell and he hit a rock and it sliced his cheek open.
• 47:47
  So he went to the ER, he got it stitched up and, you know, we called him and he's like,
• 47:51
  how's the little guy doing? Um, you know, Naram did. And his mom was like, well, physically he's
• 47:57
  great, but emotionally he is, uh, pretty like, he almost has like PTSD. He won't go on a hike
• 48:04
  with his dad anymore because he's afraid he's going to get hurt. And so Naram sent him this
• 48:10
  little like hiking thing that you could put into your living room. So he like hikes around it and
• 48:16
  he climbs up it. And, you know, his mom called us back like in tears being like, you wouldn't
• 48:22
  believe it. He's back hiking with his dad, you know, because Naram was able to, it was willing
• 48:27
  to buy him a $50 thing. And we actually have, you know, internally, we like force our care advocates
• 48:33
  to spend a certain amount of money every month on our members, like doing special things like that.
• 48:37
  And so, you know, it's really kind of cool to see, you know, these fun stories come out of these,
• 48:42
  you know, just little, little things of, of tokens of love, you know, from, from the, the,
• 48:49
  the care advocates. So, um, all of our, all of our new moms now are getting like plush robes and,
• 48:56
  you know, socks and, um, you know, like really good, like chapstick, you know, because you get
• 49:02
  in these hospitals and they're so like, we've had coffee delivered to the house from you guys.
• 49:08
  Yeah. We give you coffee. Like what health insurance United health doesn't send you coffee.
• 49:12
  It's Satoshi coffee too. So shout out to Satoshi coffee. You know, it's a Bitcoiner. So that's,
• 49:19
  that's a pretty cool, cool thing about our, our, our system. Yeah. You get your own care advocate.
• 49:24
  So every time you talk to it, the reason I did that is because when I was dealing with my issue,
• 49:27
  you know, six or seven years ago with my little one, I would call the insurance plan. I would sit
• 49:33
  on the phone for 20 minutes waiting to talk to somebody who was in India and, you know, they
• 49:39
  wouldn't be able to help me. And so they would punt me to somebody else and I would wait on the
• 49:42
  phone for 20 minutes there. Internally, you have the same care advocate. You get to talk to the
• 49:47
  same person every single time. So they get to know you, you get to know them, you schedule a call
• 49:52
  with them, but that's how I want to do it. Schedule a call as opposed to sitting on the line with a,
• 49:56
  you know, a call center, it just works way, way better. Um, and I think the customer service is,
• 50:01
  is a lot better too, because I can hold them accountable. Like I know that Marty and his wife
• 50:06
  was having a baby and Naram is, is the, um, the care advocate. I can hold Naram accountable to
• 50:13
  treating you really, really well and loving you guys during that process. And so, you know, it's,
• 50:18
  it's, it's great to have that accountability. I think, you know, but way better service as a
• 50:22
  result of that yeah no i can't i mean i can't rave about it enough nor i'm i mean because that's
• 50:29
  the thing too for pregnancies especially like you create a health event in the beginning and
• 50:34
  through the uh obg appointments up until the births you guys are checking in like how's everything
• 50:41
  going make sure you're uploading your bills um and it just made it incredibly easy and that's like
• 50:48
  the one thing too it's hilarious um i've told people this who are um thinking about moving to
• 50:56
  crowd health asked me like is there anything bad about i'm like it's not necessarily a bad thing
• 50:59
  but it's hilarious when you go into a hospital or a doctor's office or you have to um ear does
• 51:06
  and throat doctor um for the kids and you tell them you're paying in cash they like immediately
• 51:12
  think that you are poor and like begin like talking quietly and like taking your debit card
• 51:19
  or whatever um and treat you completely differently not only that the price gets cut by at least 50
• 51:24
  almost immediately half the time yeah i mean that's that's one of the things i just don't
• 51:31
  think bitcoiners really give a shit about that you know it's like it's kind of funny and it's
• 51:35
  almost like a badge of honor like i'm uninsured you know like i'm a cash pay patient you know it's
• 51:42
  like, I'm a Bitcoiner. I want to pay in Bitcoin. And people are looking like, what the hell are
• 51:46
  you talking about? What? You know? So I think I think we have it as a badge of honor. And in fact,
• 51:51
  we have T-shirts that say uninsured on the front of them, which means I'm not subservient to some
• 51:59
  health insurance company who's going to dictate what care I can and cannot get. Like, that's what
• 52:03
  I met the message. But I walked through DFW Airport once with that shirt on and people looked at me
• 52:08
  Like I was a total crazy person, you know, and it probably wasn't too different like five or six years ago when you had a Bitcoin T-shirt on, you know, and it hasn't now it's so mainstream or, you know, somewhat mainstream that people may not, you know, flinch anymore.
• 52:22
  But back in the day when you had a Bitcoin on, they thought you were not like a total crazy person.
• 52:28
  So I think we're on that same trajectory.
• 52:30
  No, I can't tell you the number of
• 52:32
  individuals working the front desk
• 52:36
  of either a doctor's office,
• 52:39
  ear, nose, and throat,
• 52:41
  hospital. And when we say they're
• 52:42
  like, their whole demeanor completely changes
• 52:44
  when you say,
• 52:45
  we're not insured.
• 52:49
  It's like a funny
• 52:50
  social, like signals that like
• 52:52
  we've been pushed into the system
• 52:54
  and it's like fish and water. They
• 52:56
  are not used to hearing that.
• 53:00
  Yeah.
• 53:00
  And I think there's, yeah, I mean, I learned a Bitcoin.
• 53:05
  It's like we're using fiat and they're like, oh, I use Bitcoin.
• 53:08
  It's what I save. And like, you're crazy. It's like, no, well,
• 53:10
  actually my life is much better for having saved in Bitcoin.
• 53:13
  And similarly being uninsured, my life hasn't,
• 53:17
  the quality of my health care coverage or not coverage,
• 53:21
  but health care experience has increased significantly.
• 53:26
  We're fiat poor or Bitcoin rich.
• 53:29
  it's funny well it's like buying a house out too i'm it's uh trying to explain to mortgage brokers
• 53:36
  that don't worry just because i don't have a lot of a lot of money in the bank account doesn't mean
• 53:42
  i don't have uh money at all and trying to explain bitcoin to their joke no it's a joke
• 53:48
  it's funny though what um so so bust out of the health insurance system like you you guys have
• 53:54
  already busted out of the Bitcoin system, like bust out of the health insurance system,
• 53:58
  you know, and give it a shot, man.
• 54:02
  That's my plea to Bitcoiners is give it a shot.
• 54:07
  You can use TFTC.
• 54:08
  You get it for $99 a month for the first three months.
• 54:11
  If you like it, awesome.
• 54:12
  If you don't, then go buy Fiat health insurance.
• 54:16
  Like, go for it.
• 54:17
  That would be my plea.
• 54:19
  But I guarantee you that you're going to be you're going to have a much better experience with us than you've had with with health insurance.
• 54:27
  Just like Bitcoin is a much better experience than it is than than fiat.
• 54:32
  Well, I tweeted it out a couple I think a month or two ago, like with the premiums going up as much as they are within the Affordable Care Act.
• 54:39
  Like the opportunity cost is like incredibly diminished.
• 54:43
  Like what is the risk of switching to crowd health considering how expensive
• 54:48
  traditional healthcare is becoming, uh, health insurance is becoming like you can
• 54:53
  go spend, if you've got a family of five, 30 grand a year, 25 to 30 grand a year,
• 54:58
  um, just to get coverage.
• 55:00
  And then an additional eight to 15, depending on what your deductible is.
• 55:05
  So anywhere from 25 to 35 grand a year, or you can pay $700 a month by seven grand, if that, um, a little bit more than that.
• 55:18
  And I know most people think like, oh, I'm not going to get the same, same quality of care as I would on health insurance.
• 55:28
  So it's like, no, you can actually get better because you have the health advocate.
• 55:30
  You guys are actively looking for the best specialist if you have a special event that dictates you need somebody who's focused on knees or whatever it may be or does a procedure very well.
• 55:42
  You're going to go find the best. You're going to get the best price.
• 55:46
  And I think the point being this year specifically, the cost, the opportunity cost of switching is lower than it's ever been since I've been on CrowdHealth.
• 55:54
  Well, I think I think more importantly is you're taking between the doctor and the patient right now in health insurance.
• 56:03
  You have probably your employer. You have the government. You have the insurance company all in between you and your doctor.
• 56:10
  So the doctor, I always kind of say, like you, you work for whoever pays you.
• 56:14
  The doctor is getting paid by health insurance. And so the health insurance plans dictate what they can and cannot do, what care they can and cannot provide.
• 56:24
  Right. If you take those middlemen out now, it's directly between you and your doctor.
• 56:29
  You have a direct relation to the doctor. Patient relationship is reestablished. And so now you and your doctor can decide what's best for your health.
• 56:37
  Right. And that that's where I think we're getting the most upside in terms of better health care.
• 56:41
  You don't have all these intermediaries telling the doctor what you can do. It's like now the doctor is a customer of mine or I'm the I'm the customer of the doctor.
• 56:49
  Right. I'm paying him. So he now has to abide by what I need and take care of me as opposed to taking care of an insurance company.
• 56:58
  And we hear it all the time. Like, wow, my doctor actually changed his tune when he knew that, you know, I was paying him directly.
• 57:06
  He knew who the customer was now. And so that's that's a pretty significant change.
• 57:11
  and you're beginning to see a number of doctors begin to realize this too and drop out like i had
• 57:17
  mary mary tally bowed it on uh earlier this year and she just went dpc obviously her story is pretty
• 57:25
  unique considering what the houston um hospital system did to her during covid but her and many
• 57:33
  other dpc doctors i've spoken to but she said i've i just didn't like the time i spent dealing
• 57:38
  with the insurers was taking away from my ability to treat patients.
• 57:42
  So I'm going DPC and cutting them out of the equation completely.
• 57:47
  And so that works in your favor too, because I think that's a trend that's going to continue to grow.
• 57:52
  You're going to have a bunch of doctors opting out of it on the other side.
• 57:56
  And who do you think? Are those doctors better than normal or worse than normal?
• 58:00
  Probably better than normal, right?
• 58:01
  Like if you can start building a practice where you only take cash,
• 58:08
  that means you have the demand. You don't rely upon the hospital to send you demand. You're not
• 58:13
  a part of that system. Those are the best doctors. The best doctors now are transitioning out of
• 58:19
  hospital systems, transitioning out of the insurance systems, and are now doing cash-only
• 58:25
  type of systems. So I think we will see over the next few years the best doctors in the world
• 58:32
  only accepting cash. Like I truly believe that because they're so fed up with the insurance
• 58:38
  system. And so our system is perfect for that, right? If you want to go to see the best orthopedic
• 58:43
  surgeon in Austin, and we send a lot of our people to the best orthopedic surgeon in Austin,
• 58:47
  which is where I'm at. You know, he, you know, and he only, he transitions to cash only. You're
• 58:55
  not going to, if you have a health insurance, you're not going to be able to go to him.
• 58:57
  You're going to have to pay cash. But our members pay cash at the point of care because
• 59:02
  you have an issue. We fund it for you. You now have the money to then go and pay that doctor in
• 59:07
  cash. So we open up everybody to to our members. And I think some of the best doctors in the world
• 59:13
  are going to be cash only doctors. And they're starting to see that, you know, Dr. Bowden is
• 59:18
  in itself probably one of the best ENTs in Houston, only cash now. So I think, you know,
• 59:25
  those those types of things are important. It really is. And it's funny, I know. I think
• 59:30
  they'd be comfortable with me sharing this because I think they've talked about it publicly, but
• 59:33
  the doctors and dentists are some of the earliest movers in terms of small businesses adopting
• 59:41
  Bitcoin for payment. I know this from ZapRite. ZapRite, Parker, John, and Will are always telling
• 59:47
  me, I'm like, here's your biggest sort of cohort user archetype. What's that look like? It's like
• 59:53
  doctors. They get it. They want hard money, particularly primary care doctors. I was paying
• 59:59
  my primary care doctor in Austin and Bitcoin when I was there.
• 1:00:03
  So you have this like combination culmination.
• 1:00:05
  of sort of factors getting pushed out of the healthcare system, finding Bitcoin,
• 1:00:10
  finding like-minded Bitcoiners who are using CrowdHealth to pay.
• 1:00:15
  And you can begin to see the momentum building.
• 1:00:18
  And we're starting to build a database of these folks.
• 1:00:20
  So if you want a Bitcoin doctor, if you want a doctor who's great with, you know,
• 1:00:25
  a lot of red meat intake, you know, okay with a little bit higher cholesterol,
• 1:00:29
  my cholesterol is through the roof, but, you know, I don't really care, you know,
• 1:00:33
  But most doctors are going to try to put you on statins and things like that.
• 1:00:35
  And so, I mean, which route would you prefer a route in which you pay directly in cash
• 1:00:41
  for the doctor patient relationship is what it is.
• 1:00:45
  And you have unlimited options in terms of who you can go to, because, you know, everybody
• 1:00:50
  taking insurance will take cash and all the people who take cash will only take cash.
• 1:00:53
  But if you go to the insurance, you're stuck within this very limited network of doctors
• 1:00:58
  that you can go to.
• 1:00:59
  And so if you want to go to someone doctor outside of of the insurance network, you have to pay cash for it because they won't accept your insurance.
• 1:01:06
  And so I think that this cash pay, direct pay method of kind of health care financing or Bitcoin pay is going to be the future.
• 1:01:18
  And so I think it's inevitable that that's going to going to take place.
• 1:01:23
  So as we were talking about earlier, even if everything does transition to a government based model, I still think there's going to be a place for crowd health, because I think all these these doctors are going to transition to being, yeah, being cash pay only and are not going to accept that.
• 1:01:41
  Mm hmm. One last thing I wanted to touch on before we wrap up here. It's a Friday afternoon.
• 1:01:46
  We should get back to our families But a lot of people will say well my my job they were putting up a portion of my health health insurance costs on a monthly basis It harder with crowd out there You guys working always to sort of teach people like Hey maybe you go to your employer and you say instead of putting up a third of my health insurance costs per month maybe we just cut health insurance and
• 1:02:12
  maybe increase my pay by that. Or like what, how are businesses that want or employees of
• 1:02:18
  businesses that want to use the employee wants to use crowd health, their employer has a health
• 1:02:23
  insurance plan, but they want to sort of reap benefits from their employer.
• 1:02:27
  Yeah. If you're, if you're, um, yeah, if you're, if you're work for a small employer,
• 1:02:32
  you can go to them because typically the small employer is paying $25,000 for a family
• 1:02:37
  to have health insurance. A family with crowd health is about seven. So you can go back to
• 1:02:42
  them and be like, listen, instead of paying 25,000 for my family, why don't you give,
• 1:02:46
  why don't you raise my, um, your salary by 10 or 12,000? You know, you save money. I'm going to
• 1:02:53
  at CrowdHealth, I save money. We've had a bunch of members go and do that. And it works for small
• 1:02:57
  employers. It doesn't work for big employers. But ultimately, I think that the government needs to
• 1:03:02
  bifurcate the employer health insurance kind of connection. And as your video pointed out so
• 1:03:12
  beautifully that you put out about CrowdHealth that TFTC produced, it's like we keep people in
• 1:03:18
  their employment cages by shackling them to the company with their health insurance.
• 1:03:23
  Because a lot of people are like, oh, I can't leave my company because I can't lose my health
• 1:03:27
  insurance.
• 1:03:28
  Like, that's just a way to trap you in that company.
• 1:03:31
  It's a sad state of affairs.
• 1:03:32
  Something like three or four million people would go do something entrepreneurial if it
• 1:03:35
  wasn't for health insurance, their employer-based health insurance, which is just un-American
• 1:03:40
  to me.
• 1:03:41
  Well, I think if you were to pull people that were thinking about leaving their job but
• 1:03:46
  didn't, that would be the number one or at least the top three.
• 1:03:51
  So they didn leave I need the help Absolutely So go ask your employer like there a differential there Go ask your employer if they can just pay you more and you can opt out of health insurance
• 1:04:02
  A lot of people are doing it right now, so this is a conversation to be had.
• 1:04:06
  Worst they can say is no.
• 1:04:08
  And if they say no, that's fine, but they might say yes because it's beneficial for both parties.
• 1:04:14
  Yeah, it really is.
• 1:04:15
  I remember right before I joined CrowdHealth as a member, it was when I left Great American Mining, which was paying my health insurance to really focus on TFTC and 1031.
• 1:04:27
  And it was in that lull period.
• 1:04:29
  It was on Cobra.
• 1:04:29
  I was paying $1,800 a month.
• 1:04:31
  I was like, this is we wanted to keep the health insurance.
• 1:04:34
  We did it for like two months.
• 1:04:35
  I was like, all right, we're going CrowdHealth.
• 1:04:36
  That was the thing that pushed me over the edge.
• 1:04:38
  But that was the scariest thing about going out and doing, focusing on this as a solo entrepreneur at the time.
• 1:04:47
  It was like, we have no health insurance.
• 1:04:48
  I just had a one-year-old child at the time.
• 1:04:52
  And it was, didn't make us think like twice and three times about, all right, do we really want to do this?
• 1:04:59
  Went to stomach the cost of Cobra.
• 1:05:01
  It was just like, okay, there's a better option.
• 1:05:04
  What do we have to look at?
• 1:05:05
  We appreciate you joining, man.
• 1:05:06
  it's been incredibly, um, we were incredibly grateful for, for all that you've, you've done
• 1:05:15
  for us. And, um, you know, look, if, if anybody wants to join, use TFTC, the code, um, you get 99
• 1:05:22
  bucks for the first, uh, three, three months. Um, and it's worth a try. And then, you know,
• 1:05:28
  anybody out there who's a crowd health member, thank you. Thank you for being members, you know,
• 1:05:32
  tell your friends about crowd health. And if you, they use your code, we'll, we'll pay you 250 bucks
• 1:05:38
  as a, as a referral fee and we'll pay it in Bitcoin too. We'll pay you in Bitcoin.
• 1:05:42
  Um I would way prefer to be paying our members to help us grow the company than Google and Facebook and all these other companies Right Like that my it the that that my that kind of my rationale behind doing that Um and we have dozens of members who actually get more from us per month and
• 1:06:01
  referral fees than they actually pay for their healthcare.
• 1:06:04
  So they're actually making money off of crowd health, which is,
• 1:06:07
  which is kind of awesome.
• 1:06:08
  Like you have healthcare and you're making money off it.
• 1:06:10
  It's a pretty cool thing. So thank you all seriously for, for the support.
• 1:06:14
  and we're fired up about 2026.
• 1:06:18
  It's going to be an awesome year.
• 1:06:22
  You got out there for a little bit,
• 1:06:24
  but I think I would concur.
• 1:06:29
  It's a beautiful thing.
• 1:06:31
  The feeling is mutual.
• 1:06:33
  You know me and we were working
• 1:06:34
  out the same office together
• 1:06:35
  for three, almost four years.
• 1:06:39
  Here at TFTC, we do not.
• 1:06:41
  we're very stingy with our advertising partners. Um, and we like to make sure that we actually use
• 1:06:48
  the products. And I can say I'm more than happy to be, uh, partners with you in the professional
• 1:06:56
  sense on the sponsorship level, because I am a happy customer and I not only feel safe, uh,
• 1:07:04
  recommending crowd health to the audience that is listening to this, but I feel compelled to push it
• 1:07:09
  Because like you said, if you get Bitcoin, you understand that the money is broken and the traditional system, the way it's controlling money is corrupt.
• 1:07:19
  You begin to see that in other things.
• 1:07:21
  And I think with health insurance and the health care system, it become it has become abundantly clear to me.
• 1:07:27
  And this is a coin equivalent of of health care and the health health care system in my mind.
• 1:07:34
  So it's been a great partnership.
• 1:07:36
  Appreciate it.
• 1:07:37
  It's been a great conversation and I'll be back down in Austin at some point in the next couple of months.
• 1:07:42
  We'll have to catch up.
• 1:07:44
  It would love that.
• 1:07:45
  Thanks for having me, brother.
• 1:07:46
  All right.
• 1:07:46
  Peace.
• 1:07:47
  Love freaks.