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A Healthy Conversation: Garrett Mason · Newsradio WGAN

0:00
Good morning. Welcome to a Healthy
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Conversation with Doctor Lisa Belisle and myself, Doctor Jeff
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Barkan. It's News Radio WGAN.
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Doctor Lisa is on the road this week, so it's me in studio.
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I'm joined with Garrett Mason, who's a Republican candidate for
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governor of Maine. He's a former Senate Majority
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Leader at age 29, a former 2018 Republican gubernatorial
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candidate. Check this out.
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He entered state politics at the age of 25, served in legislative
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leadership, and now presents as someone who really understands
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both politics and execution. In addition to his extensive,
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and I mean really extensive legislative experience starting
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at a young age, Garrett has extensive experience in the
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private sector, including in housing with a company he and
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his wife founded, Maine Home Collective.
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He also founded Dirigo Public Affairs, which is a public
0:56
relations and crisis management firm.
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Garrett Mason, welcome to A Healthy Conversation Well.
1:01
Thank you for having me. So you have an amazing story at
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age 25, you enter politics, you continue in politics, you go
1:11
into leadership. Tell us a little bit about the
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path, what that felt like for you and, and, and in addition to
1:17
that, you have a family and, and you've developed and brought on
1:22
several successful businesses. Yeah, You know, I've, I've been
1:25
very fortunate in my life to have a, a unique array of life
1:29
experiences and one didn't necessarily follow the other.
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You know, I think for many people, they, they find in life,
1:37
they find a certain career path and they stick to it, right.
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But that this was not my chosen career path.
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I originally wanted to work in sports.
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I was in college and had this moment where I realized that
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just because I was bad at sports didn't mean that I couldn't work
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in the industry. And so I, I, when I realized
1:59
that somebody had to sell the hot dogs and sell the
2:00
advertising and, and all of those things, that was really
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what hit for me. And I knew that's what I wanted
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to do with my life. So worked for the Portland Sea
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Dogs when I got out of college and then went on to work for the
2:12
Lewiston Maniacs. They played at the the Colisea
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in Lewiston, played in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey
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League. And that was kind of where I had
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my first brush with government and how government can impact
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not only your personal life, but your your business as well.
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And the legislature passed a tax on entertainment tickets and it
2:32
was, so I, it was going to have to start charging 5 1/2 at that
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time, 5% of a sales tax on tickets.
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And there's going to be a big hit to us, really big hit.
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And the big reason for that is because hockey season spans 2
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years, you know, it spans 1 tax year into the next.
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And so only half of our tickets would have been taxed.
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We didn't know that. And so we were going to have to
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take that hit personally. I found out my state senator
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voted for it and decided to run against him, so I did.
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So what was the reason that that senator would vote against that?
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Is it a lack? Of no, he voted for it.
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That that's what I mean, yeah. To put his constituents in such
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a negative way. Yeah.
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You know, I mean, I, I can't remember the particulars of that
3:14
bill back then, but what I remember specifically was, you
3:20
know, there's only a few professional teams in the state
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of Maine and, you know, you could have just simply called
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around and asked, like, how would this impact you?
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And I just remember having, you know, like not quite
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understanding why somebody would have such a disconnect from the
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people that they represent or like the industries that are
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close to the places that they represent.
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And I felt that, you know, at that time it was, it was just an
3:44
easy thing for me. You know what that the team, it
3:46
was no, no secret. The team was planning on moving
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at that point. It was the financial collapse of
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2008 was around that time frame and the team was getting ready
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to relocate. And so I knew that this is an
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opportunity for me to make some real change.
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And I went and ran for the office.
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And on election night, I was just as surprised as everybody
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else when I won, you know, and not just one, but one by 11% of
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the vote. So that's kind of what what led
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me into politics. And I had no idea where that
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journey would take me. Yeah, it's been quite a journey.
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You know, speaking about sports, one of the things about taxes
4:25
that gets to me is movies. I really, my, my wife Joan and
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my family and I, we just love movies.
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We love sports. We really love movies.
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My wife and I do too. Our our reception for our
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wedding was at Flagship Cinema in Topsum.
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OK, that was awesome. So we're.
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So we're on the same page. Also love Maine, but movies
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about Maine don't get made in Maine.
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So what's going on? Why is that?
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Now, my understanding is that movie makers don't make movies
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in Maine because it's not that the food isn't good, it's not
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that the people aren't. But yeah, there are certain
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climatologic things. The weather is only good a
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certain number of weeks a year. But in terms of business
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friendliness, I've heard from people in the industry that to
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make a movie about Maine, you have to go to New York or Canada
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or even North Carolina. What is that true?
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Yeah, it is true. So there's actually been a a
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bunch of people who have tried to address the situation and I'm
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not sure what the best answer is.
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But states like California, Georgia is a really good example
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of this, offer incredible tax credits to movie production
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studios to make their movies there.
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That's the main film office we actually have in the state of
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Maine that does try to recruit people to come to Maine and
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film, especially, you know, movies that are set in Maine
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here. But the the fact of the matter
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is we have a really bad tax environment for production here
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in Maine. And that comes with a lot of
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different reasons. You know, like we have very high
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income taxes. And depending on how long you're
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filming here and how the company is set up, you may have to pay
5:57
income taxes. We have some of the highest
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income taxes in the entire country.
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You also have sales tax, movie production studios.
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Look at that. You know how much they're going
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to put into sales tax. So there's a lot of factors.
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But the bottom line is just Maine is so unfriendly and
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hostile to business that, you know, things like that just
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can't flourish here because of the environment that has been
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created in Augusta. But we do have the main film
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office. I wish there's more films that
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would come here. But yeah, you're right.
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I mean, there's, there's a lot of states that we just can't
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compete with because we don't have the infrastructure.
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Yeah, I'm not trying to pick on movies.
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I'm just using that as as one example.
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And in terms of business unfriendliness, we're here with
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Garrett Mason, who's running for governor of the state of Maine.
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My understanding is that we have to balance fiscal capacity,
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which is the amount of money a state has, you know, from like
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big businesses or taxpayers with our fiscal effort, the things
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that that we want to do. Are we not doing a good job?
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Do we not have enough big companies or rich people to pay
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taxes? What's the mismatch?
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So, you know, I think a really good example of something like
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this is what just happened in the legislature with the, with
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the income surcharge that they passed.
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They call it, they're calling it the millionaire's tax, right?
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And you know, people, I think the easy refrain for most people
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who are just living their lives think like, well, if you're
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making that much money, then you should pay more.
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But here's the reality. We neighbor only one other
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state. It's new, it's New Hampshire and
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they have 0 income tax for anybody.
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Doesn't matter what level of the economic ladder you're on.
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There is no income tax in the state of New Hampshire.
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People who are high net worth individuals and who are making
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over $1,000,000 a year can simply move.
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They can simply move. They have a team of accountants
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and lawyers who will find the best tax strategy for them and
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they can move to a place like Florida or New Hampshire.
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Especially people in things like real estate, like my wife and I
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know a lot about real estate and you know, there's tax strategies
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that can get you out of it. So I think that what Democrats
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and Augusta have done in regards to millionaires tax is those
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high network individuals. You're not, you're just not, not
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only not going to get that 2% surcharge, you're going to get
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nothing from them because they can simply move.
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And that's what you're seeing. I have watched recently as
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Zillow and Zillow and Realtor, I'm on those quite frequently.
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There's been a lot of very expensive homes have gone up for
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sale since the implementation of that tax.
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I go back to this as well. And it's, it's not just the
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millionaires you're getting. You're taxing retirement, right?
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I have a friend named Brian Langley.
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We served in the Senate together and he spent 35 years building a
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really well known restaurant called the Union River Lobster
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Pot in Ellsworth. I've eaten there many times.
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It's a delicious place, one of the best restaurants in Bar
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Harbor area. And Brian sold his business the
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week that the millionaires tax passed.
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And only one time in his life is he going to be a millionaire.
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It's this year and it's the year they implemented that tax and
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they're going to take a pound of flesh out of him on his
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retirement. That's what you're really doing.
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You're taxing people who are whose business is their
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retirement and the people who you are actually going after.
9:14
You'll get them for one year and then they'll leave.
9:16
Yeah. And I think I saw a recent
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graph, I can't remember the source, but it was from the
9:20
Bureau of Labor Statistics that looked at as you raise taxes,
9:24
people actually really do leave. They do.
9:26
I mean, that's just it's happening.
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In New York right now, it's. Yeah.
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Look at what Zoran Mandani has done in New York.
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They are leaving and. Conversely, states that lower
9:34
taxes have more people come to them, like Florida, right?
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So that's just sort of factually correct.
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So how does a state like Maine, where we're the oldest state and
9:45
first or second most rural state, balance our fiscal
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capacity, the amount of money we can tax people with the fiscal
9:51
efforts, the things that everybody wants or needs?
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Yeah. So I mean, I think there's some,
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there's very reasonable things that can be done.
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If you look at the state budget right now, you're, you've
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crested well over $12 billion and we're going to have the
10:08
final spending numbers after July 1st this year.
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My guess is going to be closing in on $14 billion.
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The last state budget that I voted on when I was in the
10:17
legislature in 2017 was a little over $7 billion.
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So you have effectively doubled the state budget expenditures in
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one in in eight years under 1 governor.
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So from from, you know, 1820 when maybe became a state to
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2018 you had 7 billion and then in one eight-year period you've
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doubled that. That's unsustainable.
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So those are the kind of things that I want to look at.
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I mean, can you cut 5 billion out of the budget in one year?
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No, but we have significant increased expenditures from the
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past eight years that can be cut and there has been significant
11:03
excess. Fraud, waste and abuse is out of
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control, which we can get into later on in the show, I'm sure,
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but we simply have to go back to a reasonable budget in the state
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of Maine because what we have now is just insanity.
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We. Are here with Garrett Mason,
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Republican candidate for governor of the state of Maine.
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He himself is a former Maine Senate Majority Leader at age
11:29
29. It's a healthy conversation.
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News Radio, WGAN, don't go away. We've got a lot more with
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Garrett Mason. Welcome back.
11:51
It's a healthy conversation with Doctor Lisa Belisle, who's on
11:54
the road, and myself, Doctor Jeff Barkin.
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We're here with Garrett Mason. He is running to become
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Republican governor of the state of Maine.
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Quite an amazing past. We're talking about Maines
12:05
fiscal policy and tax policy in particular, the concept of
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fiscal capacity, how much money we can get versus fiscal effort.
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How much money do we need? We need money.
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We're a rural state. We have roads to repair, police
12:19
departments, healthcare. We're an old state.
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We've got a lot of things. We also have kids.
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We want to have good schools. So we have to, we have to have
12:28
the money to do that. And we're going to have a good
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cogent, nonpartisan discussion of how do we do that?
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Because my understanding is there are two basic visions
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which each, when they reduce to sound bites, can sort of sound.
12:42
Yeah, that makes sense. But when you look at them
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analytically, it's very different.
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I'm hoping we could be analytical and intelligent, not
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sound bitey. Fair enough.
12:51
Let's do it. OK.
12:52
So the budget of Maine about $12 billion and we just raised taxes
12:58
2% on people making $1,000,000 or more per year and a tax that
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if somebody sells a business, they're having to pay
13:08
essentially a capital gains tax on illiquid assets.
13:11
So if I had a farm and I sold my farm, well, how do I pay taxes
13:16
on land, right? So it's so it's sort of that
13:18
thing we can. Talk about farms all day because
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there's there's some significant problems there too.
13:22
Yeah, so. One side, the Democrats are
13:25
saying what we need to do is raise taxes.
13:28
And my understanding is that's why Governor Mills signed the
13:31
law to raise taxes on millionaires and that there's
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sort of a populist movement. You know, more millionaires and
13:37
billionaires should pay their fair share.
13:39
It's a very. Good Bernie Sanders impression.
13:40
Thank you. But on the other hand, as you
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pointed out, when you start taxing people because they have
13:47
feet, they can leave. And in Maine there are 2240
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households that make $1 million or more, and that's it.
13:55
That's right. So what would happen if we raise
13:58
taxes on folks and say X percent left because they're ticked off
14:02
that they're paying more in taxes?
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Or let's say we didn't and let's say they said, you know, this is
14:07
a really good, good place to do business and more of their
14:11
friends, maybe net worth rich friends came to Maine.
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Would that be good for The Maine economy?
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I mean. Yes, I mean, actually, so the,
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there is a report that The Maine State Chamber of Commerce put
14:23
out last week and it was the subject of a debate on Wednesday
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night before this program aired that talked about how if, if
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business owners had their taxes cut, whether that be corporate
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or personally, what would they do with their tax savings?
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And 58% said they would reinvest in their company or their
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employees. And so, you know, it's really
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easy to say tax the rich. I think it's a lazy intellectual
14:52
argument, but the fact of the matter is when you're looking at
14:55
Mainers and what they say, you're closing in on 60% of
14:58
those business owners saying that if I had more money, I'd
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put it into my businesses and my employees.
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And that's a net win for Maine people.
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And you know, it's, it's even worse when you have only one
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neighbor, right? You have, you only have one
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neighbor and they have taken the exact opposite approach.
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And it's not hard for somebody who lives in Kittery to just
15:20
sell their house and move across and live in Portsmouth and take
15:26
those massive tax savings like you have a real world.
15:30
It's not like our neighbor is New York or our neighbor is
15:33
California on on either side. You're the only other option you
15:37
have is a tax Free State. That's it.
15:39
So then if we begin to cut income taxes and we do have
15:43
fiscal needs for sure, how do we get the money to cover those
15:46
needs? And then and then how do we
15:48
define whether their needs or whether they're wants, whether
15:51
they're fraud, whether they're waste or whether they're
15:53
critical? Well, I.
15:53
Think that's the difference between the parties, right?
15:55
So, you know, my personal view is that I don't think it's a
15:59
laudable goal that over 40, about 40% of the main people are
16:03
on Medicaid, on main care. I don't think that's a good
16:06
thing. I think it's a bad thing.
16:07
I think it's draining resources and it's making it harder and
16:10
harder to have care in rural areas because main care just
16:14
does not reimburse at the rate which as a doctor, I'm sure you
16:17
know, which is not reimbursed at a rate that is commiserate with
16:21
the cost that it that it cost to provide them.
16:23
You know, I want to see more private healthcare options for
16:29
people, affordable healthcare options.
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I don't think that because you're childless and you're an
16:33
adult that you should qualify for main care.
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I don't think those category, those types of categories should
16:39
be covered under the program. So we have to do so much around
16:42
that. The other thing too, like when
16:44
you look at waste, the state auditor, you know, I hear a lot
16:47
of candidates talk about a doge for Maine, right?
16:50
Like that's a Republican refrain.
16:52
We already have that. I don't want to create another
16:54
bureaucracy to find fraud, waste and abuse.
16:57
We have the state auditor's office, and I will give credit
16:59
where credit is due. Matt Dunlap put out a report
17:02
that was over 300 pages long. It talked about no bid contracts
17:05
and the failures of some of these programs that we have in
17:07
state government. I'll go after those things.
17:09
You know, autism services specifically, there's a lot of
17:13
places that you can cut that we're taxing people bringing
17:16
revenue in for that are just not effective.
17:20
They're just not effective. They're not valuable.
17:22
And they provide no X, they, they provide no benefit for the
17:25
government providing that service.
17:27
So you have to some of it's priority, right?
17:30
Some of it's the things that Republicans stand for versus the
17:33
things that Democrats stand for. And some of it is just
17:36
effectiveness, like looking at what programs are effective and
17:39
which ones aren't. But if?
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We took away say main care eligibility for people that are
17:44
childless adults who are say able bodied and able minded.
17:50
One of the things just policy wise for folks to know policy
17:54
goes able bodied, but there are people who are able bodied but
17:57
not able minded. So policy writers who are
18:00
listening, yeah, put the able bodied, bodied and able minded
18:04
in there. Fair enough.
18:05
That's fair. Yep, so.
18:06
If we're going to take the main care benefits away from the
18:09
those folks, how do we if when they get sick, have them afford
18:14
healthcare without becoming a burden on the hospitals and
18:18
becoming free care debt because our our hospitals, they're
18:21
closing. We lost Inland hospital in
18:23
Waterville last year. Several other hospitals are
18:26
quite honestly on the precipice of closure.
18:28
So how would you balance that so?
18:29
One of the things that I think is important is we have to look,
18:32
we also have to understand who we are as well, OK?
18:36
One of the things I find most concerning on the other side of
18:38
the aisle right now is this is to resist movement towards
18:41
anything coming from Washington specifically because it's from
18:44
President Trump, right? We have a rural healthcare hole
18:49
that we have to fill that I think can only be filled by
18:53
federal government funding. Susan Collins, thank God we have
18:56
her at the chair of the Appropriations Committee.
18:58
She got $190,000,000 in rural healthcare funding.
19:02
Now that could be a tremendous gift, but it can also be
19:06
squandered. I'm very concerned that that
19:08
money gets squandered and spent on, you know, fly by night
19:11
schemes, sit snake oil salesman type things that we don't need
19:14
in rural Maine. You know, if I'm governor, I'm
19:16
going to make sure that that goes to care.
19:18
It's going to go towards the places that we need it and and
19:21
we're going to make sure we're good stewards of that type of
19:24
money, right? That plugs a rural healthcare
19:26
hole. There's also other things that
19:28
we can tap to make sure that it's not a drain on resources.
19:32
There's some very good models out West with Western state
19:36
Republican governors who have actually used their National
19:39
Guard to provide healthcare hole services in in rural parts of
19:45
their state. It's been very effective, not
19:47
only for the National Guard because it provides the training
19:50
that they need, but it was also great for the communities that
19:53
they serve. And you don't have to deal with
19:56
some of the reimbursement rates problems that you have in other
19:58
places because it's backfilled by, you know, federal government
20:02
programming. So it saves the state money as
20:04
well. We have to be creative about how
20:06
we deliver healthcare and look at models that maybe we haven't
20:10
looked at before to kind of save some of these these hospital
20:13
areas. I'm very concerned about things
20:16
like maternity wards, right? I'm very concerned about that.
20:20
You live in Holton right now. You have to travel an hour and a
20:22
half to go have a baby. You know, if we want people to
20:25
live and work and thrive in rural Maine, we have to be
20:29
incentivizing them to be able to have a baby close to home,
20:32
right? But the, but that's not what
20:34
we've seen coming from Augusta right now.
20:37
And so I, I think we have to look at healthcare holistically,
20:41
understand where our holes are and where things were that we
20:43
might not be able to fix right now.
20:46
But look at the whole problem. I don't think that the answer is
20:50
putting more people on Medicaid. I just don't think that's the
20:54
answer. And we're spending way too much
20:56
money on that program where private health insurance and
21:00
other services could deliver it better.
21:02
And private health insurance often is more cost effective.
21:05
It's under control, it's not a drain on resources, and it's not
21:10
linked to income. So really what you're saying is
21:13
that by getting private insurance, people are getting
21:16
better jobs, higher paying jobs and therefore are not dependent
21:20
upon the state and federal government.
21:22
I want to explore more of that. I love that idea.
21:25
We're here with Garrett Mason, It's a healthy conversation.
21:27
News Radio, WGIN We'll be right back.
21:46
Welcome back. It's a healthy conversation with
21:49
Doctor Lisa Belisle and myself, Doctor Jeff Barkin.
21:51
Doctor Lisa is on the road, so it's just me.
21:54
By the way, if you have any comments, thoughts, suggestions,
21:58
feel free to reach out. Drop us an e-mail at healthy
22:01
conversation at WGAN in studio we have Garrett Mason.
22:06
He's a Republican candidate running for governor of the
22:09
state of Maine. We've been discussing healthcare
22:11
and while we were in break, he shared with me that he actually
22:15
has a really good plan and some thoughts for how to fix the
22:20
current problem. And, and I see the current
22:22
situation of healthcare access, being able to just find somebody
22:26
to take care of you when you need to as well as getting it
22:29
paid for two separate but like real problems that all of us
22:32
have to face. I was talking to actually a
22:38
couple. They're both doctors and they
22:41
can't afford health insurance, believe it.
22:43
OK, so they have a practice in rural Maine they can't afford.
22:46
I was talking to another Doctor Who's a past president of The
22:49
Maine Medical Association, His doctor retired and he lives
22:53
actually in Oxford County, couldn't find another primary
22:56
care doctor. So I mean, these are real
22:58
structural things. And I want to get a sense from
23:01
you of how do we get things better?
23:03
Because the, the current state, if you will, and again, I want
23:06
to get everybody out of a partisan or political frame is
23:10
speaking for myself. I have to pay like $2500 a month
23:14
just for me, right? Not my wife, not no kids, just
23:18
me. And, and I have a deductible on
23:21
top of that, that that is crippling for people.
23:24
And that is the current state and it's become politicized.
23:27
But that is the Affordable Care Act.
23:29
And the reason it's expensive is the Affordable Care Act, as I
23:32
understand it, mandates that insurance has to cover 10
23:36
specific things. They're called the 10 essential
23:40
health benefits. It's not that people are evil,
23:44
it's that the cost of those essential health benefits has
23:46
gone up way too fast over time, and Healthcare is too expensive.
23:51
Yeah. How would you fix it?
23:53
So outside of repealing the Affordable Care Act, which I
23:57
would have no control over but would love to see, you know, I
24:01
think that, you know, you hit the nail on the head.
24:04
I pay $1600 a month for health insurance for me, my wife and my
24:09
daughter. We have a $12,000 deductible.
24:13
I have to spend $34,000 a year before I get any kind of benefit
24:18
from our health insurance company.
24:21
And that is largely because of the way that Obamacare is set
24:24
up. We've been, you know, in my
24:27
opinion, we have been feeding the health insurance companies
24:29
directly from the government to their pockets for far too long.
24:33
And it's led to very high increase costs.
24:37
And I think that's real, a real problem.
24:39
But you know what, there are some things that we can do as a
24:42
state to make things more palatable for the health
24:46
insurance customer. One of the things I mean, you
24:50
know, I look at things like certificate of need, right?
24:53
Certificate of need is a big problem.
24:55
It's basically, you know, you want to have an MRI machine and
24:58
you have to go to your competitors and ask them if it's
25:00
OK. That's ridiculous.
25:01
Yeah. Undermines competition, keeping
25:04
prices up and making it an advantage for the people already
25:07
in the market. That's right.
25:09
And like, you know, that's something that I would love to
25:11
see repealed. I think Ben Murphy and Laura
25:14
Libby put in a bill to repeal that.
25:17
And that that would have been a really big change in how we, you
25:22
know, how, how hospitals and healthcare centers can provide
25:25
services. You know, there's, there's also
25:28
alternative insurance options, right?
25:32
You know, one of the things that, you know, in Full
25:34
disclosure, I represent the Farm Bureau and the Legislature,
25:37
those Farm Bureau health plans, you know, people got really
25:39
upset about, you know, US part, you know, wanting to offer those
25:43
plans here in Maine. But you know, it's no different
25:46
than life insurance. You know there's a there What's?
25:48
A Farm Bureau health plan. So farm.
25:50
Bureau health Plan started in Tennessee, OK and their
25:53
membership based health insurance, health health option,
25:57
it's not health insurance, but you have to get state approval
26:00
to operate them. They operate in seven states
26:02
right now and they've been wildly effective.
26:04
They used to be, they used to be offered in Maine through the New
26:07
York Farm Bureau. And if you ask any farmer who
26:11
was around 2005 time frame and before, they would tell you they
26:15
would love to have their Farm Bureau health plan back because
26:19
yes, there was a waiting period and yes, it didn't cover
26:22
everything, but if you got sick as a farmer, it covered you.
26:25
If you had a baby as a farmer, it covered you.
26:27
If all of these things that we're paying sixteen $1700 a
26:33
month for my family could get better a better plan covered
26:37
through Farm Bureau health insurance right for $450 a
26:41
month, same same type of offerings, just a six month
26:44
waiting period. So.
26:45
So when you say 6 month waiting period, six months before it
26:49
kicks in, correct? So it's just a six month
26:51
exclusion period, but isn't the ACA basically a one year
26:55
exclusion it? Is and that was my argument back
26:57
to the back to the healthcare committee.
26:59
You know, when we were talking about this, it's like, listen,
27:01
like if I lose my job tomorrow, like sure, I could go on COBRA,
27:04
right? Like I could get COBRA benefits,
27:06
but like I open enrollment for the ACA isn't until November,
27:11
right or December 1st, something like that.
27:13
So you already have an exclusionary period under the
27:15
ACA. They just don't want to talk
27:17
about that. So.
27:18
What was I, I, I mean, you were in the legislature.
27:21
I have to ask you like that makes too much sense.
27:24
How and why did that get blocked?
27:26
Well, you know, if you go back and listen to the the back and
27:29
forth in the health committee, you know, just from this past
27:31
year when I was working on this bill, it's universal healthcare.
27:35
It would move the ball away from universal healthcare.
27:37
And that's in the Democrats. That's what they ultimately
27:39
want. Like you.
27:41
That's not me saying that. I mean, that's everybody, that's
27:44
every Democrat is pledged to universal healthcare.
27:46
It's in the platform of the the Democratic National Committee.
27:49
That's what they're looking for. Republicans fundamentally
27:52
disagree with that. And so we're always going to
27:54
argue on those points. But you know, those plans move
27:58
the ball away from universal healthcare and more towards
28:01
market choice. And so, you know, you have an
28:04
option like that on the table. It's, you know, it's United
28:08
Healthcare, I think right now is the one that services Farm
28:11
Bureau health plans. So you're dealing with an
28:13
insurance company that, you know, you might not like them,
28:16
but you know them, they operate under the same payment schedules
28:19
for doctors as, as under the ACA.
28:23
So within 90 days you get paid. So, I mean, it's a, it's a no
28:27
nonsense common sense solution, a product that was already
28:31
offered here in Maine, but because of the ACA has now been
28:34
forbidden. But you know, those are the kind
28:36
of things that I'd like to bring in.
28:37
I mean, there I talked to a farmer in North Dakota where
28:40
this started getting offered. He has a seven, he has seven
28:43
kids in his family. They save $20,000 a year in
28:47
their health premiums. And when this, when this is
28:50
implemented, when health, when Farm Bureau health plans are
28:53
implemented in a state, what you find is that farmers whose
28:57
spouse had to work off farm to go, you know, for the health
29:01
insurance, they could come home. And so you're not only making
29:05
health insurance cheaper, you're producing more food, which is
29:08
making grocery costs lower. You're lowering the cost of
29:12
doing business as a farm. And so, you know, you can have
29:15
some of these solutions, but it's, you know, ideology that
29:17
gets in the way sometimes, so. To transcend ideology, here's a
29:21
thought. How would you feel if there was
29:23
some way of selecting once or twice a year?
29:26
I would actually be more more than once a year, probably twice
29:30
a year. That would allow people to
29:32
choose the Farmer Bureau Health Plan to choose health options or
29:37
Anthem to choose a public option if something was offered to
29:42
actually have choice as a consumer where there was some
29:46
basic subsidies that the average person like me and and most of
29:50
our listeners could afford that. Would that make sense?
29:52
Yeah. I mean, I, I'd quibble a little
29:54
bit on the public option. Like we had something, you know,
29:57
similar to that in the early 2000s under Baldacci of that.
30:00
I don't, I don't know that that would work great.
30:02
But I, I am four more options. I am four more options.
30:07
And if somebody wants to have like something like a Farm
30:09
Bureau health Plan, like that's their choice, you know, and I
30:14
want people to have options at a low cost.
30:17
And there was a time in this country that we did.
30:19
And, you know, we were talking off mic about a la carte plans.
30:23
Those were banned under Obamacare.
30:25
You know, I mean, an A la carte plan where you could have the
30:28
get by a truck version, get hit by a truck version of
30:31
healthcare. You know, that's great.
30:34
You know, like, I'll pay for my own doctor's visit.
30:36
I'll pay for blood tests that I want, I'll pay for imaging that
30:40
imaging that I want. Don't force it to be covered
30:43
under a plan. Let somebody have a two $300 a
30:46
month plan where if something very serious happens that's what
30:49
it should be used for. Is insurance where?
30:51
Insurance is actually insurance for really, really bad things.
30:54
It's not like we have home insurance for every time we,
30:58
like have a little house fire at, you know, we just put out
31:01
with a fire extinguisher or burn the chicken.
31:03
We're here with Garrett Mason. He is gubernatorial candidate
31:06
for governor of the state of Maine.
31:09
It's a healthy conversation. News Radio, WGAN, 98.5 FM, AM
31:14
560, thanks for all the podcast outlets for streaming us.
31:17
And by the way, we'll be right back.
31:41
Welcome back. It's a healthy conversation.
31:43
News Radio WGAN we're here with Garrett Mason.
31:46
First of all, easy question. I'll, I'll make this the hardest
31:49
question of the week, OK, If you win and become governor of the
31:52
state of Maine, promise to come back and be a guest and talk to
31:55
your constituents. Oh for.
31:56
Sure, Absolutely this. Is fun.
31:58
This is fun. Yeah.
31:59
That wasn't too hard, was it not?
32:00
At all so in. The prior segment, we're talking
32:02
about some of these programs like Medicare, Medicaid and
32:06
Social Security. Social Security, Medicare,
32:10
that's the ones that are funded by young people.
32:13
And as I understand it, those systems were structurally set up
32:17
so that younger people, when it started, like 20 young people
32:21
would pay for an older person. That was the inception of
32:25
Medicare. But now we're down to three to
32:28
four young people for every older person.
32:32
Kind of difficult, not sustainable.
32:35
Maine demographics were the oldest state.
32:38
Thoughts. Well, according to most people
32:42
who study demographics, we're in what's called a death spiral.
32:45
And what that means is that we're we're not having as many
32:50
kids as we are having people dying.
32:54
That's a problem. And as somebody who is a
32:56
millennial in Maine, I have a six year old little girl.
33:00
I don't like what Maine looks like when she gets to be my age.
33:04
That's a very difficult place to be and financially it's
33:09
unsustainable. What do?
33:10
You What do you see that looking like for your daughter?
33:13
Well, I mean, I think it looks like if she chooses to stay in
33:16
Maine, which I, I is my prayer and desperate hope that she
33:20
wants to be in Maine. And it's a big reason why I'm
33:23
running and doing this. But you know, I think it means
33:27
if we don't change, it means a lot higher taxes.
33:29
It means a lot less public services, it means a lot less
33:32
options. But I don't think the beauty
33:35
will ever change. And, you know, just the, the
33:37
fact that Maine is what it is. But I, I think we have to do a
33:40
better job of, you know, bringing more industry to Maine,
33:46
making, making it attractive to live here, which is why I'm so
33:50
focused in this campaign on the affordability agenda.
33:54
You know, it's too expensive to live here.
33:56
It's too expensive to buy your energy here.
33:58
It's too expensive to buy your groceries, your healthcare, your
34:00
childcare, all of these things. And it seems that we have made
34:04
the choice to make them more expensive.
34:08
And so as I look into, you know, hopefully if Maine voters vote
34:13
for me, the the first four years of my administration are going
34:17
to be about affordability. And what that means to me is is
34:22
housing. You mentioned it in your intro,
34:24
but like my wife and I own a small construction company where
34:28
we build under 1000 square foot homes and the affordability
34:34
agenda and housing it. One thing we can do simply is
34:38
I'm going to get every bank inside the room.
34:40
I'm going to get every bank and credit union in the room and I I
34:45
doubt many people have ever read their mortgage documents
34:48
thoroughly, but I have. I've read my mortgage documents
34:51
very thoroughly and there's clauses in every mortgage that
34:54
say that you're allowed to transfer or sell your mortgage
34:59
with the approval of the lending institution.
35:01
The problem is most of them won't let you do that I think.
35:04
I know where you're going with this, and I love this idea,
35:07
yeah. They, I mean they, and they
35:08
don't do it because, you know, as someone who has a low
35:11
interest loan, I have a three-point two 3.25% home loan
35:15
that I got in 2020. Great rate, you know, but we're
35:19
ready to move, you know, we're ready to go someplace else, but
35:21
we can't because we can't afford a 7% interest rate.
35:27
Mortgages can be saleable and portable.
35:30
They can be and we have a great example of it and it's called
35:33
the VA home loan. Any VA home loan can be assumed
35:37
or purchased or carried by a non veteran.
35:41
So how do you get the banks to agree the lending institutions
35:44
I. Want them, I'm going to they're
35:45
going to be my first phone call. They're going to be my first
35:47
phone call if I'm I'm successful in November.
35:50
And I want them to come in And we are going to create some sort
35:54
of main product that isn't sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
35:58
and can be can be sold and it can be ported for people.
36:03
And that benefits people on both ends of the property letter.
36:06
It benefits people getting on and it benefits people getting
36:10
off because what it does is it frees up housing, like it frees
36:15
up my house for somebody to start climbing the property
36:18
ladder, and it helps me get into something else at a lower rate.
36:22
It's a big deal across the whole lifespan because there are a lot
36:25
of people who are older. I just became a grandfather.
36:28
Congratulations. Thank you.
36:30
I'm not planning on leaving my home, but I know a lot of people
36:33
that are and it's really hard to downsize, to change, to get a
36:37
mortgage because these people either have no mortgage or if
36:40
they have a mortgage, it's like you.
36:42
It's a really, really low percent, but they're completely
36:45
blocked by high interest rates. But if?
36:46
You had that mortgage, right? Like if you had a low interest
36:49
mortgage, wouldn't you love to pass that on, of course, to your
36:53
child or your grandchild, like at a lower rate?
36:57
That would be wonderful for them and makes too much.
36:59
Sense. Yeah, it makes.
37:00
Too much sense, right, you know, so like that's one of the I, I
37:03
don't think it's a fair answer or a complete answer to just say
37:06
we're going to build our way out of the housing crisis.
37:08
We're not you have to you have to look at it both from you know
37:12
the new build perspective, renovation perspective and you
37:15
also have to look at it from a capital perspective.
37:18
Capital is only valuable if it's mobile there's.
37:20
Also another perspective and that's time dynamic and I think
37:23
what we're seeing now is very, very little inventory, but for
37:27
the oldest state and in about 20402042 in that time frame US
37:33
older people will die and that's going to create a spike in
37:37
inventory and unless you have people moving in then values
37:41
because of the PK curve would decline.
37:43
Is that not correct? That's. 100% true.
37:46
And you know, like not only with housing, but with energy, we've
37:49
voluntarily made our energy prices more expensive with the
37:53
advent of large scale industrial solar and wind.
37:56
And perhaps one of the biggest mistakes we made with that,
37:59
fine. You want to go down that route
38:00
for sustainability. I don't I don't buy it.
38:02
But like if you want to, that's fine.
38:05
But you have to have battery backup because guess what, the
38:07
wind doesn't blow all the time and the sun doesn't shine all
38:09
the time. You have to have a way to
38:11
harness that energy to deploy to the grid later.
38:14
Like we made horrible mistakes with that.
38:17
You know, if you look on the ISO New England grid right now, you
38:20
will see that most of our energy production is coming from
38:22
natural gas. And we have not had a governor
38:26
who will stand up to the states of New York and Massachusetts
38:28
and sue them for violations of the Commerce Clause for not
38:32
allowing us to expand that pipeline capacity.
38:36
There's so much we can do on energy that we have voluntarily
38:40
made expensive. And one of the things that I, I
38:43
kind of mentioned this, but like, you know, our solar policy
38:47
in Maine has done a double whammy both on energy and on
38:50
groceries. We, we have paid farmers to fill
38:57
their land with solar panels so that we're not producing food
39:02
and we're producing expensive energy.
39:05
Like that's a 2 Fer like that's, that's ridiculous policy.
39:09
And so, you know, we've made grocery prices expensive.
39:12
I'm very concerned that less than 10% of a Mainer's plate
39:17
comes from Maine. You know, that's a real, you
39:20
know, we talked about COVID a little bit off Mike, who was
39:23
providing your food during COVID when Hannaford was empty, right?
39:26
Who was your local farmer? And I, I'm very concerned about
39:30
our food production in Maine. And it's causing our prices to
39:33
rise and making us reliant on places far away for our food.
39:37
And so, you know, when I'm governor, we're going to make
39:40
sure the affordability agenda is enacted and we're going to make
39:43
sure that people can afford to live in the greatest place on
39:46
earth, I think. Another thing that's important
39:48
for a governor and the next governor to have, and I think
39:51
just from getting to know you, you have these skills, these
39:53
interpersonal skills is the ability to go and meet with
39:57
people out of state and sell them on the true benefits.
40:01
Showing them the Excel spreadsheet.
40:03
Not just being nice, right, but making the business case for why
40:08
we can grow Maine so that this future, this nihilistic future
40:13
that you're, you're fearful for your 6 year old doesn't have to
40:16
happen so. I want to talk about that, and
40:18
this is probably a great way to close here, OK?
40:21
I believe that Maine, The Maine governor, should be an
40:24
ambassador to the world on why Maine is the best place in the
40:28
world to live, work, raise a family and do business, OK?
40:32
I am frustrated by some governors in this country of
40:36
both political stripes that go around and think moving deck
40:40
chairs around on the Titanic is somehow going to save the ship
40:43
from sinking, right? We need to go into other
40:47
countries and explain why our state and why our country is the
40:51
best place to invest. It's one of the things I respect
40:54
most about President Trump is he understands that we need to go
40:59
out into the world and make our case in the community of nations
41:02
of why we are the best place to be.
41:05
And if you were doing that just representing Maine, what
41:09
countries would you go to and what would you represent for
41:11
Maine? So one of the.
41:12
Things that I think is really great is we have a tremendous
41:17
opportunity with Canada. I know that sounds like a really
41:20
weak answer, but hear me out. You know when everything was
41:26
going on with the tariffs, right when President Trump first came
41:28
back into office and there was tariffs and everybody was
41:30
freaking out about what that would do for cost.
41:32
OK, one of the first things I thought of, I saw this article
41:36
and there was this gentleman in Woodstock, NB who owned a
41:39
company that created woodworking tools.
41:44
And most of his share of his, most of the purchasing was done
41:49
in the United States. So like over 80% of his of his
41:53
base comes from the United States.
41:55
And he said, what are you going to do with these tariffs?
41:58
Hold up. And the guy said, well, I mean,
42:00
I'll just sell my company and my business, I'll fold up or I'll
42:02
move it to the United States. Pretty simple.
42:04
Woodstock NB is about 30, not even 30 minutes from the main
42:08
border, right? And I said, well, you know what,
42:11
the main Canadian ombudsman needs to go because we have a
42:15
position basically an ambassador to Canada from Maine to go and
42:19
say, hey, we'll make it real easy for you to move to Maine,
42:22
move your business to Maine. I looked it up.
42:26
That position had been vacant for four years.
42:30
Four years that position had been vacant, fully funded and
42:33
vacant because. To me, that's the sort of
42:36
position where you could not only fill, but you can have
42:39
pretty clear expectations. We're paying you $100,000.
42:43
We expect you to bring in $1 million a 10X, which is I know
42:48
that sounds sort of greedy, isn't, is not no.
42:51
And there was a follow up article on that and the guy
42:54
moved to Texas. Wow and.
42:56
We lost out. So I believe that the governor
42:59
of Maine needs to be an ambassador to the world.
43:02
And if that job is done correctly, Maine has a very,
43:06
very bright future. Garrett Mason, I really
43:09
appreciate that you're laying out very specific and granular
43:13
thoughts. It's clear that your leadership
43:16
past is a very real past. You know, there, there's
43:21
absolutely very little fluff there.
43:23
And, and your success in terms of real estate and your
43:26
knowledge of housing and fiscal issues is, is really
43:29
appreciated. Thank you so much for joining
43:32
us. Thank.
43:32
You for having me hope. You had a good time and I'm
43:34
going to hold you to your promise.
43:35
All right, Sounds good. And for our listeners, thank you
43:37
so much for joining us. It is a healthy conversation.
43:40
News Radio WGAN have a great week.