Latest / The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson / The Healthcare Middlemen Making Billions Off You
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- 0:00Speaker 1: And they have a guy running now who's definitely Muslim Brotherhood.
- 0:05Speaker 1: He said he's not, but, you know, check his mother,
- 0:07Speaker 1: check his sister, check his notes. You know, everything disappeared
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- 0:21Speaker 1: If you're black or if you're Jewish and if you
- 0:25Speaker 1: vote for Abdul, you're crazy.
- 0:28Speaker 2: You're listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson.
- 0:32Speaker 3: Good Friday morning. It's so nice to have you with
- 0:34Speaker 3: us on the 47 Morning Update. And we've got a
- 0:36Speaker 3: very special guest with us this morning.
- 0:39Speaker 4: It is Dr.
- 0:40Speaker 5: Oz.
- 0:40Speaker 4: You know Dr. Oz probably from TV. Dr.
- 0:43Speaker 3: Oz is now the administrator for the Centers for Medicare
- 0:46Speaker 3: and Medicaid Services in the Trump administration. And he's talking
- 0:51Speaker 3: about two very important issues ahead of Election Day.
- 0:54Speaker 4: First up, rural health care.
- 0:56Speaker 3: New funding is coming in to help many Americans who
- 0:59Speaker 3: are in desperate need of help.
- 1:00Speaker 4: And what does that actually look like?
- 1:03Speaker 3: And he also is going to talk to us about
- 1:04Speaker 3: the drug middlemen and pharmacies and transparency and pricing. How
- 1:11Speaker 3: the administration is saving you a lot of money when
- 1:14Speaker 3: it comes to, well, your prescription drugs. He breaks it
- 1:18Speaker 3: all down for you in just a moment. But before
- 1:20Speaker 3: we get to that, the elections, the midterms, they're almost here.
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- 2:55Speaker 4: It's the 47 Morning Update, and it starts right now.
- 2:59Speaker 2: Story number one.
- 3:00Speaker 3: One of the big things that people are looking at
- 3:02Speaker 3: right now as they're going in to vote in the
- 3:04Speaker 3: midterms is the issue of costs when it comes to
- 3:07Speaker 3: health care. And there are many that are concerned about
- 3:10Speaker 3: crises with health care in rural parts of the country.
- 3:13Speaker 3: A specific example of that is Texas. Well, joining me
- 3:17Speaker 3: now to talk about a couple of different initiatives that
- 3:19Speaker 3: are really important to you, especially ahead of Election Day.
- 3:22Speaker 4: Is Dr.
- 3:23Speaker 5: Oz.
- 3:23Speaker 3: He's the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
- 3:27Speaker 3: Services in the Trump administration.
- 3:29Speaker 5: Dr.
- 3:29Speaker 3: Oz, always a pleasure to chat with you. And this
- 3:32Speaker 3: is big news, what you guys are doing with rural
- 3:34Speaker 3: Texas health care. And it's important because there's so many
- 3:37Speaker 3: people in such a big state that are in areas
- 3:39Speaker 3: where they don't have premium health care right by them.
- 3:42Speaker 3: And you guys are trying to fix that.
- 3:44Speaker 5: The way you fix that is not by just paying
- 3:46Speaker 5: some of the bills. You actually transform the system. So
- 3:49Speaker 5: the president, Congress got together and they put $ 50 billion
- 3:53Speaker 5: in the rural health care. Every state had to apply,
- 3:55Speaker 5: and each state gets to take the money and use
- 3:59Speaker 5: it in a way they think best suits their people.
- 4:00Speaker 5: So today, the big news is $ 87 million is going
- 4:04Speaker 5: out from this program to 130 rural health care providers.
- 4:09Speaker 5: And this is, again, this is called Rural Texas Strong.
- 4:12Speaker 5: It's designed to help build better workforce, modernize facilities, get
- 4:16Speaker 5: better equipment. If you're living in rural parts of Texas,
- 4:19Speaker 5: you don't need to drive three hours to get basic
- 4:21Speaker 5: heart checkups or deal with your lung issues or have
- 4:24Speaker 5: a baby. And so the point is to meet you
- 4:26Speaker 5: where you are. And the reason it's important is your
- 4:28Speaker 5: life expectancy, if you live in rural Texas, is almost
- 4:31Speaker 5: three years shorter than if you live in an urban area.
- 4:34Speaker 1: Wow.
- 4:34Speaker 5: That's not right. Your zip code should not be your destiny.
- 4:37Speaker 5: So by dealing with the real challenges, including mental health issues, which,
- 4:42Speaker 5: of course, afflict not just our vets, who we talk
- 4:45Speaker 5: a lot about, but there are lots of people who
- 4:46Speaker 5: aren't playing at full speed, and they need help, and
- 4:50Speaker 5: they can't get psychiatrists to move to rural parts of Texas.
- 4:53Speaker 5: So we can use telemedicine to connect with folks. All
- 4:56Speaker 5: that becomes possible with a reformation, a change in how
- 5:01Speaker 5: we're thinking about rural health care.
- 5:03Speaker 3: You mentioned telemedicine, and that is one of the things
- 5:05Speaker 3: I travel a lot, just like you do. I use
- 5:08Speaker 3: telemedicine with my doctor, I would say, 90% of the time.
- 5:11Speaker 3: I still go in for my annual and things like that.
- 5:14Speaker 3: But overall, usually I'm on the road. And so I
- 5:17Speaker 3: think that's one of the things that is so important
- 5:19Speaker 3: here is that we use technology to our advantage and
- 5:22Speaker 3: the way that we can now treat people wherever they are.
- 5:25Speaker 4: And it works.
- 5:26Speaker 5: The fact of the matter is, especially once you have
- 5:28Speaker 5: a relationship with your doctor, then it's easier for them
- 5:31Speaker 5: to follow up with you. I don't need to cancel
- 5:33Speaker 5: your day at work. You need to wait in the
- 5:35Speaker 5: doctor's office. We can work at odd hours and connect
- 5:38Speaker 5: with each other. And, yes, you've got to have the
- 5:41Speaker 5: operation in person, but much of the checkup for the
- 5:43Speaker 5: chronic illnesses that really hurt so many Americans is better
- 5:47Speaker 5: done if it's more efficient. And like so many people
- 5:52Speaker 5: in rural America, even that part of the puzzle is missing.
- 5:56Speaker 5: So if you live in an urban area, that's routine now. Yeah,
- 5:59Speaker 5: you can also go down to the doctor's office, but
- 6:01Speaker 5: the technologies have advanced. And the hospitals are doing well
- 6:03Speaker 5: because they can buy in bulk. They can take advantage
- 6:06Speaker 5: of all the economies of scale. People in rural systems
- 6:09Speaker 5: get left behind. And by putting this money into the
- 6:13Speaker 5: system directly and not getting it You know, stolen, stuck,
- 6:16Speaker 5: sucked out, lost, obfuscated, abused. The money actually just goes
- 6:20Speaker 5: to the people who need it. And we're auditing this
- 6:22Speaker 5: very carefully to make sure that today's announcement of $ 87
- 6:25Speaker 5: million really goes to those rural health care providers all
- 6:28Speaker 5: across Texas.
- 6:29Speaker 3: You guys have been rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse
- 6:31Speaker 3: in incredible ways. You've actually gone out there to the
- 6:33Speaker 3: places where the fraud is taking place. Shining a light
- 6:37Speaker 3: on that is a huge part of this, but then
- 6:39Speaker 3: there's the other question. It's the politics of it. Why
- 6:42Speaker 3: would this not get unanimous support, and why are Democrats
- 6:46Speaker 3: pushing so hard against this?
- 6:48Speaker 5: Democrats are embarrassed. This is something that happened under their watch. uh...
- 6:53Speaker 5: it up there was a reduction of the guardrails because
- 6:57Speaker 5: they wanted to be nice they didn't think that uh...
- 7:00Speaker 5: they wanted to go after people who were taken advantage
- 7:02Speaker 5: of the system how many could it possibly be but
- 7:05Speaker 5: you don't realize when you do that is bad people
- 7:08Speaker 5: realize you've taken your guard down they realize they have
- 7:11Speaker 5: an opportunity to make easy money by parking their pickup
- 7:14Speaker 5: truck at the federal treasury pulling up with cash and
- 7:17Speaker 5: running off without a more following so they were poor
- 7:20Speaker 5: rules poor enforcement And at the end of the prior administration,
- 7:25Speaker 5: we believe $ 100 billion a year being taken out just
- 7:28Speaker 5: in the healthcare space. Forget about everything else. And so
- 7:31Speaker 5: we have cracked down. And to me, this is just
- 7:34Speaker 5: like the border. We did not need a new law
- 7:36Speaker 5: to stop illegal migration across the border. We needed a
- 7:39Speaker 5: new president. President Trump came in. He made it very
- 7:42Speaker 5: clear what he was going to do. Everyone in the
- 7:44Speaker 5: administration knew what needed to happen. It was all a
- 7:46Speaker 5: government approach, and we shut it down. It's the same
- 7:48Speaker 5: thing in fraud. Right now, with the anti-fraud task force
- 7:51Speaker 5: set up by the president, with Vice President Vance, we
- 7:55Speaker 5: all work together. So if I need help from the
- 7:57Speaker 5: Department of Justice or FBI, I just call over. There
- 8:00Speaker 5: are things I can't do, but there are things I
- 8:03Speaker 5: can do that can point everyone in the right direction.
- 8:05Speaker 5: I'll give you one concrete example, because remember, they're not
- 8:07Speaker 5: just stealing your money. They're corrupting the system. They're stealing
- 8:10Speaker 5: your health, your life. They're stealing your trust. And so
- 8:14Speaker 5: if you steal from the poor, and I'm paying the bills,
- 8:17Speaker 5: so I'll see you do it, you might have taken
- 8:20Speaker 5: a million dollars out of our coffer. But I'm going
- 8:22Speaker 5: to give your name to the IRS, and without a
- 8:25Speaker 5: lot of fanfare, the IRS knows you made a million dollars.
- 8:29Speaker 5: Did you declare it? And if you didn't, and then
- 8:30Speaker 5: you signed that document, you're going out. And that's the
- 8:33Speaker 5: hope we have, to send a message to all the criminals,
- 8:36Speaker 5: the grifters, the multinational organizations that came into America to
- 8:40Speaker 5: steal from our taxpayers, that we're coming after you. And
- 8:43Speaker 5: don't walk from us. Run, because we're not going to miss.
- 8:46Speaker 3: Before I move on to the drug prices and the middlemen,
- 8:49Speaker 3: I do want to ask you just overall, you've been
- 8:51Speaker 3: there for a while. The amount of fraud that you've
- 8:55Speaker 3: witnessed in these government programs, which were supposed to aid people,
- 8:58Speaker 3: whether it was children or the elderly or handicapped, that
- 9:02Speaker 3: was genuinely set up to help people are you still
- 9:06Speaker 3: being shocked by what you guys are finding with the
- 9:08Speaker 3: level of fraud that we're seeing nationwide because you deal
- 9:11Speaker 3: with a lot of it with fake billing with medicare
- 9:13Speaker 3: medicaid it is it has been rampant you guys are
- 9:15Speaker 3: cracking down on it but those i worry how many
- 9:19Speaker 3: years this fraud has been at these levels and how
- 9:21Speaker 3: much of our money has just disappeared to people that
- 9:23Speaker 3: said we're going to abuse the system because no one's
- 9:25Speaker 3: really watching.
- 9:27Speaker 5: I think it got much worse after COVID. I don't
- 9:29Speaker 5: think it was really this bad five years ago. And
- 9:32Speaker 5: I have pretty good evidence, things like skin substitutes, which
- 9:35Speaker 5: you've never heard of and you should never know about
- 9:36Speaker 5: because most of the time they're not done legitimately. But
- 9:39Speaker 5: that was going to be $ 25 billion this year out
- 9:42Speaker 5: of just that one little scam. We shut it down
- 9:44Speaker 5: last year when it was only $ 14. I think only
- 9:46Speaker 5: because that's a true stocking amount of money. That business
- 9:49Speaker 5: five years ago was a $ 100 million business. So, you know,
- 9:53Speaker 5: it grew. It didn't just grow, you know, 10 times,
- 9:57Speaker 5: 15 times. I mean, we're talking about massive increase. all
- 10:00Speaker 5: because nobody was watching. The good news is, as fast
- 10:03Speaker 5: as it grew, that's as fast as it would take
- 10:05Speaker 5: it down. And yes, there's more to be done. We'll
- 10:08Speaker 5: get it done in this administration. We need everyone's support
- 10:11Speaker 5: because it matters that we actually can do our job.
- 10:14Speaker 5: But we don't want people in this government thinking that
- 10:18Speaker 5: we're going to go soft on crime. And when you say, well,
- 10:21Speaker 5: you know, even if one in 10,000 people is wrongly
- 10:24Speaker 5: taken off the rolls, you can't have that. That is
- 10:27Speaker 5: not a practical way to run a country. You have
- 10:30Speaker 5: got to be able to make sure you have a
- 10:31Speaker 5: safe way of getting people back into the system if
- 10:34Speaker 5: by some reason you miss. But the chance of us
- 10:36Speaker 5: making a mistake... In the Affordable Care Act, for example,
- 10:40Speaker 5: when we know there were 760,000 people without Social Security numbers,
- 10:45Speaker 5: the chance of us mistakenly taking somebody who is fraudulently
- 10:49Speaker 5: on the system, a phantom account, is less than being
- 10:52Speaker 5: struck by lightning. That's how accurate we have been in
- 10:55Speaker 5: some of these programs. Even with that, we run into
- 10:58Speaker 5: headwinds by people saying, what if there's still going to
- 11:01Speaker 5: be one person who gets hurt? And again, they're making
- 11:04Speaker 5: excuses for failed systems. In practice, everyone agrees. that the
- 11:08Speaker 5: system can survive like this because you need the money
- 11:10Speaker 5: to go to the people for whom it's designed and
- 11:12Speaker 5: will listen to your show right now is paying taxes,
- 11:16Speaker 5: working their tail off, they're paying the electrical bills, they're
- 11:18Speaker 5: paying their parking tickets, my God. But other people are
- 11:21Speaker 5: taking your tax dollars, stealing it from the federal government
- 11:24Speaker 5: because no one's watching, and then they're buying Lamborghinis and
- 11:27Speaker 5: Ferraris and private jets and cooking champagne while they fly
- 11:31Speaker 5: over you. That's not right. And people appropriately get angry.
- 11:35Speaker 5: And most people, independent of their political ideology, agree with
- 11:39Speaker 5: what I'm saying. The only challenge is, are you going
- 11:41Speaker 5: to try to pretend that's not happening because it's embarrassing
- 11:44Speaker 5: to you?
- 11:45Speaker 3: I want to move to this other issue, and it's important.
- 11:48Speaker 3: especially when it comes to prescription drug prices. My guest
- 11:51Speaker 3: with me, by the way, is Dr.
- 11:52Speaker 5: Oz.
- 11:53Speaker 3: He is the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and
- 11:55Speaker 3: Medicaid Services in the Trump administration.
- 11:57Speaker 5: Dr.
- 11:58Speaker 3: Oz, one of the things you focus on, the president
- 12:00Speaker 3: is focused on, and let's talk about the overall good news,
- 12:03Speaker 3: and then we're going to get into this transparency. But TrumpRx,
- 12:06Speaker 3: what you guys have done has been incredible. If you
- 12:08Speaker 3: haven't looked at it yet and you haven't dealt with
- 12:10Speaker 3: it yet or tried to see how much money it
- 12:11Speaker 3: can save you, It is significant. And sometimes those costs
- 12:15Speaker 3: are even lower than what your price is with your insurance,
- 12:18Speaker 3: including private insurance coverage, you know, prescription drug coverage. This
- 12:22Speaker 3: has been a godsend for so many Americans on lifesaving
- 12:25Speaker 3: prescriptions that people need.
- 12:27Speaker 4: And they and you guys keep adding things that list.
- 12:30Speaker 5: Ninety percent of all the drugs sold in America. it's
- 12:34Speaker 5: about nine hundred products now are available in trump or
- 12:37Speaker 5: x dot gov think of it as a transparency tool
- 12:41Speaker 5: the best price usually but it's also at the most
- 12:43Speaker 5: transparent site to find out what all the pharmacies in
- 12:46Speaker 5: your neighborhood charging you for the drugs that you are
- 12:49Speaker 5: likely to buy that way you're informed just like when
- 12:51Speaker 5: you buy at lunch or buy a car right there
- 12:54Speaker 5: stickers on the thing that they didn't used to be
- 12:56Speaker 5: stickers they used to be price tags price tags were
- 12:59Speaker 5: created you know 150 years ago. But now you sort
- 13:03Speaker 5: of expect them. But in healthcare, we don't have them. Why?
- 13:06Speaker 5: This is the part that really gets me. When smart
- 13:08Speaker 5: people don't do things, it's because they don't want to.
- 13:11Speaker 5: The reason you don't have prices in healthcare is because
- 13:13Speaker 5: people hide the ball. If you don't know what things cost,
- 13:15Speaker 5: you cannot be a smart user of the system. Your
- 13:19Speaker 5: employer also can't be very smart about how they're picking
- 13:22Speaker 5: the insurance that they're charging you for. So the whole
- 13:25Speaker 5: system allows fat to exist. Remember, someone's fat is another
- 13:29Speaker 5: person's profit. So what this rule we did today, but
- 13:32Speaker 5: we've been doing this with the most favored nation, drug pricing,
- 13:34Speaker 5: is look at all of the factors that drive up prices.
- 13:38Speaker 5: And we were successful, and here's the proof. Drug prices
- 13:41Speaker 5: in America have fallen more this year than they have
- 13:44Speaker 5: in 63 years. The last time drug prices fell this fast,
- 13:48Speaker 5: Bobby Kennedy's uncle was president of the United States. That's
- 13:52Speaker 5: how massive a drop this was. What do we do?
- 13:55Speaker 5: We negotiated most favored nation drug pricing, which means, very simply,
- 13:58Speaker 5: no more global freeloading. If you sell drugs in another
- 14:01Speaker 5: country for a fraction of what you sell them for here,
- 14:05Speaker 5: no more, no mas. You can't do that. You have
- 14:07Speaker 5: to charge the same price everywhere.
- 14:08Speaker 6: We're not price-fixing.
- 14:09Speaker 5: You pick the price. Whatever it is, that's the price
- 14:12Speaker 5: for the world. We're not paying three times more, which,
- 14:14Speaker 5: by the way, is the average right now until we
- 14:17Speaker 5: change the, you know, we made these contracts last year.
- 14:20Speaker 5: That's what was happening in America. Then you've got this
- 14:23Speaker 5: problem with what are called PBMs, Pharmacy Benefits Management Companies. Now,
- 14:28Speaker 5: I don't want to vilify any one group, but this
- 14:30Speaker 5: is a process that got in the middle between the
- 14:33Speaker 5: manufacturer of the drug, the pharmaceutical company, and your company,
- 14:37Speaker 5: the one that's paying for your insurance. And when they
- 14:40Speaker 5: got in there, they initially were trying to negotiate better prices,
- 14:42Speaker 5: but the whole system has gotten convoluted with rebates and
- 14:46Speaker 5: kickbacks and all these extra layers of bureaucracy that are
- 14:50Speaker 5: designed to pull money out of the system to pay people.
- 14:53Speaker 5: And that has driven up drug prices. And so what
- 14:55Speaker 5: we have done at the Department of Health and Human
- 14:59Speaker 5: Services is to insist that the hospitals and the insurance
- 15:03Speaker 5: companies tell you what things cost. So it's like sitting
- 15:06Speaker 5: down at lunch and actually having the tags on the
- 15:10Speaker 5: food telling you what things cost, which is what you're
- 15:12Speaker 5: used to. The same thing is true in health care now.
- 15:15Speaker 3: You look at that, and again, it's you guys doing
- 15:18Speaker 3: everything you can to make sure that we're moving into–
- 15:22Speaker 3: This a system that's just transparent. And the fact that
- 15:25Speaker 3: we pay, as you mentioned, three X, what other countries
- 15:27Speaker 3: are paying for drugs also is total insanity. So how
- 15:30Speaker 3: do you expect this to move forward? And what can
- 15:33Speaker 3: people see when as it actually affects their lives?
- 15:36Speaker 2: Right.
- 15:36Speaker 3: Like and again, who's against this right now? That's the
- 15:39Speaker 3: other question I got to ask you, unfortunately, all over again.
- 15:42Speaker 5: Well, the people who are against this. are the people
- 15:45Speaker 5: who make money from the system as it is. Whenever
- 15:47Speaker 5: there's a dark corner in the marketplace, someone's stealing money
- 15:52Speaker 5: from it. They're making more money than they deserve. And
- 15:54Speaker 5: so imagine that you're, you know, like any other kind
- 15:58Speaker 5: of a market, let's say you're buying a car, which
- 16:00Speaker 5: is what an operation costs these days, same amount as
- 16:03Speaker 5: a car, and the car dealer does not put the
- 16:05Speaker 5: price tags on the car. You're not going to know
- 16:07Speaker 5: what you're getting. You might want to pay extra for
- 16:09Speaker 5: a car, but you know what you're getting for it.
- 16:11Speaker 5: That's value. That's fine. You should be the decider. And
- 16:14Speaker 5: because you can decide, you get the car dealerships to
- 16:18Speaker 5: compete with each other, so they'll negotiate with you and
- 16:21Speaker 5: you get the best price possible. That's what we want
- 16:23Speaker 5: in health care. There's no reason why it wouldn't exist
- 16:25Speaker 5: in health care. So we've already implemented it with hospitals,
- 16:29Speaker 5: with insurance companies. We just announced two weeks ago you
- 16:32Speaker 5: can call your insurance company and ask them, what is
- 16:34Speaker 5: this going to cost me? And they have to tell you.
- 16:37Speaker 5: And they can answer now because they know what the
- 16:40Speaker 5: hospital is charging because they have to tell you. So
- 16:42Speaker 5: you now, you're not used to it. People aren't used
- 16:45Speaker 5: to comparing shopping prices for medicine and doctors and operations.
- 16:49Speaker 5: But in New York City, just take New York City.
- 16:52Speaker 5: It's probably the same in Dallas and Houston. There's a
- 16:54Speaker 5: tenfold difference in the price of an MRI scan. An
- 16:58Speaker 5: MRI scan is a commodity. It's the same scan that
- 17:01Speaker 5: you just say, you know, where do we get it
- 17:03Speaker 5: to get the same results? But ten times different. Well,
- 17:05Speaker 5: there's no excuse for that. Once you know that, you're
- 17:08Speaker 5: going to go to the cheapest vendor, and they're going
- 17:09Speaker 5: to get all the business, and the guy who charges
- 17:11Speaker 5: ten times more, he's not going to have anybody visit,
- 17:13Speaker 5: so he's going to have to drop his price to
- 17:15Speaker 5: be able to compete. That's what we want in the market.
- 17:17Speaker 3: Final question for you on this, and that is, what
- 17:20Speaker 3: can people do that are listening to continue to be
- 17:23Speaker 3: advocates for themselves in this way? Because it does seem... Uh, exhausting. Look, you,
- 17:27Speaker 3: you talk to people that get sick. You talk to
- 17:29Speaker 3: a great example is cancer patients. My mom had stage
- 17:32Speaker 3: four cancer. She survived it, but you don't know what
- 17:34Speaker 3: anything costs and you're trying to fight for your life.
- 17:37Speaker 3: And the bills start showing up. And I told my dad,
- 17:39Speaker 3: I was like, dad, don't worry about the bills. We'll
- 17:42Speaker 3: deal with that later. You take care of mom, throw
- 17:44Speaker 3: them in a basket and we'll deal with it another day.
- 17:46Speaker 3: It shouldn't be that way, but that still seems to
- 17:49Speaker 3: be what so many people feel right now.
- 17:51Speaker 5: The system is changing and it's changing quickly and technology
- 17:55Speaker 5: is helping us. One of the good things about using
- 17:59Speaker 5: superintelligence is that you can actually put all the numbers
- 18:01Speaker 5: into the system and say, what's the best value hospital
- 18:04Speaker 5: or clinic or medication for my problem? So, yes, you
- 18:08Speaker 5: might have to put them in a basket because you're
- 18:10Speaker 5: busy taking care of a life-changing, challenging problem. But ideally,
- 18:14Speaker 5: before you even go in, it would say, this doctor
- 18:17Speaker 5: charges twice what another doctor does. Ask them why. Don't
- 18:20Speaker 5: switch doctors. Just ask what's going on here. Most likely
- 18:23Speaker 5: that doctor is going to say, you know what, I
- 18:24Speaker 5: checked around. I'm charging more than they are for this procedure.
- 18:27Speaker 5: I'm going to change my price. And if they don't,
- 18:30Speaker 5: you should, if it's necessary, make a decision to go
- 18:32Speaker 5: to another doctor if you think they're equally good. But
- 18:35Speaker 5: like everything else in a market system. you have to
- 18:39Speaker 5: have informed people using it. If you are unable to
- 18:44Speaker 5: make a choice, that's possible, but the majority of people
- 18:46Speaker 5: will be able to. And you don't need everybody. If
- 18:49Speaker 5: even 20% of the people who are consuming medications or
- 18:53Speaker 5: surgeries or MRI scans, now that they have the data
- 18:56Speaker 5: in front of them, tons of companies have come into
- 18:58Speaker 5: this business and are actually creating very easy-to-use tools to educate.
- 19:03Speaker 5: Even seniors on Medicare can now compare prices. then you
- 19:07Speaker 5: can make a wise choice. Remember, not everyone has to
- 19:09Speaker 5: do it. Enough Americans care about price that they will
- 19:12Speaker 5: drive the price down once we know where the profit's
- 19:15Speaker 5: being made. And then the people who are in the business,
- 19:18Speaker 5: they got to react. And that's what's happening. Hospitals, doctors,
- 19:21Speaker 5: everyone's addressing these price challenges as they should.
- 19:24Speaker 3: It's really incredible to see what you guys have done
- 19:26Speaker 3: in such a short period of time. And it's more
- 19:29Speaker 3: important that we get the information out there. Things are changing.
- 19:31Speaker 3: It saves you money as a taxpayer. It also gets
- 19:33Speaker 3: you better healthcare and better drug prices and a better
- 19:37Speaker 3: life and adding years to your life, especially when you're
- 19:39Speaker 3: in these rural areas, as you mentioned, three years difference
- 19:42Speaker 3: in life expectancy from rural Texas to big cities.
- 19:45Speaker 4: We got to fix that. And you guys are taking
- 19:47Speaker 4: it head on.
- 19:48Speaker 5: Dr.
- 19:48Speaker 3: Oz, I appreciate your time and what you're doing.
- 19:50Speaker 4: Keep up the great work and good job.
- 19:52Speaker 5: God bless you. Take care.
- 19:53Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to the 47 Morning Update with
- 19:56Speaker 2: Ben Ferguson. Please make sure you hit subscribe wherever you're
- 20:00Speaker 2: listening to this podcast right now. And for more in-depth news,
- 20:04Speaker 2: also subscribe to the Ben Ferguson podcast, and we will
- 20:07Speaker 2: see you back here tomorrow.