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1:22

If you had a chance to listen to my last

1:25

episode on pursuing

1:27

passion in a capitalist world and why

1:30

it's important to sort of reclaim

1:32

passion as something that

1:35

is really just for you. And yeah,

1:37

you could choose to share it with the world if you want,

1:39

but recognize the drawbacks

1:41

that come with that. That episode has

1:44

resonated with a lot of people who listen

1:46

to it. One of them is a listener

1:48

of the show, Tori. So I wanna

1:50

just quickly share a message that I received

1:52

from her. Quote, I started

1:54

a cookie company, few years ago

1:57

and struggled with trying to monetize

1:59

it. became a to-do list

2:01

and I burned out.

2:03

I don't bake much anymore because of it. I now

2:05

have a lot of sensitivity into keeping

2:07

things I love as simply things

2:10

I love.

2:11

So first of all thank you so much to Tori

2:13

for sending that in but I just wanted

2:15

to share that because it really highlights what I was trying

2:18

to say in that episode. The

2:20

things you love can very quickly

2:23

become things that you despise

2:25

or things that you just don't really do anymore

2:28

the minute you try to to offer

2:30

it at the altar of the marketplace.

2:32

But I just wanted to share this message because

2:34

it so easily wrapped

2:37

up what I was trying to say in my

2:39

last episode. So thank you to her and if

2:41

you ever want to share your thoughts on

2:43

an episode you can message me on Facebook

2:46

or Instagram or email me or pretty

2:48

much anything. Like just find me somewhere

2:51

and send me a message. I'm paying attention to all of

2:53

it. Alright let's get into the episode.

2:57

So today I want to talk about universal

3:01

health insurance, also known

3:03

as universal health care. I like

3:05

to sometimes refer to it as publicly

3:08

funded health insurance, but

3:10

the general idea is a

3:12

health insurance system that is funded

3:14

by the public through higher taxes

3:17

and that provides

3:20

a sort of baseline layer of support

3:23

for everyone in that country.

3:26

Now we've seen this this happens

3:28

in a number of countries around the world but

3:30

the UK is a commonly used example. France

3:32

is another example that's commonly used

3:36

sort of like the Nordic like Denmark

3:38

kind of system is often cited

3:40

as well and this is a debate that

3:43

has been I would say raging

3:46

since like 2016 since the election of 2016 when Bernie

3:48

Sanders first

3:52

announced and gained a ton of attention

3:55

largely for a sort of like Medicare

3:58

for all kind of system.

4:00

that is this sort of universal health

4:02

insurance. Things are changing rapidly,

4:05

like really, really fast. And

4:07

what I'm starting to see is

4:09

the potential for

4:12

a systematic breakdown of our current

4:15

systems because they are

4:17

really not equipped for the kind

4:19

of drastic change that we are about

4:22

to see happen, especially when it comes to

4:24

the labor

4:25

force. Let's

4:27

start here.

4:40

Let's talk about what

4:42

exactly is universal health insurance.

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apply, seaside for details. So

5:15

like I said before, universal health insurance is

5:17

the idea that the

5:19

health insurance that each individual

5:21

citizen utilizes in order

5:24

to pay for their healthcare, whatever

5:26

those costs might be. Maybe it's a surgery,

5:28

maybe it's just a checkup, maybe it's a

5:31

specialist, whatever it is.

5:33

The cost of

5:35

that goes through a single

5:37

system. So let's get into

5:40

kind of the benefits and the drawbacks of

5:43

a universal system. So the biggest

5:45

benefits of a single payer system, in my

5:48

opinion, are one, the ability to take

5:50

bigger risks. So one of the things that,

5:52

this is my personal

5:55

experience, but having many conversations

5:57

with people in this country, like it sounds

5:59

to me. like this is a lot of people's personal

6:02

experiences. But one of the things that the

6:04

United States prides itself on is the idea

6:07

of entrepreneurship. Like the idea that

6:09

you can have a great idea, work

6:12

really hard at it, put it out into the world,

6:14

find the market for it, and make yourself

6:17

wealthy independently of anything else.

6:19

You can you can go through and make

6:21

that happen. And we've seen that story play

6:24

out over and over and over again.

6:26

One of the things that makes this complicated

6:29

to actually like follow

6:31

through on for this country to actually be able

6:33

to deliver on is the fact that if

6:36

you leave your job

6:37

and if you are over the age of 26 you

6:40

do not have access to health insurance. Now

6:43

you can

6:44

pay for it. I guess I shouldn't use

6:46

the word access. Technically you have access.

6:48

It's available for you to purchase

6:51

but for the most part it's incredibly

6:53

expensive, especially if you live

6:56

in an area that has high coverage

6:58

and so your rates are just gonna go

7:00

up. But it's gonna

7:03

be expensive and

7:04

especially in those sort of early days of entrepreneurship,

7:07

it doesn't really make sense to pay

7:09

for it, especially if you're younger.

7:11

If you're in your like 20s, let's say you're 27, 28, 29, even

7:13

your younger 30s and late 30s, it often

7:19

doesn't make sense for you to

7:21

pay for health insurance. If

7:23

you're trying to do your own thing, you don't have

7:25

a job currently, and

7:29

you aren't really gonna be using it. That also

7:31

doesn't include when you have people

7:34

that are going to need

7:36

it, let's say 40s, 50s who do

7:38

have a great idea, they've got

7:40

family, they can't really

7:42

take the risk to pursue that great

7:44

idea. They can't jump ship from their job

7:47

and give up that health insurance because

7:49

very likely their entire family

7:52

is reliant on that health insurance. Their

7:54

entire family is being covered by

7:56

that health insurance. whether they

7:58

have a partner or kids.

8:00

or whatever it is, them

8:02

choosing to pursue what could be a

8:04

great idea and take that risk

8:07

means kicking their entire family off

8:09

of health insurance. And yes, they can go through

8:12

different programs like COBRA and so on and so forth,

8:14

but that's temporary. Now here's the thing,

8:17

all of this is possible. These are choices

8:19

that people can make, but if we

8:21

look at it statistically, fewer

8:24

people are going to take the risk

8:26

of entrepreneurship and are going to take the risk

8:28

of pursuing something if these

8:31

risks exist, if these barriers

8:34

exist to pursuing what could be

8:36

a great transformative idea.

8:39

One of the biggest fears that I had when I started

8:41

this podcast and decided to go full time on

8:43

it, I spent years with anxiety

8:47

because I knew I didn't

8:49

have health insurance. I chose to take

8:51

that risk and I couldn't

8:53

really

8:53

afford it because I was working

8:56

for myself. I was trying to build this thing

8:58

up. If I'd gotten hit by a car,

9:00

I'm screwed.

9:02

That's not really something you can plan for. That's

9:05

the other like huge benefit of a single payer system

9:07

here is that

9:08

your healthcare needs aren't always

9:11

things you can schedule and plan for.

9:13

And so you can't necessarily sit down

9:16

and look at like, oh, this

9:18

is when I'm going to need it. So I'm

9:20

gonna defer paying for it until

9:22

this moment. anything could

9:24

happen in between now and

9:27

that moment that you plan for. And more than likely,

9:30

things will happen. That is just the

9:32

name of the game that we're all playing. So

9:35

when you have this kind of system where the

9:37

only way you can get health insurance

9:38

is by going through your company and

9:41

paying for it, or while you're still

9:43

paying for it through the company, but going through your company, or

9:47

buying it directly on a marketplace, especially

9:49

when you're younger and you feel like, eh, not

9:52

really gonna use it, you're taking

9:54

this massive risk that could end

9:56

up really really badly for you if

9:58

you happen to get that

10:00

diagnosed with something really serious or

10:02

if you happened to get into an accident or

10:04

any of these other things you can't plan for

10:07

and

10:07

then there's two last sort of like drawbacks

10:09

that i really want to highlight the first is

10:12

that when you have a socially

10:14

funded a publicly funded health insurance

10:16

system you actually increase your sense

10:19

of connection and community to

10:21

the other people in this country because

10:23

it increases the sense of like hate i

10:25

got your back like i'm paying a little

10:27

bit more in taxes so that there is

10:29

money available if you happen to need

10:31

it that's the sense that you're

10:33

able to communicate when you have a system where

10:35

everyone is taking care of each other

10:38

rather than a system where each

10:40

individual person is going to a company

10:42

and saying hey i'm gonna give you this amount of money cover

10:45

me if something happens now we're just

10:47

thinking about us week

10:48

of course can't care about

10:51

our neighbor or what happens to them

10:53

and whether or not they're gonna have coverage because

10:56

we can only pay for ourselves but

10:58

if we had a system where each person

11:00

paid slightly more rather

11:02

than needing to cover the cost

11:04

of everyone they care about they can just

11:07

pay slightly more into a system that

11:09

is going to be used more efficiently

11:11

simply because they don't have administrative

11:13

costs as or at least as high of administrative

11:16

costs and so on so forth and

11:18

they can utilize a number of tools

11:20

to make sure that care get sort of doled

11:22

out to the people who need the most when they

11:24

need it it can be a much

11:26

more efficient system that creates

11:29

a sense of community in connection with

11:31

one another because we know that

11:32

we're all doing our part to support

11:34

one another and the last benefit the don't want to talk

11:37

there is the fact that if you build

11:39

a system that has publicly funded that as

11:41

is funded by individuals you

11:44

gain more power in your negotiations

11:46

with employers right now if you get

11:48

your insurance from your employer they

11:51

have the power to sort of use

11:53

that over you in any

11:55

conversations around your sort

11:57

of our positions and like your future at

11:59

the com

12:00

because they ultimately are

12:02

the ones providing you access to

12:04

the ability to go to the doctor or to go to

12:06

the dentist or whatever services you

12:08

might need.

12:10

And very possibly the ability

12:12

for your family to do those things as well. They

12:15

immediately have increased leverage

12:18

over anything you can bring to the table

12:20

by decoupling that and giving that

12:23

responsibility to you by

12:26

through the way of higher taxes and so on and so forth. forth,

12:28

you create an environment where you no

12:31

longer have to worry about that piece and

12:33

can bring more leverage

12:36

and value to the table when you have those

12:38

negotiations with your employer. So those

12:40

are the main benefits of a sort

12:42

of like social Medicare

12:44

for all

12:45

kind of system. But let's talk

12:47

about some of the drawbacks. So for example,

12:50

if we go down this route, taxes

12:52

will go up.

12:53

Like that is that is a fact.

12:56

This isn't something that we're gonna try to hide,

12:58

this isn't something that we're gonna like brush over.

13:00

Your taxes will increase. The amount

13:03

it increases is debatable, but

13:05

in order to fund this system

13:08

you will need to pay more money each month

13:10

from your taxes, or not each month, each paycheck

13:13

from your taxes. The other big thing is that

13:15

you will have to pay for other people's

13:18

health care. So

13:20

this might go beyond

13:22

just the people on your street This might

13:24

go beyond the people in your family. Maybe

13:27

you're willing to pay a little bit more to support

13:29

family members, to support friends, to support

13:31

neighbors, but you couldn't care less

13:34

about some teenager in Wisconsin.

13:36

I understand. It feels really weird

13:39

to say that your dollars, your

13:41

money that you work really hard for is going

13:43

to go towards supporting someone

13:46

else who maybe didn't work

13:48

as hard or maybe was lazy or whatever

13:50

it is. I completely get that.

13:52

but that is one of the like, if you view

13:55

that as a negative, that is a drawback

13:57

of this system. and I don't want a sugar

13:59

coat.

14:00

that. Now the other big thing is that you

14:02

are going to pay more immediately

14:04

for things that you might not be using. If

14:06

you're younger, if you're like under 40 let's

14:09

say, you probably have less

14:11

health issues and that is going to mean

14:13

that you're less likely to use this system

14:15

right now. So it might feel really weird

14:18

for you to consider the fact

14:20

that you are not going to be

14:22

using a system that you are actively

14:25

paying into and you

14:27

may not want to do that. I get that you You might want

14:29

to keep that

14:30

money for yourself so you can use it for

14:32

investments or going out or like

14:34

supporting your family or whatever it is because

14:37

you don't need the health insurance

14:39

right now or you don't need to be supporting

14:41

other people's health insurance. And then the other big

14:44

thing that gets brought up is the idea

14:46

that like wait times are

14:48

going to go up

14:49

because more people have

14:52

access to any doctor

14:54

they want. And so you're going to have

14:57

more people going to your

14:59

doctor potentially. You're going to have

15:01

more people using the emergency room, using

15:03

the hospital, using the urgent

15:05

care, any of these like services that

15:08

we all sort of utilize right now. If

15:11

everyone has access to it and is

15:13

insured,

15:14

and they don't, they aren't sort of limited by

15:16

like coverage area, then you

15:18

potentially are going to have increases in wait

15:20

time. And especially if you happen to be someone listening

15:23

to this who is like ultra rich, goes

15:25

to like a super super fancy place,

15:28

in theory if everyone gets access to that

15:30

then the value you got

15:33

of being one of very few clients,

15:36

that disappears.

15:37

And that can be a negative. I

15:39

don't want to make

15:41

that like a small point. I don't want to make fun of that.

15:44

That can be a negative.

15:46

What I think we need to really

15:48

be considering here, regardless of benefits

15:51

or drawbacks, regardless of where you live

15:53

in this conversation,

15:55

is why this is so important to be talking

15:57

about. AI is already eliminating.

16:00

roles that we would

16:02

have had,

16:03

whether it would have been in the form of like a freelancer

16:06

or a gig worker or a full-time,

16:08

like hard to say, but it's

16:10

already taking roles that people

16:12

would in theory be paid for away

16:15

from them.

16:16

In addition to that, it's only getting better

16:19

and it's being adopted at organizations

16:21

faster and faster and faster.

16:24

Organizations have investors who

16:26

are asking them what AI is doing

16:28

for them. They are being pushed in the direction

16:31

of utilizing AI, which is not

16:34

inherently a bad thing, though

16:36

there are ethical questions around

16:40

how that should be done, but

16:43

it is ultimately going to lead to

16:45

less roles

16:46

available than could

16:48

be.

16:49

In addition to that, there are other forces

16:52

that are moving towards less roles.

16:55

For example, there's been this like looming

16:57

conversation around recession for like

16:59

two years. One of the things that came

17:01

out last month is that the Fed is

17:04

pushing as part of their plan

17:06

to reduce inflation, they

17:09

are pushing for there to

17:11

be 1.5 million fewer jobs in the

17:13

United States, where 1.5 million

17:16

Americans who are employed right now

17:19

will not have a job. They

17:22

will be let go. This is part of the

17:24

plan. This is the whole thing. It's

17:27

not like, oh, unintended consequence.

17:29

This is the plan.

17:32

Have fewer people who have

17:34

money in their pocket so that spending

17:36

goes down and inflation goes

17:38

down as a result. That's the plan.

17:43

And when you have these forces driving

17:47

fewer and fewer opportunities

17:50

for people to earn a living and most

17:52

importantly for this conversation, Be

17:55

employed.

17:56

you're ultimately going to have fewer and

17:59

fewer people on.

18:00

health insurance. And that means

18:02

more and more people are going to

18:04

have issues that they don't get checked

18:06

out and those issues are going to grow

18:09

and become worse. And not only will

18:11

you have increases in death, but you're also going

18:13

to have an increase in the bill

18:16

that the public has to pay. Because

18:19

at some point many of these people

18:22

will end up in the hospital and when those bills

18:24

don't get paid,

18:26

it goes to somebody.

18:29

So one of the things that we need to really consider

18:31

here is

18:33

purely from like a fiscal

18:36

perspective. If we know

18:38

that as time goes on more and more jobs

18:40

are going to be reduced,

18:43

more and more people are going to lose their

18:45

jobs,

18:47

if we know this then are

18:49

we okay not creating

18:51

a system that can support

18:54

that type of change while

18:56

we still have the chance.

18:58

That's the question that I think we

19:00

need to really be asking because you listening

19:03

to this might be part of

19:05

the wave of people losing their jobs.

19:07

I sincerely hope that you are not, but

19:10

you might be. And if your family

19:12

is currently relying on your health insurance,

19:15

when you lose that job, what will

19:17

you do? When you

19:19

lose a job you can always say, oh I'll

19:21

get another job, but what if you lose a job

19:24

in an environment where everyone

19:26

is losing their job, where companies are

19:28

no longer hiring because those

19:30

roles that could be hired for are now

19:33

being given to artificial intelligence.

19:35

What do you do then? I'm not gonna sit here and

19:38

tell you to vote or anything like that because

19:40

ultimately I think those things happen as

19:42

a result of being bought into

19:44

a system and I think the best way to

19:47

get you to feel the desire

19:49

to go out and vote for a universal

19:52

health insurance system is to first get

19:54

you excited about what that means

19:56

and why it's important.

19:59

some links about

20:01

why this is important about where the job

20:04

market is going and I

20:06

hope that you take the time to look through them but

20:09

ultimately what needs to happen

20:12

is we need to decide what kind

20:14

of society we want to live in.