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Most of us were raised on some version of
the same idea.

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You work, you earn what you get,

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and nobody owes you a ride. Pull yourself
up by your bootstraps.

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It sounds like advice from a grandfather
who fixed his own truck,

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right? In eighteen thirty four,

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a paper called The Workman's Advocate used
it to make fun of a guy named Mr Murphy,

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joking that he could now hand himself over
the Cumberland River for the

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By the straps of his boots. It was a joke.

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Go ahead and try it. Grab your laces and
pull up hard and notice that your body

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stays exactly where it was. Because the
phrase was invented

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to describe something that a human body
cannot do.

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For most of the eighteen hundreds,

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it got filed next to other absurdities
like sitting in a wheelbarrow

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and trying to wheel yourself. Then around
1922,

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the joke turned into a compliment somehow.

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The impossible thing became the standard.

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On july fourth, twenty twenty five it
became paperwork.

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Under the law signed that day,

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starting in twenty twenty seven,

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a Medicaid expansion adult between
nineteen and sixty four years of age

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has to prove eighty hours a month of work
or qualifying activity

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to keep Medicare and Medicaid coverage.

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When Arkansas tried its own version in
twenty eighteen,

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More than 95% of the people it targeted
were already working or should have been

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exempt. And about 18,000 people lost their
coverage anyway.

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In Georgia, the program lawmakers still
call the model spent twice

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as much on administration as they did on
care.

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So how did a joke about something nobody
can do become the test we give

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to a person who needs a doctor?

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And who gets paid to give it?

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Welcome dear listeners. This is the
Overlap.

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I'm Will. That's Joshua. Say hi,

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Joshua.

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Hi Joshua.

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There it is.

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And today is about a phrase you've
probably heard sometime around the kitchen
table,

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or maybe when you're eating one of those
life lessons from your parents.

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Phrase that for about ninety years meant,

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Hey, you're describing something
impossible.

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That's genius.

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Right, in one line, it's a joke about an
impossible act turned into a moral test,

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and that test becomes a Medicaid rule in
twenty twenty seven.

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So hopefully by the end of this podcast
you'll know what Georgia spent

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on paperwork for every dollar it spent on
care,

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and which companies are getting paid to
grade that test.

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And you might be wondering at this point
why we're telling about talking about

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a 200-year-old joke. But the fact is,

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well, I would say nothing broke this week,

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but I'm not sure how much first all there
is left to break,

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~ or that nothing broke. But there would
there's nothing urgent that

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we would need to talk about immediately to
make you aware of.

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So we're doing it because states are
signing these contracts right

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now that build the systems that will check
those 80 hours,

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and every six months they'll recheck.

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Right. Georgia is is kind of at the
forefront of this,

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right? The goal was twenty five thousand
enrollees out of two hundred forty

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six thousand that were eligible.

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So after eighteen months it had about
sixty five hundred.

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So I guess we can

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That's

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kind of start with a little bit of a a gut
check,

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right?

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Okay.

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What what is your first reaction to this
idea,

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this concept, Will?

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This idea that able bodied adults should
work for their benefits?

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~ I mean at first it sounds plausible,

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right? I mean it sounds like, well,

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I mean, they're getting something if they
can get back,

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they should. But I guess ~ the reality is
nobody's in that situation by choice.

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You know, and so I'm not really sure,

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you know, first of all, where does the
number eighty hours come from?

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Where where does that become the the line?

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You know, it's it's one of those things
that sounds good when vaguely stated,

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but when you actually put it to pavement,

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I'm not sure it may it passes the test.

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Yeah, I I kind of I kind of feel the same.

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I also think i i it it really comes down
to this idea that we have sort

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of co-opted our employers to provide
health care,

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right? And so for people who are on
Medicaid,

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either their employer doesn't provide it
and they're working full time just like

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the rest of us, right? Or they can't
afford it because they're

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not getting paid enough to actually afford
healthcare and so they're on Medicaid.

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Or worse, they they have an injury or ~

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~ a a disability that keeps them from
working in a in a on a regular pace

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or at a regular clip or holding down a
steady job and so they also need

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to be kept alive through healthcare,

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through basic needs that any other human
being really has.

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Right. And if like you said, they're if
they're already at work,

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I mean what is working for their benefits?

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How's that different and why does it you
know,

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if they're they're already doing eighty
hours a week,

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it's like, well, okay, now you deserve
Medicaid somehow.

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~

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Right.

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What what I I kind of pulled in from this
that I thought was interesting

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was the whole ~ not just eighty eighty
hours,

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right? It can of work, it can also be ~
other programs or other systems.

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Qualifying activity. Yeah.

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~ I

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looked a little bit into that here in
Oklahoma and there is ~ two

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or three ~ work Oklahoma projects programs
that are ~ allow you to to to

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participate in a thing for at least 80
hours a month.

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Wha a couple of them are nonprofits.

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You could so you can also apparently go to
like a church,

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right, and get them to sign a form that
says that you did volunteer work

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for 80 hours a month. ~ there's also a

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an actual like state work program where
it's sort of like day labor where

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you can you be kind of picked up.

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And you don't necessarily get paid for it.

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I mean, but you can get paid for it.

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If you're working directly for the state,

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you don't get paid for it. It's just like
a a program.

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But you can be paid for it. And if you
just have a standard job where you're
working

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at least part time, I think that's where
the eighty comes from,

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by the way. At least in the Oklahoma
program,

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is that forty hours a week times on an
average four weeks is a hundred

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and sixty hours and they build a year of
labor around twenty eighty.

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So a half a year of labor, I guess they

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they consider to be at least part-time.

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Anything less than that is considered a
hobby.

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That's where I think the 80 comes from.

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But I think for a lot of people,

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this is just gonna be just another hurdle
that they have to jump through

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in order to receive something that I mean
I personally think should just

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be single payer. Like I think we should
have healthcare and our taxes should

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be used to fund it and it be not for
profit within the United States.

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But this is just another hurdle

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that now people who literally either can't
work,

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don't work, and they have to figure out h
what they can do for eighty hours a month,

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or they're they're not making enough money
to afford health care.

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And we're telling them we have to they
have to do more than than they're already

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currently doing in order to to receive
health care that's provided

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by our ability to care for one another.

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Well it should be an exciting episode.

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Let's let's go ahead and turn to the meat
of it and maybe we start with

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the joke or the the saying turned upside
down because it tells us exactly what

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the phrase was built to describe.

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Alright, in eighteen thirty-four,

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so almost two hundred years ago,

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~ the workman working man's advocate,

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~ of course, you know, that's a dated name
right there,

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right? The working man's advocate mocked
the Mr.

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Murphy, who could supposedly hand himself
over a barnyard fence by his bootstraps.

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Popick and Zimmer call it the earliest
known use.

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So this is you know, sort of back in the
history of our country and or you know,

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some somewhere way back in those days.

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And we have the idea that somebody can
pull himself over a fence by his
bootstraps.

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Now obviously on its face that's absurd,

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right? ~ it's satirical material,

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right? it's a it's an impossible thing to
do.

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But somehow

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And it was seen as such.

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that became yeah. But but it's not
anymore.

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Why is that?

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Yeah, I I I mean I I have to be honest,

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I think it it kind of comes from this like
conservative movement.

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It didn't it wasn't until the nineteen
twenties,

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right? So we're looking at beginning of of
~ or end of World War One,

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right? The beginning ~ the end of the the
great times,

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~ at the end of the twenties where it
actually swapped itself around,

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right? ~ I think that that that likely was
part of a cultural revolution

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at the beginning.

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It was I mean the whole thing was was a
punchline.

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It was just like, you know, when you see
an editorial in the New York Times,

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one of the editorial cartoons.

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It was very tongue in cheek. It was very
heavy handed because you can't

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00:09:08,619 --> 00:09:11,391
you you can't fly by flapping your arms
fast enough.

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It should be put on a mug somewhere.

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So it's just kind of a case of like

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it's kind of a case of like canky doodle
dandy like adopting it and

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to empower the the term on your own like
people are basically saying,

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you know, Hey, the government's asking us
to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.

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That's ridiculous. And the government's
like,

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Yeah, yeah, you should pull yourself up by
your bootstraps.

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Just own it.

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Yeah, I think

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they ran out of money. Like they were just
like,

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Well, we well we don't know what to do,

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so figure it out. Do it yourself.

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Wow. Well

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Right.

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I guess that's one way to do it.

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I think you know, there was a a North
American review ~ in eighteen sixty seven,

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so about thirty something years after that
original one,

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~ that compared a man or it was a foolish
effort compared

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00:09:56,584 --> 00:09:58,806
to a man lifting himself up by his
bootstraps,

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00:09:58,806 --> 00:10:03,949
right? ~ same drawer as as kind of
wheeling yourself in on a wheelbarrow,

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00:10:03,949 --> 00:10:08,462
or getting rich by moving money from one
pocket to the other.

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00:10:08,962 --> 00:10:12,808
You know, I watched that ~ that three
stooges bit the other day where he's like,

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00:10:12,808 --> 00:10:14,120
you know, you owe me twenty dollars and
he's like,

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00:10:14,120 --> 00:10:15,262
No, you know, you or he's like,

193
00:10:15,262 --> 00:10:16,262
I twenty dollars. He's like, No,

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00:10:16,032 --> 00:10:18,439
you don't, you owe me ten and then they
end up handing the money around

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00:10:18,439 --> 00:10:20,200
and everybody gets paid and they've all

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00:10:19,887 --> 00:10:20,887
Right.

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00:10:20,200 --> 00:10:23,354
paid each other back and the same dot it's
the same twenty bucks that's been passed

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00:10:23,078 --> 00:10:24,078
Exactly.

199
00:10:23,354 --> 00:10:24,354
around.

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00:10:24,318 --> 00:10:26,949
I think I think that that's kind of all
part of it,

201
00:10:26,949 --> 00:10:30,361
right? Like moving money between your
pockets and calling that progress.

202
00:10:30,361 --> 00:10:35,643
Let's keep that in mind as we as we move
toward the the whole Georgia situation.

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00:10:35,643 --> 00:10:39,545
Right? And then the nineteen twenty two,

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00:10:39,545 --> 00:10:45,347
right? Joyce Ulysses uses bootstraps for
someone who forced their way

205
00:10:45,347 --> 00:10:46,478
up from the lowest rung.

206
00:10:46,978 --> 00:10:53,111
That is ~ it's the OED's earliest example
of a phrase the phrase actually meanings

207
00:10:53,131 --> 00:10:55,545
an achievable goal. And so the idea

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00:10:55,064 --> 00:10:56,064
course that's in

209
00:10:55,605 --> 00:10:58,078
Ulysses, which is a surrealist like novel,

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00:10:58,078 --> 00:11:00,331
right? I it's not it's not actually meant
to make a lot of sense.

211
00:11:01,213 --> 00:11:02,213
Right.

212
00:11:01,612 --> 00:11:04,416
So it's kinda funny that they choose that
as the the source material.

213
00:11:04,945 --> 00:11:08,996
Well, I I think it's probably looking back
at it more so than necessarily,

214
00:11:08,996 --> 00:11:12,277
you know, it written with that purpose in

215
00:11:09,869 --> 00:11:12,036
Well sure, yeah. But I mean it somebody
latched onto that,

216
00:11:12,036 --> 00:11:13,036
right?

217
00:11:12,277 --> 00:11:15,918
mind. Right, exactly. But I I think that
that at one time,

218
00:11:15,918 --> 00:11:20,547
right, we did have a ladder. And so it
made sense to like well,

219
00:11:20,547 --> 00:11:23,019
I mean really it's just lifting your your
leg up,

220
00:11:23,019 --> 00:11:26,180
right? And so w if you lift your leg up
you can get on that next run.

221
00:11:26,180 --> 00:11:27,560
The problem is there's no rungs.

222
00:11:27,560 --> 00:11:33,242
Right. So what am I supposed to do but
lift myself up to a rung that

223
00:11:33,242 --> 00:11:34,392
I can't reach reasonably?

224
00:11:35,152 --> 00:11:38,176
I'm I'm lifting my arms up here in case
you can't see me on this podcast.

225
00:11:39,882 --> 00:11:42,434
Individual descriptor. ~

226
00:11:41,411 --> 00:11:42,411
Right.

227
00:11:42,855 --> 00:11:44,416
yeah, so I I I get what you're saying.

228
00:11:44,416 --> 00:11:47,849
So you're just it's like somehow the
context got lost and the idea is that

229
00:11:47,849 --> 00:11:51,262
it sounds like something honorable to like
lift yourself up by your bootstraps,

230
00:11:51,262 --> 00:11:54,485
not literally to like pull yourself up
into the sky with no nothing to stand on,

231
00:11:54,485 --> 00:11:56,387
but to climb the ladder of success.

232
00:11:56,908 --> 00:11:58,955
Yeah, it's it's to kind of make your own
way.

233
00:11:59,455 --> 00:12:03,477
Right. Well, ~ so clearly somebody forgot
something in between

234
00:12:03,477 --> 00:12:07,509
the joke originally being stated as like a
nonsensical thing that nobody could do,

235
00:12:07,509 --> 00:12:12,122
an impossible task, and then becoming the
way that we're you know meant to live,

236
00:12:12,122 --> 00:12:13,843
the the upright, honorable way to live.

237
00:12:14,285 --> 00:12:18,096
Right. So not long after that,

238
00:12:18,096 --> 00:12:24,320
right, nineteen twenty eight, ~ Hoover was
at Mad Madison Square Garden,

239
00:12:24,320 --> 00:12:30,353
and he was talking about this this concept
of this rugged individualism against

240
00:12:30,353 --> 00:12:33,584
European paternalism and state socialism.

241
00:12:33,584 --> 00:12:37,146
The Depression era obviously arrived a
year later,

242
00:12:37,146 --> 00:12:41,829
~ to sort of grade what Hoover was talking
about at Madison Square Gardens.

243
00:12:41,829 --> 00:12:42,829
But

244
00:12:43,123 --> 00:12:47,625
It introduced this idea so it goes from
from right the eighteen thirties as

245
00:12:47,625 --> 00:12:53,161
a as a joke to you know eighteen sixty
seven and it's used again

246
00:12:53,161 --> 00:12:56,633
and specifically as your bootstraps as
opposed to your laces or the leather

247
00:12:56,633 --> 00:13:00,887
of your shoes, right? And it's used then
again in the twenties

248
00:13:00,887 --> 00:13:07,074
in Ulysses to sort of morph into we're
doing this ourselves.

249
00:13:07,074 --> 00:13:10,957
You have to do it you have to do your own
y make yourself better on your own.

250
00:13:10,957 --> 00:13:12,158
As though

251
00:13:12,476 --> 00:13:15,747
You could pour from one cup to another.

252
00:13:15,747 --> 00:13:20,018
~ when you don't have the resources
yourself to do it,

253
00:13:20,018 --> 00:13:22,450
you can't make more water by pouring it
into two cups,

254
00:13:22,450 --> 00:13:24,341
right? It doesn't make two for two full
cups,

255
00:13:24,341 --> 00:13:27,252
it makes two half cups. ~ because the
amount

256
00:13:26,724 --> 00:13:27,724
Right.

257
00:13:27,512 --> 00:13:29,612
never actually changes. So then

258
00:13:29,838 --> 00:13:31,952
Only one of them's half full. The other
one's half empty,

259
00:13:31,952 --> 00:13:32,952
so

260
00:13:32,616 --> 00:13:38,551
Right, so then it becomes this new idea
that we have to we have to

261
00:13:38,551 --> 00:13:40,983
do our own thing. We gotta do it
ourselves.

262
00:13:40,983 --> 00:13:44,826
Because ain't nobody gonna do it for us
and it's and if you if you do,

263
00:13:44,826 --> 00:13:46,788
if we do it for each other, that's
socialism.

264
00:13:46,788 --> 00:13:49,950
And so in the in twenty eight,

265
00:13:49,950 --> 00:13:53,713
that was sort of this idea that we have to
abandon the concept of socialism

266
00:13:54,454 --> 00:13:56,466
and we have to do our own thing,

267
00:13:56,466 --> 00:13:58,497
this rugged we're rugged, we're tough,

268
00:13:58,497 --> 00:14:00,479
we can do everything by ourselves.

269
00:14:00,979 --> 00:14:03,100
Then the Great Depression hits,

270
00:14:03,100 --> 00:14:05,732
right? Like so and and people

271
00:14:05,044 --> 00:14:06,044
Oops.

272
00:14:05,872 --> 00:14:11,607
right, exactly. It's basically the first
time we have rejected

273
00:14:11,607 --> 00:14:15,139
the concept of democratic socialism.

274
00:14:15,139 --> 00:14:17,141
He doesn't say democratic socialism,

275
00:14:17,141 --> 00:14:20,704
but he he calls it paternalism and state
socialism.

276
00:14:20,704 --> 00:14:26,048
And literally as soon as we abandon that
we we come into the Great Depression,

277
00:14:26,048 --> 00:14:29,791
as though we somehow need to lift
ourselves up by our own bootstraps.

278
00:14:30,291 --> 00:14:31,291
~ then

279
00:14:30,932 --> 00:14:31,932
Or as if

280
00:14:31,314 --> 00:14:32,913
Hoover spoke a little bit too soon.

281
00:14:33,506 --> 00:14:36,897
Right. Then of course, fast forward a
little bit further,

282
00:14:36,897 --> 00:14:41,409
by about fifty years, right? January of
nineteen seventy-six,

283
00:14:41,409 --> 00:14:47,813
Reagan ~ comes into the into the scene
describing a Chicago woman with

284
00:14:48,193 --> 00:14:50,454
eighty names and thirty adj addresses,

285
00:14:50,454 --> 00:14:54,056
collecting a hundred and fifty thousand
dollars a year tax free.

286
00:14:54,056 --> 00:14:57,998
And so that's his that's he he came up
with the welfare queen idea,

287
00:14:57,998 --> 00:15:00,179
right? He created this this whole

288
00:15:00,521 --> 00:15:05,453
So we go from not really being a possible
thing to being

289
00:15:05,511 --> 00:15:09,714
a a more it's all about what you can do
for yourself.

290
00:15:09,714 --> 00:15:12,826
You have to self improve, regardless of
whether or not you have

291
00:15:12,826 --> 00:15:15,046
the abilities financially, mentally,

292
00:15:15,046 --> 00:15:20,868
morally, ethically, whatever, into this
welfare queen

293
00:15:20,868 --> 00:15:25,930
who now has managed through state
socialism to get free money

294
00:15:25,930 --> 00:15:28,735
by claiming different names and different
addresses and

295
00:15:29,360 --> 00:15:35,435
not doing any work for it. ~ the person
that was actually affected

296
00:15:35,435 --> 00:15:37,476
by this was ~ was Linda Taylor.

297
00:15:37,476 --> 00:15:39,008
That's he who's describing a specific
person,

298
00:15:39,008 --> 00:15:43,622
which I think is interesting. ~ now the
the Chicago Tribune was the

299
00:15:43,622 --> 00:15:45,003
one that called her the welfare queen,

300
00:15:45,003 --> 00:15:49,887
not Reagan. He just brought it to the
national stage as like a this is a thing.

301
00:15:49,887 --> 00:15:55,131
So Josh Levin ~ of the ~ actually said she
was real.

302
00:15:55,131 --> 00:15:57,763
So this was based on a real person.

303
00:15:58,263 --> 00:16:01,195
For one thing, she sounds fairly
industrious to come up with eighty names

304
00:16:01,195 --> 00:16:04,207
and thirty addresses and cash all the
right checks and get all that sorted

305
00:16:04,207 --> 00:16:05,207
out every month. But

306
00:16:05,179 --> 00:16:06,179
Right.

307
00:16:05,938 --> 00:16:07,406
but seriously though, I mean, you know,

308
00:16:07,406 --> 00:16:11,552
this is there's a a saying in in the legal
world that's ~ bad facts make

309
00:16:11,552 --> 00:16:16,015
for bad law. Meaning like don't build your
laws off of the most extreme cases.

310
00:16:16,015 --> 00:16:20,227
Well, this is exactly one real person with
an extreme super extreme case,

311
00:16:20,227 --> 00:16:23,740
right? Who became the image that everybody
carries around of anybody that's

312
00:16:23,740 --> 00:16:26,391
on public aid. Like this is what's frozen
in your head now,

313
00:16:26,391 --> 00:16:27,391
right? When you hear like

314
00:16:27,840 --> 00:16:29,431
the the person living in the, you know,

315
00:16:29,431 --> 00:16:32,470
the poorer part of town or whatever grew
up in a bad bad side of

316
00:16:32,470 --> 00:16:34,953
the street or whatever, bad side of the
railroad tracks.

317
00:16:34,953 --> 00:16:38,595
But they're, you know, they're they're
doing something they shouldn't be.

318
00:16:38,595 --> 00:16:40,675
Maybe they're enjoying a soda or something
like that.

319
00:16:40,675 --> 00:16:43,006
That they just, you know, they're in
indulging themselves.

320
00:16:43,006 --> 00:16:47,078
Well that's just the welfare queen over
there living high on the hog with my
money,

321
00:16:47,078 --> 00:16:48,239
my tax money that I paid.

322
00:16:48,430 --> 00:16:49,430
Right.

323
00:16:49,179 --> 00:16:51,890
And that's of course when it's based on
that extreme vision,

324
00:16:51,890 --> 00:16:55,552
obviously you're gonna skew towards things
that are not really ~ realistic

325
00:16:55,552 --> 00:16:56,552
for most people.

326
00:16:56,556 --> 00:16:57,556
For sure.

327
00:16:57,436 --> 00:17:01,798
So, ~ the the next idea we're gonna
introduce you our audience to here

328
00:17:01,798 --> 00:17:05,460
is the drained pool. which is the idea of,

329
00:17:05,460 --> 00:17:10,102
you know, ~ sort of the I guess a broader
expression would be cutting

330
00:17:10,102 --> 00:17:11,423
off your nose to spite your face,

331
00:17:11,423 --> 00:17:14,805
but rather than integrate the public pools
in Montgomery,

332
00:17:14,805 --> 00:17:17,736
Alabama, they actually just drained the
pool so that nobody could use it.

333
00:17:17,736 --> 00:17:20,798
Like if you know, if the whites couldn't
have it to themselves then nobody

334
00:17:20,798 --> 00:17:25,170
was gonna get to use it. And ~ I believe
it's a sociologist or

335
00:17:25,170 --> 00:17:26,591
a a political theorist,

336
00:17:27,091 --> 00:17:30,877
Named Heather McGee ~ refers to this as
drained pool politics,

337
00:17:30,877 --> 00:17:33,431
which is zero sum racial politics.

338
00:17:31,406 --> 00:17:34,881
Which is zero sum. Exactly. As though

339
00:17:33,431 --> 00:17:34,563
Yeah, exactly.

340
00:17:34,881 --> 00:17:37,274
as though there's not enough for
everybody,

341
00:17:37,274 --> 00:17:41,621
so nobody gets any so instead of everyone
having a little.

342
00:17:42,121 --> 00:17:44,873
Right, which is not at all what happens
with the pool situation.

343
00:17:44,873 --> 00:17:47,185
Like the the image there would be the if
everybody went to the pool

344
00:17:47,185 --> 00:17:49,934
and scooped out a cup of water or
something and took it,

345
00:17:49,934 --> 00:17:52,860
you know, for themselves to to splash
around in.

346
00:17:52,860 --> 00:17:56,162
But that's not what happened. This city
the city drained the pool

347
00:17:56,383 --> 00:17:57,944
so that nobody could have access to it.

348
00:17:57,944 --> 00:18:00,636
Rather than have access to less quote
unquote less water.

349
00:18:00,636 --> 00:18:02,588
And of course in a pool you don't use up
the water.

350
00:18:02,588 --> 00:18:06,601
So it's just the the whole thing is is
nonsense like the saying in the first
place.

351
00:18:07,194 --> 00:18:08,194
Right.

352
00:18:07,976 --> 00:18:10,902
But ~ once one outlier stands for
everybody who needs help,

353
00:18:10,902 --> 00:18:12,926
closing the pool starts to look like the
fair thing to do,

354
00:18:12,926 --> 00:18:16,614
right? If everybody if everybody on public
benefits is a welfare queen,

355
00:18:16,614 --> 00:18:18,959
then the fair thing to do is take it away
from all of ~ right?

356
00:18:19,831 --> 00:18:21,450
Which brings in the law.

357
00:18:21,950 --> 00:18:26,012
Right. ~ so we have ~ replacement of laws,

358
00:18:26,012 --> 00:18:30,444
the the original law dealing with federal
benefits was ~ replaced

359
00:18:30,444 --> 00:18:32,064
in nineteen ninety six by the current law,

360
00:18:32,064 --> 00:18:35,006
which is a block grant with work
requirements and time limits.

361
00:18:35,006 --> 00:18:40,898
And ~ it turns out that that law

362
00:18:40,898 --> 00:18:44,189
was re reached a shrinking share of
families who are in need.

363
00:18:44,856 --> 00:18:47,605
C B P links it to more children in deep
poverty.

364
00:18:48,105 --> 00:18:51,968
So we can build the pattern now from
eighteen thirty four to nineteen ninety
six,

365
00:18:51,968 --> 00:18:54,209
and we see an impossible standard,

366
00:18:54,209 --> 00:18:56,411
right? Lifting yourself up by your own
bootstraps,

367
00:18:56,411 --> 00:18:59,233
becoming recast as the test of the
individual.

368
00:18:59,233 --> 00:19:03,035
You know, the person who has character ~
will,

369
00:19:03,035 --> 00:19:04,537
you know, give back to the community,

370
00:19:04,537 --> 00:19:07,389
will work hard and somehow better their
community while they're getting

371
00:19:07,389 --> 00:19:09,620
the benefit of public ~ public funds.

372
00:19:09,620 --> 00:19:14,464
So who benefits when failing this test
looks like a character flaw?

373
00:19:14,464 --> 00:19:15,674
Is the question.

374
00:19:16,490 --> 00:19:21,592
Right. So essentially pull yourself up by
your bootstraps now means

375
00:19:22,412 --> 00:19:26,753
to to do something that you are required
to do.

376
00:19:26,753 --> 00:19:30,994
It's a personal responsibility of your own
to make a better life

377
00:19:30,994 --> 00:19:35,575
for yourself using no publicly pooled
resources.

378
00:19:35,575 --> 00:19:41,557
Basically invented out of thin air and
give yourself a better paycheck.

379
00:19:42,561 --> 00:19:45,302
You can see it echoed now in a lot of
sentiments who say,

380
00:19:45,302 --> 00:19:48,333
Well, you know, you just need to get a job
and do it for yourself.

381
00:19:48,333 --> 00:19:52,264
It's like, Okay, but I looked around and I
have a job and I'm working

382
00:19:52,384 --> 00:19:57,635
two of them and none of them provide
healthcare benefits and the salary

383
00:19:57,635 --> 00:20:02,777
is not enough to cover both is not enough
to cover health benefits for just me,

384
00:20:02,777 --> 00:20:05,077
let alone my family. And so they say,

385
00:20:05,077 --> 00:20:08,979
Okay, well, then you need to not buy
lattes and you need to not have a family.

386
00:20:08,979 --> 00:20:10,369
It's like right, but I already have one.

387
00:20:10,635 --> 00:20:15,631
Like I because I was promised that if I
lifted myself up by my bootstraps,

388
00:20:15,631 --> 00:20:19,486
I would have a better life, but I can't
materialize a better paycheck.

389
00:20:19,986 --> 00:20:20,986
In the real world.

390
00:20:21,123 --> 00:20:24,103
Right. Well that's that's the the basic
idea.

391
00:20:24,103 --> 00:20:27,245
So now we're gonna see what that ha what
happens when this test is turned into

392
00:20:27,245 --> 00:20:29,486
a form for someone to fill out and
complete.

393
00:20:29,486 --> 00:20:32,284
~ the way this test is gonna work,

394
00:20:32,284 --> 00:20:34,808
we're gonna use the example of Adrian
McGonagall,

395
00:20:34,808 --> 00:20:37,809
age forty from Pea Ridge, Arkansas.

396
00:20:37,809 --> 00:20:40,920
~ worked at the shipping department at
Southwest Poultry,

397
00:20:40,920 --> 00:20:44,552
~ but had Adrian had no health insurance
from his employer.

398
00:20:44,552 --> 00:20:50,034
Judge Bosberg, ~ is gonna be the the sort
of case the

399
00:20:50,534 --> 00:20:51,897
author of the court case we're looking at,

400
00:20:51,897 --> 00:20:56,900
opened his twenty nineteen opinion with
the the account of Mr Adrian McGonagall.

401
00:20:57,400 --> 00:21:03,461
~ looking at Arkansas, June twenty
eighteen was the first state

402
00:21:03,482 --> 00:21:06,672
to implement a requirement of twenty hours
a week for adults ages thirty

403
00:21:06,672 --> 00:21:10,703
to forty nine. ~ it makes me both sad and
kind of encouraged that I'm

404
00:21:10,703 --> 00:21:12,863
on the upper I'm approaching the upper
limits of that.

405
00:21:12,863 --> 00:21:19,255
But regardless, ~ so when they require
when they implemented this requirement

406
00:21:19,255 --> 00:21:20,825
in twenty eighteen in Arkansas,

407
00:21:20,825 --> 00:21:24,899
about eighteen thousand of the roughly one
hundred thousand people ~

408
00:21:25,256 --> 00:21:28,260
who were targeted with this law or but
lost their coverage.

409
00:21:28,260 --> 00:21:29,496
They no longer had

410
00:21:29,098 --> 00:21:30,098
Right.

411
00:21:29,496 --> 00:21:30,496
access to health care.

412
00:21:31,209 --> 00:21:35,670
Yeah, and and Harvard researchers in the
New England Journal ~ said that more than

413
00:21:35,730 --> 00:21:41,331
than ninety-five percent of these people
who were targeted were already working

414
00:21:41,471 --> 00:21:46,092
or should have been exempt from the
working requirements for either

415
00:21:46,092 --> 00:21:50,513
the fact that they had a an an actual job
already,

416
00:21:50,513 --> 00:21:53,674
or they did not have the ability to work.

417
00:21:53,674 --> 00:21:58,235
Right? So there were no job gains that
they could

418
00:21:58,423 --> 00:22:01,264
Could find in Arkansas at the time.

419
00:22:01,264 --> 00:22:05,466
They basically built a machine to catch
people who weren't working,

420
00:22:05,466 --> 00:22:11,868
then pointed that exact machine at people
who were working and caught them anyway.

421
00:22:11,868 --> 00:22:13,569
In a lot of the same ways that you know,

422
00:22:13,569 --> 00:22:16,270
I see a lot of parallels with the ICE
situation that's happening right here

423
00:22:16,270 --> 00:22:17,551
in the United States right now.

424
00:22:17,551 --> 00:22:20,817
They built this machine to point at
immigrants and now they're just pointing

425
00:22:20,817 --> 00:22:24,614
it at Americans because they've run out of
immigrants?

426
00:22:24,614 --> 00:22:25,614
I'm not sure.

427
00:22:25,824 --> 00:22:28,355
Maybe they're it's too hard to catch They
actually find people that

428
00:22:28,355 --> 00:22:29,475
are breaking the law. But yeah,

429
00:22:29,475 --> 00:22:33,637
so ~ I guess the the to kind of clarify a
point here,

430
00:22:33,637 --> 00:22:37,798
Mr. McGonagall was working enough to
qualify for Medicaid.

431
00:22:37,798 --> 00:22:39,739
It wasn't that fact, it was the fact that
he didn't follow

432
00:22:39,739 --> 00:22:43,090
the procedure perfectly to the letter that
that led it that put him

433
00:22:43,090 --> 00:22:44,541
in the situation he was in, right?

434
00:22:44,163 --> 00:22:45,163
And they make

435
00:22:44,544 --> 00:22:46,210
these procedures difficult on purpose.

436
00:22:46,710 --> 00:22:48,137
Yeah. Exactly.

437
00:22:47,567 --> 00:22:48,567
It's like you

438
00:22:48,177 --> 00:22:52,359
didn't fill out one box on a farm or make
one check or you know,

439
00:22:52,359 --> 00:22:56,331
have the have the ability to go through it
enough times with a legal degree

440
00:22:56,331 --> 00:22:58,021
to understand the legalese of all of it.

441
00:22:58,021 --> 00:23:01,743
Another another example is Charles
Gresham.

442
00:23:01,743 --> 00:23:05,585
Now, he didn't work. He had seizures,

443
00:23:05,585 --> 00:23:08,746
basically, that made work hard to find.

444
00:23:08,746 --> 00:23:13,218
And when he could get a job, he had
trouble keeping it because he was seizing

445
00:23:13,218 --> 00:23:16,089
on a regular basis. The state website

446
00:23:16,483 --> 00:23:21,516
was the only place that you could report
your hours worked in order to stay
covered,

447
00:23:21,516 --> 00:23:23,177
right? And so he had trouble with the
website.

448
00:23:23,177 --> 00:23:28,020
This was 2018. This was an an older
gentleman he who also had a

449
00:23:28,020 --> 00:23:32,863
an ongoing medical health problem that
kept him from being able

450
00:23:32,863 --> 00:23:38,506
to access a computer. Now he presumably
would have to have a computer at his home,

451
00:23:38,506 --> 00:23:42,158
have the availability to use maybe his
phone to fill out this form.

452
00:23:42,934 --> 00:23:45,516
Or he could, I guess, go to a public
library and do it,

453
00:23:45,516 --> 00:23:47,688
but in order to do so, he'd have to have
transportation.

454
00:23:47,688 --> 00:23:51,330
You know, he had to ~ walk, presumably,

455
00:23:51,330 --> 00:23:54,283
while maybe suffering a seizure on the
side of the road and getting hit by a car.

456
00:23:54,283 --> 00:23:56,014
There's so many things here, right?

457
00:23:56,014 --> 00:24:00,818
But he was the lead plaintiff in the
Gresham versus Azar,

458
00:24:00,818 --> 00:24:05,681
which is the Southern Law ~ Poverty Law
Center's National Health Law Program,

459
00:24:05,681 --> 00:24:08,954
Legal Aid of Arkansas. In February 2020.

460
00:24:09,454 --> 00:24:13,341
The D C circuit actually affirmed that
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex

461
00:24:13,341 --> 00:24:15,936
Azar's approval was arbitrary.

462
00:24:16,436 --> 00:24:20,629
And that led to what outcome?

463
00:24:21,471 --> 00:24:24,873
So the federal version, which passed in
twenty twenty five,

464
00:24:24,873 --> 00:24:28,806
~ when when Donald Trump came back into
office,

465
00:24:28,806 --> 00:24:32,268
it passed by literally one vote in the
House,

466
00:24:32,268 --> 00:24:36,141
two hundred and fifteen to two hundred and
fourteen by a tiebreaker margin

467
00:24:36,141 --> 00:24:38,753
in the Senate, fifty-one to fifty.

468
00:24:38,753 --> 00:24:44,837
Like literally by one margin in both
houses or b or both ~ institutions.

469
00:24:44,837 --> 00:24:46,668
And Trump signed it on the fourth of July,

470
00:24:46,668 --> 00:24:50,301
right? So this expansion approves adults.

471
00:24:51,056 --> 00:24:57,840
19 to 64 makes them prove that they have
worked 80 hours in a month unless they're

472
00:24:57,840 --> 00:25:03,284
exempt starting in 2027. The exemptions
are not quite clear,

473
00:25:03,284 --> 00:25:08,607
but also eligibility will be rechecked
every six months.

474
00:25:08,607 --> 00:25:13,310
so nearly two-thirds of adult Medicaid
enrollees already work,

475
00:25:13,310 --> 00:25:16,111
according to Kaiser Family Foundation's
health news.

476
00:25:16,111 --> 00:25:19,754
The brief doesn't really name a sponsor or

477
00:25:20,206 --> 00:25:24,430
Or a committee or you know, member by
member vote.

478
00:25:24,430 --> 00:25:27,933
So Trump signed it. You know,

479
00:25:27,933 --> 00:25:30,895
Kemp's program is sort of the model.

480
00:25:30,895 --> 00:25:33,178
Azar approved it for Arkansas.

481
00:25:33,178 --> 00:25:36,941
And the FGA defended the policy at the
Supreme Court.

482
00:25:36,941 --> 00:25:38,953
This is happening. It's going to happen
all over the country.

483
00:25:38,953 --> 00:25:43,287
Every state has to figure out a way to
make this work because regardless

484
00:25:43,287 --> 00:25:45,218
of what state you're in, they might call
it a different thing.

485
00:25:45,218 --> 00:25:47,010
In Oklahoma, I think they call it Sooner
Care.

486
00:25:47,554 --> 00:25:50,128
~ in Iowa they call it Buckeye Care.

487
00:25:50,128 --> 00:25:52,302
That i it all has a different name,

488
00:25:52,302 --> 00:25:54,676
but all of these are funded by federal
sources.

489
00:25:54,676 --> 00:25:56,329
So when the federal law is made,

490
00:25:56,329 --> 00:25:59,344
all of the states will eventually have to
comply with it.

491
00:25:59,844 --> 00:26:04,190
Well, so we've basically taken a law that
was already questionably working,

492
00:26:04,190 --> 00:26:08,588
~ arguably not working in the first place
and expanded it to go nationwide.

493
00:26:08,798 --> 00:26:12,771
Yes. And Sarah Huckabee Sanders used it as
an example for the nation

494
00:26:13,711 --> 00:26:16,972
of what we should use because it worked in
Arkansas,

495
00:26:16,972 --> 00:26:21,896
when really their definition for it worked
was that less people

496
00:26:21,411 --> 00:26:22,411
Right.

497
00:26:21,896 --> 00:26:26,810
are on it. It's like right, you're letting
people die because they can't

498
00:26:26,810 --> 00:26:31,092
get access to health care, even in a
situation where they can't afford

499
00:26:31,092 --> 00:26:33,874
it themselves because of the economy of
the state of Arkansas,

500
00:26:33,874 --> 00:26:36,146
and you're gonna make that a a national
thing.

501
00:26:36,146 --> 00:26:37,146
The

502
00:26:36,683 --> 00:26:37,683
Right.

503
00:26:37,164 --> 00:26:39,627
It works. It's kinda like in the words of
Inigo Montoya.

504
00:26:39,627 --> 00:26:42,301
You keep using that word. I don't think it
means what you think it means.

505
00:26:42,563 --> 00:26:46,845
Right. And all of this was to basically
save three hundred and twenty

506
00:26:46,845 --> 00:26:52,373
six billion dollars ~ from the

507
00:26:52,497 --> 00:26:55,018
the the coffers of the federal government.

508
00:26:55,018 --> 00:26:59,979
~ the Congressional Budget Office sort of
breaks that down as nine hundred

509
00:26:59,979 --> 00:27:02,080
and eleven billion in total Medicaid cuts,

510
00:27:02,080 --> 00:27:06,672
~ with the work requirement being the
largest single source at three hundred

511
00:27:06,672 --> 00:27:08,663
and twenty six billion over ten years,

512
00:27:08,663 --> 00:27:11,424
mostly just from people losing coverage.

513
00:27:12,148 --> 00:27:13,511
Literally that's one of the goals.

514
00:27:13,511 --> 00:27:14,511
essentially,

515
00:27:14,244 --> 00:27:16,981
like to get the count to get the cuts to
what they needed to be,

516
00:27:16,981 --> 00:27:18,585
we need to assume that three hundred and

517
00:27:17,196 --> 00:27:18,573
Regardless of the consequences.

518
00:27:18,585 --> 00:27:21,022
twenty six billion dollars worth of
coverage will be lost mostly.

519
00:27:21,522 --> 00:27:23,425
regardless of the of the consequences.

520
00:27:23,425 --> 00:27:28,842
And that means that eleven point eight
million people are gonna lose their health

521
00:27:28,842 --> 00:27:32,898
care coverage by twenty thirty four
because of this federal law.

522
00:27:33,398 --> 00:27:37,292
And then another five point one million of
those eleven point eight

523
00:27:38,173 --> 00:27:42,928
are basically related to policy outside of
the bill from its from its own number,

524
00:27:42,928 --> 00:27:48,684
right? So the savings mostly come from
poor people

525
00:27:49,524 --> 00:27:51,427
losing their health care coverage.

526
00:27:51,427 --> 00:27:55,190
The budget only balances, in this case,

527
00:27:55,190 --> 00:27:56,522
according to this law.

528
00:27:57,022 --> 00:28:02,610
If people fail to meet the requirement and
then have to drop off of Medicaid,

529
00:28:02,610 --> 00:28:08,987
we are basing our budget balancing on
whether or not well in this case

530
00:28:08,987 --> 00:28:10,439
not people fail.

531
00:28:10,939 --> 00:28:14,521
Yeah. This is literally an omelet that
will require breaking many,

532
00:28:14,521 --> 00:28:19,263
many eggs. ~ so to put it plainly another
way,

533
00:28:19,263 --> 00:28:23,245
the question of whether somebody's working
enough as it is ex only exists because

534
00:28:23,245 --> 00:28:25,116
coverage was made conditional on answering
that,

535
00:28:25,116 --> 00:28:27,958
right? Nobody worried about that until
they made it conditional.

536
00:28:27,958 --> 00:28:31,410
And the savings get scored on how many
people don't actually answer

537
00:28:31,410 --> 00:28:33,741
in time until they lose their coverage
through a technicality.

538
00:28:34,241 --> 00:28:36,376
Right. Which brings us to Georgia.

539
00:28:35,734 --> 00:28:36,734
So let's

540
00:28:36,974 --> 00:28:38,648
yeah, let's go back to Georgia.

541
00:28:38,648 --> 00:28:39,753
Governor Kemp.

542
00:28:40,253 --> 00:28:41,253
So

543
00:28:40,291 --> 00:28:41,291
So

544
00:28:40,541 --> 00:28:42,164
we have the pathways to coverage here,

545
00:28:42,164 --> 00:28:45,759
right? ~ and that's that's gonna cost more
than eighty six point

546
00:28:45,759 --> 00:28:49,364
or estimated it cost more than eighty six
point nine million by the

547
00:28:49,364 --> 00:28:53,019
end of twenty twenty four, about three
quarters of it to consultants.

548
00:28:53,019 --> 00:28:56,705
Which is gonna be this is where the story
gets even worse.

549
00:28:57,018 --> 00:28:59,040
Right. So the government accountability
office,

550
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:05,327
fifty four point two million of that
eighty six point nine million

551
00:29:05,547 --> 00:29:10,953
is just gonna be spent on administrative
costs of administering the

552
00:29:10,953 --> 00:29:14,315
the proof of work program. Okay?

553
00:29:14,419 --> 00:29:16,562
So qualifies for working in Washington
these days.

554
00:29:16,661 --> 00:29:21,535
Right. And only twenty six point one
million of that eighty nine

555
00:29:21,835 --> 00:29:28,070
is actually on health care. Two dollars to
check whether or not a person

556
00:29:28,070 --> 00:29:32,844
is meeting a work requirement for every
actual dollar of health care.

557
00:29:32,844 --> 00:29:38,748
And the GOP lawmakers are still calling it
the perfect model for our country.

558
00:29:38,748 --> 00:29:41,560
A actually Senators Warnock, Osof,

559
00:29:41,560 --> 00:29:42,560
and Wyden.

560
00:29:42,791 --> 00:29:46,386
Ask the the government accountability
office to investigate in December

561
00:29:46,386 --> 00:29:51,293
of twenty twenty four this exact program
for that very reason.

562
00:29:51,793 --> 00:29:54,642
~ I mean, the world's upside down,

563
00:29:54,642 --> 00:29:56,868
right? When when the world turns upside
down it's hard to tell.

564
00:29:57,368 --> 00:29:58,499
Everything's upside down, right?

565
00:29:58,499 --> 00:30:03,003
~ so just imagine what it's like to be Mr.

566
00:30:03,003 --> 00:30:04,945
McGonagall, agent McGonagall in this
situation,

567
00:30:04,945 --> 00:30:07,467
right? He's working at a meat packing
plant.

568
00:30:07,467 --> 00:30:11,314
~ I'm sure he works at least eight hours a
day,

569
00:30:11,314 --> 00:30:12,782
if probably not some more time,

570
00:30:12,782 --> 00:30:15,955
and there's probably time on there that
he's not compensated for getting

571
00:30:15,955 --> 00:30:19,097
his gear on and getting it cleaned off and
he comes home smelling like raw meat.

572
00:30:19,097 --> 00:30:22,350
And you know, when's he supposed to go and
fill this this paperwork out?

573
00:30:22,350 --> 00:30:23,350
Well, you know.

574
00:30:23,917 --> 00:30:26,499
Obviously he's not gonna do it during
working hours because that's when

575
00:30:26,499 --> 00:30:28,220
of course that's when all the offices are
open,

576
00:30:28,220 --> 00:30:30,412
right? So they don't open on the weekends.

577
00:30:30,412 --> 00:30:33,545
So when's he supposed to go? Well well he
can just do it online if that's a problem,

578
00:30:33,545 --> 00:30:35,677
right? Well those these government
websites,

579
00:30:35,677 --> 00:30:37,268
as we talked about before, are difficult,

580
00:30:37,268 --> 00:30:38,689
notoriously difficult to navigate,

581
00:30:38,689 --> 00:30:42,062
even for lawyers. Like I'm trained to read
legal documents

582
00:30:42,062 --> 00:30:43,493
and understand how things, you know,

583
00:30:43,493 --> 00:30:45,274
understand the workflow and these kinds of
things.

584
00:30:45,274 --> 00:30:48,937
And it's hard for me sometimes when I open
these ~ these pages to figure

585
00:30:48,937 --> 00:30:52,580
out what's going on. So, ~ I mean this is
where the the

586
00:30:53,040 --> 00:30:57,233
working man or working person ~ kind of
falls off the map,

587
00:30:57,233 --> 00:31:02,046
right? Or falls off the the ledger because
they're clearing the way for

588
00:31:02,046 --> 00:31:06,789
~ this model outcome that means that
nobody gets healthy care coverage.

589
00:31:06,789 --> 00:31:08,019
But before we get too

590
00:31:07,562 --> 00:31:08,562
I think

591
00:31:08,019 --> 00:31:09,290
comfortable on our side of this,

592
00:31:09,290 --> 00:31:10,721
go ahead. Sorry Joshua.

593
00:31:10,282 --> 00:31:11,282
I was gonna say,

594
00:31:10,832 --> 00:31:12,253
you know, ~ in addition to this,

595
00:31:12,253 --> 00:31:15,676
right, we're assuming that this guy's
gonna work a normal nine to six schedule,

596
00:31:15,676 --> 00:31:18,949
right? the library is gonna be closed
outside of that.

597
00:31:18,949 --> 00:31:21,291
So in order to be able to access this
website,

598
00:31:21,291 --> 00:31:25,304
you have to have access to either a
smartphone with with an ~ cell phone
service

599
00:31:25,304 --> 00:31:29,077
package, or your own computer that you're
maintaining or a tablet

600
00:31:29,077 --> 00:31:31,108
or something like that with internet
service.

601
00:31:31,108 --> 00:31:35,812
Right? So if he's working nine to six and
a bank's only open nine to four

602
00:31:36,252 --> 00:31:39,575
and the library's only open eight to five.

603
00:31:40,075 --> 00:31:44,328
He doesn't really have the opportunity
other than maintaining an expense that

604
00:31:44,328 --> 00:31:50,903
he doesn't necessarily want or need to
create a mandate to fill out paperwork

605
00:31:50,903 --> 00:31:54,465
in a form that he's working these hours
that he's already clearly working.

606
00:31:54,465 --> 00:31:59,869
And we can see that because he's paying
taxes on his income to the IRS,

607
00:31:59,869 --> 00:32:02,311
so we know how much he's actually working,

608
00:32:02,311 --> 00:32:05,353
and how much per hour it's all sent to the
IRS.

609
00:32:05,853 --> 00:32:09,294
But now he's gonna have to go to through a
separate hoop to submit

610
00:32:09,294 --> 00:32:13,036
all this information and possibly incur
the expense of a computer or a tablet

611
00:32:13,036 --> 00:32:16,908
or a laptop or a cell phone and an
internet package or a cell phone package

612
00:32:17,008 --> 00:32:21,100
in order to be able to fill out these
forms and somehow manage or somehow manage

613
00:32:21,100 --> 00:32:24,261
to go to a library outside of those hours
and fill it out there.

614
00:32:24,761 --> 00:32:27,973
Well, it sounds like we've got this pretty
well sorted out,

615
00:32:27,973 --> 00:32:29,083
but before we get too comfortable,

616
00:32:29,083 --> 00:32:32,035
let's take a look at the case for the
other side and part of that

617
00:32:32,035 --> 00:32:37,367
is a legitimate argument. So ~ let's this
take take us back in time

618
00:32:37,367 --> 00:32:39,819
now or forward in time, I figure where we
left ourselves.

619
00:32:39,819 --> 00:32:44,321
But we're gonna go to the San Francisco
Fed in twenty nine.

620
00:32:44,321 --> 00:32:49,234
And it was there were fears about that
single mothers would sink deeper into
poverty

621
00:32:49,234 --> 00:32:51,865
after the nineteen ninety six law didn't
pan out.

622
00:32:51,865 --> 00:32:53,946
So caseloads fell.

623
00:32:54,368 --> 00:32:56,159
Employment and household incomes rose.

624
00:32:56,159 --> 00:32:59,690
~ you know, there was kind of chaos there.

625
00:32:59,690 --> 00:33:02,479
And the Congressional Research Service
reported,

626
00:33:02,479 --> 00:33:05,821
~ report R forty five three seventeen,

627
00:33:05,821 --> 00:33:09,213
welfare to work experiments that paired
requirements with job

628
00:33:09,213 --> 00:33:11,643
and education services raised employment
and where wages,

629
00:33:11,643 --> 00:33:15,154
right? So this is a study the
Congressional Research Service

630
00:33:15,154 --> 00:33:18,285
put together and figured out that this
welfare to work experiment

631
00:33:18,746 --> 00:33:20,416
was producing good results, right?

632
00:33:21,294 --> 00:33:24,725
So that's encouraging from that
perspective that if you can p p put people
back

633
00:33:24,725 --> 00:33:27,836
to work or get them to at least try to
work some even while they're on welfare,

634
00:33:27,836 --> 00:33:30,897
~ maybe they can they can make the
transition,

635
00:33:30,897 --> 00:33:33,958
right? They can literally pull themselves
up by their own bootstraps.

636
00:33:33,958 --> 00:33:38,239
~ the Foundation for Government
Accountability says attracted more than

637
00:33:38,239 --> 00:33:40,660
a million adults under the snap work
rules,

638
00:33:40,660 --> 00:33:44,641
and many went back to work with incomes
more than doubling a in a year.

639
00:33:44,641 --> 00:33:48,862
Now, doubling from welfare checks is

640
00:33:49,419 --> 00:33:51,950
Not as impressive, but hey, it's it's head
in the right direction.

641
00:33:51,950 --> 00:33:56,693
And then there's reporting from Levin that
that the Linda Taylor case,

642
00:33:56,693 --> 00:33:58,114
right? We talked about the welfare queen
already.

643
00:33:58,114 --> 00:34:01,376
Linda Taylor was real. The furs and
Cadillacs were real,

644
00:34:01,376 --> 00:34:03,747
and her alleged crimes were well past
welfare fraud.

645
00:34:03,747 --> 00:34:06,859
So again, I mean this is again this is a
real person,

646
00:34:06,859 --> 00:34:08,240
right? So it's not a made up story.

647
00:34:08,240 --> 00:34:11,452
But it is a very unusual, exceptional
individual,

648
00:34:11,452 --> 00:34:15,364
right? And this and clearly a criminal
criminal mind.

649
00:34:15,364 --> 00:34:17,205
I don't know if mastermind may be too
strong a word.

650
00:34:17,751 --> 00:34:18,922
But clearly a criminal mind here.

651
00:34:18,922 --> 00:34:21,683
There was more than just welfare fraud
involved in our enterprises.

652
00:34:21,683 --> 00:34:25,996
And then we get Georgia saying that a
two-year launch delay drove part

653
00:34:25,996 --> 00:34:29,838
of the pathway's costs. So they're they're
trying to justify why that

654
00:34:29,838 --> 00:34:32,610
$80 million or $89 million, whatever it
came out to,

655
00:34:32,610 --> 00:34:36,552
~ saying that a two-year launch delay
drove up those administrative costs.

656
00:34:36,552 --> 00:34:42,326
And CMS calls the vendors $600 million
pledge-free and discounted help.

657
00:34:43,088 --> 00:34:46,391
So what what that means is the the people
that they hired for these that they

658
00:34:46,391 --> 00:34:49,303
allotted that money for just took it as a
tax deduction,

659
00:34:49,303 --> 00:34:50,774
right, instead of charging them directly.

660
00:34:50,774 --> 00:34:55,548
So that money they still got their they
still got covered for that in the form

661
00:34:55,548 --> 00:35:01,172
of a the tax write off. ~ so where does
that leave us,

662
00:35:01,172 --> 00:35:03,384
Joshua? What do we what do we actually
believe at this point?

663
00:35:03,857 --> 00:35:05,237
Well, what what do you believe,

664
00:35:05,237 --> 00:35:09,708
Will? I mean, ~ there there are they have
legitimate some legitimate return right

665
00:35:09,708 --> 00:35:13,399
here that they that what they were trying
to achieve,

666
00:35:13,399 --> 00:35:18,160
some of it happened. I I I guess the w and
I want to present it that

667
00:35:18,160 --> 00:35:21,980
way because some of the things that they
were claiming absolutely did happen.

668
00:35:21,980 --> 00:35:26,332
I don't think it accounts for the actual
human cost in this,

669
00:35:26,332 --> 00:35:29,762
though. Right? Like, ~ yes, we saved some
money.

670
00:35:29,762 --> 00:35:32,403
Yes, some people that they tracked under

671
00:35:32,819 --> 00:35:38,943
These same guidelines for literally
supplemental nutrition and food assistance
went

672
00:35:38,943 --> 00:35:44,927
back to work because of these work
requirements and ended up doubling their
income

673
00:35:45,107 --> 00:35:46,728
because they went back to work.

674
00:35:46,728 --> 00:35:52,913
Okay, that's valid, but you did it by
literally taking away their ability to
eat.

675
00:35:52,913 --> 00:35:53,933
And so

676
00:35:54,070 --> 00:35:55,701
Right. mean it's one thing

677
00:35:55,701 --> 00:35:58,844
to say there's positive outcomes from
these these kinds of programs.

678
00:35:58,844 --> 00:36:02,937
It's another thing to use those outcomes
or use the the one of the steps along

679
00:36:02,937 --> 00:36:06,380
the way as a measurement for whether they
qualify for the original care

680
00:36:06,380 --> 00:36:09,222
in the first place. Right. It's like this
is basically saying we

681
00:36:09,222 --> 00:36:11,324
can change some things, we can we can help
get them on the road

682
00:36:11,324 --> 00:36:15,397
to recovery by putting them back in jobs
and getting them ~ earning income.

683
00:36:15,397 --> 00:36:18,590
But if we look if we flip that on the
reverse side and say if we set this

684
00:36:18,590 --> 00:36:23,564
as a minimum bar for getting the ~ the
federal funds in the first place

685
00:36:24,182 --> 00:36:28,126
That's a good way to clean a lot of people
off the the ~ ledger,

686
00:36:28,126 --> 00:36:29,126
right?

687
00:36:29,347 --> 00:36:33,108
Yeah, I think I think if you if you read
the if you read the C R S all the way
down,

688
00:36:33,108 --> 00:36:36,840
right, the the gains were usually ~
modest.

689
00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:39,301
They were often faded, you know,

690
00:36:39,301 --> 00:36:44,463
and they they didn't really raise incomes
unless their earnings were supplemented.

691
00:36:44,463 --> 00:36:49,105
So those programs that they created
essentially came with services.

692
00:36:49,105 --> 00:36:52,966
The Medicaid version of this comes with
like

693
00:36:52,966 --> 00:36:57,468
a logon and essentially a work
requirement.

694
00:36:57,670 --> 00:37:02,181
of administrative paperwork on top of an
actual work requirement,

695
00:37:02,181 --> 00:37:06,372
right? The FGA number comes from the FGA,

696
00:37:06,372 --> 00:37:11,183
the same group that filed the Supreme
Court brief defending the work
requirements.

697
00:37:11,183 --> 00:37:15,124
Other studies actually found s much
smaller gains and smaller losses.

698
00:37:15,124 --> 00:37:17,365
Of course they're not going to report
those.

699
00:37:17,365 --> 00:37:20,586
They don't stack up to what they were
trying to achieve.

700
00:37:20,586 --> 00:37:25,707
The CBPP credits more than more of the
post

701
00:37:26,207 --> 00:37:32,140
Nine ninety six gains to a strong economy
and the earned income tax credit,

702
00:37:32,140 --> 00:37:36,872
right? So and points to more kids in deep
poverty.

703
00:37:36,872 --> 00:37:43,495
All ten pledging vendors already hold
state Medicaid eligibility contracts.

704
00:37:43,995 --> 00:37:44,995
It's basically like

705
00:37:44,286 --> 00:37:45,286
And this is

706
00:37:44,941 --> 00:37:47,479
the the first bag is free kind of a sales
strategy.

707
00:37:47,979 --> 00:37:51,292
Right. ~ ironic, given that who was
driving this.

708
00:37:51,292 --> 00:37:56,786
But ~ yeah, I mean that's that's the
classic case of never letting the facts

709
00:37:56,786 --> 00:37:57,897
get in the way of a good story,

710
00:37:57,897 --> 00:37:58,897
right?

711
00:37:58,667 --> 00:38:02,762
So wh wh what have we settled and what's
still that issue here,

712
00:38:02,762 --> 00:38:04,744
~ at this point?

713
00:38:05,518 --> 00:38:10,751
Well, so I think Arkansas Arkansas lost
their coverage,

714
00:38:10,751 --> 00:38:16,636
right? There was no actual measured job
gain in that because there aren't it's

715
00:38:16,636 --> 00:38:19,888
not like i if you increase work
requirements that jobs are going

716
00:38:19,888 --> 00:38:20,889
to increase in turn.

717
00:38:21,389 --> 00:38:25,649
And then you have the Georgia case where
they spent two to one on just

718
00:38:25,649 --> 00:38:29,987
the actual cost of implementing the
program that they could have been just
using

719
00:38:29,987 --> 00:38:31,270
toward the actual care.

720
00:38:31,770 --> 00:38:37,364
And so I think, you know, whether or not
the nineteen ninety-six

721
00:38:37,604 --> 00:38:39,816
law actually caused the gains,

722
00:38:39,816 --> 00:38:44,889
~ that's kind of the the San Francisco Fed
versus CBPP,

723
00:38:44,889 --> 00:38:49,072
right? And then you have this this corrupt
company that's essentially tracking

724
00:38:49,433 --> 00:38:55,717
all this information who directly benefits
from these facts being true.

725
00:38:55,717 --> 00:38:58,539
Now, what is real is that

726
00:38:59,060 --> 00:39:04,672
Requirements with services attached have
actually raised employment ~ modestly,

727
00:39:04,672 --> 00:39:06,623
according to CRS, right? I mean,

728
00:39:06,623 --> 00:39:08,814
so that's a real thing. So essentially
when you say,

729
00:39:08,814 --> 00:39:13,960
hey, look, we'll give you more ~ benefits
to yourself and benefits

730
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:16,281
to grow your life, and that might be small
things,

731
00:39:16,281 --> 00:39:18,882
right? We we will help you with education
to help you get into

732
00:39:18,882 --> 00:39:21,363
a different workforce ~ you know,

733
00:39:21,363 --> 00:39:25,444
that ha is more demanding or ~ has more
demand in it,

734
00:39:25,444 --> 00:39:27,105
or you know, we might

735
00:39:27,793 --> 00:39:32,596
If you qualify for SNAP, you might also
qualify for Medicaid,

736
00:39:32,596 --> 00:39:36,589
right? Or if you're filling out your SNAP
requirements,

737
00:39:36,589 --> 00:39:40,812
which the state of Oklahoma again requires
eighty hours a month for

738
00:39:40,812 --> 00:39:45,095
you to have SNAP. But you still have to
log it in two places under this

739
00:39:45,095 --> 00:39:47,227
new Medicare law. Maybe they'll combine
them,

740
00:39:47,227 --> 00:39:50,549
right? Maybe maybe if you you know,

741
00:39:50,549 --> 00:39:51,650
if they share the information,

742
00:39:51,650 --> 00:39:54,452
if the IRS shares the information with the
Congressional Budget Office,

743
00:39:54,452 --> 00:39:55,753
th of

744
00:39:56,333 --> 00:39:57,574
This person is working this much,

745
00:39:57,574 --> 00:39:59,515
maybe we can eliminate the requirement
altogether.

746
00:39:59,515 --> 00:40:03,158
But I think that the entire situation is
corrupt.

747
00:40:03,158 --> 00:40:04,158
Right?

748
00:40:04,208 --> 00:40:05,208
Yeah.

749
00:40:04,739 --> 00:40:08,002
The the welfare queen story, that's real.

750
00:40:08,002 --> 00:40:09,913
I'll get I'll give it I'll give them that.

751
00:40:09,913 --> 00:40:12,785
That was a real person doing a really bad
thing.

752
00:40:12,785 --> 00:40:14,647
But that stuff's already against the law.

753
00:40:14,647 --> 00:40:20,991
It's fraud. We should absolutely try
people in a court with real

754
00:40:20,991 --> 00:40:21,991
consequences.

755
00:40:22,004 --> 00:40:23,454
For people who abuse these systems.

756
00:40:23,454 --> 00:40:29,166
I I'm not saying that we shouldn't we
shouldn't ~ avoid or that we should avoid,

757
00:40:29,166 --> 00:40:34,032
you know, prosecuting or or keeping fraud
out of these these systems.

758
00:40:34,032 --> 00:40:37,195
It's like the getting rid of fraud and
waste and all this other stuff.

759
00:40:37,195 --> 00:40:39,116
Yes, we should do those things.

760
00:40:39,116 --> 00:40:45,221
But we should not take actions that would
directly cause someone harm in order

761
00:40:45,221 --> 00:40:49,964
to do it. And that's that's almost every
turn of these these

762
00:40:50,402 --> 00:40:55,062
policies and these ideas that are
overwhelmingly coming out of the

763
00:40:55,062 --> 00:41:00,345
out of the conservative wing of our
government are an attempt to cut budgets

764
00:41:00,365 --> 00:41:05,205
at any cost. And I I think that they they
failed to understand that there

765
00:41:05,205 --> 00:41:07,986
is a cost to all of this, but it's a human
one.

766
00:41:07,986 --> 00:41:14,498
It's just easier to to I guess track on a
spreadsheet when it's

767
00:41:14,498 --> 00:41:17,639
a dollar number versus an actual impact on
people's lives.

768
00:41:18,597 --> 00:41:20,778
And I I've said this many times
personally,

769
00:41:20,778 --> 00:41:24,280
I think that I would rather,

770
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:29,683
you know, feed forty people that don't
deserve

771
00:41:29,683 --> 00:41:33,985
to eat to make sure that a hundred kids
who actually need

772
00:41:34,066 --> 00:41:38,218
the food to to actually be able to eat,

773
00:41:38,218 --> 00:41:43,030
right? Like if if that takes me paying
taxes to feed forty people

774
00:41:43,030 --> 00:41:45,472
who don't actually meet the requirements,

775
00:41:45,472 --> 00:41:47,603
I'm okay with that. Should we hunt?

776
00:41:48,083 --> 00:41:52,236
Down those people who don't and every now
and then audit our system

777
00:41:52,236 --> 00:41:54,157
to make sure we're not doing those things.

778
00:41:54,157 --> 00:41:59,000
Yeah. Right. But it's a lot better

779
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:03,203
for an administration's claims if they're
trying to get re elected,

780
00:42:03,203 --> 00:42:07,575
to say, hey, look at all of the all of
these budget line items we were able

781
00:42:07,575 --> 00:42:12,058
to to cut without pointing to the fact
that we cut them by stealing literally
food

782
00:42:12,058 --> 00:42:13,058
out of children's mouths.

783
00:42:13,499 --> 00:42:17,721
Well, one thing we can ~ sort of confirm
or or validate absolutely,

784
00:42:17,721 --> 00:42:20,245
you know, and the one thing that's sort of
black and white is the

785
00:42:20,245 --> 00:42:23,668
~ the actual invoices themselves,

786
00:42:23,668 --> 00:42:27,511
right? So we talked about Georgia paying
twice ~ two dollars for every dollar that

787
00:42:27,511 --> 00:42:31,344
they recovered. we can actually look to
the invoices and see how that came about.

788
00:42:31,344 --> 00:42:33,525
So ~ Luke Seabourne

789
00:42:32,281 --> 00:42:33,281
So let's look at them.

790
00:42:34,025 --> 00:42:35,025
What's that?

791
00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:36,841
I said l I said let's listen let's hear

792
00:42:37,341 --> 00:42:41,822
Okay, sorry. Luke Seaborne appeared in
Georgia's own twenty twenty four
promotional

793
00:42:41,822 --> 00:42:44,293
video for Pathways. Meanwhile,

794
00:42:44,293 --> 00:42:46,894
red tape has caused him to lose his
benefits twice.

795
00:42:46,894 --> 00:42:50,285
And this goes goes back to a little
company you may have heard of called
Deloitte.

796
00:42:50,285 --> 00:42:52,739
Are you familiar? Yeah.

797
00:42:51,334 --> 00:42:52,708
never heard of Just kidding.

798
00:42:52,739 --> 00:42:58,970
~ so one might wish. But they were paid ~
and Deloitte is generally considered

799
00:42:58,970 --> 00:43:02,021
a consulting agency, but that doesn't
really begin to cover what they do.

800
00:43:02,021 --> 00:43:04,642
They do a lot more than just ~ consulting.

801
00:43:05,188 --> 00:43:10,182
We'll get that in a second, but ~ Deloitte
was paid more than fifty million dollars

802
00:43:10,182 --> 00:43:13,985
for pathways eligibility software that
reportedly often froze

803
00:43:13,985 --> 00:43:15,466
and wiped out applicants' information.

804
00:43:15,466 --> 00:43:20,409
So a fifty million dollar piece of
software to do one thing and it it

805
00:43:20,469 --> 00:43:21,850
it couldn't do that one thing.

806
00:43:21,850 --> 00:43:23,121
The contracts

807
00:43:22,580 --> 00:43:23,580
At least not well.

808
00:43:23,361 --> 00:43:25,873
were obtained through at least not well
exactly.

809
00:43:25,873 --> 00:43:29,176
the contracts obtained through public
records were heavily redacted,

810
00:43:29,176 --> 00:43:32,088
but that's what we do know about the
Deloitte deal so far.

811
00:43:32,862 --> 00:43:38,016
So two point four million to write you
know,

812
00:43:38,016 --> 00:43:42,079
a shitty app. Over fifty million to build
that system,

813
00:43:42,079 --> 00:43:46,782
ten point seven million to advertise that
now that system exists.

814
00:43:46,782 --> 00:43:50,915
And during the ad contract, enrollment
went from about two percent

815
00:43:50,915 --> 00:43:54,247
of eligible people to under three.

816
00:43:54,747 --> 00:43:56,055
So less than a full percentage point.

817
00:43:56,273 --> 00:43:58,675
Right. Paid to write the test,

818
00:43:58,675 --> 00:44:03,181
paid to build the test, paid to promote
the test.

819
00:44:03,181 --> 00:44:06,546
Somewhere in that whole mess,

820
00:44:06,546 --> 00:44:12,434
a sick guy in a promotional video got
kicked off of it twice.

821
00:44:12,934 --> 00:44:18,146
And somebody made the decision to put that
that specific guy in that situation.

822
00:44:18,646 --> 00:44:20,164
Someone named Deloitte executive,

823
00:44:20,164 --> 00:44:21,164
apparently.

824
00:44:21,240 --> 00:44:24,271
Right, Maximus twenty twenty six this
year.

825
00:44:24,271 --> 00:44:30,052
CEO Bruce Caswell's company told investors
in August that states implementing

826
00:44:30,153 --> 00:44:32,843
HR one will bring back growth.

827
00:44:32,843 --> 00:44:37,575
They called it attractive new work
opportunities.

828
00:44:37,575 --> 00:44:39,445
On its february twenty twenty

829
00:44:38,708 --> 00:44:39,708
Consultants.

830
00:44:39,445 --> 00:44:46,317
six call, it reported a fifty nine point
one billion dollar sales babillion

831
00:44:46,838 --> 00:44:48,488
dollar sales pipeline.

832
00:44:49,400 --> 00:44:50,400
fifty nine

833
00:44:49,726 --> 00:44:50,726
Wow.

834
00:44:50,340 --> 00:44:54,878
percent of it was new work including
Medicaid and Snap.

835
00:44:55,378 --> 00:44:56,679
Optimum Health, you've heard of them.

836
00:44:56,679 --> 00:45:00,240
If you if you have ever used United
Healthcare,

837
00:45:00,240 --> 00:45:02,541
right? The United Health Group,

838
00:45:02,541 --> 00:45:09,125
a one hundred and twenty five point six
million dollar Vermont eligibility
contract

839
00:45:09,125 --> 00:45:13,837
as of October of last year, covering the
work requirement and six month rechecks

840
00:45:13,837 --> 00:45:17,469
~ among other work. So yeah, it's creating
jobs.

841
00:45:17,469 --> 00:45:20,060
It's creating jobs by literally harming
people.

842
00:45:20,560 --> 00:45:22,638
To to administrate the systems to harm
people.

843
00:45:20,642 --> 00:45:23,745
I just like the fact that the when they
needed to Yeah,

844
00:45:23,745 --> 00:45:26,076
I l I just love the fact that when they
looked they needed to know who

845
00:45:26,076 --> 00:45:28,829
to kick off the the rolls, they turned to
United Health Group.

846
00:45:28,829 --> 00:45:31,311
As like, you know, not as insurance
expert,

847
00:45:31,311 --> 00:45:34,343
but as an expert on tracking people and
making sure that you could find ways

848
00:45:34,343 --> 00:45:35,343
to kick them off.

849
00:45:35,227 --> 00:45:36,987
They have really good systems to kick
people off.

850
00:45:36,987 --> 00:45:38,488
Hey, they're using AI to do it.

851
00:45:37,864 --> 00:45:38,864
Exactly.

852
00:45:39,025 --> 00:45:43,006
You know, I mean Charles Gresham,

853
00:45:43,006 --> 00:45:46,467
right, lost coverage over a website that
literally couldn't work.

854
00:45:46,467 --> 00:45:47,897
It wasn't that he did something wrong.

855
00:45:47,897 --> 00:45:49,808
He did all of the things, he did the
requirements.

856
00:45:49,808 --> 00:45:54,299
It somewhere got lost. This and it could
have been something simple.

857
00:45:54,299 --> 00:45:55,749
The save button was not visible.

858
00:45:55,749 --> 00:45:57,490
You had to scroll down, and maybe he's an
older guy,

859
00:45:57,490 --> 00:45:59,540
you know, like he didn't see the save
button.

860
00:45:59,540 --> 00:46:01,591
So he's like, I filled out all the forms.

861
00:46:01,591 --> 00:46:03,151
I don't know what else to do.

862
00:46:03,651 --> 00:46:05,638
And he exits the website and all that
information never

863
00:46:04,223 --> 00:46:05,593
He didn't consent the marketing.

864
00:46:05,638 --> 00:46:08,720
makes it into the system because they had
a bad user interface,

865
00:46:08,720 --> 00:46:09,720
right?

866
00:46:09,471 --> 00:46:12,779
Or he didn't consent to be marketed to the
marketing opt in and they wouldn't

867
00:46:12,779 --> 00:46:13,779
let him click through.

868
00:46:14,083 --> 00:46:15,914
Right. He didn't read the Eula.

869
00:46:15,914 --> 00:46:17,675
Adrian McGonagall, that guy had a full

870
00:46:17,343 --> 00:46:18,343
Yeah.

871
00:46:17,675 --> 00:46:21,687
time job. He was working in a meat packing
plant and his employer didn't offer

872
00:46:21,687 --> 00:46:26,019
insurance. That's literally the people who
Medicaid was designed for.

873
00:46:26,019 --> 00:46:29,521
And it's literally the people that they
say they want on this system,

874
00:46:29,521 --> 00:46:35,054
but they're adding additional burdens in
order to stay on a system that's working

875
00:46:35,054 --> 00:46:36,695
exactly like it was already designed to.

876
00:46:37,195 --> 00:46:40,248
~ and this is this I mean, these are real
people that we're talking about here.

877
00:46:40,248 --> 00:46:42,530
And now that it's gone nationwide,

878
00:46:42,530 --> 00:46:43,991
it's gonna be real people that you know,

879
00:46:43,991 --> 00:46:47,465
most likely. If someone at your job has no
employer coverage and

880
00:46:47,465 --> 00:46:49,997
is on expansion Medicaid starting in
twenty twenty seven,

881
00:46:49,997 --> 00:46:53,239
they're gonna be proving their hours
through a system that a contractor

882
00:46:53,239 --> 00:46:54,239
is building right now.

883
00:46:54,581 --> 00:46:58,845
So the question that we we're we're left
with really is is like who sits

884
00:46:58,845 --> 00:47:01,818
at the top of this situation, who sits at
the bottom?

885
00:47:02,318 --> 00:47:06,681
And once again, I think Will and I
probably both agree on this,

886
00:47:06,681 --> 00:47:10,103
it's the people who are already hurting
that are at the bottom of this.

887
00:47:10,103 --> 00:47:11,824
Like they're already

888
00:47:11,499 --> 00:47:12,499
Agreed.

889
00:47:12,245 --> 00:47:14,646
unwell, they're unhealthy, they're
overworked,

890
00:47:14,646 --> 00:47:16,738
or they're handicapped and unable to work,

891
00:47:16,738 --> 00:47:18,799
incapable of of holding down a job,

892
00:47:18,799 --> 00:47:20,631
not because necessarily their abilities,

893
00:47:20,631 --> 00:47:26,314
but because their ~ their employer's view
of their reliability.

894
00:47:26,314 --> 00:47:31,298
Or it could just be something as simple as
as someone getting pregnant.

895
00:47:32,152 --> 00:47:38,265
And not having ~ not wanting to to have to
pay for their health insurance premiums

896
00:47:38,265 --> 00:47:43,128
and and those sorts of things to to exit
them from the system so that they

897
00:47:43,128 --> 00:47:47,560
can share the responsibility with the
world while also voting in people

898
00:47:47,560 --> 00:47:49,751
who are taking those things away as well.

899
00:47:49,751 --> 00:47:52,632
The people at the top, they're the obvious
people.

900
00:47:52,632 --> 00:47:54,233
They're always the same people.

901
00:47:54,233 --> 00:47:56,614
They're so giant software corporations,

902
00:47:56,614 --> 00:47:59,686
huge, huge money-making ~ you know,

903
00:47:59,686 --> 00:48:01,197
~ enterprises.

904
00:48:01,553 --> 00:48:04,215
That to be fair, they're like,

905
00:48:04,215 --> 00:48:06,397
well, we're just executing, we're helping.

906
00:48:06,397 --> 00:48:12,322
We're we're private companies partnering
with the state to help them create what

907
00:48:12,322 --> 00:48:14,043
they what they have put into law.

908
00:48:14,043 --> 00:48:18,647
But we're not really understanding the
data that they're using,

909
00:48:18,647 --> 00:48:23,811
and we're we're changing the outcomes of
these situations based upon what

910
00:48:23,811 --> 00:48:25,362
the data actually shows.

911
00:48:25,862 --> 00:48:26,862
So

912
00:48:26,518 --> 00:48:28,014
Did you bring home for a landing for us,

913
00:48:28,014 --> 00:48:29,014
Joshua?

914
00:48:28,933 --> 00:48:32,941
Yeah. If you say that the testing measures
work.

915
00:48:33,441 --> 00:48:38,764
Then nearly two thirds of adult enrollees

916
00:48:38,925 --> 00:48:40,870
in Medicaid are already working.

917
00:48:41,370 --> 00:48:45,512
In Arkansas, ninety-five percent of them
were either working or completely exempt.

918
00:48:45,512 --> 00:48:48,213
And they didn't really create any jobs
through this.

919
00:48:48,213 --> 00:48:53,817
So they had to go looking for jobs that
weren't there and work them

920
00:48:54,317 --> 00:48:56,218
in order to continue receiving their
benefits.

921
00:48:56,218 --> 00:48:58,819
So if if you think it saves money,

922
00:48:58,819 --> 00:49:02,481
326 billion of 911 billion,

923
00:49:02,481 --> 00:49:05,983
it's really mostly from people losing
coverage.

924
00:49:06,483 --> 00:49:10,719
Georgia spent fifty four point two million
on administration and twenty

925
00:49:10,719 --> 00:49:12,857
six point one million on actually helping
people.

926
00:49:13,357 --> 00:49:16,783
So if you think that work requirements can
work,

927
00:49:16,783 --> 00:49:20,369
there are only modest gains when we
actually look at the information.

928
00:49:20,369 --> 00:49:24,657
The San Francisco Fed found employment
rose after nineteen ninety six.

929
00:49:25,157 --> 00:49:27,309
The that was mostly the dot-com bubble,

930
00:49:27,309 --> 00:49:30,539
but the the Medicaid version just attaches
paperwork to it.

931
00:49:30,539 --> 00:49:32,483
It's like, well, we just need to track it
better.

932
00:49:32,483 --> 00:49:34,305
It means we need another whole system.

933
00:49:34,305 --> 00:49:37,928
If you think that vendors are just doing a
job,

934
00:49:37,928 --> 00:49:41,420
these companies are calling these things a
growth driver,

935
00:49:41,420 --> 00:49:46,475
which means they're just making gains for
the stock market overall.

936
00:49:46,475 --> 00:49:50,498
And ten of these pledging vendors already
hold contracts.

937
00:49:50,998 --> 00:49:53,552
If the the well fair queen was invented,

938
00:49:53,552 --> 00:49:56,696
we know she was real, according to this
Leven guy.

939
00:49:56,696 --> 00:50:00,430
But we're punishing everyone for one
person.

940
00:50:00,930 --> 00:50:05,734
So Georgia's Deloitte contracts came out
through public records,

941
00:50:05,734 --> 00:50:07,796
right? Heavily redacted public records,

942
00:50:07,796 --> 00:50:10,038
but you say there isn't one.

943
00:50:10,538 --> 00:50:11,786
public record. You can look it up.

944
00:50:11,786 --> 00:50:12,944
You can go look out online.

945
00:50:13,444 --> 00:50:19,489
So I mean it sounds like we're talking at
best nominal gains that are gonna

946
00:50:19,489 --> 00:50:21,491
be a drop in the bucket compared to the
number of people that

947
00:50:21,491 --> 00:50:23,123
are eliminated from the system altogether.

948
00:50:23,123 --> 00:50:24,764
And that's where the real money's made,

949
00:50:24,764 --> 00:50:28,507
is the government recouping the the
expected forecast costs

950
00:50:28,988 --> 00:50:31,370
for those individuals who do qualify at
this time.

951
00:50:31,870 --> 00:50:32,870
Is that fair to say?

952
00:50:32,108 --> 00:50:33,108
Yeah.

953
00:50:33,068 --> 00:50:37,910
I not just that, I also think I I I I hate
to make future predictions because

954
00:50:37,910 --> 00:50:40,772
they're they're, you know, fifty fifty
wrong.

955
00:50:40,772 --> 00:50:44,293
I think that this is gonna be used in the
future because when you when these people

956
00:50:44,293 --> 00:50:47,194
drop, they're it's not like their health
needs are gonna go away.

957
00:50:47,194 --> 00:50:48,915
They're just gonna stop treating them.

958
00:50:48,915 --> 00:50:55,488
So if we ever do move toward a better
system where we maybe stop prioritizing
profit

959
00:50:55,488 --> 00:50:58,459
over people's literal lives or something
to that effect,

960
00:50:58,459 --> 00:51:00,900
I think you're gonna see conservatives say

961
00:51:01,554 --> 00:51:05,568
C, we did this and look at how many people
are abusing this.

962
00:51:05,568 --> 00:51:07,550
It's like, no, you took it away back then,

963
00:51:07,550 --> 00:51:12,915
and then when we fixed it, we we're
dealing with the healthcare issues that
fell

964
00:51:12,915 --> 00:51:14,216
out because they fell off.

965
00:51:14,716 --> 00:51:17,245
Like that's that's the con, that's the
whole thing,

966
00:51:17,245 --> 00:51:18,245
start to finish.

967
00:51:18,457 --> 00:51:23,515
So we went from a joke in eighteen thirty
four to a an ~ admonishment

968
00:51:23,515 --> 00:51:25,849
in twenty twenty or in nineteen thirty,

969
00:51:25,849 --> 00:51:29,614
nineteen twenties, it was an admonishment
and now in twenty twenty seventeen it's

970
00:51:29,614 --> 00:51:30,614
a login screen.

971
00:51:30,986 --> 00:51:34,729
That's pretty much it. We're we're all
gonna be required to prove everything

972
00:51:34,729 --> 00:51:38,753
all the time, despite the fact that we
already have systems in place that
currently

973
00:51:38,753 --> 00:51:41,015
will tell you whether or not someone is.

974
00:51:41,015 --> 00:51:45,399
If you even if you believe that it should
be the case and that we should have

975
00:51:45,399 --> 00:51:50,572
the all these requirements, why are we
passing it on to the person except

976
00:51:50,572 --> 00:51:54,696
for it's just another barrier to put in
front of somebody so that they can't

977
00:51:54,696 --> 00:51:55,987
get the things that they actually need?

978
00:51:56,487 --> 00:51:59,675
That's it. That's the whole point of the
podcast.

979
00:52:00,175 --> 00:52:02,050
No, I'm sorry to leave you with this this
time.

980
00:52:02,002 --> 00:52:03,002
No,

981
00:52:02,202 --> 00:52:05,951
there's no it's just th this is we're just
we're just explaining a thing that is.

982
00:52:05,951 --> 00:52:09,579
And it it's it's not just healthcare,

983
00:52:09,579 --> 00:52:12,826
it's a it's a greater it's a greater theme
that we're seeing throughout.

984
00:52:13,326 --> 00:52:16,215
Joshua, where can they find us if they
want to engage in the discussion further?

985
00:52:16,519 --> 00:52:18,100
Yeah, you can find us on our website,

986
00:52:18,100 --> 00:52:24,285
we're at FOF.foundation. You can ~ rate us
on your favorite podcast app of choice,

987
00:52:24,285 --> 00:52:25,996
whatever you're listening to this on right
now,

988
00:52:25,996 --> 00:52:27,607
just give us a rating, five stars please.

989
00:52:27,607 --> 00:52:29,248
If you want to send us an email,

990
00:52:29,248 --> 00:52:33,451
you can email us at the overlap at fof dot
foundation.

991
00:52:33,451 --> 00:52:35,672
Other than that, I don't know.

992
00:52:35,672 --> 00:52:38,184
Be kind to each other. Help out where you
can.

993
00:52:38,684 --> 00:52:39,684
See you next week.

994
00:52:39,553 --> 00:52:41,303
With that, we'll say bye.

995
00:52:41,791 --> 00:52:42,791
Bye.