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And it's that time of year again, we meet again.

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Open enrollment is here.

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Everybody's favorite time of the year.

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It's not because of Thanksgiving or Christmas.

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It's because of open enrollment.

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Well, we've been texting pretty frequently over the last couple of months, because obviously

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we've worked together closely for the last four years.

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I've been a crowd health member for the last four years.

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I've had two babies on it.

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And I've been texting you behind the scenes.

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Like, I think this is the year for crowd health.

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If you're looking at the zeitgeist out there, the selfie videos and cars of people complaining about the cost of health insurance, it's getting untenable.

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And you were saying right before we have recorded that you think we're in a health insurance death spiral.

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Yeah, I was trying to think back of when we first talked.

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I think it was three years ago, maybe.

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I think four years ago.

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Four.

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I think when we first talked, we had like 2,000 customers or 2,000 community members.

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And now we're at 15,000.

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We'll have somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 by the end of the year.

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And so, yeah, I mean, I think you're right.

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I mean, this is the year of the health insurance death spiral.

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And I think what's happening is people are finally realizing that the Affordable Care Act actually wasn't affordable.

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and premiums are going up wickedly fast.

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And people are just opting out of the system.

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Like the Bitcoiners are opting out of the fiat system.

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I think the rest of folks are opting out of the healthcare space.

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So the worst one we've seen thus far is $5,600 a month for a family of four.

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That's the record so far.

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Yeah. So this is I was just looking at some tweets before we hopped on it.

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They're not hard to find. If you search ACA premium, it's insane.

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This is trucking czar. Only employee of my business. This is not, I repeat, not sustainable.

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This is my renewal notice for just health insurance per month before Obama.

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And there's some harsh language in there.

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but for him and a five dependents,

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it looks like he's going to be paying 32,

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almost $3,300 a month.

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It's his business.

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So he's eating that chunk too.

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He's going to have to pay $2,600 a month out of pocket from his paycheck

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just to support this.

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Yeah.

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I mean,

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that family with us would be like seven 50 a month.

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Yeah.

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And I didn't know.

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I didn't,

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I didn't see the deductible on that,

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but you know,

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ultimately,

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you know,

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that that guy's paying what thirty thousand dollars a year or something like that.

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And then he's got to pay the deductible on top of that.

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So he's probably forty thousand dollars into his health care before the the insurance company pays a dime.

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Yeah. And here's another one.

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Which is.

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There's Blue Cross Blue Shield.

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Nine options.

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Is that Illinois too?

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It's a health insurance.

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I don't know where this guy is, but deductible, $8,600, $12,000, $3,000, paying upwards of $3,500 a month.

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Why is it getting this bad?

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Yeah, I mean, I think what we're seeing ultimately is that, you know, back almost 15 years ago,

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this Affordable Care Act was supposed to be, you know, make things affordable.

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But in fact, what it did, it is made things way more expensive.

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And it was masked, you know, for the last four years because of the four or the I think it was American Rescue Plan that that basically gave subsidies to the people who were I think it was like 400 percent of the of the poverty level or something.

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And and so it masked all these huge, huge changes.

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And so what what's happening is now these subsidies are going away.

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And so all the healthy people are going, what the health insurance plans actuaries are doing is they're assuming that all the healthy people are going to exit the system, which means you're only having unhealthy people left in the system.

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And therefore, they're going to have the jack up rates to make up for the healthy people subsidizing the unhealthy people.

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I mean, that's the only way that health insurance works is healthy people subsidizing unhealthy people.

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Right.

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And so the mechanics just don't work when all the healthy people exit the system.

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So that's ultimately what's going down here.

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You know, we see above inflationary rates for all the medical services and things like that.

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But that's not what's going to increase ACA by 18 percent.

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I mean, it's a chunk of it, but that's not what it is.

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It's more just the population of patients within these plans are getting sicker.

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Does the government have a plan to solve this?

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No.

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There's no there's no plan to solve this. I mean, even I won't say who, but I saw a state rep or excuse me, a U.S. rep at my funny enough, my my daughter's schools fundraiser.

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So I went up to him. I was like, what's the what's the what's the option? He's like, we have none. We have the Republicans have no alternative.

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They have no solution to the to the problem. And I don't think anything iterative gets there.

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I mean, I think I said it last time I got a whole bunch of shit for it because everybody online is like you.

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And I said, burn. We got to burn the system down and start over again because there's no iterative way of getting back to, you know, something that's actually feasible.

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You know, and then the left basically says, oh, this shows we have to have Medicare for all.

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And we know what happens when the government gets involved in this stuff. Right.

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So we're either at what we have or Medicare for all. And the Republicans really haven't put together, you know, a plan for, you know, what there is.

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But I don't like government involvement in anything we do, but I think that people maybe should have a choice where let us healthy people have access to private plans of healthy people.

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And we're going to pay way, way less. And maybe there's some government subsidization of the sick or something, you know, like maybe there's a hybrid system here that works.

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Again, I know we're all Bitcoiners.

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Like, I don't want the government involved.

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But like at some point, like, you know, for these sick people, unless we want to continue

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to subsidize them, let's let them let's let the healthy people have our plans and the

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unhealthy people have their plans.

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And, you know, if that's not enough of an incentive to stay healthy, I don't know what

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it is.

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Right.

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Like the last thing you want to do is jump on a government, you know, unhealthy person

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plan.

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So it would have to be government subsidized, which means it's a taxpayer type of deal.

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But I think it's actually going to be less than what they're spending on the ACA this year.

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So I think it's not, you know, massive amounts more money going out the door.

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But I think there's got to be some kind of significant change to the system to get this thing right sized, because I don't I don't see any other options, honestly.

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I wonder if everybody can join CrowdHealth, that would solve it.

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Yeah. I wonder if Trump's I'm sure you saw the announcement earlier this week, I think it was yesterday or the day before about discounted Zempick.

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Like, do you think they're seeing this problem?

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And to your point, what is driving the cost up is the unhealthy people.

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And was this Zempick move like, OK, let's make Zempick cheap for people so that we can try to make them skinnier.

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And I don't I'm not going to speak to the efficacy of Zempick.

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I know there's many people are for it and many were against it.

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and many who believe that there hasn't been enough time to really understand how it affects people in the long term.

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But I think I would not be shocked if the Zempick discounts that the government is sort of forcing on the market is a recognition of,

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OK, we've got these massive health care costs are only ballooning and they continue to balloon.

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They're predominantly driven due to the fact that we have to provide health care to people that are willfully unhealthy, obese, have heart disease.

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I mean, look, I think that there's something to be said for people who are significantly overweight, who have diabetes and all these other conditions to take something like this to get them down to a weight that's manageable.

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Once they get down to that weight, I don't know how you'd structure this, but like once they get down to this, that weight, then they're like, OK, now you've got to pay it for yourself for yourself.

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Like, so it's not a burden on others or you've got to keep the weight off, right?

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Like you can't go back because everything that I've seen is, you know, as epic is great until you get off it.

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Then you gain all the weight back.

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So, you know, I don't think we're in a structure where you can pay a thousand dollars a month or whatever it is.

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I know that he said he's going to bring it down to what, 150 or something like that.

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You just can't continue to do that without, you know, the person making the lifestyle choices, having some skin in the game.

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you know because if that happens it's you and i the taxpayers are going to pay this and for the

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rest of their life which is not scalable we just can't we just can't do that right um so i think i

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think people have to pay out of their pocket for it at some point or they're going to make lifestyle

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changes i think the latter would be preferable that's why but for sure 100 yeah but i think that

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But, you know, incentives are everything.

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So if you're stuck with this situation, which you have to make a lifestyle change or you have to come out of pocket for 200 bucks a month or whatever it ends up being to the consumer, then I think incentives might change some some some lifestyle changes.

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I don't know if 200 bucks a month or 150 or whatever it is, is enough, but I know it's got to hit their pocket.

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Yeah. Well, this is something you focus on pretty heavily at CrowdHealth is making sure that community members are doing their best to remain healthy as well for the benefit of the wider community.

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Yeah. I mean, I ultimately think that the healthy people should be paying less than the unhealthy people. You know, I think in many parts of society, people are like, oh, that's awful for you to say. But look, you know, if people are putting in the work to be healthy, then they should be paying less. They should be paying less for healthcare services than the people who are unhealthy. Right.

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And so, you know, we've got a we got a program at a crowd health where we've got three different tests that you can take.

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And if you are in the top quartile for those tests, I mean, you know, in the top quartile healthiest, then you get a 20 percent discount on on your crowd health.

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So in essence, those who are taking better care of themselves are paying less.

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And ultimately, I think that's that's the case.

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I think we talked before on your other part on previous podcasts where, you know, you do that for help for for car insurance.

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you know you these car insurance yeah you like you know stick something in your in your car or

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you have an app or something that shows how good of a driver you are if you're a good driver you

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pay less if you're not a good driver you pay more i mean that seems like a reasonable a reasonable

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thing but for health care for some reason it's you know appalling to a lot of people that i would

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even even recommend that um but i think ultimately that's where we have to go so people feel it in

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their pocketbooks or else they're just they're they're going to the grocery store with somebody

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else's credit card yeah right no and to my point of the uh opening sort of statement like i feel

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like this year particularly i don't know if you're seeing it and observing it yourself but it feels

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like with these preview increases it's gotten to the point where it's forcing many people to

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seriously reconsider whether or not they want to engage in health insurance because it's beginning

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that materially hit their pocketbooks. Yeah, I think that's right. And that's what I think is

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kind of why people are forecasting the death spiral of health insurance.

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What are the incentives for me, right? If I'm going to pay $2,000 a month, so $24,000 a year,

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plus a $10,000 deductible, $34,000. If I'm a healthy person, I look at that and say,

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what's the probability that I'm going to have $34,000 worth of healthcare expenses this year?

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and and for most of us it's incredibly low you know half a percent a percent something like that

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and so people just do the math and bit no bitcoiners are great at this and and work on

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probabilities and most people are being like it's just not worth it i'm just going to self-fund

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and if god forbid something happens i'll you know try to negotiate the shit out of it

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and you know ultimately that's what we do at crowd health and we probably should have just

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like a negotiating uh product like hey if you're uninsured and you just want us to help you negotiate

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We should have a negotiation product. But, you know, I think that's I think that's the mindset that people are taking right now.

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And so I think a lot of people are just going to dump health insurance and start paying paying on their own, which ultimately I think is a good thing, because I think people need to to, you know, need to feel the the consequences of the health care decisions that they're making.

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and well this is a whole other aspect of it and why i love our ongoing conversations

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i mean i sent you this tweet i forget it was yesterday or the day before but that

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individual mucund mohan tweeted that he took one of his hospital bills and fed it to claude

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and basically it highlighted how the hospital was double triple quadruple

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charging him for things that didn't make any sense.

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And it was able to reduce his bill down by like 85%

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just by giving him some advice on how the system actually works.

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So you have this inflated cost being driven by the unhealthy member of societies

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that are driving actual cost up.

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And then you have this sort of administrative bloat and what it goes,

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would you call it fraud?

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Like whatever it is that is.

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I mean, I would call it fraud.

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Yeah. Fraud on top of it by the hospital system. So try to gouge you for even more.

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Yeah. I mean, we we we also have our internal, you know, AI platform that we don't we use.

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We don't use Claude. We use a different kind of platform built on another LLM.

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That's all, you know, HIPAA compliant and stuff. So I'm not giving away data that does the same thing.

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but we pair it with what we know that hospital has done in the past.

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So it basically looks for shenanigans that they've done in the past.

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Plus, what have they been willing to negotiate to in the past?

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So if you combine just kind of fraudulent billing activities with what they've tried to do in the past

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with what they've been willing to take in terms of payment in the past,

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that I think is the magic trio where you can get the absolute best prices.

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And that ultimately what what we what we good at is getting that that best price Because you can you can you know take a fifty thousand dollar bill and say you made one mistake and it goes down to forty two thousand dollars which is awesome

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But how do you get it down to something actually manageable?

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Because the forty two thousand is still probably four hundred or five hundred percent, you know, higher than Medicare, which you should be at kind of one hundred and twenty five to one hundred fifty percent of Medicare.

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Maybe that's a fair price.

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And so if you don't know that, then, you know, how are you going to really negotiate that bill?

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Because that's why I think errors is one component of a broader negotiation picture that we really use on our side to ensure that that our members are getting the best price.

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So I think this, you know, I think it is fraudulent.

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I, you know, you, I was in Bitcoin Commons just a year and a half ago and I had my issue where I had, you know, I thought I was having a stroke.

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And thank God Parker was right outside the office.

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I was like, Parker, call 911.

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I think Will actually called 911 or, you know, one of the two of them did.

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And, you know, I went to the hospital and they put me in on an IV, even though I wasn't dehydrated.

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So it was an IV.

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I was on an IV for 12 hours.

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It was a thousand milliliters.

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I can buy that off of Amazon for $8.

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The hospital can buy it for $2.

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I got charged $5,000 for a bag, a thousand milliliter bag of saline solution.

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That's insane.

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Well, saltwater, it's saltwater people like that.

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That's what that's what this is.

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And that's that's the egregiousness of these hospitals when they try to do this crap.

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What percentage of bills have errors like this or fraudulent like this?

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80. Yeah, 80, 80 are very, very clear, I would say there's another 10% that you can make a really

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good argument. Because a lot of times they use these billing codes, and they they try to jack

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the system so they can upcode you. So you know, for example, if you go to the ER, there's five

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codes that they can use. And it's goes from one to five, not to bore you, but like one to five,

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And like 80 percent, 80 some odd percent of our bills are nine are the fours or the fives, which meaning there's like critical life threatening.

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Like those are the two. I mean, I've seen somebody go into the ER with a broken finger and get critical or life threatening coded.

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Yet yet they say, you know, they do all these tests and things on you to say, oh, well, we thought, you know, there might be too much loss of blood or something.

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And so that gets it to that critical area.

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But they're all they're trying to do is get as much money out of the insurance companies as possible.

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So we see that stuff all the time.

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Yeah, all the time.

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And we've we've talked about we've talked about this in the past, but for the benefit of anybody who's coming to our large and growing show was not listen to an episode with Andy yet.

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But can you describe the dynamic between the health insurance company and the health provider and what their incentives are, the level of collusion or sort of cooperation there is between the two?

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Yeah. So, you know, back in 2009, the Affordable Care Act went into place.

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Um, and you know, what they did is they said, they told the hospitals, like the federal government

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told the hospitals, you can, or excuse me, the insurance companies, you can only make 15% of

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revenue as profit. So, you know, it's a thousand dollars of premium for this month for my family,

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they can only profit $150. And the thought process behind that, right. All these smart,

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you know, lawyers in DC thought, oh, well, we can't have health insurance plans,

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gouge their members and make a ton of money off of their healthcare. So I'm going to limit the

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amount that you can profit. Well, the problem with this is that most of these health insurance

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plans are for-profit organizations, right? So they want to get their 150, they want to grow at 10%

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to 165. What does that mean? That means your premium has to go from $1,000 to $1,100.

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So your insurance plan, the buyer of healthcare wants the price to go up.

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The sellers are these big hospital systems. They clearly want the price to go up.

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So, you know, you don't have to kind of say you don't have to be a safety in Ph.D. in economics to understand if the buyer and the seller of a product want the price to go up.

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Guess what? The prices go up. And so, you know, that's ultimately what's happening is there's this there's this wink wink between the hospitals and the health insurance plans that, you know, the hospitals won't raise prices too fast.

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So there's no regulatory intervention. Health insurance companies won't push back when you, you know, increase prices five or six percent every year, which on a compounded rate, as we all understand, is like massive.

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And then you'll see these entanglements once in a while where the hospital, you know, tries for seven or eight or nine percent increases and the health insurance plan pushes back.

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And I think it's more theatrics than anything. But yeah, yeah, you have the buyer and the seller of health care both having an incentive for the price to go up.

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You know, and so in essence, we have a principal agent problem, right? They're supposed to be our agent. The health insurance plans are supposed to be our agent trying to get us the best price, where what happens is they're actually benefiting, benefiting for the prices going up over time. So those are the perverse incentives within within health care. And so what I tell people is, Marty, Andy, I've got more negotiating power against these, these hospitals than United Health Care, which is the seventh or eighth largest company on the planet.

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And, you know, so I can get way better prices.

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Our members are getting prices that are about 50 percent better than United Healthcare as individuals.

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Yeah, that's how that's how screwed up our system is.

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And going back to your point about United Healthcare and the fact that ACA was really trying to make it so these health insurance companies weren't gouging their customers at the end of the day.

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and you had this principal agent problem that has existed.

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That's one thing I didn't realize until somebody tweeted out earlier today.

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But if you go back and you open up, you know, your health care's stock chart going to max.

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We have ACA implemented here, around here.

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It was trading at below $100.

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It's up almost 300%.

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Obviously, it's down bad this year, but it's obvious that their profits have gone up significantly since the ACA was instituted.

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Yeah, if you look at all the health insurance plans, you'll see that.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I mean, these were behind the scenes.

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These health insurance plans love this because, in essence, they're getting paid directly by the government for stuff that they hadn't been paid for in the past.

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And so this ACA marketplace was a whole new marketplace for them that they gorged upon.

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The other thing that was going on there, too, is there a privatization of Medicare, which typically we really love privatization.

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I think in the Bitcoin community is all about taking it away from the federal government.

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But in essence, what this is, is this is just a federal program being administered by a for-profit entity.

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And so you actually have the worst of both worlds, which is, you know, a government funding with a private entity trying to maximize profit, which means there's some gaming between that that happens.

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And the reason why it's down this year, UnitedHealthcare is down this year is, you know, they have been found to be gaming the system.

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And, you know, there's a there's a chart.

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I don't know. It was maybe six months ago, maybe nine months ago, something like that, where they showed the percentage of people within UnitedHealthcare who have diabetes was something like five or six times the national average.

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and it's because they figured out a way to code all of these people as diabetics.

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So they get paid more from the government.

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So it's a total gaming of the system.

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The government pays them based upon how sick they are.

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And so United went and basically said, all these people are way sicker, you know, than

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they actually were by all this, you know, in creative coding.

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So they get paid more by the government for these folks.

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So they kind of they are being investigated by the DOJ now for, you know, basically fraudulent Medicare billing.

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So let me add allegedly, allegedly.

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So UnitedHealthcare doesn't come and sue me.

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Allegedly, that's what they're doing.

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But again, I'm back to the principal agent problem.

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Like you said, you would like these programs to be private.

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But since there's a tight partnership between UnitedHealthcare and the government, it's not really that private.

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And then UnitedHealthcare, UnitedHealth, excuse me, has all the incentive to create that moat, that regulatory moat.

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It's like, no, the partnership is us and the government, nobody else.

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And we're going to bleed the taxpayer dry, allegedly.

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Yeah, that's exactly what's going on.

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And, you know, then we had Luigi, you know, at the end of last year, I think it was December of last year, maybe, which I think did.

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And I'm wholly against it. It did. It did shine some light on some of the things that, you know, these big health insurance plans were doing.

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And so I think they've gotten a new level of scrutiny from others that combined with the ACA subsidies running out, combined with, you know, this government shutdown.

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I think there's a lot of scrutiny on these health insurance plans right now. And that's why we're just we're overwhelmed with what the number of people calling us, you know, looking for a real, real alternative.

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Because we've built something, you know, based upon, you know, as much as we could Bitcoin principles, which is like the incentives have all got to be aligned for the system to work.

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And so, you know, typically health insurance plans, they bring in premiums, they have claims and everything in between is profit.

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So what do they want? They want the premiums to go up and they want the claims to go down. Right. So to maximize their profit.

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And so, you know, we set up and I thought a lot about this when I started the company is like, how do you how do you incentivize the system, you know, have incentives aligned?

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And so we're just a subscription fee. You know, it's like, let's just you subscribe to be part of the membership.

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And therefore, we have the incentive to keep prices down so that more people, you know, come and join us.

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we also have an incentive to get your your bills paid because it doesn't directly impact our yearly

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profits but if we don't get a bill if i don't get marty's you know pregnancy paid and marty goes on

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twitter and says crowd health sucks they didn't pay my bill like that that's the worst thing ever

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that could happen for me you know startup so i have all the incentive in the world to to get

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these bills paid so just to be clear i was oh sorry yeah they know what i meant uh i know i know

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But we've, yeah, it's 2025, Marty. You never know.

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We've successfully had two children paid for their births via, via crowd health.

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It's been an incredible experience. And you just said like for us, we're a family of five now.

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I think we're paying 750 a month. We supplement that with direct primary care all in.

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It's like 900 and 950 a month for a family of five, which we're going above and beyond with the direct primary care as well.

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We don't necessarily need that. We just like to have that.

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I think you guys are $6.95 a month, but same thing.

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And direct primary care, too, which basically is a subscription fee to a doctor that you can call anytime.

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If you're a member of CrowdHealth, I don't know if you're doing this, Marty, but you can submit $300 of that to the crowd, and it's fully eligible for funding.

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We like these subscription-based businesses because they don't have any incentive to see you sick.

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no i mean that's that's the bottom line and everybody else is getting paid out there to

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see you sick because they're a fee-for-service type of situation like the the doctor that you

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go to if they see the more times he sees you you become a recurring revenue stream whereas you know

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marty's dpc doctor is paying every every month and he's got an incentive to see you healthy because

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if you're not healthy he's you're calling him a lot which means it's you're more expensive to him

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so he's trying to he or she is trying to keep you healthy the incentives are aligned there so we're

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we're huge advocates of dpc direct primary care yeah i mean and it's one of those things too

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where there is such a mental barrier for people and i know i was i wasn't apprehensive but i was

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like okay this is new when i first joined crowd health four years ago and then when i originally

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joined we had dpc in austin we were living there as well and it's a bit foreign and it seems like

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you're taking a risk. But once you get onboarded and you live the experience for three months,

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six months, it's like, oh, this is a much better experience. I don't know how this wasn't the way

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I was doing it before. I'm never going back. And I imagine that is the biggest hurdle for

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CrowdHealth as a company is really getting people over that mental barrier of believing that there

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is a better way. Health insurance isn't the only way to do things.

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yeah i mean the the biggest barrier is uh people like what what happens if the what

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money have the big one like the other big health event um and i think ultimately what's changed for

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us over the last year is we've had enough big health events where people are finally comfortable

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that we can help them get big health events paid i mean i don't know if i talked about it on the

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last one but the the guy who uh did i talk about the guy who shot himself in the last one that we

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we talked about i don't recall and i feel like i would recall that too so i don't think you did

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yeah well we had we had a guy in montana over the summer who uh who is who is uh fishing in montana

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and he had a 44 in his revolve in his holster and he caught a fish he leaned down and the 44

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fell out of his holster hit a rock perfectly and the gun went off and the bullet went into his calf

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out the back of his calf, into his thigh, out the top of his thigh, into his chest and out the back.

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Totally destroyed his gallbladder, destroyed his intestines.

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You know, he said he looked down on his chest and green stuff, I think it was bile,

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was basically coming out of his chest.

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So we, you know, his wife was with him, thank God.

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You know, she took off her shirt.

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He thought he hit the femoral artery.

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So she tied a shirt around his thigh ran up to the top of the hill called 911 A helicopter came in and pulled him out of the stream basically to get him to the hospital He went into a coma at the hospital And you know I think he was in

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the coma for two or three weeks, something like that. And then he had to drive home from Montana

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to California because they wouldn't let him on an airplane. He got sepsis on the way home.

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And so, you know, that was almost a million dollar bill. And the crowd funded that with no problem.

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Um, and so I think that, you know, most of the people have to just get over the hurdle of like,

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what if something really catastrophic happens? You know, we got a person at MD Anderson right now,

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who's got stage four melanoma or something, something like that. I think it's melanoma.

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Um, and so we've, we've taken care of dozens of cancer patients and, you know, these other big

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events. And so it's like, man, we can do this. Like the community can do this. We've got 15,000

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people. We'll probably have somewhere between 20 and 25,000 people by the end of the year.

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that's a big group of people to be able to get these bills funded so we've shown over 25 000

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bills that we can get these things get these things funded right that's the that's the biggest

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hurdle for people to get over i think is is can you get the big bills funded well and you've been

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really beating the drum on next in your outward marketing is that like health care should be

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deflationary and you alluded to it earlier but that's the goal and as the community scales

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it should be able at least your monthly payment to come down significantly and obviously you guys

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are negotiating bills on top of that so the sticker price um is heavily discounted in many

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cases i think that's one of the best things you guys do on on x is highlight all the discounts

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you're able to get your yeah or yeah our prices are six to eight percent lower depending upon the

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month this year than they were last year. So something is wrong with the system when you're

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seeing 18% premium increases, but we're seeing prices drop by 6% to 8%. So, you know,

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come join us, help us continue to change this. The more people we have on the boat,

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the better it's going to be, the faster the prices are going to drop from my perspective.

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So. Yeah. Do you think this is the year that many people wake up to this?

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If there's if if our phone calls are any indicator, yes.

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I mean, I was on the phone for two hours today doing sales calls.

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You know, I'm the I'm the CEO. I'm doing sales calls.

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And funny enough, the last guy that I talked to found out us from your podcast is like, how do you find out about us?

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He's like, oh, yeah, TFTC.

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I was like, yeah, I'm talking to Marty this afternoon.

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He's like, well, tell him I said hello.

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So Jeremy, I think is his name, said hello.

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He's a listener of yours.

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He probably will listen to this.

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You know, we're getting people from all over the place.

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We're still about 20 or 25 percent of our customers are Bitcoiners, which is awesome.

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And man, if we can get more Bitcoiners, then we can do some phenomenal things on the Bitcoin side that I think could change not only, you know, health care, but the Bitcoin system or the financial system.

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Excuse me.

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um you know so we we're we're i'm dying for more bitcoiners because they're the best customers too

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um you know they're not entitled they're like awesome they like they understand you know how

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the system works um so it's cool to have bitcoiners as a part of the community um and so yeah i think

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this is the year i think this is the year that it happens so we got we got more customers in the last

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four days of October than we did in any other month in 2025. That's insane. Is that four days?

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00:33:43,250 --> 00:33:51,950
Is that purely because of open enrollment or just, um, only, only, uh, of we, we, we signed up, um,

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1500 customers in October. Um, so we almost signed up as many, you know, customers in October as I

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had total when I was with you. And I think we had been two years into it. Um, something like that.

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only 90 of them were open enrollment people.

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Only 90 of them had one one start dates,

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which tells me that the vast majority of those people

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are learning about the company and jumping on

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as opposed to doing it just for open enrollment.

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So I think that's an indicator of something good happening this year.

388
00:34:28,030 --> 00:34:29,890
Yeah. I mean, we've talked about it in years past

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about how Bitcoin can help this model,

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But how has that thinking around Bitcoin being used in this model evolved over the last year specifically?

391
00:34:40,250 --> 00:34:46,130
Yeah, I mean, this year I've started to have conversations with hospital systems about accepting Bitcoin.

392
00:34:47,650 --> 00:34:57,830
And I've got some very large hospital systems, ones that you would probably recognize the names of, who are at least interested in accepting Bitcoin.

393
00:34:57,830 --> 00:35:02,370
which I think is an incredible step.

394
00:35:03,370 --> 00:35:05,390
And ultimately what we want to do is

395
00:35:05,390 --> 00:35:09,370
we want to get enough Bitcoiners within the community

396
00:35:09,370 --> 00:35:13,010
who are willing to receive and then pay in Bitcoin

397
00:35:13,010 --> 00:35:15,630
and then enough of these hospital systems

398
00:35:15,630 --> 00:35:17,570
who are willing to receive in Bitcoin

399
00:35:17,570 --> 00:35:21,130
to create some Bitcoin circularity within healthcare.

400
00:35:22,230 --> 00:35:25,990
The number just came out for total healthcare spend this year

401
00:35:25,990 --> 00:35:27,270
and it's 5.6 trillion.

402
00:35:27,830 --> 00:35:35,230
And so, man, if we can just make a little dent in that $5.6 trillion of paying in Bitcoin, that would be pretty special.

403
00:35:36,190 --> 00:35:41,050
In our database of Bitcoin doctors, doctors who want to accept Bitcoin is growing.

404
00:35:41,890 --> 00:35:51,650
And the more people we have as a part of CrowdHealth, the easier it is to get those doctors orange-pilled because now we have the supply and the demand, right?

405
00:35:51,650 --> 00:35:54,930
So it's a little bit of a chicken and an egg.

406
00:35:55,110 --> 00:36:03,550
But that's why I'm so passionate about getting more Bitcoiners involved, because I need people who want to pay in Bitcoin to be able to get people who want to receive in Bitcoin.

407
00:36:04,830 --> 00:36:06,530
And so that's ultimately what we're working towards.

408
00:36:06,950 --> 00:36:17,930
So I think in the next 12 to 24 months, we're going to see a significant change in the way that we operate in terms of integrating Bitcoin into what we do.

409
00:36:17,930 --> 00:36:36,870
You know, right now we're working with Fold. You know, the Fold guys well, where you can not to get into too much of the mechanics, but ultimately, you know, we don't ask you for the full amount every single month because if the community is doing really, really well, then we allow you to keep that money.

410
00:36:36,870 --> 00:36:42,170
You know, with the insurance system, if the company, if the community is doing really, really well, the insurance company makes the money.

411
00:36:43,190 --> 00:36:51,110
In our case, you make the money, but there's a kind of a margin between our maximum ask and what we actually ask.

412
00:36:51,110 --> 00:36:58,010
So for an individual, we ask 140 total max, but we only asked for 85 last month.

413
00:36:58,230 --> 00:37:04,890
So that remaining, what is that, 55 is automatically stacked in your fold account.

414
00:37:04,890 --> 00:37:11,210
so it's sent to your fold account converted to bitcoin and stacked and so it's almost like a way

415
00:37:11,210 --> 00:37:16,830
to you know stack sats by also playing your your health care you know and fortunately we started in

416
00:37:16,830 --> 00:37:22,990
2021 and you know so it was a great time to be stacking bitcoin in in the latter half of 2021

417
00:37:22,990 --> 00:37:27,950
when it kind of took that big that big debt and so we've been stacking the entire way so i think

418
00:37:27,950 --> 00:37:34,350
people have made probably you know hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars by stacking

419
00:37:34,350 --> 00:37:39,830
sats with crowd health as a result of just this little cool component of Bitcoin. But we're trying

420
00:37:39,830 --> 00:37:44,870
to integrate Bitcoin more into everything that we do. I mean, it's an important part of my life.

421
00:37:44,950 --> 00:37:48,990
80% of my liquid assets are in Bitcoin. So it's important to me to see it succeed.

422
00:37:50,090 --> 00:37:55,010
We do have a little bit of a Bitcoin treasury. It's not massive. I'm trying to talk my board

423
00:37:55,010 --> 00:38:02,410
into growing that. But we're all in on the Bitcoin side. And in fact, all of our Bitcoin members,

424
00:38:02,410 --> 00:38:06,710
You actually get a care advocate internally at CrowdHealth who is also a Bitcoiner.

425
00:38:07,090 --> 00:38:09,750
And so you can chat Bitcoin and health at the same time.

426
00:38:09,930 --> 00:38:11,730
But he knows how Bitcoin operates.

427
00:38:12,790 --> 00:38:15,550
And he was at the Bitcoin conference in Vegas last year.

428
00:38:15,630 --> 00:38:17,790
And he'll be there again in April.

429
00:38:19,250 --> 00:38:24,790
The Fold integration has been incredible because I have it turned on.

430
00:38:24,870 --> 00:38:25,550
Oh, you do? Cool.

431
00:38:25,550 --> 00:38:32,130
I'm on my CrowdHealth account and I'll open fold because I use the debit card just to check the rewards balance.

432
00:38:32,270 --> 00:38:35,250
I'll notice my other Bitcoin balance is higher than it was before.

433
00:38:35,350 --> 00:38:37,390
I'm like, oh, yeah, CrowdHealth is just passively.

434
00:38:38,130 --> 00:38:38,530
Passively.

435
00:38:38,630 --> 00:38:39,670
It's like set it and forget it.

436
00:38:39,790 --> 00:38:42,510
You're just stacking Bitcoin and you don't even think about it.

437
00:38:42,670 --> 00:38:44,250
It's a pretty cool thing.

438
00:38:44,610 --> 00:38:44,770
Yeah.

439
00:38:45,690 --> 00:38:49,110
Do you think – I mean, we talked about it earlier.

440
00:38:49,330 --> 00:38:51,570
Does the government have any plans to change this?

441
00:38:51,770 --> 00:38:52,070
No.

442
00:38:52,070 --> 00:39:01,090
So it seems like health insurance, the industry, as you said, could be in a death spiral if all these healthy people are leaving the plans.

443
00:39:01,290 --> 00:39:02,870
What are these health insurance companies going to do?

444
00:39:02,910 --> 00:39:04,490
What are these hospital systems going to do?

445
00:39:04,550 --> 00:39:11,390
Is this going to be, I mean, I know people gave you flack for saying it last year when you were on, but I agree with you.

446
00:39:11,450 --> 00:39:15,050
I think we need to burn the system down and re-architect it from the ground up.

447
00:39:15,050 --> 00:39:22,050
Do you think this spiral is a forcing function for more distributed health care that actually makes sense and is affordable?

448
00:39:22,070 --> 00:39:39,930
I mean, I think I think we step back, right? Like, why? Why does the government not have any really good solutions? It's because the health care spends more on lobbying than any other industry between insurance, pharma, hospitals.

449
00:39:40,530 --> 00:39:51,410
They have a massive amount of lobbying in D.C., and so they want to continue the status quo because they're all making a crap load of money with the status quo.

450
00:39:51,930 --> 00:39:54,250
So I don't think things change there.

451
00:39:54,250 --> 00:40:13,450
You know, I really do believe that there's probably something here in terms of, you know, who owns Congress and the presidency in the next cycle, because I would say that probably, you know, if if this thing swings left, it's probably on a path to Medicare for all.

452
00:40:13,450 --> 00:40:17,150
You know, so we'll all have, you know, government, you know, insurance.

453
00:40:18,630 --> 00:40:21,170
And that's a pretty scary thought from my perspective.

454
00:40:22,090 --> 00:40:26,510
So I sure as hell don't want, you know, the government to be in between me and my my doctor.

455
00:40:26,670 --> 00:40:28,210
Like, that just doesn't sound fun.

456
00:40:28,430 --> 00:40:30,950
I don't want the government having access to all my medical records.

457
00:40:31,630 --> 00:40:37,970
That that is kind of totally contrary to what, you know, Bitcoiners believe and what I believe.

458
00:40:37,970 --> 00:40:43,950
But I think, you know, unless we come up with a really good solution, I think that that's going to be the only other option.

459
00:40:44,550 --> 00:40:47,350
I mean, look, I'm naive in some ways, probably, but.

460
00:40:48,710 --> 00:41:02,850
I'm hoping over the next couple of years, like we can really grow into something that says like, hey, if we can build systems to enable people to pay their doctor directly for small or big bills, like, why don't we do it this way?

461
00:41:02,950 --> 00:41:07,690
Right. Like, I don't I don't think big insurance has to be the way.

462
00:41:07,970 --> 00:41:14,830
So we're pouring a crap load of money into getting the word out there so that we can build big enough.

463
00:41:15,190 --> 00:41:28,310
Because I think back in 2010 or whatever, when Tesla was making its run, I don't think anybody would have been able to say, oh, well, the majority of cars being sold are going to be EVs.

464
00:41:28,390 --> 00:41:29,330
And now here we are.

465
00:41:30,250 --> 00:41:32,530
It's not a majority, but it's getting there.

466
00:41:33,390 --> 00:41:40,690
You know, and so I think that a lot of these innovations come out of things that people come up with that they're like, there's no way in hell this is going to happen.

467
00:41:41,050 --> 00:41:43,370
I think our model is significantly better.

468
00:41:43,490 --> 00:41:48,230
And if our model is used by everyone, we can take that five point six trillion and cut it in half.

469
00:41:48,390 --> 00:41:53,070
I mean, it's, you know, probably a couple of trillion dollars a year cut out of the system.

470
00:41:53,470 --> 00:41:56,330
And that would take a lot of food off the table for for people.

471
00:41:56,330 --> 00:42:02,350
But I mean, it would also enable us to balance our budget and lower taxes and all those types of things, too.

472
00:42:02,350 --> 00:42:09,670
So I truly believe our model can work, you know, at scale for just about anybody if given the opportunity.

473
00:42:10,550 --> 00:42:13,110
I don't know. I don't know what other option the government.

474
00:42:13,310 --> 00:42:17,710
I mean, I don't I haven't heard any options out of the government that make as much sense as this.

475
00:42:18,550 --> 00:42:22,030
Well, you mentioned it would take food off the table of people, but that's.

476
00:42:23,510 --> 00:42:31,290
In my mind, I imagine it would be the unproductive administrative layer that's been injected into the health care system.

477
00:42:31,290 --> 00:42:34,310
that really doesn't nerve the money at the end of the day.

478
00:42:35,390 --> 00:42:38,370
Well, dude, I haven't said this publicly,

479
00:42:38,810 --> 00:42:42,870
but I had my first death threat about a month ago.

480
00:42:44,010 --> 00:42:46,730
You know, we had this guy who was, you know,

481
00:42:46,850 --> 00:42:48,290
parking outside of my house.

482
00:42:49,690 --> 00:42:55,770
And yeah, and ultimately I got a note that says,

483
00:42:55,770 --> 00:42:57,590
I'm going to effing kill you all.

484
00:42:57,590 --> 00:43:00,310
and so

485
00:43:00,310 --> 00:43:01,090
you know

486
00:43:01,090 --> 00:43:03,510
ultimately the police got him

487
00:43:03,510 --> 00:43:04,230
thank god

488
00:43:04,230 --> 00:43:07,390
but you know

489
00:43:07,390 --> 00:43:09,330
and all the police would say

490
00:43:09,330 --> 00:43:11,550
is he has an ideological difference with the

491
00:43:11,550 --> 00:43:11,870
company

492
00:43:11,870 --> 00:43:14,450
I don't know what that means

493
00:43:14,450 --> 00:43:16,390
they wouldn't give me any more information than that

494
00:43:16,390 --> 00:43:18,630
but I mean I think you start

495
00:43:18,630 --> 00:43:20,530
taking off people's food

496
00:43:20,530 --> 00:43:21,670
off of people's table

497
00:43:21,670 --> 00:43:24,730
or their inability to put food on the table

498
00:43:24,730 --> 00:43:26,950
and you piss off a lot of people

499
00:43:26,950 --> 00:43:37,630
and and and that's just gonna happen um so i think you know we're there's this great like

500
00:43:37,630 --> 00:43:43,890
quote in moneyball and i don't know if you ever seen moneyball yeah i've read it too yeah it's like

501
00:43:43,890 --> 00:43:49,550
the first guy through the door is always or through the wall is always bloodied you know

502
00:43:49,550 --> 00:43:53,930
it's like everybody who's got their hand on the steering wheel you know the hand on the stick you

503
00:43:53,930 --> 00:43:59,630
know, driving the is is pissed when you upset the way that they do business, you know, the way you

504
00:43:59,630 --> 00:44:05,710
play the game, you know, and it's people are upset. You know, I think more and more if we not only

505
00:44:05,710 --> 00:44:10,830
have 15,000, but if we have 150,000, you know, I think more and more people are going to be upset

506
00:44:10,830 --> 00:44:15,670
about it. And so, you know, not to play the victim or whatever, but we had to like increase security

507
00:44:15,670 --> 00:44:22,210
in our house and and all these kinds of things, you know, load the guns and, you know, I'm sorry

508
00:44:22,210 --> 00:44:28,210
to hear that it's terrifying take some protection um and and look i i can't say with 100 certainty

509
00:44:28,210 --> 00:44:32,910
was around you know the health the medical industrial complex being pissed but there's

510
00:44:32,910 --> 00:44:37,730
there's enough evidence there that they're really ticked at what we're doing and um so we just

511
00:44:37,730 --> 00:44:44,450
gotta deal with that so what my kids were freaked out as you can imagine my seven and nine year old

512
00:44:44,450 --> 00:44:50,950
when the cops you know are all over your house like that's a pretty traumatic you know experience

513
00:44:50,950 --> 00:44:56,710
So it was it was it was quite a couple of days in the Spoonover household.

514
00:44:56,710 --> 00:45:13,805
Well it fascinating as it is I mean you mentioned Luigi Maggioni Obviously we don condone that Obviously we don condone death threats against you either But it looks like both sides are sort of fighting for control over over this system or the options to access health care

515
00:45:13,805 --> 00:45:28,225
And I witnessed this first firsthand, not a death threat, but like people who in the health care industry that like to chirp at you guys when we collaborated on LinkedIn to post the AI.

516
00:45:28,225 --> 00:45:30,025
video that we made and I saw

517
00:45:30,025 --> 00:45:32,925
obviously I was getting tagged in the comments and there was a bunch of

518
00:45:32,925 --> 00:45:34,505
healthcare industry

519
00:45:34,505 --> 00:45:36,505
people trying to throw shade at CrowdHealth

520
00:45:36,505 --> 00:45:38,585
so you can tell you guys are certainly threatening them

521
00:45:38,585 --> 00:45:42,605
yeah like tell me you're a part

522
00:45:42,605 --> 00:45:44,645
of the medical industrial complex without telling me

523
00:45:44,645 --> 00:45:46,425
you're a part of the medical industrial complex

524
00:45:46,425 --> 00:45:48,465
like it's very very clear that the people

525
00:45:48,465 --> 00:45:50,105
who are getting paid by the system

526
00:45:50,105 --> 00:45:52,205
think that CrowdHealth is

527
00:45:52,205 --> 00:45:54,565
crap and a scam and all

528
00:45:54,565 --> 00:45:55,565
these types of things

529
00:45:55,565 --> 00:46:02,225
and anybody who is impacted by the system, the me's and you's of the world are like, dude,

530
00:46:02,285 --> 00:46:09,925
this is awesome. And there is a very clear line between the two. You can tell, you know, and so,

531
00:46:10,105 --> 00:46:15,865
yeah. And I think the, the, the, the medical industrial complex elites and the academics

532
00:46:15,865 --> 00:46:20,505
and all of these people are throwing shade and all the people who've been a member of crowd

533
00:46:20,505 --> 00:46:27,405
health and been like, this is amazing. Like we have, you know, 500 reviews on, on trust pilot

534
00:46:27,405 --> 00:46:33,025
and, you know, 492 of them are really, really good. And if you go and look at United healthcare,

535
00:46:33,025 --> 00:46:40,765
it's like the exact opposite. Right. So we must be doing, doing something well. Um, and, and keeping

536
00:46:40,765 --> 00:46:45,985
not only like loving people, our members well, and I hope that you and your, your wife and your

537
00:46:45,985 --> 00:46:51,745
little one felt you know love through your process um but doing it at a much much lower cost than

538
00:46:51,745 --> 00:46:57,745
these these health insurance plans yeah much much lower cost much lower you get a personal

539
00:46:57,745 --> 00:47:03,245
health advocate by the way the the latest app update is incredible the ux the ui oh good it's

540
00:47:03,245 --> 00:47:10,845
very easy do you know who your advocate is um name is escaping me off the top of my head but i will

541
00:47:10,845 --> 00:47:17,725
check right now it is um

542
00:47:17,725 --> 00:47:27,525
alexis oh yeah oh wait no that's for uh no no no you're a bitcoiner you're a bitcoiner so you

543
00:47:27,525 --> 00:47:32,485
have narum probably narum yes that's what it is yeah narum's awesome he's freaking awesome

544
00:47:32,485 --> 00:47:39,285
dude let me tell you a quick story about narum um so this little kid um was in in colorado

545
00:47:39,285 --> 00:47:46,765
and he was hiking with his dad and he fell and he hit a rock and it sliced his cheek open.

546
00:47:47,165 --> 00:47:51,705
So he went to the ER, he got it stitched up and, you know, we called him and he's like,

547
00:47:51,785 --> 00:47:57,145
how's the little guy doing? Um, you know, Naram did. And his mom was like, well, physically he's

548
00:47:57,145 --> 00:48:04,365
great, but emotionally he is, uh, pretty like, he almost has like PTSD. He won't go on a hike

549
00:48:04,365 --> 00:48:10,025
with his dad anymore because he's afraid he's going to get hurt. And so Naram sent him this

550
00:48:10,025 --> 00:48:16,765
little like hiking thing that you could put into your living room. So he like hikes around it and

551
00:48:16,765 --> 00:48:22,405
he climbs up it. And, you know, his mom called us back like in tears being like, you wouldn't

552
00:48:22,405 --> 00:48:27,605
believe it. He's back hiking with his dad, you know, because Naram was able to, it was willing

553
00:48:27,605 --> 00:48:33,085
to buy him a $50 thing. And we actually have, you know, internally, we like force our care advocates

554
00:48:33,085 --> 00:48:37,325
to spend a certain amount of money every month on our members, like doing special things like that.

555
00:48:37,525 --> 00:48:42,905
And so, you know, it's really kind of cool to see, you know, these fun stories come out of these,

556
00:48:42,905 --> 00:48:49,805
you know, just little, little things of, of tokens of love, you know, from, from the, the,

557
00:48:49,805 --> 00:48:56,225
the care advocates. So, um, all of our, all of our new moms now are getting like plush robes and,

558
00:48:56,225 --> 00:49:02,185
you know, socks and, um, you know, like really good, like chapstick, you know, because you get

559
00:49:02,185 --> 00:49:07,185
in these hospitals and they're so like, we've had coffee delivered to the house from you guys.

560
00:49:08,065 --> 00:49:12,685
Yeah. We give you coffee. Like what health insurance United health doesn't send you coffee.

561
00:49:12,825 --> 00:49:19,545
It's Satoshi coffee too. So shout out to Satoshi coffee. You know, it's a Bitcoiner. So that's,

562
00:49:19,605 --> 00:49:24,125
that's a pretty cool, cool thing about our, our, our system. Yeah. You get your own care advocate.

563
00:49:24,205 --> 00:49:27,805
So every time you talk to it, the reason I did that is because when I was dealing with my issue,

564
00:49:27,805 --> 00:49:33,605
you know, six or seven years ago with my little one, I would call the insurance plan. I would sit

565
00:49:33,605 --> 00:49:39,165
on the phone for 20 minutes waiting to talk to somebody who was in India and, you know, they

566
00:49:39,165 --> 00:49:42,905
wouldn't be able to help me. And so they would punt me to somebody else and I would wait on the

567
00:49:42,905 --> 00:49:47,425
phone for 20 minutes there. Internally, you have the same care advocate. You get to talk to the

568
00:49:47,425 --> 00:49:52,425
same person every single time. So they get to know you, you get to know them, you schedule a call

569
00:49:52,425 --> 00:49:56,645
with them, but that's how I want to do it. Schedule a call as opposed to sitting on the line with a,

570
00:49:56,645 --> 00:50:01,905
you know, a call center, it just works way, way better. Um, and I think the customer service is,

571
00:50:01,905 --> 00:50:06,305
is a lot better too, because I can hold them accountable. Like I know that Marty and his wife

572
00:50:06,305 --> 00:50:13,145
was having a baby and Naram is, is the, um, the care advocate. I can hold Naram accountable to

573
00:50:13,145 --> 00:50:18,625
treating you really, really well and loving you guys during that process. And so, you know, it's,

574
00:50:18,685 --> 00:50:22,365
it's, it's great to have that accountability. I think, you know, but way better service as a

575
00:50:22,365 --> 00:50:29,965
result of that yeah no i can't i mean i can't rave about it enough nor i'm i mean because that's

576
00:50:29,965 --> 00:50:34,165
the thing too for pregnancies especially like you create a health event in the beginning and

577
00:50:34,165 --> 00:50:41,125
through the uh obg appointments up until the births you guys are checking in like how's everything

578
00:50:41,125 --> 00:50:48,265
going make sure you're uploading your bills um and it just made it incredibly easy and that's like

579
00:50:48,265 --> 00:50:56,325
the one thing too it's hilarious um i've told people this who are um thinking about moving to

580
00:50:56,325 --> 00:50:59,705
crowd health asked me like is there anything bad about i'm like it's not necessarily a bad thing

581
00:50:59,705 --> 00:51:06,725
but it's hilarious when you go into a hospital or a doctor's office or you have to um ear does

582
00:51:06,725 --> 00:51:12,925
and throat doctor um for the kids and you tell them you're paying in cash they like immediately

583
00:51:12,925 --> 00:51:19,125
think that you are poor and like begin like talking quietly and like taking your debit card

584
00:51:19,125 --> 00:51:24,565
or whatever um and treat you completely differently not only that the price gets cut by at least 50

585
00:51:24,565 --> 00:51:31,265
almost immediately half the time yeah i mean that's that's one of the things i just don't

586
00:51:31,265 --> 00:51:35,665
think bitcoiners really give a shit about that you know it's like it's kind of funny and it's

587
00:51:35,665 --> 00:51:42,365
almost like a badge of honor like i'm uninsured you know like i'm a cash pay patient you know it's

588
00:51:42,365 --> 00:51:46,525
like, I'm a Bitcoiner. I want to pay in Bitcoin. And people are looking like, what the hell are

589
00:51:46,525 --> 00:51:51,545
you talking about? What? You know? So I think I think we have it as a badge of honor. And in fact,

590
00:51:51,545 --> 00:51:59,005
we have T-shirts that say uninsured on the front of them, which means I'm not subservient to some

591
00:51:59,005 --> 00:52:03,685
health insurance company who's going to dictate what care I can and cannot get. Like, that's what

592
00:52:03,685 --> 00:52:08,325
I met the message. But I walked through DFW Airport once with that shirt on and people looked at me

593
00:52:08,325 --> 00:52:22,965
Like I was a total crazy person, you know, and it probably wasn't too different like five or six years ago when you had a Bitcoin T-shirt on, you know, and it hasn't now it's so mainstream or, you know, somewhat mainstream that people may not, you know, flinch anymore.

594
00:52:22,965 --> 00:52:27,625
But back in the day when you had a Bitcoin on, they thought you were not like a total crazy person.

595
00:52:28,125 --> 00:52:30,845
So I think we're on that same trajectory.

596
00:52:30,845 --> 00:52:32,745
No, I can't tell you the number of

597
00:52:32,745 --> 00:52:36,865
individuals working the front desk

598
00:52:36,865 --> 00:52:38,925
of either a doctor's office,

599
00:52:39,485 --> 00:52:40,905
ear, nose, and throat,

600
00:52:41,025 --> 00:52:42,805
hospital. And when we say they're

601
00:52:42,805 --> 00:52:44,865
like, their whole demeanor completely changes

602
00:52:44,865 --> 00:52:45,365
when you say,

603
00:52:45,605 --> 00:52:48,125
we're not insured.

604
00:52:49,925 --> 00:52:50,785
It's like a funny

605
00:52:50,785 --> 00:52:52,825
social, like signals that like

606
00:52:52,825 --> 00:52:54,845
we've been pushed into the system

607
00:52:54,845 --> 00:52:56,045
and it's like fish and water. They

608
00:52:56,045 --> 00:52:57,965
are not used to hearing that.

609
00:53:00,065 --> 00:53:00,185
Yeah.

610
00:53:00,845 --> 00:53:05,425
And I think there's, yeah, I mean, I learned a Bitcoin.

611
00:53:05,565 --> 00:53:08,445
It's like we're using fiat and they're like, oh, I use Bitcoin.

612
00:53:08,525 --> 00:53:10,325
It's what I save. And like, you're crazy. It's like, no, well,

613
00:53:10,325 --> 00:53:13,605
actually my life is much better for having saved in Bitcoin.

614
00:53:13,705 --> 00:53:17,125
And similarly being uninsured, my life hasn't,

615
00:53:17,125 --> 00:53:21,525
the quality of my health care coverage or not coverage,

616
00:53:21,605 --> 00:53:25,305
but health care experience has increased significantly.

617
00:53:26,385 --> 00:53:29,245
We're fiat poor or Bitcoin rich.

618
00:53:29,245 --> 00:53:36,485
it's funny well it's like buying a house out too i'm it's uh trying to explain to mortgage brokers

619
00:53:36,485 --> 00:53:42,165
that don't worry just because i don't have a lot of a lot of money in the bank account doesn't mean

620
00:53:42,165 --> 00:53:48,145
i don't have uh money at all and trying to explain bitcoin to their joke no it's a joke

621
00:53:48,145 --> 00:53:54,445
it's funny though what um so so bust out of the health insurance system like you you guys have

622
00:53:54,445 --> 00:53:58,465
already busted out of the Bitcoin system, like bust out of the health insurance system,

623
00:53:58,665 --> 00:54:01,765
you know, and give it a shot, man.

624
00:54:02,365 --> 00:54:06,285
That's my plea to Bitcoiners is give it a shot.

625
00:54:07,225 --> 00:54:08,325
You can use TFTC.

626
00:54:08,665 --> 00:54:11,085
You get it for $99 a month for the first three months.

627
00:54:11,145 --> 00:54:12,045
If you like it, awesome.

628
00:54:12,305 --> 00:54:15,985
If you don't, then go buy Fiat health insurance.

629
00:54:16,265 --> 00:54:17,105
Like, go for it.

630
00:54:17,645 --> 00:54:19,645
That would be my plea.

631
00:54:19,645 --> 00:54:26,205
But I guarantee you that you're going to be you're going to have a much better experience with us than you've had with with health insurance.

632
00:54:27,485 --> 00:54:31,145
Just like Bitcoin is a much better experience than it is than than fiat.

633
00:54:32,045 --> 00:54:39,565
Well, I tweeted it out a couple I think a month or two ago, like with the premiums going up as much as they are within the Affordable Care Act.

634
00:54:39,565 --> 00:54:43,165
Like the opportunity cost is like incredibly diminished.

635
00:54:43,165 --> 00:54:48,105
Like what is the risk of switching to crowd health considering how expensive

636
00:54:48,105 --> 00:54:53,245
traditional healthcare is becoming, uh, health insurance is becoming like you can

637
00:54:53,245 --> 00:54:58,505
go spend, if you've got a family of five, 30 grand a year, 25 to 30 grand a year,

638
00:54:58,505 --> 00:55:00,725
um, just to get coverage.

639
00:55:00,725 --> 00:55:05,065
And then an additional eight to 15, depending on what your deductible is.

640
00:55:05,065 --> 00:55:17,705
So anywhere from 25 to 35 grand a year, or you can pay $700 a month by seven grand, if that, um, a little bit more than that.

641
00:55:18,245 --> 00:55:28,005
And I know most people think like, oh, I'm not going to get the same, same quality of care as I would on health insurance.

642
00:55:28,005 --> 00:55:30,405
So it's like, no, you can actually get better because you have the health advocate.

643
00:55:30,405 --> 00:55:42,705
You guys are actively looking for the best specialist if you have a special event that dictates you need somebody who's focused on knees or whatever it may be or does a procedure very well.

644
00:55:42,825 --> 00:55:44,725
You're going to go find the best. You're going to get the best price.

645
00:55:46,385 --> 00:55:54,445
And I think the point being this year specifically, the cost, the opportunity cost of switching is lower than it's ever been since I've been on CrowdHealth.

646
00:55:54,445 --> 00:56:03,525
Well, I think I think more importantly is you're taking between the doctor and the patient right now in health insurance.

647
00:56:03,525 --> 00:56:10,005
You have probably your employer. You have the government. You have the insurance company all in between you and your doctor.

648
00:56:10,125 --> 00:56:14,125
So the doctor, I always kind of say, like you, you work for whoever pays you.

649
00:56:14,425 --> 00:56:24,225
The doctor is getting paid by health insurance. And so the health insurance plans dictate what they can and cannot do, what care they can and cannot provide.

650
00:56:24,445 --> 00:56:28,985
Right. If you take those middlemen out now, it's directly between you and your doctor.

651
00:56:29,425 --> 00:56:37,165
You have a direct relation to the doctor. Patient relationship is reestablished. And so now you and your doctor can decide what's best for your health.

652
00:56:37,545 --> 00:56:41,805
Right. And that that's where I think we're getting the most upside in terms of better health care.

653
00:56:41,965 --> 00:56:49,865
You don't have all these intermediaries telling the doctor what you can do. It's like now the doctor is a customer of mine or I'm the I'm the customer of the doctor.

654
00:56:49,865 --> 00:56:58,625
Right. I'm paying him. So he now has to abide by what I need and take care of me as opposed to taking care of an insurance company.

655
00:56:58,925 --> 00:57:06,505
And we hear it all the time. Like, wow, my doctor actually changed his tune when he knew that, you know, I was paying him directly.

656
00:57:06,985 --> 00:57:11,865
He knew who the customer was now. And so that's that's a pretty significant change.

657
00:57:11,865 --> 00:57:17,945
and you're beginning to see a number of doctors begin to realize this too and drop out like i had

658
00:57:17,945 --> 00:57:25,225
mary mary tally bowed it on uh earlier this year and she just went dpc obviously her story is pretty

659
00:57:25,225 --> 00:57:33,165
unique considering what the houston um hospital system did to her during covid but her and many

660
00:57:33,165 --> 00:57:38,905
other dpc doctors i've spoken to but she said i've i just didn't like the time i spent dealing

661
00:57:38,905 --> 00:57:42,785
with the insurers was taking away from my ability to treat patients.

662
00:57:42,785 --> 00:57:46,785
So I'm going DPC and cutting them out of the equation completely.

663
00:57:47,285 --> 00:57:51,885
And so that works in your favor too, because I think that's a trend that's going to continue to grow.

664
00:57:52,125 --> 00:57:54,685
You're going to have a bunch of doctors opting out of it on the other side.

665
00:57:56,125 --> 00:57:59,825
And who do you think? Are those doctors better than normal or worse than normal?

666
00:58:00,085 --> 00:58:01,585
Probably better than normal, right?

667
00:58:01,605 --> 00:58:08,025
Like if you can start building a practice where you only take cash,

668
00:58:08,025 --> 00:58:13,845
that means you have the demand. You don't rely upon the hospital to send you demand. You're not

669
00:58:13,845 --> 00:58:19,605
a part of that system. Those are the best doctors. The best doctors now are transitioning out of

670
00:58:19,605 --> 00:58:25,945
hospital systems, transitioning out of the insurance systems, and are now doing cash-only

671
00:58:25,945 --> 00:58:32,605
type of systems. So I think we will see over the next few years the best doctors in the world

672
00:58:32,605 --> 00:58:38,165
only accepting cash. Like I truly believe that because they're so fed up with the insurance

673
00:58:38,165 --> 00:58:43,545
system. And so our system is perfect for that, right? If you want to go to see the best orthopedic

674
00:58:43,545 --> 00:58:47,945
surgeon in Austin, and we send a lot of our people to the best orthopedic surgeon in Austin,

675
00:58:47,945 --> 00:58:55,025
which is where I'm at. You know, he, you know, and he only, he transitions to cash only. You're

676
00:58:55,025 --> 00:58:57,245
not going to, if you have a health insurance, you're not going to be able to go to him.

677
00:58:57,565 --> 00:59:02,045
You're going to have to pay cash. But our members pay cash at the point of care because

678
00:59:02,045 --> 00:59:07,725
you have an issue. We fund it for you. You now have the money to then go and pay that doctor in

679
00:59:07,725 --> 00:59:13,985
cash. So we open up everybody to to our members. And I think some of the best doctors in the world

680
00:59:13,985 --> 00:59:18,545
are going to be cash only doctors. And they're starting to see that, you know, Dr. Bowden is

681
00:59:18,545 --> 00:59:25,305
in itself probably one of the best ENTs in Houston, only cash now. So I think, you know,

682
00:59:25,505 --> 00:59:30,805
those those types of things are important. It really is. And it's funny, I know. I think

683
00:59:30,805 --> 00:59:33,605
they'd be comfortable with me sharing this because I think they've talked about it publicly, but

684
00:59:33,605 --> 00:59:41,845
the doctors and dentists are some of the earliest movers in terms of small businesses adopting

685
00:59:41,845 --> 00:59:47,505
Bitcoin for payment. I know this from ZapRite. ZapRite, Parker, John, and Will are always telling

686
00:59:47,505 --> 00:59:53,425
me, I'm like, here's your biggest sort of cohort user archetype. What's that look like? It's like

687
00:59:53,425 --> 00:59:59,005
doctors. They get it. They want hard money, particularly primary care doctors. I was paying

688
00:59:59,005 --> 01:00:02,605
my primary care doctor in Austin and Bitcoin when I was there.

689
01:00:03,145 --> 01:00:05,565
So you have this like combination culmination.

690
01:00:05,592 --> 01:00:09,812
of sort of factors getting pushed out of the healthcare system, finding Bitcoin,

691
01:00:10,412 --> 01:00:15,312
finding like-minded Bitcoiners who are using CrowdHealth to pay.

692
01:00:15,512 --> 01:00:17,172
And you can begin to see the momentum building.

693
01:00:18,752 --> 01:00:20,672
And we're starting to build a database of these folks.

694
01:00:20,672 --> 01:00:25,772
So if you want a Bitcoin doctor, if you want a doctor who's great with, you know,

695
01:00:25,812 --> 01:00:29,772
a lot of red meat intake, you know, okay with a little bit higher cholesterol,

696
01:00:29,892 --> 01:00:33,072
my cholesterol is through the roof, but, you know, I don't really care, you know,

697
01:00:33,072 --> 01:00:35,912
But most doctors are going to try to put you on statins and things like that.

698
01:00:35,912 --> 01:00:41,692
And so, I mean, which route would you prefer a route in which you pay directly in cash

699
01:00:41,692 --> 01:00:44,452
for the doctor patient relationship is what it is.

700
01:00:45,032 --> 01:00:50,192
And you have unlimited options in terms of who you can go to, because, you know, everybody

701
01:00:50,192 --> 01:00:53,792
taking insurance will take cash and all the people who take cash will only take cash.

702
01:00:53,892 --> 01:00:58,132
But if you go to the insurance, you're stuck within this very limited network of doctors

703
01:00:58,132 --> 01:00:59,012
that you can go to.

704
01:00:59,012 --> 01:01:05,832
And so if you want to go to someone doctor outside of of the insurance network, you have to pay cash for it because they won't accept your insurance.

705
01:01:06,812 --> 01:01:17,912
And so I think that this cash pay, direct pay method of kind of health care financing or Bitcoin pay is going to be the future.

706
01:01:18,392 --> 01:01:23,572
And so I think it's inevitable that that's going to going to take place.

707
01:01:23,572 --> 01:01:41,432
So as we were talking about earlier, even if everything does transition to a government based model, I still think there's going to be a place for crowd health, because I think all these these doctors are going to transition to being, yeah, being cash pay only and are not going to accept that.

708
01:01:41,432 --> 01:01:46,112
Mm hmm. One last thing I wanted to touch on before we wrap up here. It's a Friday afternoon.

709
01:01:46,372 --> 01:02:12,507
We should get back to our families But a lot of people will say well my my job they were putting up a portion of my health health insurance costs on a monthly basis It harder with crowd out there You guys working always to sort of teach people like Hey maybe you go to your employer and you say instead of putting up a third of my health insurance costs per month maybe we just cut health insurance and

710
01:02:12,507 --> 01:02:18,487
maybe increase my pay by that. Or like what, how are businesses that want or employees of

711
01:02:18,487 --> 01:02:23,827
businesses that want to use the employee wants to use crowd health, their employer has a health

712
01:02:23,827 --> 01:02:27,867
insurance plan, but they want to sort of reap benefits from their employer.

713
01:02:27,967 --> 01:02:32,667
Yeah. If you're, if you're, um, yeah, if you're, if you're work for a small employer,

714
01:02:32,667 --> 01:02:37,087
you can go to them because typically the small employer is paying $25,000 for a family

715
01:02:37,087 --> 01:02:42,487
to have health insurance. A family with crowd health is about seven. So you can go back to

716
01:02:42,487 --> 01:02:46,347
them and be like, listen, instead of paying 25,000 for my family, why don't you give,

717
01:02:46,487 --> 01:02:53,027
why don't you raise my, um, your salary by 10 or 12,000? You know, you save money. I'm going to

718
01:02:53,027 --> 01:02:57,607
at CrowdHealth, I save money. We've had a bunch of members go and do that. And it works for small

719
01:02:57,607 --> 01:03:02,387
employers. It doesn't work for big employers. But ultimately, I think that the government needs to

720
01:03:02,387 --> 01:03:12,347
bifurcate the employer health insurance kind of connection. And as your video pointed out so

721
01:03:12,347 --> 01:03:18,227
beautifully that you put out about CrowdHealth that TFTC produced, it's like we keep people in

722
01:03:18,227 --> 01:03:23,567
their employment cages by shackling them to the company with their health insurance.

723
01:03:23,887 --> 01:03:27,647
Because a lot of people are like, oh, I can't leave my company because I can't lose my health

724
01:03:27,647 --> 01:03:28,107
insurance.

725
01:03:28,507 --> 01:03:31,347
Like, that's just a way to trap you in that company.

726
01:03:31,467 --> 01:03:32,887
It's a sad state of affairs.

727
01:03:32,967 --> 01:03:35,907
Something like three or four million people would go do something entrepreneurial if it

728
01:03:35,907 --> 01:03:40,207
wasn't for health insurance, their employer-based health insurance, which is just un-American

729
01:03:40,207 --> 01:03:40,667
to me.

730
01:03:41,327 --> 01:03:46,467
Well, I think if you were to pull people that were thinking about leaving their job but

731
01:03:46,467 --> 01:03:50,167
didn't, that would be the number one or at least the top three.

732
01:03:51,427 --> 01:04:02,742
So they didn leave I need the help Absolutely So go ask your employer like there a differential there Go ask your employer if they can just pay you more and you can opt out of health insurance

733
01:04:02,942 --> 01:04:05,682
A lot of people are doing it right now, so this is a conversation to be had.

734
01:04:06,242 --> 01:04:07,282
Worst they can say is no.

735
01:04:08,662 --> 01:04:13,362
And if they say no, that's fine, but they might say yes because it's beneficial for both parties.

736
01:04:14,522 --> 01:04:15,142
Yeah, it really is.

737
01:04:15,142 --> 01:04:26,802
I remember right before I joined CrowdHealth as a member, it was when I left Great American Mining, which was paying my health insurance to really focus on TFTC and 1031.

738
01:04:27,502 --> 01:04:29,082
And it was in that lull period.

739
01:04:29,142 --> 01:04:29,782
It was on Cobra.

740
01:04:29,942 --> 01:04:31,362
I was paying $1,800 a month.

741
01:04:31,462 --> 01:04:33,942
I was like, this is we wanted to keep the health insurance.

742
01:04:34,042 --> 01:04:34,942
We did it for like two months.

743
01:04:35,002 --> 01:04:36,162
I was like, all right, we're going CrowdHealth.

744
01:04:36,442 --> 01:04:38,282
That was the thing that pushed me over the edge.

745
01:04:38,282 --> 01:04:47,242
But that was the scariest thing about going out and doing, focusing on this as a solo entrepreneur at the time.

746
01:04:47,322 --> 01:04:48,382
It was like, we have no health insurance.

747
01:04:48,522 --> 01:04:51,422
I just had a one-year-old child at the time.

748
01:04:52,642 --> 01:04:58,262
And it was, didn't make us think like twice and three times about, all right, do we really want to do this?

749
01:04:59,902 --> 01:05:01,402
Went to stomach the cost of Cobra.

750
01:05:01,562 --> 01:05:03,122
It was just like, okay, there's a better option.

751
01:05:04,342 --> 01:05:05,442
What do we have to look at?

752
01:05:05,602 --> 01:05:06,862
We appreciate you joining, man.

753
01:05:06,862 --> 01:05:15,122
it's been incredibly, um, we were incredibly grateful for, for all that you've, you've done

754
01:05:15,122 --> 01:05:22,362
for us. And, um, you know, look, if, if anybody wants to join, use TFTC, the code, um, you get 99

755
01:05:22,362 --> 01:05:28,622
bucks for the first, uh, three, three months. Um, and it's worth a try. And then, you know,

756
01:05:28,622 --> 01:05:32,762
anybody out there who's a crowd health member, thank you. Thank you for being members, you know,

757
01:05:32,762 --> 01:05:38,442
tell your friends about crowd health. And if you, they use your code, we'll, we'll pay you 250 bucks

758
01:05:38,442 --> 01:05:42,762
as a, as a referral fee and we'll pay it in Bitcoin too. We'll pay you in Bitcoin.

759
01:05:42,762 --> 01:06:01,677
Um I would way prefer to be paying our members to help us grow the company than Google and Facebook and all these other companies Right Like that my it the that that my that kind of my rationale behind doing that Um and we have dozens of members who actually get more from us per month and

760
01:06:01,677 --> 01:06:04,177
referral fees than they actually pay for their healthcare.

761
01:06:04,357 --> 01:06:07,557
So they're actually making money off of crowd health, which is,

762
01:06:07,877 --> 01:06:08,697
which is kind of awesome.

763
01:06:08,697 --> 01:06:10,677
Like you have healthcare and you're making money off it.

764
01:06:10,697 --> 01:06:14,457
It's a pretty cool thing. So thank you all seriously for, for the support.

765
01:06:14,457 --> 01:06:18,217
and we're fired up about 2026.

766
01:06:18,397 --> 01:06:19,157
It's going to be an awesome year.

767
01:06:22,677 --> 01:06:23,977
You got out there for a little bit,

768
01:06:24,037 --> 01:06:29,077
but I think I would concur.

769
01:06:29,417 --> 01:06:31,377
It's a beautiful thing.

770
01:06:31,477 --> 01:06:32,517
The feeling is mutual.

771
01:06:33,057 --> 01:06:34,677
You know me and we were working

772
01:06:34,677 --> 01:06:35,657
out the same office together

773
01:06:35,657 --> 01:06:38,237
for three, almost four years.

774
01:06:39,437 --> 01:06:41,157
Here at TFTC, we do not.

775
01:06:41,157 --> 01:06:48,997
we're very stingy with our advertising partners. Um, and we like to make sure that we actually use

776
01:06:48,997 --> 01:06:56,917
the products. And I can say I'm more than happy to be, uh, partners with you in the professional

777
01:06:56,917 --> 01:07:04,777
sense on the sponsorship level, because I am a happy customer and I not only feel safe, uh,

778
01:07:04,777 --> 01:07:09,857
recommending crowd health to the audience that is listening to this, but I feel compelled to push it

779
01:07:09,857 --> 01:07:19,037
Because like you said, if you get Bitcoin, you understand that the money is broken and the traditional system, the way it's controlling money is corrupt.

780
01:07:19,757 --> 01:07:21,577
You begin to see that in other things.

781
01:07:21,577 --> 01:07:27,177
And I think with health insurance and the health care system, it become it has become abundantly clear to me.

782
01:07:27,237 --> 01:07:34,497
And this is a coin equivalent of of health care and the health health care system in my mind.

783
01:07:34,957 --> 01:07:36,877
So it's been a great partnership.

784
01:07:36,937 --> 01:07:37,717
Appreciate it.

785
01:07:37,717 --> 01:07:42,717
It's been a great conversation and I'll be back down in Austin at some point in the next couple of months.

786
01:07:42,797 --> 01:07:43,377
We'll have to catch up.

787
01:07:44,517 --> 01:07:45,077
It would love that.

788
01:07:45,357 --> 01:07:45,977
Thanks for having me, brother.

789
01:07:46,557 --> 01:07:46,777
All right.

790
01:07:46,837 --> 01:07:46,997
Peace.

791
01:07:47,017 --> 01:07:47,497
Love freaks.