Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 12-15-25_MONDAY_6AM

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

Morning news catch up, then OJ Oleka, CEO of the State Financial Officers Foundation - wants Big firms to force healthcare cost transparancy with Big Firms demand to audit the process.

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Klauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Klauserdrilling.com. Here's Bill Meyer. Hey, it's so great to have you here on Monday, the 15th of December. Join the conversation at 770563-770 KMED. My email is Bill at Bill Myers Show.com. The Facebook.com slash Bill Myers Show feed is up.

and happy to hear you or have you hear me and communicate wherever you happen to be. It could be 106.3 FM in the majority of Jackson County. 1067 FM is the best place to tune in. In South Jackson County, 1059 FM, if you're over Rogue River area into Grants Pass, 993 KBXG grants pass in Greater Josephine County during the morning show, and then it's back to the jukebox music normally there. And, of course, streamed on KMED.com. I just appreciate you being here.

and the podcast on Bill Myers Show.com. You can also get them out of K&ED.com. One way or the other, just happy to have you listen whenever it suits your schedule. Of course, podcasts are sponsored by Clauser Drilling, too. Really appreciate that. And appreciate the effort that so many homeowners here in Southern Oregon do to bring beauty to Southern Oregon with their Christmas and their decorations. And I've been letting you know about my mother, how my mother ended up having her cataract surgery,

which ended up going really, really well. She had just these monster cataracts and was essentially trying to look at the world through dirty windows. And it finally got to the point where the windows got so dirty. She couldn't see much of anything, really. And not that she wanted to go have surgery, but had that done medical eye center. And it was just, she's deliriously happy about how well it's gone. and she went from not being able to see much of anything. I don't think she'd mind me telling you how it worked out,

but she just had an eye check the other day. And she's 2040 in one eye and 2080 in the other, which is way better, way better, and perfectly functional as it is right now. And once everything heals up and the swelling goes down completely, probably going to be a couple months from now, Yeah, we'll end up getting some glasses to sharpen up what's there. But even what's there right now, it's just amazing.

So I said, you want to go look at the Christmas lights? Sure. So we popped in the PT and went all around, went up on Lone Pine, and saw a bunch of wonderful displays there. And then we ended up traveling over to Cherry Lane to that neighborhood, you know, the Greystone Court, where there's just a congle line of vehicles going in and out and people walking in and out of there. And those folks just do a wonderful, wonderful job of decorating their home.

It's so festive, so beautiful. And I ended up then taking her to my niece and nephew's home, the one I told you about over at 25 Little May Lane, or Lily May Lane, rather, in Rogue River, which is off of Ward's Creek Road. You go into Rogue River, take Ward's Creek Road off that, and then Lily May Lane is off to the left, after a mile or so, and Matt and Kendall have done an even larger display this year. It's one of those homes that could be seen from outer space, satellites, you know, that kind of things. Oh, yeah, there's Matt and Kendall's house. I don't know how they do it, but people are stopping and honking the horn and say, hey, here's 50 bucks. One guy said, here's 50 bucks for the power, thinking there must be a lot of power. Thank goodness, though, the LED Christmas lights are

a lot less power hungry than the ones that I grew up with, you know, those big C4 or what, not C4, but you know, those numbers C something or other, those various incandescent lights that got really hot. Remember those ones. Yeah, the Christmas tree setter on fire type bulbs back in the day, but yeah, they were beautiful, certainly. But it was all just gorgeous and mom saying, I can't believe he has so many things here and she's able to see it all. And it was just a wonderful experience. And Matt and Kendall told us there's another group of homes out in the Josephine County area, Grants Pass out off Williams Highway. We might have to go head out there maybe next weekend. We'll talk more about that, maybe a little bit. But that's just great. It's such a

cheerful bit of beauty and sometimes a world that can be where they can feel kind of ugly, you know, like what was happening over the weekend with the news. and yeah, you know, I'm reading about the Bondi Beach thing. We'll talk with Dr. not Dr. Jane Orient. I'm sorry. My terrorist therapist guest, yeah. Yeah, there we go. Dr. Carol Lieberman.

Gosh, I was going to call her Dr. Jane Orient for him. Well, I talked with Dr. Jane about medical things for the most part, but Dr. Carol Lieberman is going to join me and talk about that. That Australian Bondi Beach situation, just tragic. We're looking at least 15. dead and it was a Islamic attack and ironically one of the people who ended up being a hero there was a was another Muslim who grabbed the rifle and took it away from him but yeah Bondi Beach attack there was that story there there's the stabbing death of what happened

stabbing death of Rob Reiner and his family Rob family is Rob Reiner had her and his wife of course, he put Oregon on the Mac with Stand By Me, you know, on Oregon film back in the day and did a lot of other wonderful movies. I didn't agree with his liberal politics, of course, but I couldn't argue with the quality of many of the movies that he ended up putting out some pretty good stuff. He was a really good storyteller. And a really good fake storyteller, too, if you ever went to see this is Spinal Tap. Does anybody remember this is Spinal Tap, the original one?

I think it came out in the mid-1980s. And I could always, I'll always remember I was a young DJ working at KPLZ in Seattle at that time in my mid-20s. And this Spinal Tap, of course, is a send-up, this Spinal Tap is a send-up of heavy metal rock bands. And it was presented as a documentary with Rob Reiner being the star being the documentary. a bunch of guys from some wonderful comedians that were playing the part and actually playing the instruments of this fake band Spinal Tap.

And they were going around. I think it was kind of loosely. It was almost like a merger of Deep Purple with, what is that, of Judas, not Judas Priest. I'm trying to think of, I was the one, Run for the Hills, One for Your Life. The name of the band escapes me, but it was kind of like a mash-up between those two classic rock bands. And it was hilarious.

It was hilarious, but there were a lot of people that went to that to Rob Reiner's movie at that time. This is Spinal Tap. There are a bunch of young metalheads there. I'm in the bathroom. But I knew it was a parody that it was a satire of rock bands. And there were guys in the bathroom, and one of the guys next week was going, man, this band sucks. and I start laughing and I said you didn't get the joke

is this a joke yeah it's a satire it's a it's a send-up of rock music that was I just could still remember that clear as day today but yeah Rob Ryder and his wife murdered and it looks like

their drug addicted trouble son maybe the one that ended up doing it but that was the other big that was a big celebrity death over the weekend And, of course, Brown University, still trying to find the person or persons behind that shooting at Brown University, at least two dead from that one. But a whole bunch of people hurting.

Yeah, just a lot of stuff going on over the weekend that can sometimes make you think, wow, this world is just really getting crazy. Yeah, at least 15 Jewish worshippers massacred at Bondi Beach. And, by the way, the news coming out that the people involved Islamic migrants. What could possibly go wrong with importing a bunch of Islamic migrants? But I know we're not supposed to ask such questions. Okay. All right. Some of the headlines around here, let's see, KOBI 5 reporting.

Sports tourism. Driving factor in Southern Oregon economy. In Medford, facilities like Lithia and driveway fields, rating $13 million in 2024 through sporting events, tournaments, and related tourism activities. Meanwhile, Rogue X, which opened its doors for the first time this year, contributed an impressive $6.7 million to the local economy. How do they figure that out, I wonder? When they come in, do they track everybody?

I would really love to know how they come up with these figures. is there because it's not exactly like someone coming in there you you all of a sudden track them they come in to see a ball tournament

of some sort or go for a swim meet over at Rogue X and then you're going to follow them and go to every business that they ended up going to do they? I wonder how they figure that out huh

does anybody know But anyway, we're just supposed to believe this. So local officials and business leaders say these numbers highlight the growing economic impact of sports tourism from hotel stays and dining to retail and transportation. As more athletes, families, and spectators visit the region, Southern Oregon is positioning itself as a destination for regional and national sporting events. In other words, shut up about paying for a ball stadium. I think that's the translation here, because this means money. This means money for the, you know, because of fields and facilities and event infrastructure. And it attracts youth and adult sports tournaments.

I just want to know how they figure this out. Is it just one of these things where the good old boy network just decides that, well, if 2,000 people show up for an event, we figure that each of them spent at least $100. bucks do they just kind of assign a number to it i would really be curious to figure out how the uh the economic people figure this out because a lot of the economic people are the same ones that when they see a disaster you know a town gets destroyed or flattened by a hurricane they'll say wow but the economy is going to do really well as we pay all the construction people to to rebuild you know you've heard that kind of talk right you've heard this kind of talk you know destroy the world and then we'll make so much money rebuilding it, you know, those kind of things.

Now, I'm not saying that the sports tourism is something to sniff at or just go, oh, there's nothing to it, but how do they come up with these $13 million? And who's getting the $13 million? Is it just a hotel chain paying most of their people minimum wage? Or, you know, they're trying to get us, I think, to be in this sustainable tourism model, which unfortunately tends to be a lower dollar kind of industry than, well, back when were people working in sawmills and cutting down trees and making use of the natural resources around here.

But that's just me. That's just me. It's 24 after 6. This is the Bill Meyer show. Maybe it is. I just want to know, I want to see the math. And I'd love to see the math from the economic impact every time the city has a story like this because the story, of course, is that the city would like you to be much more supportive

of spending your tax money or fees on something. things so that other industries make money. And yet it's like my business as an example can't go to the Medford City Council and say, hey, you know, you're really ought to support local radio and TV because we have an impact of so many millions of dollars a year and we help businesses grow through advertising and all this kind of stuff. And they will say, well, yeah, you're a private business. Oh, but if you're, you know, the hotel and motel groups, then, well, I guess they kind of tax

themselves through us though and through our permission and then uh and then take the money off to where the chamber of commerce wants it to go i guess anyway this is the bill mire's show can you see the math and maybe i'll show us the math sometime i don't know zero down zero percent for 60 months or zero payments for 120 days on every clearly marked for it in stock to sold dot com hi i'm riley with rotary drilling company and i'm on kmED by the way i couldn't think of the rock band that this is spinal tap was likely, likely based on it was Iron Maiden. It looked like it was between like a mashup of Iron Maiden with Deep Purple, you know, England's loudest band.

Run for the hills! Run for your life! Let me go to Vicky. Hello, Vicki's in the Applegate. How you doing this morning, Vicki? It's in the dark, but that's okay. Oh, you still in the dark? I knew that yesterday we had a power.

failure there for a while. You're still out? Really? No, no, no. I mean, I'm sitting in the natural dark. Oh, oh, oh, okay, because yesterday we had power failure, a big portion of Jacksonville, Roo, Sherry, like it got knocked out for a while. I was as curious. It was still off. I thought it was back on. I didn't lose any, well, no, I didn't lose any power last night, huh? Yes. Okay, well, good. Glad to hear, what's on your mind? Well, first of all, I have to totally agree with you about the tourism part.

It's just another way for us, for them to say, oh, do this project, do that project, you know, and look at how much money we're bringing in. Yeah, but who's the money going to, right? Well, that, and I'm curious, you know, Brit last all summer long, and people come from everywhere to Brit. So how much does Brit make a year? Or, you know, the theater thing, they have an Ashland. you know these things run for like months you know it's not just a ball game here in there it's like how and it's just an excuse to put another fast food another motel another you know it just it's just in it hey you know it's great if you're a motel owner

or i suppose or motel chain and a and fast food and by the way something wrong with these businesses but you know once again it's we're going to build the economy on stupid money and what I say is stupid money, it's discretionary funding. It's discretionary. And, you know, what are they doing with all this money? Why isn't some of it going back into the community? Well, it does, though. Well, no, it does.

Now, remember, they tax it. It goes, and there's a hotel motel tax. There's that nice 13, 14%, whatever it's going to end up being. That ends up going, the state gets a cut of it, the local city, let's say, gets a cut of it, travel Medford for the chamber gets a cut of it you know everybody gets their cut you know of that what are they doing with it we still have homeless everywhere they're promoting tourism though it's it's about promoting tourism to tourism is the way it is the way the only way we're not supposed to do anything actually useful any longer vicky we're supposed to be entertaining people

You know, that's why I live where I live, and I entertain the way I entertain, which is with nature, doesn't cost me a penny except for my rent to live here. Well, and tell the forest birds because of lack of cleaning it up. But that's another story. All right. Vicki, I appreciate your call. Thank you. Dave's here. Hello, Dave.

Welcome. Morning. Hello, this is Minor Day. I know, Dave. That's why I said, hello, Dave. Oh, okay. I wanted to say, today at 2.35 p.m., it's the 30th anniversary of my mother that died of lymphoid cancer. And I wanted to say, as I wrote a little prayer, and for my mom to bring me and Jesus to bring me back a good memory, I got one. Yeah.

In 1984, me and my mom were very into Republican politics. And we got a VIP pass to meet Ronald Reagan at the Medford airport. That had to be really cool in just a wonderful, a wonderful memory. I'm sorry about your mother. I know that you were very close. 35 years and it's still sharp with you. Yeah, well, me and my mom could communicate through thought. We had a mind connection, and I don't know how to explain it, but I could tell your stories about it.

But they would take some time. But in 1984, when we were there, I had to tap my mom on the shoulder and say, here comes the secret service, because I had long hair and a beard. I was in a suit and tie. But they were looking at you as the radical, right? The radical was going to do something. Well, you know, I kind of might have looked like Hinkle to them. Yeah.

But what happened was as soon as they seen my pass and seen my Reagan sticker, they dissolved as quick as they came. But I ended up on national TV, and at the time my older brother was in the county jail, and C.W. Smith couldn't get into that thing because he couldn't get clearance. And he asked my brother, how did he get in there? And he said, well, I can't really tell you

because there's a lot of classified information in that because of my family where my family worked and stuff, and I had a secret service file. That's a pretty good story, Dave. It's a great story. Yeah, and then when I was 58 years old, I found out I had a defense file since I was six years old. I don't know if that's such a good idea or not, but a conversation for another time. But still, we honor the memory of your mother, and I'm glad you were able to think of a good one.

And having Ronald Reagan and having seen him back in the day with the two of you, that's a really good one. Thank you, Dave. I appreciate your call. 770K.M.D. I think we have Gene here. Gene, you're going to go nuts on me this morning or something different? I planned on it. Are you going to stop me? Well, you know, sometimes I just like to kind of watch you sort of like, you know, as we see an accident, you know, playing out in front of us on a YouTube video or something like that.

There is no accident. Everything is planned. Okay, go ahead. What are you thinking? Oh, I'm thinking that the price of silver is probably closer to 100 no matter what it says on the machine. And the readout is lying again because after all the people have been lying to us the whole time. are still there, and they are running the computers, which have been taught to lie. Well, the lying computer this morning says the price of silver is $63.45. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's going to say something like that because they're lying to it. Yeah. Price of gold, according to the lying machine, is $4,300, $4325 today.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's more like what it is. And, yeah, they just lied to it. and we can't seem to understand that we're believing in a disbelief. Okay. And to what end, though? So we're living in the Matrix, according to your world. You're living in the Matrix. We're living in the Matrix. What now?

Well, the end is that they're going to keep breaking us out so we can lose money, and they can gain money in power. Oh, okay. So manipulating the markets. Okay, fair. Thanks for the call, Jeet. Stay crazy. Hi, good morning.

This is Bill. Who's this? Good morning, Bill. It's Francine. Francine. Boy, it's like a hat-trick, all the great regulars in the morning. You're going to be crazy or not. What do you say? Well, I don't know if I'm too crazy, but when you had a camera, I can remember his name, the guy from the John Birch Society, was the website that he recommended called AmericaHappens.com? No, well, the website that he works with is the new American.com. Oh, okay, because somehow I've ended up on a website called AmericaHappens.com, and it just did not seem like it had anything to do with people like, you know, from the John Version.

Yeah, the newamerican.com. I hope that helps. The new American. Okay. Well, but I did find, they have some interesting videos on this site. Uh-huh. And I watched one. I woke up at 2.30 this morning. I said, oh, the heck with it. I turned out. I watched this video. It was talking, it was all about, you know, who actually really killed Kennedy. and it actually fit in with everything that I've been learning over the past years. And it was really good. Roger Stone actually put it out.

So I would recommend it. I'll send you the link to it if you're interested. I know you're not a big video watch. Well, please do. Send it to me. I'll tuck it in the link bin. Okay? It's really good.

Yeah, just pulled all the pieces together pretty well. Yeah. Can you believe we're still talking about that? Oh, yeah. Well, that was one of the biggest con jobs they've ever been in most blatant. I should say con jobs they've ever pulled on us. They've pulled gobs of them on us. Yeah, I know. Yeah, but once again, you know, to ask questions is to then make you a conspiracy theorist. Hmm. Okay.

But, you know, what else? A lot of the things that Kennedy was doing were very anti-deep state or were, you know, not in line with the deep state. And that's where they have to have everything go. Well, one of the big things, though, was not really wanting to get too much more involved in the Vietnam War at that. time and of course that's uh ultimate sin ultimate sin in retrospect the way it was looked at okay hey i got a roll but i thank you for the call i look forward to hearing from you later okay 636 at km ed ready to upgrade your roof to a durable sleek metal option look no further than stephen westfall the noon on kmedy and kbxg it's the bill mire show on kmED southern oregon's place to talk wasn't that long ago just a few days back than more than a dozen state financial officers

sent a letter to America's 500 largest corporations and saying, hey, what you guys in these big corporations need to do is audit their health care spending, audit the health care spending and find out where the money is going. Why is this important? Why does it matter? Well, I wanted to talk with OJ. O'J. O'H. O'Haleca is the CEO of the State Financial Officers Foundation. How you know this morning, OJ?

Great to have you on. Thanks, Bill. I'm doing well. Good to be with you. I'm doing great, too. I'm glad you're here. And how many times do they bring up white Bronco with you when people meet you? I have to ask. You've got to ask you. It's a fair question, Bill. Less than less as I age. As you know, Mr. Simpson passed a few years ago. I'm the one remaining. The good O.J. lives.

Okay. Let's talk about what the good OJ is up to here. The State Financial Officers Foundation. Now, are these about, you know, comptrollers and controllers, people who are in charge of the money that you're saying, hey, you've got to get in touch with the big boys. And what's going on here? What's the story? That's right. Our state treasurers, auditors, comptrollers, the state financial officers who care about free markets and care about the American worker, they are telling large corporations, look, you've got to do better on auditing your health care spending. And it's not because the initial thought is that these corporations are necessarily bad or wrong. It's that the big health insurers could be overcharging what these corporations ought to be spending, which then in turn hurts the value the company. It hurts the benefits that the employer can give workers, and it hurts the value of the stock,

which is retirees and pensioners and people that our folks are fiduciaries for. Now, OJ, one of the challenges that people are making right now in these big and smaller companies for these days right now is to try to find a way to keep the benefit train rolling. And I know some people in which, you know, health care coverage has become so expensive for the companies that they've had to almost double the premiums for their employees. And so it's not just Obamacare, you know, those Obamacare subsidies that everybody has been talking about, you know, over on the Democratic Party side. It's happening everywhere. Well, that's right. And, of course, if Obamacare was removed and something better was put in place, that would be a good first step. But one of the things our folks are saying is you can audit your existing health care plans.

You can ask your plans to say, do we have a third-party administrator? Do we have a pharmacy benefit manager? what are those entities doing to bring down costs? Because the president had an executive order of it said explicitly, you've got to make your health care pricing transparent. But I'm not seeing any transparency anywhere with most of the medical places. Am I wrong about that to bring that up? No, you're right.

You're right about that. And that's why the president issued a new executive order of it said, you've got to do it. He did it right in his first term. He did it even better in the second term. And now our state financial officers are saying, you have got to be transparent with prices because it's costing the American people and they've got to do better.

Which states have signed on to this, hey, you state people audit the companies. Let's do it. Well, there have been 17 different financial officers from 11 different states. We've got a lot of good folks coming from across the board. We have the auditor and the treasurer from the Commonwealth of Kentucky. We've got folks from Indiana. We have folks from all over the country. And it is an exciting thing that you've got places who really care and value.

the American worker. They want to bring down the cost of health care because affordability is an issue for the American people and our financial officers want to do something about it. Okay, now the financial officers in the state of Oregon, and most of the people are usually busy suing President Trump looking for money. And that tends to be what happens here. Is there anybody from Oregon that's in on this plan saying, hey, we need to audit the, you know, the health care? Sadly, Bill, there is nobody from Oregon. And look, if good fiduciaries wanted to do their job well. They would stop suing the president and start working with the president to reduce the cost of health care for the American people. And this letter is the first step of many

that our folks are looking to do. So who are the people within the state that would be most likely in Oregon responsible for this? This is an attorney general. Would this be the insurance commissioner of Oregon? Which person should be actually picking up the gauntlet on something like this, OJ? It could be the insurance commissioner. It could be the state treasurer. It could be a number of different individuals that consider themselves to be a state financial officer. It could be the comptroller in some states. It could be the CFO. Different positions have different names. But the goal is if you call yourself a financial officer, a fiduciary that is beholden to the American people, you could have signed this letter. And we're excited that we had 16 folks do it

from 11 states. I think we're going to have a lot more get engaged in this going forward. Now, OJ, wasn't their legislation passed within the last two to three years, correct me if I'm wrong, that said that hospital systems and all of the medical people are supposed to be giving you radical price transparency on everything that they do? Is that true or not? Did I just imagine that? Well, you didn't imagine that there was, in fact, a law and acted. It came through the executive order through the president. Now, again, Congress has an opportunity to do more, as they always do. do, but what the president has been able to do is follow up on an executive order from

his first term that was called Radical Healthcare Price Transparency, and it does exactly that. It asks Treasury, the Department of Labor, and others to focus and key in on businesses, making it very clear what the costs are, not estimates, but real costs so that companies can compare and they can drive down costs for the American people and health insurance spending. So the hope here then is that you get the biggest companies, the 500 biggest companies, to do this and crack down and audit their health care, actually audit the results of their health care and the prices, that it will kind of bust open the pricing transparency as President

Trump ordered it? Is that kind of the goal here? Is I hear it? That is the exact goal, Bill. You've got it right. Because if the 500 most profitable or Fortune 500 companies in America look at their health care spend and say, look, we've been overcharged. And we've been overcharged tens of millions of dollars, then it will do a few things that benefit the American worker. Number one, it'll allow those businesses to renegotiate their contracts, to drive down the cost of health care spending, which that allows better benefits for workers. It also will then reduce the expenditures that businesses have driving up the value of the company, which increases the stock, which is better for public

retirees and pensioners, which our folks are the fiduciaries of. So there are all kinds of benefits that you can get from this. You reduce the cost of spending. improve affordability, and improve the quality of life for the American people. So let's say what could happen then for the state of Oregon, which provides an awful lot of health care money through Medicaid, Oregon Health Plan. Between Oregon Health Plan and Medicare here in Jackson County, OJ, it's about two out of every three people, and in Josephine County about three out of every four people. So if the state were to audit and then get their big companies to audit, too, on top of that,

that could really make the health care dollar go a lot farther, couldn't it? It absolutely could. And to your point, there are a few different opportunities that are coming in the future that our folks are looking at. And you call that one exactly. States can look at their own health plan to see exactly how much they're spending with their insurers and go about this same exercise. If Oregon could do something like that, you're exactly right. They could reduce the cost.

They could provide better care. They could return some of that money back to the people pill, which would be great. and people could spend that money on their own the way that they see fit. So there are all kinds of benefits to the work that our state financial officers are doing, and I'm excited for them and looking forward to seeing what they can do in the future. Yeah, so instead of suing over Obamacare subsidies going away, possibly, instead of getting involved in that kind of a legal battle, actually go to work and put some pressure on the insurance companies in the hospital systems.

Is that our bottom line here, honestly? That's the bottom line here. And again, there are so many benefits to it. It reduces the cost of health care for the American people. It improves potentially the possibility of the businesses and can allow, then, for the state, if they honor their own plans, send money back to the American people. And I'll tell you what, Bill, it's quicker. If you go through lawsuits, it's going to take years, it's going to take time.

It's going to be a lot of mess and a lot of fuss. But if you work directly with the businesses, who work directly with their insurers, you can wrap these things up pretty quickly. We've got a date in our letter to get answers back by the middle of January. So we feel pretty good about what's going to happen. And, again, our financial officers are leading the way. OJ. Olika, once again, is the CEO of the State Financial Officers Foundation. Where can people go to read up more on this issue, and I'll post it up, and make sure everybody knows about this?

Absolutely. They can go to FFOF.com, and they can learn more about our state financial officers foundation, all of the great state financial officers who are leading the way on health care price transparency, fighting back against DEI and ESG and debanking and working hard on behalf of the American people. SFOF.com, and the other thing that we really need to do is put some pressure then on our state financial officers and say, hey, you should be part of this agenda then, right? That'd be a good thing to do. That's right.

That'd be a great thing to do. All right. OJ. O'J. O'Halaka, thanks so much for having joined the show, and thank you for being the good OJ, okay? Be well. Thanks, Bill. Take care. We'll see you later. O'Leica. It is 10 before 7-7-7-0-5-6-33. If you wanted to join in, this is the Bill

Meyer's show. The Purchase of Micro. This is News Talk 1063, KMED, and you're waking up with the Bill Myers-show. Six before seven, join in at 7705-633. Interesting talking with OJ, O'J O'Laka, saying that the state financial people need to get the big companies, at least the big companies that are left here in Oregon to audit health care, audit their health performances, and see if the insurance companies are really paying for what they're really paying for, and if hospital systems are really doing what they're supposed to be doing

to bring health care costs down. Listener Jan Dunlap sent me an email over the weekend, and I was reading the article. In fact, I printed it out this morning, and it kind of goes in. into what OJ was talking about. But there's this guy on substack, Corbyn Trent. And Corbyn Trent, he's a lefty from the looks of it. He's a Bernie, bro, and was a calm person for AOC, a Bernie staffer. So I understand that he's coming at it from the left-wing side of things.

It doesn't necessarily mean he's wrong about everything. But he has a piece out here that I thought was interesting. And it mentions what's going on in Ashland with Asante, with the Asante hospital closing, are really being turned more into a satellite clinic rather than being the full-blown hospital and birthing center. And Corbyn Trent writes, the fix for American health care already exists. And he talks about how America already spends $5 trillion a year on health care, blah, blah, blah, blah, things that we know, yada, yada, yada. He says, most of the money flowing into American hospitals comes from taxpayer.

is absolutely true. Medicare, Medicaid, public subsidies, tax exemptions. We're all paying for this system. We just don't own it. Because we don't own it, the people who can shut down our hospitals strip our communities under the cover of efficiency. And this is what he's claiming that Asante is doing with Ashland. Ashland, Oregon, is one story out of hundreds, Corbyn, writes.

I go into some depth to show you exactly how the process works. Keep in mind this story is about a nonprofit hospital. Keep in mind that the city of Ashland owned this hospital until 2013. It was founded in 1907. And, of course, the reason that the city of Ashland was happy to get rid of it is because it didn't have money and it wasn't doing well with it. But, you know, let's just set that aside for the time being. Asante is a nonprofit hospital system based in Medford. On December 3, 2025, Asante CEO, Tom Jessel, announced the company was closing the birth center.

and most inpatient services at Ashland Community Hospital. Jessel told the community the hospital was on pace to lose $7.3 million this year. He said the losses were unsustainable. He said Asante had no choice. That was a lie. Net patient revenue. About 77 million a year. Total operating expenses, 66 million.

I'm just using round numbers here, okay? operating income, 10 million net non-operating revenue expenses, 1.2 million. And so, essentially, what he's claiming is that Ashland Community Hospital actually made $9 million. Now, he says the Oregon Health Authority requires every hospital in the state to file a detailed financial reports. These are public documents, all right? So anyway, so what he's saying is that Ashland Community Hospital, made 10 million. Not a loss of profit. Now, he claims there's one set of books for the regulators, another set of books for the press release. Gessel said that the hospital was losing

$7.3 million. The state's filing said Ashland made $10.2. That's not an accounting quirk. It's two sets of books. One shows a healthy hospital, one that justifies shutting it down. But how does a $10 million profit become a $7 million loss? Well, Asante runs 300. hospitals the flagship rogue regional medical center in metford that's where the corporate headquarters sit that's where the executives work that's where asante builds its empire ashland community hospital 11 miles down the road small facility brings in money treating patients but asante doesn't let that money stay in ashland see this is where his inner communist uh corbin's inner communist in my opinion comes out but he says ashland makes 10 million then the corporate office in metford sends

bill. Ashland's share of the CEO's salary. Ashland's share of the corporate lawyers. Ashland's shares of the consultants, the IT systems, the strategic planning department. Ashland's share of the debt service on the $455 million patient pavilion. Asante just opened in Medford. Ashland didn't ask for any of this. Ashland doesn't benefit for any of this, but Ashland has to pay anyway. So in 2024, executives in the bean counters decided that the bill to Ashland Community Hospital would be $17 million. Ashland's $10 million profit becomes a $7 million loss on paper. The money doesn't disappear. It gets wired to Medford to pay for Medford's expansion.

And he also claimed that Asante lied about how many local people were actually getting birthing services there. And he claims that they were just counting zip codes for Ashland, even though a lot of people would go from talent and Phoenix and various other communities to go and give birth. But it would be easy to look at this and say, well, Ashland Community Hospital made $10 million, and Asante is billing them money for the cost of the corporation in Medford, the corporate headquarters,

and so it's losing money. But the point being, though, is that if the corporation wasn't there in Medford, Ashland Hospital wouldn't be able to pay for all its lawyers for getting malpractice insurance, forgetting the consultants, forgetting the people to fill out all the forms, and billing Medicare and all the rest of it. And it's kind of a falsehood to say that big, bad asante in metford now believe me i'm not defending asante all right but you know big bad asante is you know billing little ashlin which is actually running a profitable hospital and it

would be considered profitable if it didn't have to pay the metford corporate headquarters except that everybody that has any kind of business that has ever heard of any kind of business it's not like you look at every place and said well ashlin made money and so you get to keep that money no Ashland or Asante's people in Medford are there to do billing and insurance when somebody gets sued. You know, they don't go and sue Ashland Community Hospital, and there's not a lawyer at Ashland Community Hospital that takes care of the malpractice. It's a corporate lawyer that's working for corporate headquarters in Medford. So, you know, he's bringing up an interesting story.

Now, if you want to say that the CEO of Ashland and the, and all the other expenses, well, I'm sorry, the CEO of Asante in Medford and all of the charges that they're billing are unreasonable, and they're not billing them a fair share of the expenses. That might be something that you can make a case for, but for Corbyn Trent, you know, this Bernie Bro to just say that, well, Ashland makes a profit by itself, and so it shouldn't be closed, except that Ashland can't work without all the corporate tools that are in the Asante Medford group. You see what I'm getting at?

And I would expect a Bernie bro to just think that, yeah, the corporation's supposed to pay for all the expenses for what's going on in Ashland. And Ashland should just be profitable anyway on its own. I would expect that Bernie Bro to say that. Now, if Ashland is lying about how many people are actually working there, or if I'm sorry, if Asante is lying about Ashland. That's something to talk about. Is Ashland being billed too much of the corporate cost?

Is it not truly proportional? That might be the case to be made. But it's insane to think that Ashland could just have its own set of books and then mooch off of corporate headquarters but not pay any of those expenses. That's what I'm getting at, I guess, kind of a long circuitous kind of, you know, look around there. This is the Bill Meyer show. KMED, KMED, H.D. H.1. Eagle Point. Medford, KBXG Grants Pass. Hi, good morning. This is Bill. Who's this?

Yeah, good morning. This is David in Phoenix. David, how are you doing this morning? What do you thinking about that? You call about the Ashland Story, Ashland Hospital? I did, because it's just typical. The Ashland Community Hospital years ago, it was just barely, barely hanging on. That's what I remember in the day. We, Carolyn and I use that hospital a few times. And yeah, it's nice enough and it's cute, but it's one of those deals where it's all about Ashland. It's an Ashland thing. It's almost like Ashland sees itself separate and apart from

the rest of Jackson County. And it's just such a joke. But anyways. But you understand what I was getting at, though, is that, you know, this substacker is making this case. Well, Ashland made money. Not when you consider what happens over with corporate having to pay for all that stuff. And all the stuff, I'm in the Asante group. My doctor's in the White City. I go to the Ashland because it's on the bus to go to the lab. I go to the main hospital once in a while for some specialized things or whatever. It's all now Asante.

So people still think of it as a simple as Ashland's cute little hospital. It's all part of the big Rogue Valley Regional Medical Center with Ashland Hospital. and three rivers and Grants Pass. It's all, and then a few other satellite buildings, like out there in White City. And it's all part of one. It's just that they took one big house, and they took one of the extra bedrooms, and they moved it to Ashland, and they took an extra garage and moved it to, you know, the passenger to Grant's Pass.

Now, I think it's very reasonable to ask if the 17 million that corporate in Medford is billing Ashland for the corporate cost overall, we could ask if that's reasonable and fair. Maybe you could make that case, but to expect Ashland to just keep its money and not pay the corporate lawyers is ridiculous. It's insanity. Exactly. And, yes, I remember when they did the really nice birthing center, which is top, it's world-class over there.

I've got to give credit to Providence. They did one, too. And both of them, you know, if you want to have a baby, they'll take good. care of you here in Jackson and Josephine counties. They really will try to take care of you. I mean, and everybody wants perfection. Nothing in the world is perfection. None of us live our lives perfect. So that's, you know, I'm kind of a personal responsibility kind of guy. You must be kind of lonely these days, David. Appreciate the call. Let me go to Tom. I think this is Tom. Hello, Tom. Take it away. Morning. Good morning. Bill, I was listening to about DeSanti,

and I wasn't quite following. If Ashland Hospital has a profit of, would you say, $10 million? Ten million, yeah, according to the substack feller, yeah. Okay, okay, so you have an organization that's making a $10 million profit, and somehow, from the Medford point of view of Asante, somehow that $10 million, it's not enough. No, it's not, because you have to pay for, your share of the corporate people because Ashland Community Hospital depends on Asante's

corporate headquarters for billing, for insurance, for corporate lawyers, I mean, all these kind of things to defend itself to do the billing and everything else. You can't, I mean, this is not uncommon just about any business. It's like I remember there would be a time under past ownership here in which we might have been doing really well in Medford, but let's say maybe over in Eugene or some other market, it wasn't doing so well, and so it still ended up hurting us because, you know, we had to send money to corporate headquarters. It's the way that works. It's like you have to pay your share of expenses for the corporation, too. It doesn't just exist on its own. So from a business point of view, what I'm trying to figure out,

from Medford's point of view of Basanti, why do you close an institution that's making $10 million profit, how by closing that, does that help Asante in Medford? Because all the expenses go away, and you probably end up making 20 or more with those patients going to Medford, and you have fewer expenses. I think that's the way they're looking at this. So it's basically a consolidation of all these things like, say, insurance and malpractice insurance and so forth and so on. They kind of amalgamation. Yeah, because Ashland does, yeah, they get a portion of them. So there's a portion of the malpractice.

There's a portion of the billing department. There's a portion of the collection department. There's a portion of the utilities. There's a portion of the construction department. You know, they all have to pay, you know, a share going into it, just like Three Rivers Hospital has to pay into corporate for its share. Same sort of thing. But Three Rivers, apparently, has enough patient load. and has enough bottom line to make it work worthwhile, while Ashland does not,

but the Ashland Hospital has been circling the drain for decades. So it's nothing new, really. Yeah, well, it kind of goes back to what I said. I often say how sick our health care system is, and it reminds me of, you know, the Fiat money system. It seems like with insurance companies, the corruption is not just by a happenstance. It's a belt-in feature. Yeah, kind of built-in.

Not a feature. Not a bug, but a feature, yeah, indeed. Tom, I appreciate the call. We'll have to pick this up a little bit later, okay? But thank you. We'll catch up on Fox News and more here in just a moment. And Dr. Carol Lieberman joins me. We'll talk about Bondi Beach, that massacre over the weekend.