The Dan Bongino Show - Ep. 507 Big Government is Collapsing Everywhere

Episode Date: July 20, 2017

In this episode I address the complete collapse of Medicaid and the absurdity of liberals using Medicaid's expansion as a reason to keep Obamacare.  https://www.wsj.com/articles/medicaids-potemkin-health-coverage-1500419200   I address the failure of two US Senators to stand on principle.  http://getliberty.org/2017/07/faithless-senators-capito-and-murkowski-were-for-obamacare-repeal-before-they-were-against-it/   I address the failing big govt agenda in New York City as the public transportation system collapses.  http://ijr.com/the-declaration/2017/07/922628-governor-cuomo-mayor-deblasio-getting-blamed-nyc-subway-nightmare/?utm_campaign=ods&utm_content=Politics&utm_medium=Owned&utm_source=Facebook&utm_term=ijamerica   I also discuss the furious liberal attacks against Education Secretary Betsy DeVos as she looks to reform a broken campus justice system.  http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/07/12/education-secretary-betsy-devos-include-students-falsely-accused-rape-campus-sex-violence-talks/amp/   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dan Bongino. I have an obligation to come on the air with data and material and research. I can't just say, trade stinks. Thanks for tuning in. The Dan Bongino Show. Let's jump right in because we have no time for nonsense. Get ready to hear the truth about America. When I was a young man, I don't remember it being sexy to want to allow a nanny state to control my life.

On a show that's not immune to the facts with your host, Dan Bongino. All right, welcome to the Renegade Republican with Dan Bongino. Producer Joe, how are you today? I think I'm doing well, Dan. Joe screwed up the whole countdown to the show. I just want everyone in our audience to know that. When you've been doing a show together as long as Joe and I have, you know, every day for two years with no vacations

and no breaks, you get used to a certain routine. And Joe does the same thing when we count in. He says, all right, three, two, one. So today, for some bizarre reason, Joe decided to add two numbers to that. He was like, countdown, five, whoa, whoa, whoa.

And I stopped myself. Whoa. We were all like, what the hell? Now, ordinarily, it wouldn't be a big deal, but when you're used to Joe's routine, that kind of screwed me up. So let's see if we can recover from today's show. I'm just kidding, obviously.

Poor Joe. Poor guy. That's all right. I keep getting requests for Joe's T-shirt company, too. We're going to do something about it. I know. My wife had a good one yesterday, too. I's all right. I keep getting requests for Joe's T-shirt company, too. We're going to do something about that. I know. My wife had a good one yesterday, too. I already forgot that.

I forgot what it was. She had a great slogan for the T-shirt company we're going to eventually do. All right. Enough. Let me get to the show. Hey, first, before we even start, sincerely, when I say I pray for people, I actually mean it. I don't like when people say that and don't follow through. We'll pray for you. If you say it, mean it. I do mean it. I don't like when people say that and don't follow through. You know, we'll pray for you. Well, if you say it,

you know, mean it. I do mean it. I agree. John McCain, the guy's an American hero, folks. I mean, listen, he's in politics. We're supposed to have political disagreements, okay? You know, I loved Don Mattingly growing up. He was the first baseman for the Yankees, but he struck out a lot. Well, he didn't strike out a lot, but you know what I'm saying? People

fail seven out of ten times. I mean, politics is a game of back and forth where people have competing ideas. That's the arena McCain entered in. That has nothing to do with any of this. And the only reason I'm bringing this up is McCain was diagnosed yesterday with a particularly aggressive form of brain cancer. And a lot of friends of mine who are very conservative, who have very sincere ideological disagreements with the senator from Arizona, tweeted out a lot of really nice things. And I saw some of the comments back, Joe, and they were like, really? People like this guy's responsible for the death of millions of people. I was like, oh, my gosh, folks.

Really? Come on. I mean, there's a time for I'm not lecturing anybody at all. And I know most of the people in my audience, I never get those kind of tweets back. But this isn't the time for that. The guy's got brain cancer. He was a POW. I mean, the guy's

a genuine American hero. He was a Republican nominee for president. Gosh, I ran for office. I couldn't win the election. I mean, the guy won multiple elections and almost won the presidency. So prayers out to John McCain. I hope that strength he was able to marshal in that POW camp gets him through this. So, you know, prayers out to John McCain. I hope he, um, that strength he was able to marshal in that POW camp gets him through this. So God bless.

Um, yeah, tough story to hear. And I have a winner by the way, also on a different note. All right. Kind of a strange segue there, but I have to get this stuff out of the way. We had a contest for episode 501. And, uh, for the, the, the idea was, uh, I saw an email about the Democrats were looking for a new slogan for their party. an email about the democrats were looking for a new slogan for their party so i said well tweet us a new slogan and follow crtv we'll pick a winner i'll give you a free copy uh signed to one of my books we'll send it to you you get a free year of crtv and uh we there were a lot of submissions a lot uh some of them were really really good and uh my wife and i singled out one i thought was really funny. Here's the Democrats' new slogan according to our friend Dan Gedman Jr.

at D-A-N-G-E-D-M-A-N-J-R so you're going to have to email me at Dan Gedman Jr. I'm Daniel at Bongino.com You're going to have to email me so I can get you the information and the slogan is I like this one.

It was short. It was sweet. It was funny. You scratch my back, I'll stab yours. There you go. The Democrats, new party slogan. I love it. That's it.

For the bumper sticker, you scratch my back, I'll stab yours. There are a lot of great submissions. And folks, we'll be doing a lot more of these in the future. We'll be giving away some signed books and stuff. So don't worry if you didn't win. We'll be doing a couple more. I have a lot of books laying around, so we'll be doing a lot more of these in the future be giving away some signed books and stuff so don't worry if you didn't win we'll uh we'll be doing a couple more i have a lot of books laying around so we'll get to those yeah nice job okay um i filled in for levin a couple nights ago and i had a lot of liberal callers i asked for those and i was talking about obamacare i don't want to do another show and all right enough with obamacare. I don't want to do another show. All right, enough with Obamacare. I get it.

But I do want to do a show about covering some of the call sphere that's been successful and tell me what your measure of success is. I got a lot of callers. They were very good. It wasn't a yell fest, which sometimes I engage in regretfully. They were very smart callers. Joe, I know you got some feedback on the show. And we had a good like seven, eight minute back and forth with some of the liberal callers.

I highly encourage you to listen to it on the Mark Levin Show. You can go to MarkLevinShow.com and check out the podcast. And they were really, really good callers. Now, they were wrong, really wrong, but they were calling to constantly reiterate this thing that Medicaid and Medicare have somehow been successful programs. And folks, it's time for us as Republicans and conservatives to fight back with facts and data to show people that these are not successful programs.

Now, to be clear, in contrast to some of the liberal, literally imbeciles, like people with no IQs at all, who tweeted to me or tweeted about me and said, you know, I heard Dan Bongino and Mark Levine, he's suggesting that we rip healthcare away from seniors. You're just an idiot. You're a dope. That's just stupid.

And I really have zero respect for you because you have no capacity to engage in an actual intellectual dialogue with people. You just want to throw invective. But I'm going to give you stats. Is it not fair, Joe, to ask right now why these programs are failing and to give data? Is that not fair? now, like why these programs are failing and to give data. Is that not fair? Like if you're, even if you're alleging as a liberal that Medicare and Medicaid, to be clear, the program that provides government run health insurance for people in their sixties and older, and then Medicaid, a program that was at least originally designed to provide healthcare for the poor,

but it's since expanded to people outside of what we would call poor. Is it not fair to say, well, are these programs working? If they are, what are the measures and metrics we're using? And how can we improve upon them? According to liberals, that's not fair. You bring that up, Joe, you want to kill old people. Because you're idiots. That's perfectly fair. Yeah, yeah, of course it's fair.

And you're just a moron to people who tweet it. So I'm not talking to those people. I'm talking to reasonable liberals, Democrats, and even some Republicans who think these programs are just a swimming success and we should leave them alone and do nothing. Now, one of the points one of the callers brought up on the show, the liberal callers, was he said, well, nobody's going to insure a bunch of 65 and older folks in Medicaid, people that need health care, because they're really expensive. So the government has to do it. Really? And I brought up the point. I want to redo the show completely. This is just the setup here.

But I said to him, where do we talk about that anywhere else? So what you're saying is there are a lot of really good customers, right, who have money. Older people tend to have assets. Younger people don't for the very simple reason, Joe, who have money. Older people tend to have assets. Younger people don't. For the very simple reason, Joe, this doesn't take advanced degrees in economics to figure out, they've been working their entire life.

Hey, Paula, can you turn that down a little bit? It's still, the volume's still on. You don't have to cut that out. Sorry, Joe. I mean, folks, I'm doing the show from Freedom Fest today in Las Vegas in the hotel room, and the Fox News is on in the background. That's a great part about a non-live show that we treat as a live show.

Ordinarily, you'd cut that stuff. I don't do, I like the show to sound conversational. But the point is, folks, you have older people with assets willing to spend money on medical care and people who provide medical care don't want them. Does that make any sense to you? What other area, I said to the caller caller what other area do you have a hot market for goods where no one wants to provide the goods does that make any sense no like if you all right so I live in I live in Florida southern Florida it's the spring training capital of the world

right you have a lot of minor league baseball teams around there so can you imagine Joe going hey listen there's a real shortage of baseballs in southern Florida, but you got a bunch of people and teams that need baseballs. And amazingly, no one's going to fill that vacuum. That would be dumb. There'd be a thousand people running in there tomorrow trying to produce baseballs because they can sell them. The reason this guy said this is because government has so screwed up the health care market for

people in their 60s and older by taking it over and monopolizing it, is that they've skewed the price system to the point where doctors aren't adequately compensated for their care, so they don't want to service some of these patients. In a free market price mechanism where the price mechanism determines the level of service and the level of supply of supply and level of demand for the product this doesn't happen i know i'm being unnecessarily confusing and i'm sorry i'm really trying to hammer home this point because i hear this from liberals all the time well no one's going to insure a bunch of 60 year olds because they're really expensive i don't know what's so confusing about it if the government wasn't providing it and there was no insurance available, somebody would come up with some plans. Joe, sometimes having you on the show is the perfect

foil because I think to be self-critical here, my love affair with economics pushes me to explain things in curves and supply-demand intersection and market clearing prices. What you just said is very simple. You're absolutely right. If the government wasn't there providing it and screwing up the whole system, I assure you there would literally be thousands of people and companies and healthcare providers going, oh, there's old people with money who want to spend it on healthcare? I'll do it. Right?

Does that sum it up? This is the dumbest thing. No other product follows these rules where there's a bunch of money chasing a product and nobody wants to provide it No one the reason nobody wants to provide it for old people is because the government's paying and it doesn't pay enough Why does it not pay enough? Because it's taking taxpayer money And it's they're running out of it Now I have a whole bunch of numbers on this. I want to to get to. I don't want to belabor the opening here, but I want to show you the futility of defending

Medicare and Medicaid and how ridiculous this is. This is not me getting sidetracked either, doing this intentionally. But I want to kind of veer off a second into a different story to show you how this could possibly change. Because the liberal callers were evidence of this recalcitrance, Joe, this, let me fortify the wall. They don't want to change Medicare and Medicaid no matter what. They don't. The callers will, and no matter the data you give them, the $28 trillion in debt, the massive amount of unfunded liabilities and Medicaid stats. trillion in debt, the massive amount of unfunded liabilities and Medicaid stats. I'll get to you about Medi-Cal in California, which is the biggest Medicaid program in the country, how it's absolutely collapsing. I'll give you those stats in a second, but they don't want

to change anything. But here's a story that shows you that they might in the future. So IJ Review, as a really good story, I'll put all this in the show notes at Bongino.com. Please sign up for my email list, Bongino.com. I can email you the show notes daily with the articles. So New York city, I don't know if you've seen this show, but, uh, I'm, I was a New Yorker, New York city. Everybody gets around using the subway system and the subway system in New York is completely collapsing right now. Um, they've had repairs that they have to make that required them to shut down significant portions of the subway system and the had repairs that they have to make that required them to shut down significant portions of the subway system. And the pictures, and you have to read the IJ piece. It's really

good. There are photos of people on Instagram, people on Twitter, taking pictures of the absolute disaster that the New York subway system has become right now. There are lines at the door. There are people literally trapped in subway cars in the summer, 45, 50 minutes at a time, sweating. They're begging to get out. They won't open the doors. The pictures are all in there. You can see them for themselves. And Andrew Cuomo, a liberal, the governor of New York, and Bill de Blasio, the communist mayor of New York, are getting slammed by Manhattanites and people who use the system, the overwhelming majority of which are Democrats. Now, the reason I bring this story, they're getting slammed,

I mean getting crushed on Twitter and social media everywhere. The reason this story is important is I'm convinced the liberal reluctance to repair or fix Medicaid and Medicare, I'm not talking about the activists. I'm talking about real world liberals that live real lives. I'm not talking about the activist side. The real world reluctance to fix that is because a lot of this hasn't slammed them in the face yet. If you're in Medicare and you're getting reasonably good service and you have a doctor,

there's a fear. And folks, I understand that. And we as conservatives shouldn't run from that. Then we're just as bad as the liberals. We're ignoring facts and data. But we should understand that if you're 75, 80 years old and you're running a little bit low on money, you've expended a lot of your assets and you're getting medical care and you're sick

and that medical care is coming at the expense of the taxpayer. And to be fair, and you too, you paid in your entire life. You may not have paid in what you're going to get out, but you certainly paid in. There's no doubt about it. It's not your fault that the system was designed terribly. They're scared, Joe. Yeah.

And I understand that. And they're scared because they don't want what they have to go away. Even if what they have is substandard because they don't. The alternative, it goes to the saying in economics, you can't prove a counterfactual. They don't see the other alternative because it doesn't exist because the government runs health care for people 60 and older. There is no free market alternative or substantial one. You get what I'm saying? So there's no like they can't – it's not like the price is right. Do you want package number A or do you want package number B? Here's what's in package letter B. Excuse me. That's not what they have. They have do you want the reward package A with the trip to Italy and a new car

or do you want what's behind door letter B? Well, what's behind – I don't know. We're not going to tell you. That's why they stick with the package they have. People's fear of loss in economics always overwhelms their hope of gain. And that's been studied over and over again. I've mentioned this on the show repeatedly by coin toss experiments, where if you tell people, okay, you toss a coin this amount of times, you'll win this amount of money if you get this. But if you engage in the experiment, you lose, you have to give us this. People's fear of loss always overwhelms their hope of gain. So that's what's happening with Medicare and Medicaid. Now, what does it have to do with

this story in New York? Now in New York, all of this is starting to come to fruition. Years and years of government-run monopolies on the public transportation system, government-run unions, the failure to repair the tracks. You have to see some of the pictures. Trains, floors being held together by duct tape, people stuck in their sweat bites. The pictures are disgusting in the IJPs. Now that they're seeing it, and it's hurting them in real time,

their fear of loss, which to transplant that to the public transportation sectors, their fear of not having transportation, is being overwhelmed by their fear of what the transportation, is being overwhelmed by their fear of what the transportation is now, Joe. Do you get what I'm saying? The transportation system sucks so bad now that they're like, wow, I'm really scared.

I can't go do this every day. I don't want to be on a train held together by duct tape and zip ties. You think I'm making this up? Go to the IJ piece. Look at the pictures yourself. Zip ties, Joe. Train pieces being held together. This is not even funny, but it's tragic.

Now, their fear factor of what they have now is starting to override their fear of loss. A lot of them, I bet, are starting to say, well, gosh, at this point, I'd rather walk to Manhattan from Long Island and be stuck on this sweat box again. walk to Manhattan from Long Island and be stuck on this sweat box again. So when that happens in the healthcare arena, and that's why people are attacking, they're forgetting politics because they're Democrats. The majority of the people complaining are Democrats. Just by the sheer numbers,

Joe, I'm not saying anything outrageous. Manhattan is overwhelmed by Democrats. So is New York in general. They're attacking their own party right now because it's hurting them. And the fear of what they have is overcoming the fear of loss of what they have because what they have is just so bad. That has not happened yet with Medicare, but it is happening with Medicaid. And I don't wish that on people.

I have a 96-year-old grandmother, as I've said repeatedly. She just hurt herself badly. And I'm glad she's getting care, even if it is through a substandard Medicare system right now. I wish we would change it, but I'm glad she's my grandmother and she's very healthy for 96. But it is starting to happen with Medicaid too. And I think that the whole point of me bringing this up is I think the tide is beginning to turn a little bit on liberalism in general, where even some liberals are starting to ask questions. Now, that was the ij story about the transportation sector let me go but what more point about that because it's not

fair for me to say well this is the way the public transportation system does it right they screw it up they have to rebuild the tracks they had to shut down tracks are so bad you may say fairly enough if you're a liberal listener before i move on to the medicaid medicaid disaster you may say well the private sector isn't much better and i say to you really are you sure i mean i just got back joe from disney the magic kingdom not that long ago up in d have you been to disney before no magic in florida yeah yeah the uh so the the magic kingdom down in florida they're doing a renovation of main street down there a lot of the pull the muscle on my back someone told me to stop complaining on the air about being so i agree i totally get it but hey folks it's my it's my show you live

with me i did i got a little like scapula thing going on um they're doing a main street remodel and on main street you'd never be able to tell. What they did was in order to keep the magic of the Magic Kingdom alive, they don't want to have underground tunnels and everything to make sure you don't see the characters changing. What they've done at Disney in their remodel, in contrast to the New York City subway system remodel, where they just said, hey, screw it.

Sorry, we're going to shut down the tracks. Find a different way to get to Manhattan. What? Okay. screw it sorry we're gonna shut down the tracks find a different way to get to manhattan uh what okay disney to keep the park open while they're doing the remodel of main street has these i don't know if they're like tarps but the tarps are painted or photographed or whatever to look exactly like the storefronts they're covering oh so when you go down main street so joe they have like say they have a couple of stores closed on Main Street, you can't see what's going on behind the tarp at all. And the tarp is painted or photographed to look exactly like the storefront. So if you're looking from even 20 or 30 feet away, you barely notice the difference. Well, and if tourists take pictures,

I guess you really can't tell too much. You can't tell. The difference is, now, what's the difference between the public transportation system that underwent the remodel and said, we don't really give a crap. Okay, we're going to shut down the tracks because the whole system's breaking down and you just need to find a different way. And the difference between Disney that did it their way with the tarps in front where there was almost no impact on customer service at all. The difference is one is a free market product, the Disney Magic

Kingdom, where they have to attract customers. And another is a government-run monopoly that gives you two middle fingers and says, you know what? Find a different way. We don't really care because we own the tracks. We own the system. Government, we take taxpayer dollars. We have no accountability at all. Too bad. The only accountability is in the voting booth. And frankly, de Blasio and Cuomo both know this will probably blow over and they'll both be reelected. Sadly, that's a fact. Unless this gets really bad or even worse, which I'm not wishing on anyone, just to be clear.

But that's the difference, folks. One has an incentive. The incentive is to keep customers because the customers have a choice. The benefit of the free market. The public transportation system, there is no choice. You either take the subway in New York or you walk or you take a taxi or somewhere else with traffic in New York that's virtually impossible. That's the downside to government. Okay. Now, I want to move on because although Medicare has not, thankfully so, yet collapsed to the point

where the fear of the current system is worse than the fear of losing it. Medicaid is collapsing. Now, the piece I put in the show notes, I'm pretty sure it's open. It's a Wall Street Journal piece. So I get a lot of complaints on that because a lot of the pieces are subscriber only. I'm pretty sure this one you can read. I have the link in the show notes. I clicked on it through another account and I got right in. But it's a really, really good piece on the Potemkin village that Medicaid is. It's a false facade. It gives you some damning statistics on just how bad Medicaid is collapsing in California and how the fear of what they have now is already overriding the fear of losing what they have now. All right. Before I get to that, today's show brought to you by our

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Did you ever notice, Joe, with the signs when these pro-Obamacare protesters show up? They never say Medicaid for all. They always say Medicare for all they say Medicare for all because Medicare is a program that that caters more to people who vote in higher percentages older folks in their 60s and older vote in greater percentages than younger people do that's just a fact you may not like it but it's absolutely true to be, I've never noticed that, but I'm going to look now. Yeah, next time you see a sign,

you see it on Fox or you're watching the news, you'll see the protesters, they'll have a sign up. It'll say Medicare for it. It never says Medicaid for all. It says Medicare because they know older people vote and they want to cater to that market. And they know older people are generally fearful of losing their Medicare.

Another reason they don't put Medicaid for all is because Medicaid is collapsing and some liberal interest groups are even starting to take notice now, just like the New York City subway system. Now, to be fair here, I will give you the liberal side of this first. And I'm framing the Medicaid argument in terms of what's going on in California for one very simple reason, Joe. It's the largest population of Medicaid recipients in the country. As a matter of fact, this is a pretty staggering number. Medicaid, which is government-run healthcare for people who are supposed to be poor,

but now gives it to people who are at 138% of the poverty line, and the asset test has gone away, so you can have millions in assets and potentially still get Medicaid. But Medicaid in California covers an astounding 14 million people. Now, think about that. That is almost three times the population of the state Joe lives in right now, Maryland, where I'd run for office. Maryland has over 5 million people. So you're talking about

a population on Medicaid alone in California that is nearly three times the population of the great state of Maryland. This is stunning. Now, I say this in my opening because liberals think that's a success. That is one of their markers for success. I'm not kidding, Joe. Now, I understand. Yeah. Another one of their markers for success is that since the Obama Medicaid expansion, which

just to be clear, the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare expanded Medicaid from the poverty line to up to 138% of the poverty line. And what it also did is it enabled the states to engage in a funding formula where the first few years of the expansion, the new recipients of Medicaid, Joe, the government, the federal government would pay 100%. That changes to 90% after 2020. But I'll get to that too in a second, how that's a scam. But the liberals think that's a success too. Good. The federal government is picking up the cost. You're like, well, where does the federal government get the money from?

Oh, the taxpayers. Well, who are the taxpayers? You. So you're picking up the federal government, schmederal government. What are you talking about? The federal government is you. It doesn't create anything. It's not IBM. The federal government schmederal government what are you talking about the federal government is you it doesn't create anything it's not ibm the federal government gets money from you so libs think it's a success because they added six million people on the obamacare expansion

14 million total people are now on medic they call it medical in california but it's medicaid in california um they got 20 billion more in federal funds due to the obamacare expansion which again comes from you, but the libs think that's great. And this is, this is just, this is amazing. This,

I saw this number and I'm like, really? The Medi-Cal budget is $103 billion. What? The, that's just the Medi-Cal budget. The entire budget for the state of Florida, the great state of Florida where I live, the third largest state in the country, the entire budget for the state of California is only around $80 billion. Jeez.

It's $103 billion in California alone just for Medi-Cal. But Joe, again, the liberals, this is their marker for success. Just like the liberal callers who called in the show, they think this is great. Now, here's the reality. The liberals will say, well, what's the big deal? The federal government picks up the cost 100% for the Medicaid expansion. Okay, well, let's easily debunk because number one, that's your money. The federal government doesn't have it.

They get the money from you whether and and california being the largest state in the country the largest uh you know the donor of federal tax dollars that are being confiscated being confiscated from the people of california so the joke is on you like the federal government isn't paying for it you're paying for it whether it comes from the federal government the state government you are paying for it the percentages may vary but you're you're in the end you're paying for it but here's another point that that you really need to hammer your liberal friends on. This is really critical. And this is where it's really coming to bite the Californians in the caboose.

And to get back to my point, this is where it's turning into the New York City subway disaster, where it's starting to really impact people now. And their fear of what they have now is starting to overcome their fear of loss. Liberal groups are now suing. And here's a quote here. Some Medi-Cal beneficiaries are taking the system to court and they're suing Joe, and this is a quote here, because the system is, quote, separate and unequal.

Now, why are they saying that? If you're getting Medi-Cal, in other words, free Medicare from the government, quote, free, which is their lingo, not mine, but that's what the term the left uses. Why would you sue saying the system is separate and unequal? Well, even if you buy the argument that the federal government's paying, and therefore, Joe, it's free to Californians, which is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Even if you buy that pure, unadulterated stupidity, the government may be able, the federal government,

to compensate the states money-wise, but they can't make up the time. Now, what do I mean by that? Now that these individuals in California have, quote, free healthcare, what are they doing? The argument made by Obamacare was, the Obamacare proponents, was, oh, now that they have this, quote, free healthcare, finally people will start going to primary care physicians and not going to the emergency room where they went before. Now, follow me. This is really critical here because this dismantles the entire far left argument about why one Obamacare is good and how government can predict what's going to happen and can fix healthcare. Government has the answer. They don't have the answers. All their predictions have been wrong. One of the government's arguments for expanding Medicaid was that, well, people who

don't have insurance go to the emergency room for care when they should go to a primary care physician. Now, why would they do that, Joe? Because in the emergency room, which I know you're aware of, you have to be cared for. You can't. You cannot legally be turned away in an emergency room. You can be from a doctor's office. You cannot legally be turned away in an emergency room. You can be from a doctor's office. But legally, if you walk into an emergency room in America with anything from a cough to a stage 67.2, I'm making that up, heart attack, they can't throw you out of the emergency room by law. So a lot of people who are here illegally or don't have insurance wind up using the emergency room for coughs and colds because they can't be thrown out. The argument Obamacare advocates and big government medicine advocates made was, oh, if we just gave them, quote,

free healthcare, Joe, and we gave them government-sponsored healthcare, that they'll stop using the emergency room because now they'll have insurance and they can go to doctors. Well, you and I, Joe, being interested in this crazy thing called facts and data, we would say, well, what actually happened to emergency room visits after Medicaid was expanded? And we did what you said, liberals. You said this was a good idea. It was going to save money, right? What actually happened? Well, getting back to my California can't be compensated for the time, people are flooding into emergency rooms at a greater rate than they were before the Medicaid expansion. Now, you may say that can't possibly be true. Okay. Let me read to you a quote from the Wall Street Journal. I should have pulled this up,

but I love this topic so much. You got me on a good day, folks. This is my, I really enjoy this. Healthcare economics is my passion. Okay, here's a quote from the Wall Street Journal piece. Places with large Medicaid populations like Fresno, California, where half, Joe, you're not in the piece, Joe, that's not a quote, but where half, Joe, of the residents are in Medi-Cal. Farther north, the UC Davis Medical Center terminated its managed care contract with Medi-Cal two years ago because of low payments.

The Santa Clara Grand Jury report in this lawsuit that the beneficiaries of Medi-Cal are bringing against Medi-Cal says that half of the primary care physicians in the Bay Area do not treat new Medi-Cal patients. Most cite low reimbursements, time-consuming paperwork, and payment delays. In effect, Medi-Cal rations care by underpaying providers. Here's another. It goes on. The shortage of doctors accepting Medi-Cal together with the surge in enrollment brings patients. Where, Joe? To the emergency room instead.

So what's, I'm going to go on in a second, but I want to stop the quote here. I'll continue the rest in a minute. So what are they saying? Let me sum that up for you. Government expanded Medicaid, gave people, you know, quote, free healthcare. Government did not have the money because the taxpayers don't, there's not enough of a tax base to finance, Joe, 14 million people in California receiving an open-ended enrollment. Open-ended, meaning you can get, Joe, do you know that California Medi-Cal pays for

acupuncture, chiropractic care? I'm not kidding. I don't even think my insurance that I pay good money for pays for acupuncture. But no, no, the taxpayers are paying for other people to have acupuncture. They don't have the money. So what happened? The taxpayers don't have the money. So they had to cut the reimbursement rates. So what's happening? The doctors who are saying, hey, it cost me $5,000 to open my doors in the morning, paying

for all these machines and my administrative staff. I can't accept a bunch of government patients, Joe, that are going to pay me at one third of the reimbursement rate that I would get if I was just selling my services in the free market. So then what happened? 55% of primary care doctors in the area said we're not taking on new Medi-Cal patients. So then what happened? Medi-Cal patients can't get to see a primary care doctor,

which was the original goal of Obamacare. So now what are they doing, Joe? They're flooding where? Into the emergency rooms in greater rates than they were before. This is like the stupid is so strong here. By the way, Sessions is responding to Trump. I'll get to that in a second here., Sessions is responding to Trump. I'll get to that in a second here.

The Sessions thing is blowing up. But they're flooding into the ER in greater rates than they were before Obamacare when the stated goal of Obamacare was to keep people out of the ER. Now, I had this conversation. I'm flying with my wife yesterday to Las Vegas, right? And, you know, she's into politics like I am. She loves facts and data too. And she was the one this morning we woke up. She's like, you really need to talk about that Obamacare story.

She goes, the way you explained it to me walking through how Obamacare, let's keep people out of the ER. It's really expensive. Let's give them taxpayer insurance. Let's give them taxpayer insurance. Let's give them taxpayer insurance, but let's not pay the doctors enough. Doctors then say, well, if I can't make enough off these patients, I can't accept new patients. Therefore, patients can't get a doctor.

Patients then go into the emergency room and greater rates of before she was. That's just an amazing story of how stupid liberals are. This ties into the subway tracks in New York City because now they can't get a doctor and they can't get into ER either because the ER beds are even crowded. I'm going to read more about that in a second. Even the ER beds are, so what are they doing? A lady had to go to Mexico to get gallbladder surgery on Medi-Cal because she couldn't get into ER or a doctor. I mean, liberals, can you get out of your own way? Are you this stupid?

I mean, liberals, can you get out of your own way? Are you this stupid? You now have liberals suing other liberals in California because liberal programs aren't big enough in helping liberals. Just like you have liberals complaining against liberal governance in New York City because liberal programs like public finance, transportation are not working. Nothing is going to happen until we start to take the Rahm Emanuel theory of government, not letting a crisis go to waste. And I don't mean it in the cynical way he did. I mean it in a good way. When we see a crisis, we have to step in as Republicans and make the counter argument, whether it's someone running for mayor in New York City. And I'm not sure if anyone's doing this. Well, they probably are. I'm not really following New York City mayor's race, but comes

in and says, this is the problem. This is the big government failure. Here's the alternative. Here's what we could have done. The same thing we have to be doing with Medicaid right now. And you may be saying, well, what is that? Folks, we can have a safety net, but we can give people control over their own health care. We can do it through the tax code. We can do it through a cash payment type system.

And you may be saying, well, gosh, you're going to give them cash, folks? Compared to what? To what we're doing now? Where we're paying off the doctors and hospitals at a low reimbursement rate and not even taking patients? I'm not suggesting we should keep 14 million people on a rotating cash payment system, but maybe we pick the poorest of the poor and say, here's a cash equivalent voucher to buy your own insurance.

You're on your own. Not on your own to live or die, but you're on your own to pick a healthcare system that works for you because you can't even get a doctor or a hospital now. Make sense, Joe? Yeah, I've heard that before, yeah. Now, this is amazing. This is me

continuing the Wall Street Journal piece. Here's a quote again about Medi-Cal. ER visits by Medi-Cal patients rose... Let me start over because this number like even when I read it I'm like this can't be right ER visits by medical patients rose 75% over the past five years according to California's own office of statewide health planning and development folks

nothing liberals tell you is ever true nothing it. It's all a lie. It's all a lie. There was an Oregon study. Same thing about ER usage. ER usage went up after Obamacare. Nothing. This is crazy. Okay. Here's another quote from the piece. Again, to show you the cascade of horrors coming out of Obamacare and the Medicaid expansion. I bet liberals will still defend it. Now, Medi-Cal patients with minor maladies, Joe, are inundating ERs, inundating, excuse me, where they get free care and take up beds needed

for patients who actually require emergency treatment. He says that this is, they interviewed someone, he says a sister hospital had so many Medi-Cal patients streaming in during flu season that it had to erect a tent outside the hospital. This is a tremendous waste of resources, I'm still quoting, since a visit to the ER costs five times as much as an appointment with a primary care physician. But California has little reason to care since Washington pays most of the bill.

Folks, the government can't get its head out of its own caboose. Now, you want some more numbers? Because I promised you this at the beginning of the show about how bad Medicaid and Medicare are. On Medicare alone. The trustee report, by the way, these are non-politicians. The trustee report for Medicare. The reserves are going to be exhausted, the Medicare reserves, by 2028. So we have 11 years.

There's no money left. Okay? Is this scary enough yet? Medicare and Social Security, currently 40% of government spending. Part A, the hospital portion of Medicare, lost a staggering $128 billion between 2008 and 2014. Kathleen Sebelius, the former HHS secretary under Obama, HHS secretary, excuse me, acknowledged that they're double counting the Obamacare taxes towards Medicare

and towards Obamacare. In other words, the taxes that Obamacare levied on Americans, they're using them to pay for Obamacare subsidies and Medicare, and they're double counting them. Medicare. Medicare for all would cost 32 trillion dollars

28 trillion dollars Medicare has an unfunded liabilities over the next 75 years 28 trillion dollars in unfunded obligations 10% of the Medicare budget is fraud but again liberals will use that as a marker for success

explain those away Libs and for what I said to the caller on the show is yeah you think there's no free market alternative that exists that could take care of the Medicare population? And the guy said, well, it doesn't exist. Well, I said, well, of course it wouldn't exist because the way it's run now,

they have 28 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Every other company would be out of business. They would actually have to run a program that works. Here's some Medicaid numbers. Medicaid overall, not just Medi-Cal, Medicaid over the whole country, covers over 70 million people. It was 9% of state budgets in 1989, Joe.

It's over 20% now. They had a 50-50 cost split. Now the federal government and the expansion pays 100% for new patients, 90% after 2020. A third of doctors in the country admit they won't take new Medicaid patients. This is rationing by price. The price is so low, the care gets rationed. The asset test has gone away, and a University of Virginia study on Medicaid shows you're 13% more likely to die on Medicaid after surgery than someone who had zero insurance at all. Sounds like a great program, doesn't it, folks? But liberals will defend it.

All right. Quickly on this Sessions thing, I wanted to bring this up and moving on, but that was a lot of data crunched into one, what was that, about 40 minutes of content right there. about hiring Sessions as the Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, the Senator from Alabama, because Sessions immediately recused himself from the Russia investigation when it was discovered that Sessions, shocker here, Joe, as a U.S. Senator, had a meeting with a Russian ambassador. So it was just a dumb story. Now, I just, because people ask me my opinion on these things, I'm going to give it to you quick and I'm going to move on. I don't think Sessions sort of recused himself. I think it was a really bad call. I think it was a bad decision. Having said that again, I think Sessions is an honorable man, a very honorable man. People I know who know Jeff Sessions, I don't know him, swear by his character and his principles. Doesn't

mean you have to agree with every decision, but he's a good man. I think it was a mistake. I think Trump saying that was a mistake. And I've always tried to be straight shooter with you all. I like a lot of what Trump's doing, but I think it was a big mistake. You just can't throw your guys under the bus like that. It was a bad call. The recusal from the Russia investigation by the attorney general. I agree,

but I don't think that was a wise decision. I'll leave it at that. Okay. One more quick thing. And then we're going to wrap it up. But did you sign up for CRTV yet? If you haven't, please do. Go to CRTV.com.

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Take it with you. It's terrific. I love it. I watch it all day. I keep it up on my computer. I hit refresh when the shows come up. Go to CRTV.com, put in promo code Bongino. That's B-O-N-G-I-N-O. You'll get $10 off. It adds up to about the cost of a New York City turkey sandwich per month. It's super cheap, especially compared to the ridiculous amounts you're paying for cable

for a lot of crap content. We have the best conservative content out there. Go check it out. CRTV.com. Use promo code Bongino. Hey, one last thing in the show notes today. I'm putting up a piece from my friends over at Get Liberty, Rick Manning over there in that group. They do a really good job. And it calls your attention to two United States senators who are selling you out. And I don't really particularly enjoy Republican on Republican political attacks, but folks, the Republican Party's dying. It's dying. We have political strength and ideological weakness, and that's a match made in hell. We had two United States senators, Shelley Moore Capito from West Virginia and Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, who in 2015 voted for a straight repeal of

Obamacare. Why? Because they knew Barack Obama was in office and there was no political penalty for them to face, so they didn't have to face an ideological fight. Now there's a straight repeal vote coming up in Capito from West Virginia. Both Republicans, by the way, Murkowski of Alaska are saying they are going to vote no. Read this piece on Get Liberty. It's a short piece, but it's pretty damning. You need to call their office if you're in their district and tell them they are absolutely, if they are to support you and support your votes and your donations and your time when you supported them, that they are to vote for repeal of Obamacare. They are absolutely to vote. This is an ideological sellout of the highest order. All right, go give it a look. Shelley Moore Capito from West Virginia

and Lisa Murkowski. These are Republicans that already voted for repeal. Stand up, do something, have some principles. All right, folks, thanks again for tuning in. I'll see you all tomorrow.