The Eric Metaxas Show - #189 - Daniel Fazzina

Episode Date: August 26, 2026

Today On The Eric Metaxas Show, Daniel Fazzina joins Eric to discuss his book Divine Intervention: 50 True Stories of God’s Miracles Today and the extraordinary experiences that led him to begin collecting modern miracle testimonies. Fazzina shares his own stories of unexpected healing and cancer treatment, along with accounts of a man declared dead after a heart attack who later recovered and another who survived being shot between the eyes. Eric and Daniel discuss prayer, healing, skepticism, and why Christians should remain open to God working in unexpected ways. Later, Chapter CEO Cobi Blumenfeld-Gantz joins Eric to explain the complexity of Medicare and why choosing the right coverage can be so difficult.⭐ ORDER NOW:Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World📕: https://a.co/d/0ir3NlapTODAY'S SPONSORS:🪙 Grace Precious Metals: https://www.metaxasmetals.com/🛏️ MyPillow — Save BIG with code ERIC: https://www.mypillow.com/☀️ Honest, fast, and free Medicare plan guidance: https://askchapter.com/metaxas/0:00 Daniel Fazzina Joins1:05 Divine Intervention And Modern Miracles2:42 Fazzina’s Unexpected Healing From Back Pain8:42 The Grapefruit-Sized Tumor14:33 Can We Prove A Healing Was Miraculous?15:42 50 Stories Of Divine Intervention19:08 A Former Jihadist’s Conversion Story24:01 Declared Dead Then A Doctor Prayed27:37 Shot Between The Eyes And Survived- -LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE:    / @ericmetaxas  #EricMetaxas #TheEricMetaxasShow #News #PoliticsChapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options.

Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca.ca. Hey there folks. Welcome to the program. I have as my guest right now, Daniel Fazina, does that sound like an ethnic name like Metaxus? That's because it is. Daniel Fizzina's been on the

program before he's the host of his own radio show. He talks about the miraculous. And I happen to know that miracles actually happen. I've experienced them many times. I've written a book about them. I have many friends that I experience genuine miracles, not sort of miracles. Daniel Fazzino, welcome back. Hey, Eric, it's so wonderful to be back with you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm glad you're here to talk about this because we haven't talked enough about this recently on this program.

We used to do a Miracle Monday on the program. Your new book is called Divine Intervention. Is that right? Yes, 50 true stories of God's. miracles today. The audiobook version is coming out very soon, so we're doing a special launch for that. And incidentally, one of the amazing miracle testimonies in there is called The Golden Fish by Eric Metaxus of all people. Yeah. I mean, that's the first miracle, the real miracle that I experienced. And I know that that story is in your book. And I think, you know, until you experience a miracle, a lot of people don't believe that

miracles happen today. But when it happens to you, you realize, I don't know what to say, but there's no doubt this is real, you know, and, and again, I don't mean sort of miracles. I mean, miracles that you just know, there's no doubt that that was God. And I think people need to be encouraged. I mean, it's why I wrote my book miracles. I said, people need to know, this is real. This is real. And we can't guarantee when God's going to show up, but don't pretend that we live in a world where he doesn't show up anymore because he does. So what, for For those that aren't familiar with you, what is your background? What led you to talking about miracles into the new book, Divine Intervention, 50 True Stories of God's Miracles Today? What is your story?

Well, I grew up on Long Island, New York, going to Lutheran Church, and I kind of, you know, grew up in that tradition. You know, went to church weekly, and I was baptized and catechized and pasteurized and homogenized. I don't think I fully understood what God wanted for me until I was about 14. That's when I really prayed to accept the Lord and become born again. And then I started to experience, answer prayers that, hey, you know, this is more than religion. God is personal and he cares about us. So I started growing in my faith. And I really had two healing miracles that took place that really took my faith ahead.

The first was healed of chronic back pain. I had back pain for 10 years stemming from a torn cartilage ring that was bulging out. So from the time I was 16 to 26, I had pain every day, whether I sat or stood for any length of time. It wasn't severe, it was mild to moderate. But I was healed at a prayer meeting with some guys from my church. You know, they dedicated an afternoon to prayer to Jesus for physical healing. And, you know, at that point, Eric, I had had many people pray over me. And I just figured I would have to, you know, nothing at how.

happened yet, but I figured I would have to live with the pain the rest of my life, but I wasn't going to turn down prayer. So I said, well, you know, I'll see what happens. And, and God chose that moment to take the pain away. That was 2001. Now, how did that, was that, you know, did it seem miraculous at the time? Did you get a warm feeling? Did you get it like, how? Well, you know, I'm always curious about the nuts and bolts, the details of these stories. Because to me, sometimes, that's what's so fascinating is the details. Because you just said, you had had people pray for you many times. Nothing happened.

Right. So, right. And that's the experience of most people. Like, I've had people pray for me for all kinds of stuff. Nothing happens. So the logical conclusion is nothing will ever happen. But you're telling us that at some point, one more time, somebody prays for you. So what happened?

Yes. So we were at a hotel, Montauk Manor on Montauk Point, Long Island, Eastern Long Island. there's about 40 guys in this hotel meeting room, and they said, all right, we're going to dedicate this afternoon to prayer to Jesus for physical healing. So if you have any issues, come to the front of the room, we'll pray for you.

So I'm online to go to the front of the room, Eric, and there's all these guys praying for each other, laying hands on each other and stuff. And my friend Dave was online next to me, and he says, Daniel, what are you going to ask for prayer for? And I said, well, my back, because I've had this problem all these years. And it was right then, Eric, the pain disappeared.

I was bending and twisting, and I realized, like, hey, I don't feel it. anymore. It was gone. And I believe it was just an atmosphere of healing and God chose that moment to heal me and take the pain away. So, wait a second. So this is the weirdness of God. I love this, right? Because you're not making this up. This is not the normal story you would tell. Right. You're telling you this is before they even prayed. In other words, you're in a room where people are praying for healing and there's an atmosphere. There's something going on. Right. Your intention is to go get prayer and as you're telling your friend something happens yes no one had even touched me at that

point no one had laid hands on me and i'm bending and i'm twisting and i'm like i i don't feel it anymore what's wrong what's wrong why it was why don't i have yeah i i you know like i said i i didn't have any expectation at that point my faith was shaky honestly i was just like well you know what's one more time it can't hurt right didn't have any expectation at all and then god's shows up and surprises me. And I was like, wow, you know, thank you, Lord. This is, you know, it took my faith ahead because sometimes we have to persist. Sometimes we don't get the healing we want immediately and it's a process or, or God's timing. It's just, who can understand the mind of God? We all know he can do it. What's the purpose in it? And what's the timing? Sometimes,

like I said, it takes time or, you know, you got to keep persisting. Sometimes it's the faith of not your faith but the faith of your friends around you you know like when jesus um you know when the disciples were carrying the uh the paralytic and they had to let lower him down through the roof to jesus you know i don't know whether the paralytic had faith but his friends surely did and they brought him into the presence of jesus and he healed them so it was kind of like that well i mean i love the again the the quirkiness of this and again my my attitude is like it's the weirdness of god that proves the reality of God because a lot of times, you know, if you want this cookie cutter thing, you'd say, well, that's like, it seems like people made that up. Nobody would make up the story

you just told. That's so weird that you don't even get prayer. You just have the intention to get prayer. You tell your friend and then you're healed. And you think, well, that doesn't make any sense. That's what is that? And I really think that's part of acknowledging the reality of God. God's reality is so far bigger than what we can continue. conceived that it really is humbling in a way and beautiful, but that that is just not the story that anybody would make up, you know, that that's clearly extraordinary. And I think I also feel like I should say that, you know, it's not that God guarantees every one of us to be healed or to be delivered from whatever it is. I mean, there are things that we will be healed when we

see him face to face. I mean, we don't know. But he does call us to ask and ask and ask and to pray in faith and he'll do what he's going to do. You know, and I think that we, but we do need to be encouraged. Whenever I hear the story of somebody being miraculously healed, I get encouraged. I think we need to be encouraged because the reality in which we live, the secular world, miracles don't happen. Everybody knows. It doesn't happen.

Right. And then you hear stories that it did. I mean, it happened to me so many times. you've experienced it, you've written about it. I mean, the book is Divine Intervention, 52 stories of God's miracles today. But you've been talking about miracles for years before you published this new book.

You have a podcast. How do people find your podcast? Divine InterventionRadio.com. Divine intervention radio.com is the radio show. And, you know, Eric, you asked me about how I got into it. And the second miracle, I didn't even get to, but in 2002, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a massive tumor inside my chest.

It was the size of my heart, grapefruit size, right above my heart. It was actually larger than my heart at one point. And it was so large, it was crushing my pulmonary artery. So I wasn't getting enough oxygen. And I was literally suffocating to death. And doctor said, you know, we'll give you treatment for medicine. It's inoperable. We're not sure if it's going to respond, but if it doesn't,

you'll be dead within three weeks to three months. And Eric, that was 24 years ago coming up on my anniversary. And God chose he saw fit to heal me because I was in the hospital bed, Eric, literally suffocating to death. And I was a broken man. I could not heal myself, could not fix myself. I was just thrown on the mercy of God. And I said, Lord, I know I'm your child. If you want to take me, I'll go with you.

The Bible says that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. And I believe that. But I said, Lord, do you want to heal me and let me live? I would just do my best to continue to serve you and tell people about your goodness and your love and your grace and your mercy and your power. And there was a long story, but, you know, they were going to give me six rounds of chemo once a month. And I had a lot of other different types of treatments as well, alternative therapies. And a lot of people praying for me, prophesying to me saying, Daniel, this thing was born to die. It's going to be a testimony to the Lord.

And I took all that. And Eric, they took a halfway point scan to see if the tumor had shrunk at all. They were hoping it would be smaller. And when that scan came back, it was completely negative. Gone. No more cancer in my body, no more tumor. The cardiologist who had read my original echocardiogram, he remembered me. I went to see him a year later.

He had never met me, but he remembered my case because he said it was so dramatic. He made it a test case. and he showed it to all the students. He said, not only is it amazing that the tumor disappeared, but it didn't even leave any scar tissue behind. He said, normally when tumors retract, they leave scar tissue, but mine was completely clean. And it was that healing when I started to go back to work

and share what I went through with my mostly non-believing coworkers. They were incredulous. And I said, well, if you think what I went through was amazing, you just hear about my friend's stories. And I started sharing the testimonies of other people I knew because I've been a follower of Jesus first. so long. I know so many people have had miracles. And that's kind of what led me into collecting the stories for divine intervention and sharing them with a broken and hurting world in desperately

needing of hope. Today's show is brought to you by Grace precious metals. In an industry that can be confusing, Grace believes in doing business differently with Christian values, transparent pricing and a focus on straightforward gold and silver bullion, not high markup collectible. coins. They even publish their spreads directly on their website so you can see the numbers before speaking with anyone. Learn whether physical precious metals may fit your financial plans at metaxis metals.com. That's metaxis metals.com. Well, let me ask you to go back, what year was it that you had this miracle with the tumor? 2002. Okay, so this is right after, a year after you had the miracle with the back. Yes, I was only 27 years old, had never been seriously ill before, you know, and this kind of came out of nowhere.

You know, again, the crazy weirdness of God that you're healed from a back thing. Hey, praise the Lord, hallelujah. And then you get this massive, literally, life-threatening tumor in your chest. Yes. And so what are the details of that? You had begun to get treatment for it? It wasn't clear to me how that's how that miracle happened. Yeah, so the doctors wanted to give me six rounds of chemotherapy. Again, they said they weren't sure if it would respond. But again, if it didn't, I would be dead within weeks to months, three months at the most they gave me. And I was going through, I had a lot of different other types of treatments as well, intravenous, vitamins and minerals, latrural, acupuncture, physical therapy, chiropractic. I mean, you name it. I hit it with everything I knew how to. And again, a lot of people praying for me, anointeons.

to me with oil, you know, declaring that this thing was born to die, all of that. And I went through the chemo. And then at the three month mark, they gave me a halfway point scan. And like I said, they were hoping the tumor would be smaller. But instead, it came back completely negative. Just done. Everything was done. With no scar tissue.

Correct. And I actually put the scans in my book. I don't know if you can see it here, but there's a before. Yes. There's a before, it's hard to see, but there's two black spots in my chest cavity. The bottom one is my heart. The one above it is the tumor. And then a few months later, there's a scan completely negative, just my heart.

And, you know, I went through great lengths in the case of medical miracles to include documentation in this book for the skeptic or someone who may be just, you know, on the fence about it. So you can see x-rays and doctors reports from like the Mayo Clinic. in Rochester, Minnesota, and Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and other places like that, I thought it would go a long way to help someone who's open-minded at least consider that these are real. These are documented and God is good. Well, and in the case of your situation, you can't really prove that's a miracle. People could say, well, it was all the therapy that was done. We don't know.

We don't know. And I think that's what's interesting to me is that every case is different. Some cases, it's obviously miraculous. Other cases, we would guess that God is involved because when you hear the details. But there's so many different kinds of miracles. God is a bespoke God. He deals with us on an individual basis. Everybody has his own story.

But you and I are obviously, we're really interested in this because it is, we live in a world that pretends like there is no such thing. Like, God is not real and we don't have miracles and get over it. And you think, well, I know so many people that have experienced crazy miracles. So, I mean, I wrote about them, as I mentioned in my own book on miracles, because I thought, I know these are true stories. Like, this is not like, hey, who knows. I mean, I know. I know the people.

I got all the details. That's what you do in your book. And your book is divine intervention. Is it divine intervention? divine intervention, 50 true stories of God's miracles today. And yeah, there's all kinds of things in there, not only healings,

but conversion experiences, near-death experiences. There's even several people in there have been raised from the dead that I include in there. And I just love the diversity of the stories and they're from all over the world. And, you know, your story, Eric,

the golden fish, it brings me to tears. Every time I read it or hear it on the audiobook, just the way that, how Dodd is so personal. He spoke to you so personally in a dream and you were converted overnight. That's incredible to me.

I mean, it's kind of like your story with the back issue. Like you wouldn't make it up. You couldn't make it up. You just go, what the heck? I don't know what to make of it, except I know it's real. That's all I can say.

And I mean, I marvel at it. The older I get, the more I marvel at it. Like, wow, what God did. Why did he do that? Why did he do it that way? You know, and we can answer some of it, but mostly we simply don't know. There's a great mystery in that. I think about the way my wife found Jesus.

She was in a restaurant in Colorado, and some friends were like, hey, you want us to pray with you to accept Jesus? And she was like, okay, you know, okay. And they prayed. And she had an experience of like feeling. like molten gold was being cored into, she felt something significant, different. Wow.

And she was changed forever from a prayer in a restaurant. She was like, okay, I'm open to that. We don't know why God does it this way and that way and that way, but we need to know the stories. We need to know God is in the business of doing miracles.

Our job is just to pray and to have expectant hearts. And I think this is why I hope people will get your book, Divine Intervention, because we need to be encouraged, folks. We need to be reminded over and over and over of the truth because you live in a world that reminds you over and over and over of how God doesn't exist, how this stuff never happens, except that's not true. And so we need to push against it with the truth, not just with reading the Bible, but with

surrounding ourselves with people telling our stories of faith, reading their stories of faith. And you have an audiobook coming out on this. That is correct. Yes, it's on Audible. It's amazing how God brought all these people together. So most audiobooks have only one narrator. Divine Intervention, 50 true stories of God's miracles today ended up with 32 different narrators for the 50 different stories, all with authentic accents from Africa, New Zealand, England, all over the place. And in some cases, the people who experienced the miracles narrated their own stories, which is really cool. So you can hear directly from the miracle experiencer themselves in some cases. So I'm just so thrilled the way it's come out. And I'm very excited about it.

We're doing a big launch on September 12th in Ciasit, New York at Shelter Rock Church. So if anyone's local and they want to come out for that, we're going to hear about five or six different testimonies that are featured in the book. The speakers are going to be there live sharing their stories, including Mr. Kamal Saleem, who was the keynote speaker. Do you know Kamal, Eric? I do not. You do not. He is a former PLO terrorist who was a warlord. I mean, sold out for Islamic jihad. He worked with and for such notorious figures as Saddam Hussein, Moimar Gaddafi, Yasser Arafat. He knew all those guys. Came to America to do culture jihad here, and God got a hold of him powerfully. And he had like a Damascus Road type experience where the Lord actually appeared to him. And so he gave up.

Radical Islam and became a follower of Jesus, and he's been an evangelist now for a couple of several decades. And so he's going to be there sharing his testimony. He's featured in my book as well, along with many other amazing stories, such as the Golden Fish, one of my favorites. I just love the way how God spoke to you so personally in the secret of your heart. Yeah, that's the title that if I preach on it, which I haven't recently because I'm talking about so many other things, but I always call it the secret vocabulary of God. God knows the secret vocabulary of your heart. He knows how to speak to you and to me in a way that no one else could ever know.

It's intensely personal. And that in my case, that's why I knew it was God because there's just no other way that this could be, you know, my brain couldn't have come up with that story. It's just absolutely astonishing, utterly, obviously miraculous. And it changed my life overnight. And I think that we just shrug, we go, Lord, you're God and I'm not. And I know you're real.

And I'm so grateful for that. And I think that that carries us through the pain and the difficulties of life because I have had pain and struggles and do now. And I know that you do. We all are walking through this valley of veil of tears that there's difficulty. And yet the Lord is with us. And we need to know that he's with us and that he walks with us. and that he walks with us. And then when you have that personal experience with him,

it really changes everything, folks. And so if somebody listening right now who says, well, I think I believe in God or I want to believe in God, I would say to you with my friend Ed Tuttle, who led me to Jesus, what he said to me early in 1988, he says, Eric, why don't you ask God to reveal himself to you? I say that to people. You don't need to know anything.

You just need to do that. Just say, God, if you're real, please reveal yourself to me. And just ask him to do that. And he will do that in his way, in his time, because he wants you to know him personally. That's the key, personally. So that people can't argue you out of it because you're like, you can say all you want. I know God personally. I don't know what to tell you.

I know him. That's very. I've experienced him. That's really at the heart of what we're talking about. And I think it's a big reason that God operates miraculously because he wants us to know. he is alive, he is real, he's not just some intellectual construct, you know, he's the ground of all being, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, he's all that, but he's also a personal loving God who wants to speak with you and love you and walk with you through life. That's really the heart of all this stuff.

And I think that that's why it's important that we know about these experiences. Now, I don't know who can get to this event in Sias at New York. I live in New York, and I'm going to be out of town, of course the day you do this. But I love the idea that you're having an event. And you said that the man you just mentioned will be speaking at that. Yes, Kamal Selim, he will be the keynote speaker. Lauren Green, the chief religion correspondent from Fox News.

She's going to be the MC, our mutual friend. I think I ran into it at one of her Christmas parties one year. Yes, that's, and I always have to joke around whenever I hear Lauren Green, Lauren Green, I think of Lauren Green from the Ponderosa. But no, it's not Lauren Green. It's Lauren, Lauren Green. She's the religion correspondent for Fox News. She's a dear friend.

But I think, is there a website where people can find you and find this information if they want to come to this event? Yeah, for tickets, you can go to events. Dot of Heaven.com, artofheaven.com and just go to the events tab. It'll also be up on divine intervention radio.com. My website is undergoing construction right now, but it should be ready in time for the event. but again, art of heaven.com. Arc, A-R-K-of-Haven.com. No, no, A-R-T, art.

Oh, art of heaven. See, that's why I clarify. Art of heaven.com events. Okay. And Daniel Oursch, Wazina. So in Sciasset. So what other stories are there in? Because there's so many stories just in moments we have left.

Give us an example of some of the other stories that are. You said there are people raised from the dead. Yes, there are several, actually. You may be familiar with Jeff Marken. Jeff. Don't know that one. All right. Well, he's an auto mechanic in Florida, and he was in 2006, he was having chest pain,

drove himself to the Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center, walked in and collapsed at the check-in desk with a massive heart attack. The ER team rushed out there, and they surrounded them, did CPR, shocked. him seven times, Eric. They paged Dr. Chauncey Randall, the head cardiologist, he was on call that day. It took Dr. Crandall about 30 minutes to get down downstairs to see Jeff. And by the time he got there, he found the scene chaotic. Jeff had turned black from cyanosis, lack of oxygen. He was without oxygen for over 30 minutes. Dr. Crandall reviewed all the paperwork and determined that they did all the proper protocols. He declared him dead, filled

out the paperwork. And, you know, he was leaving Jeff's body and he was stopped in his tracks by the voice of the Lord. And he said, go back and pray for that man. And he didn't want to do it at first for fear of looking foolish. A second time, the Lord told him, go back and pray for him. So Dr. Crandall turned around, went back and prayed over Jeff's body. And he said, Now, we got to be clear, because Dr. Crannell's talked about this program, sorry on this program. They were preparing this body for the morgue, folks. Yeah. They were preparing the body for the morgue. So this is very embarrassing to go back and say, excuse me, you know that dead corpse there? I would like to take another crack at this and maybe we can hit him with the paddles one more time.

This is insanity unless God told you to do it. God told him to do it. Yes. And, you know, there was a nurse on the other side of Jeff's body. They had taken all the tubes and everything out. And he prayed over his body and said, I cry out for this man's soul. If he doesn't know you, Lord, raise him right now in the name of Jesus. And there was another doctor who just came in. He said, you got to shock this guy one more time. And the guy's like, what are you talking about? The guy is dead.

You know, you declared him dead. He's like, listen, just do this one more time. So he persuaded the guy. They shocked him one more time for the eighth time. And immediately he pulled a perfect heartbeat on the monitor. Everybody's shocked. They're freaking out. They're like, oh my gosh.

So they start stabilizing him, rush him to the emergency department. They thought he'd be, you know, a brain, you know, brain damage or a vegetable. But it turned out he ended up walking out of that hospital about a month later, make a full recovery, gave his life to Jesus. Actually, Dr. Crandall led him to the Lord in the hospital.

And today, 20 years later, Jeff is on fire for the Lord. He's saved. He's walking with the Lord. He's starting to share his testimony. And I'm just so proud of him. just the growth that he's had. And so he's going to be at my event on September 12th as well at Shelter Rock Church and Sias at New York.

He's going to be sharing the testimony there. Incredible. Yeah, I'm just, I'm so thrilled and I'm so proud of him how he's grown since then. And so, yes, his book or his testimony is also featured in divine intervention, 50 true stories of God's miracles today. Incredible. And so that's the evening of September 12th. It's going to be in the morning, Saturday, September 12th, yeah, pretty much all day, a conference at Shelter Rock Church.

Right. Yeah. Incredible. Well, praise God. Well, so give us one more story from the book before we let you go. Sure. One that I really love to tell is my friend Josh Bender. Josh was shot between the eyes at point-blank range.

The bullet went in, bridge of his nose, somehow missed his brain, ended up in the back. of his neck and you know he went on to make a full recovery and the doctors who took the x-rays and scans couldn't figure out how the bullet ended up in the back of his neck without going through his brain and either leaving a vegetable or killing him and the doctor who took the scan said well i'm going to have to go back to church i can't explain this you know it was a miracle in his eyes and Josh had the bullet in the back of his neck for about 15 years or so until they surgically removed it. But I have a picture of it in the book.

You can see the x-ray with the bullet in the back of his neck, and he went on to make a full recovery and serve God as well. It's just, you know, things like that. He knew it was a miracle. He should not have survived that. But he said he doesn't know how God did it, but God showed up somehow. and he's alive to this day to share his testimony.

And what year was that? He got shot in 1994, and he had the bullet in his neck until about 2014, 2014, something like that. Well, I mean, honestly, these stories are just unbelievable, unbelievable, except they're true. Except they're true. And my story's in there.

So we're going to let you go, but we're so grateful for your ministry, Daniel Fazina. And also, folks, you can go to divine intervention radio.com. I think it's important that we encourage ourselves by hearing these stories and by living in a world where this stuff happens because it does. But you need to hear it. You need to surround yourself by people with people who know this is real, who talk about it. There's something about that. So Daniel Fazina, Divine Intervention, Radio.com, the new book, Divine Intervention.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Eric. I really appreciate you. You're such a gracious and curious host. I appreciate that about you. Thank you. My pillow's second annual mega sale is finally here. Get our patented premium My Pillows that adjust your exact individual needs to give you the best sleep of your life.

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Plus, free shipping options available when you order today. So don't delay order now. Hey there, folks. Welcome back. I want to introduce you to one of our sponsors. We've talked about them before in the past, but we've not met the CEO. And I always feel, you know, it's a nice thing if I could meet them. But it's even nicer if you could meet them.

the company is chapter they're the folks that help us navigate the Medicare quagmire and Kobe lumenthal Gans is my guest right now he's the CEO Kobe welcome the program thank you so for having me well you look way younger than you're supposed to what's going on with you I appreciate that I do look younger than I am but I am not of Medicare age if that's if that's that you're implying. Neither am I, but I still look older than you. Now, it's, because we're talking about Medicare, I have to start, you know, with the stupid joke thing. You are, you don't seem like somebody who has navigated the world of Medicare, and yet that's exactly what you're all about. So before I actually let you answer that question, let me ask you, tell a little bit about

your story. Where do you live? What do you come from? How did you get to be doing what you're doing right now? Yeah, and thank you for having me. I grew up in a very small town in North Carolina in eastern North Carolina, moved to the suburbs of New York City when I was about eight and grew up there. I currently live in New York. Of New York, Westchester County. Never heard of it. I've heard of it. Yeah.

No, of course. That's, well, it's good to know. So we're basically local as far as I can see then. All right. Keep going. Exactly. I live in New York City now. Love, love the energy of the city.

and before starting chapter a few years ago, I really started my career in software at a large technology company building data systems for the U.S. government. So I've been in and around government bureaucracies and government data systems for the better part of a decade now. Wow. So obviously, now, there's so many people watching right now

who have dealt with the Medicare quagmire, as I'm calling it. because it is very complicated. It shouldn't be complicated. And as people, I guess a lot of people until you hit 65, you're not thinking about it. So, of course, this is 25 or 30 years in my future. But for those people who are approaching that number, I want them to know about chapter, first of all. So in a minute, I'll tell them how to find you and everything.

But what, do me a favor. And for people who aren't yet thinking about this, walk my audience through what happens as you, at 65 or you're approaching 65. What are you facing? What is this? You know, because if you face it, you don't even know that there's a quag fire. That's kind of I want to be proactive in talking about it. Exactly.

And as you said, most people don't really engage with Medicare until they have to or if they've seen their parents go through it or grandparents. And that was my experience. I saw my parents going through the Medicare process. And that's what really opened my eyes to the quagmire that people face as they turn 65 or retire. But every single American, when they approach retirement or turn 65, has to deal with Medicare in some way. That might be a decision to not sign up for Medicare if you're still working. But for most people, it's a serious decision to know whether they should sign up for a Medicare plan or not. if they should sign up for Medicare, which plan? And there are lots of different types of Medicare

options. Most people just think, oh, there's Medicare. It's automatic. It's the government. I've been paying for it my whole career. It must just work. That's unfortunately not the way it works. There are a lot of decisions people have to make. And that's really why I start a chapter to help people make that, make those set of decisions much more simply and with much more confidence. Now, I guess I want to say up front, the reason I'm talking to you and not to somebody else is because I trust you and I trust chapter because I should say it's come to my attention that there are lots of companies that purport to do what you're doing. But my guess is they're getting something out of it and it's a little complicated. So I feel this is a very serious decision

for people and they need to be able to talk to people that they genuinely trust that they have their best interests in mind. And so what was it that? made you see that this is something that you want to get into get into what was it the process of watching your parents navigate this it really was i saw my my mom in particular worked with a local medicare broker as you said there are a lot of medicare agents out there she got really bad advice and now has to pay lifetime part d enrollment penalties so if you sign up too late the government imposes lifetime penalties on you so that to incentivize people to sign up at the right time. So there are a lot of consequences to this. And then on top of that,

her whole experience was really painful. She had to call the Social Security Office numerous times. She had to fax documents. And as someone who works in technology, I just looked at this and I was wondering, what is going on here? This makes no sense to me. And that's really what opened my eyes to the entire process and how broken it is. And then to your other point, most or really all Medicare advisors in this country are agents of the insurance carrier. They are not agents of the consumer. What we've done a chapter is that. That is cute.

That's like that's the breaking news. That's the headline. So in other words, people support to be doing what you're doing. Like, oh, we're here to help you navigate. Work for whom exactly?

They work for the insurance carrier, contractually and legally. Right. And it is, it is the biggest issue in my mind in Medicare today. And I've testified at the Senate about this. I have been working with Congress to try to pass new regulations that prevent Medicare advisors from representing insurance carriers and force them to represent consumers.

But unfortunately, that's not the state of the world today. And unless you have the resources like a company like Chapter has, unless you put consumers first, and unless you build your own data and technology so that you can get access to the data you need to recommend the right plan for each person, it's very challenging, if not impossible for others to do this. So, and obviously that's what you've been doing. This is why we're talking to you. I should just tell people if they're interested now.

The website is askchapter.org. Askchapter.org slash metaxus. Askchapter.org slash metaxus. And there's a phone number. I'll give that in just a moment. I guess my question, a couple of questions. First of all, what are some of the common mistakes? I mean, suddenly, you know, people are facing this thing? What are some of the, you just mentioned, you know, your own family, what they're dealing with? Suddenly, you sign a piece of paper and, whoops, now you're going to be fine forever. What are some of the common mistakes, other mistakes that people make when they sign up for Medicare? That's something that's not optimal for them and that's done. The most common is people just don't do anything. They don't realize that they have to take action. And so they either miss their enrollment window or they get defaulted into a plan or into a setup that's not the best for them.

So that's definitely the most common. Second most common is people assume that Medicare Advantage, which is one type of Medicare plan, is really the only type of Medicare plan. And so they sign up for a Medicare Advantage plan, which may or may not be right for them. The reason that Medicare Advantage is so heavily promoted, there are all these ads, is because insurance carriers will pay more for a Medicare Advantage enrollment than for a different type of Medicare enrollment. So last Q4, for example, almost 10,000 ads ran per day trying to get people to sign up for Medicare Advantage plans.

And so that creates a lot of misinformation in people's minds for reasonable reasons. and it makes it really hard to know what's going on, who to trust. And then I think the, or go ahead. No, I was just going to say, I've looked at, you know, it seems to me, from what little I've looked into it, that it is very complicated. There are, there's almost like an infinite number of options available. And so I guess my first question is, how did it get so complicated? I mean, the whole idea is Medicare's set up a long time ago to help older people.

How did it get so complicated so that now we need? you know, seriously good advice or we can get in trouble. Medicare was initially passed in 1965 by LBGA. It was a much simpler system at the time, to your point. Over the last 60, 70 years, the number of options have dramatically increased. And under the Clinton administration, there was this new concept of Medicare Advantage, which is privately administered but publicly funded Medicare plans. And that's really when the complexity starts.

ballooning. And today, because Medicare is such a large component of our economy, it's almost a trillion dollars a year. That's the amount that the government spends on Medicare. So when you have such a large amount of money and such an important piece of our health care and our health insurance system, there are going to be a lot of private companies that go in wanting to help and wanting to make a buck. And so that has created a lot of complexity for individuals. the additional component here is there's not really good regulation, as I said, that puts consumers first here. So people are in these Medicare brokerages and the insurance carriers are incentivized to make things complicated. I'll give you a very simple example.

Today, the way the regulatory regime is set up, it is illegal for me to post all the Medicare plan information I have online. I have, Chapter has the best Medicare plan information. One of the common questions we get is why don't we just post it all online. It is illegal for me to do that. Okay, hold on. We're going to go to a break, and I just want to talk to you more. But let me remind people again, you can go to askchapter.org slash metaxis. Askchapter.org slash metaxus.

Or is the phone number 571, 421, 1253. Again, the phone number is the best. 571, 421, 1253, or askchapter.org slash metaxis. Be right back. I just decided I want to write a book on the American Revolution because this is extremely important. Unless Americans know our story, we cannot possibly continue to keep the Republic. Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk.

Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca. Welcome back. Kobe Blumenthal. Gantz is my guest. he is the CEO of Chapter, which is a sponsor of this program. These are the folks that help you navigate the confusing quagmire, unfortunately, that Medicare has come. So, Kobe, you were just saying that there are these weird rules.

Whenever you deal up with the government, weird rules, you said that there's a law that you, for example, cannot helpfully post a lot of stuff about this online. That doesn't seem, you would think that transparency would be a good thing. Like, hey, here's some stuff people can read, but they won't let you do that. That's right. It was one of the most surprising things I learned when we started the company. It is perfectly legal for me to tell someone over the phone all the information about the options in their area, and that's what we do every day.

It is not legal for me to post that same information online without getting every single insurance carrier to approve of exactly what I want to post NCMS at the government to approve it. And of course, for me to get all of those approvals is not going to happen because the insurance carriers are not incentivized to make that information transparent. So it's one of these things. The intent of the regulation is to minimize risk so that people don't post deceptive information. There's, you know, there's some integrated logic to it. But the implication is that it's very hard for consumers to get transparent information. I mean, I just have to say it's fascinating. This sounds like the definition of bureaucracy.

You don't need to read Kafka. Don't read Kafka. I don't recommend it. But it's Kafka asks, it's labyrinthine, it's confusing. It's dehumanizing. Let's just put it there. That's what bureaucracy tends to be dehumanizing. And so it's one of the reasons that I just love the fact that people can pick up the phone and talk to somebody a chapter.

And it's why I'm warmly recommending they do that because it's one thing to talk to a person on the phone that's nice. But sometimes talking to people on the phone is not so nice. If it's people that you can actually trust. And so obviously, folks, I'm suggesting that if you have questions that you call up our friends at chapter, I'll give you the number again because that's even better than the website. It's 571, 421, 12, 153, 571, 421, 1,253. So what is the typical experience that people have? In other words, I assume that your goal is to steer them to a plan that's optimal for them.

So talk us through some of that. Our goal is to make sure people have the right health coverage, whether that's on Medicare or not. So if you are on your employer coverage and that remains the best for you, you're not leaving your job, you're remaining employed, we'll tell you that. We aren't going to try to switch you to Medicare if that's not appropriate for you. For most people, though, switching onto Medicare is actually the right decision for their health coverage and their wallet. So it's a very simple process. You call up if you're already on a Medicare plan, we'll tell you if there's a better option for you.

If it's your first time signing up, we'll walk you through the process. We've built a lot of technology to automate the tedium. So it's very simple and delight. We try to make it delightful, turning a terrible experience into a delightful one. And we'll answer all of your questions that you might have about Medicare, about your health coverage, about your doctors, your prescriptions, how much it will cost, all of these questions. We'll sign you up.

And then importantly, even after we help you enroll in a Medicare plan, if that's the right for you, will help you navigate the entire ecosystem throughout the year. So if you need to find a specialist who's in network with your plan, we'll help you with that. If you need to minimize your prescription costs because you got a very expensive prescription, we'll help you with that. If you need to appeal a bill or a claim, you get a bill that doesn't make sense to you. Many health care bills don't make a lot of sense. We'll help you walk through that.

And if it's an incorrect bill, we'll help you appeal that. So our goal is really to be your advocate, your navigator throughout this entire journey. And obviously other companies that do something similar to you claim to do the same thing. So if you don't mind my asking, what is the difference between you and most of them? There are really three core differences. One is we look at every single Medicare option. And that's actually, I think, unique in any insurance market where we have access to every single Medicare plan across every type of Medicare. And we will enroll you in the right Medicare plan for your needs, whether Chapter earns money on that plan or not.

All of the financials are hidden from our team. So our Medicare advisors are only incentivized to help each person. They're not incentivized by the insurance carrier. They don't earn a different amount of money or their chapter makes money or doesn't. And that's a really core difference because if you're not looking at every option, how can you know if you're getting the right plan? So that's one. Two is we've built a lot of technology to make the experience very easy and simple and to catch mistakes.

Because it is such a Byzantine system, there's all these rules and education. cases that can really hurt people if you aren't aware of them. And so it's built a lot of technology and a lot of oversight so that we know every single person who talks to us is having a great experience in getting accurate information, which is really important. We spend so much time just even looking at, is the accuracy of doctors correct? Do we know which doctors in network with which plan? Do we know exactly what your prescription will cost on a given plan? It's a very hard data problem to solve that we spent a lot of time solving. And then the last piece is we care that every single person who calls us has an amazing experience. We don't want any variability

in that experience. We don't quality to be high for every single interaction. And the only way to do that is to keep a very high bar for who we hire and who we allow to interact with people who call us and we call them our members. And so I personally interview every single person who works a chapter, every single candidate across our engineers, across our Medicare advisors, across our Medicare advocates. We accept less than 1% of people who apply. to join chapter. So we keep a maniacally high bar for talent, and that is what translates into an exceptional user experience.

I think 4% would be maniacally high. 1%. I don't even know. There's no adjective for that. But it's kind of funny because to me, as I get to know who you are as a company and what you're doing, that that to me is the key, what you've just said. In other words, that you understand

that this is the piece that almost no one else would go to this length. But you understand this is what we deliver, this kind of, I mean, for somebody to, I'm just speaking personally and for my own family, that, you know, to call up somebody, to get somebody who's personable, competent, kind, understand, you know, all of that stuff. It's not easy to find, basically. You often find the opposite of it or some variation. So that seems to me the key to your success to the whole idea and reasons that I'm so warmly recommending chapter. I'll give the website again, folks, if you want to contact them, it's askchapter.org slash metaxus.

Askchapter.org slash metactus. Just got a couple of minutes left, Corey. What else can we say that we are not? said. Well, I think I think one really interesting aspect that is that is a part of the ethos of chapter and I think relates to what you do and the important work that you do for your audience is that, as a religious scholar, you think about what does the Bible teach us? For us, I grew up as an observant Jew and just last week, the Torah portion was for Torah as the Jewish Bible, was actually about, there was a mention of retirement.

And God instructed the Levites to serve in the tabernacle only from ages 25 to 50. After age 50, individuals are not supposed to do physical work. They're supposed to still mentor and provide their wisdom. And a large part of the ethos of chapter is we want to empower people to share their wisdom and to have the health coverage that they need to live an amazing chapter of their life. That's why we're called chapter and not, you know, insert name Medicare because we want to help people live the best chapter of their lives. I think there's a lot of wisdom that is currently lost between the older generation and the younger generation. And what we're really trying to do is empower

people with the health so that they can share that wisdom with the rest of us and that I actually think it's a very important part to holding the fabric of our society together. And that's really what drives us to continue to push so hard for an amazing, amazing experience for our members. I knew that biblical wisdom was behind all of this theoretically, but I also knew that it was behind you and what you're doing at chapter. But I wanted you to be the one to talk about it, because to me, that is the key. And it's not, you know, it's not even just wisdom. It is the kindness, the graciousness that comes out of that whole worldview. So I'm just grateful for you.

I'll tell my audience again how to find you all now that they know more about you. The phone number, that's the best thing, folks. It's 571, 421, 1253. 571, 421, 1253. The website, askchapter.org. Askchapter.org slash this Kobe Blundleganz, CEO of a chapter. First of all, congratulations. God bless you of what you're doing.

And thanks for this time. I just decided I want to write a book on the American Revolution because this is extremely important. Unless Americans know our story, we cannot possibly continue to keep the Republic. Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, joined thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca.ca.