The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 11.20 Colleen Ballinger Returns, What Now?! OpenAI Sam Altman Scandal, Argentina Elects Javier Milei, &

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

Go to https://get.aspr.app/SH9Gz to get 60% off your first order of Sundays. Offer valid November 16-30.  Thanks to Keeps for sponsoring this video! Head to https://keeps.com/defranco to get a special offer  Https://BEAUTIFULBASTARD.COM BLACK FRIDAY SALE JUST DROPPED! UP TO 75% OFF!! shhh this is a secret link: https://youtu.be/pbrCd3euZO8?si=QoSu4CYoszEkfWS6  –✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ – 00:00 - Colleen Ballinger Makes Return Following “Toxic Gossip Train” Song 04:14 - Sam Altman Leading Team at Microsoft After OpenAI Ouster 07:17 - Pokimane Faces Backlash For Calling People “Broke” 09:59 - Sponsored by Sundays for Dogs 11:01 - Fan Dies From Heat Exhaustion at Taylor Swift Concert in Brazil 13:18 - First Word From Scrolls Discovered Beneath the Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius Revealed 15:58 - Libertarian in Argentina Wins Election, Promising Fundamental Changes 17:57 - Sponsored by Keeps 18:50 - CEOs at Charity Hospitals Rake in Cash While Little Goes to Charity 24:51 - Yesterday, Today Not-For-Profit “Charity” Hospital Studies: Charity Care: Do Nonprofit Hospitals Give More than For-Profit Hospitals?Major Non-Profit Hospitals Take Advantage of Tax Breaks and Prioritize CEO Pay Over Helping Patients Afford Medical Care Analysis Suggests Government And Nonprofit Hospitals’ Charity Care Is Not Aligned With Their Favorable Tax Treatment  ——————————   Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Maxx Enright, Julie Goldberg, Christian Meeks Art Department: William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Star Pralle, Chris Tolve  ———————————— #DeFranco #ColleenBallinger #Pokimane ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we're talking about Colleen Ballinger's ukulele-less return to the internet, this ridiculous but juicy OpenAI Sam Altman situation, the Brazilian government's demanding answers after a Swifty died at a Taylor Swift concert, the Pokimane Brokeboy controversy, we break down Javier Mele's win in Argentina, and charity hospitals, are they actually charitable? We're talking about all that and so much more on today's brand new, extra-large Philip DeFranco show.

You daily dive into the news. But first, I'm so excited I could make this announcement. Not only did the new drop just go live over at beautifulbastard.com, but it is going live during our Black Friday Cyber Monday sale. So that means you're gonna be able to get stuff from our new drop for 20% off, but also the stuff that's been on site, some of that is going for up to 75% off right now. So go get it now while it lasts. Like I'm just trying to empty our warehouse. But also as far as the new fantasticness,

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steel pendant, emotionally exhausted snapbacks, and more. So yeah, grab what you want while you can. But that said, we got a lot of news to talk about today, so let's just jump into it. Starting with, Colleen Ballinger knows that her toxic gossip train ukulele song thing was a cringey disaster, which I know it's been a while since we said that name, so for some catch-up, right, earlier in the summer, she was accused of bullying, abusing, and manipulating her young fans, along with other inappropriate behavior.

Those accusations just mounting over time, and then she ended up addressing it by singing a song on the ukulele, which people absolutely hated. It made the whole situation bigger and worse. I mean, to such a point that when other creators and celebrities did apologies, people would, like, Photoshop in a ukulele. With Ballinger then just proceeding to disappear from

online life. But over the weekend, she actually posted her first video since all of that called Fall Vlog. Well, most of that video ends up actually being a traditional vlog. She starts it off by addressing everything and calling her song embarrassing and adding, I was being accused of some pretty awful things and I just was mad and I should have handled that situation with maturity and empathy. But instead, I just let my ego take over and I just was mad and I should have handled that situation with maturity and empathy, but instead I just let my ego take over and I'm really disappointed in myself. They're then moving on to address some of the actual allegations at hand. Over the last 15 years of my career, there have been moments where I was immature and inappropriate with some of my comedy.

And there were times when I did not put enough thought into some of my fan interactions. And because of that behavior, people got hurt. And I am so sorry. And with all that saying that she never wanted to hurt anyone, but it's clear that she did what she feels terrible about. And also apologizing to anyone who feels abandoned by her over her silence over the last few months. But with that saying, she felt she needed to take the time to listen and learn, adding she's been in therapy, saying going forward she plans on making some changes, including by making sure she creates an inclusive and safe space with her content, adding,

If you want to be a part of my journey online, I would love to have you, and if not, I completely understand. I do not expect anyone to welcome me back with open arms. I don't expect to change anyone's mind with this video. And Ballinger going on to say that she wants to prove that people can grow and learn from their mistakes, and then after about three minutes addressing everything in the video the video switches to kind of like a more normal Vlog where she goes through the motions of her day as far as the reactions to this I mean in the comments the responses are a little bit mixed some are happy about this return some feel uncertain saying things like I'm really Feeling torn used to be a huge fan was pretty upset to see all the things that came out about you

I'm happy to know that you are doing well I feel like apology was sincere, but I want to see accountability and whether it is public or private apologies to those involved. Though also here, this is one of those stories where it's like, depending on where you go, the responses are very different. For example, on Twitter, the responses are more negative with people saying things like, after six months, Colleen Ballinger basically said the victims are worth three minutes of her time. Really, really think about how fucked up that is. Three minutes after endless evidence and videos. As well as I'm tired of people saying she apologized, move on. When you've done as much as Colleen Ballinger,

you can't just lump countless apologies into one vague three-minute apology section of a vlog. With some also accusing her of coming back before Thanksgiving so she can cash in on the money that comes from ads during the holiday season. But you know, for her part, it does seem like she plans on continuing being online because she's actually already posted a second vlog since her return. You know, with this news, this update to a situation that was just so massive in the past, I gotta know, what are your thoughts right now? Which camp are you landing in and why?

And then, y'all, this OpenAI Sam Altman situation is insane. Like, this is one of the craziest, most ham-fisted stories I've seen in the business space in a long time. For instance, if you don't know, Sam Altman was the CEO of OpenAI, and he was the face of ChatGPT up until Friday. Because that is when the board of the company shocked everyone and just gave them the boop. The company is saying in a blog post, Mr. Altman's departure follows a deliberative review process by the board,

which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI. And this as reportedly Altman clashed with the board over how quickly to develop generative AI, commercializing OpenAI's products, and what steps the company needs to take to lessen their potential harm to the public. And of all the board members, Altman reportedly butted heads the most with Ilya Sutskiver. You know, with all of this, within hours of Altman being fired, we saw OpenAI president and co-founder Greg Brockman quitting in solidarity along with a string of other senior researchers. We also had investors, including Microsoft, who just put so

much money into this company, saying they were completely blindsided by the board's decision to fire Altman, but also notably since saying they remain committed to the partnership with the company. However, then over the weekend, the board seemed to reconsider their decision, because on Saturday night, less than a day later, there was reportedly a memo sent to staff saying the company was optimistic about getting Altman and others back on board. And according to Bloomberg, Altman was open to returning, but called for the removal of the current board and a statement absolving him of any wrongdoing. With reportedly the board initially agreeing to step down, but then they backpedaled and refused. Bringing us to yesterday when the board appointed yet another interim CEO, Emmett Shear. Shear then taking over from Mira Barati, who was just appointed following Altman's removal.

So three CEOs in as many days. So then, as far as Altman and Brockman, boom, news breaks this morning, notably before opening bells for the stock market. They're now going to work for Microsoft, leading a new advanced AI research team. But this also as now 500 of the around 700 staff at OpenAI are threatening to go as well. Saying in a letter to the board, unless they reinstate Altman and step down themselves, the hundreds of employees will accept positions offered in Altman's new team at Microsoft. And interestingly enough, Ilya's name is on that letter, despite reportedly leading the push to fire Altman. Though also, notably with that, earlier this morning, he tweeted, I deeply regret my participation in

the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we've built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company. Also with this, OpenAI's new CEO, Emmett Shear, has announced that he will be bringing on an independent investigator to look into the firing of Altman and saying in a tweet, it's clear that the process and communications around Sam's removal has been handled very badly, which has seriously damaged our trust. And going on to say that he plans to, quote, reform the management and leadership team and push for change within the company, including, quote, Which with that, you know, it brings us up to the present. But understand, this is still a developing situation. Also, a really just weird situation.

We were talking about OpenAI. As far as companies that have hype and a lot of attention, there's very few that have more than OpenAI right now. And for their very public founder to all of a sudden just unceremoniously get kicked out at the end of the day on a Friday, like what is happening there? So without a doubt, I think more information has to be coming out soon. But in the meantime, as the story continues to develop, I gotta ask you, what are your thoughts here? Let me know in those comments down below. And then for your daily online drama news, let's talk about this Pokimane situation. Because the way the cookie has crumbled in this situation, I hate myself for saying it that way, but the way things have played out has been very interesting. As we talked about this previously,

she just launched a new snack company called Mina Snacks, specifically releasing gluten-free cookies made with natural ingredients and no preservatives. There was initially some backlash about how the cookies were made, if she just stuck her branding on an already existing product, which she denied. And while that aspect of this whole thing has kind of played out, today's controversy has to do with the price of the cookies, because it costs $28 for a pack of four bags. And you know, some people have that thing that's pretty steep and criticizing her. And all of this appears to get so much bigger because she seemingly addresses this over the weekend saying, When people are like, oh my god, $28 for cookies? It's four bags.

That's seven. Seven dollars a bag. I know, I know math is hard when you're an idiot, but like if you're a broke boy, just say so. With people getting absolutely pissed about her comment, they're saying things like, these streamers are getting so out of touch with reality, it's actually disgusting. And I love when streamers get so rich that they start calling their fans dumb and poor. It's so awesome. And listen, if I ever become a millionaire and start calling my audience broke, just beat me up. I give you all permission right now. Hell, even big names like Voice Critical chiming in. I don't know what would possess her to say something so rude and nasty

to the audience she is trying to sell this product to. Your wealth was built on their backs. So it is also worth noting that some people did defend her saying it's just another case of people finding an excuse to call her out, arguing if you can't afford the cookies, don't buy them. It's so simple, this girl launches some cookies and the whole world's on fire, but actual problematic streamers do wild shit and y'all stay shut. And as someone with celiac disease, I spend anywhere from $5 to $10 for a single bag of certified gluten-free cookies every time I shop. This pricing is normal for gluten-free goodies. Y'all just love to hate successful women.

Which I will say, my celiac writer Maddie can confirm that price point. That ends up kind of just being part of her life. She's made peace with $10 bags of cookies a long time ago. But also with this, you had people saying, you know, yes, people have and do go after Pokimane for kind of nothing bullshit. But here, shaming someone for not having money is an ugly, nasty look. And for her part, Pokimane did actually respond to all this backlash, writing, While what I said was 100% intended to be a joke, I see why it came off as insensitive, and I apologize for that. I also understand the current price of the cookies may be expensive for some,

and promise we'll continue to consider pricing to keep Mina as affordable as possible. And also saying that her comment was specifically referring to one rude person in the chat. It wasn't supposed to apply generally to her whole community. But ultimately, that is where we are with the situation right now, and I'd love to know rude person in the chat. It wasn't supposed to apply generally to her whole community. But ultimately, that is where we are with the situation right now, and I'd love to know where you land on this. What are your thoughts on the comments, the backlash, her response, the whole celiac situation?

And also, has your opinion of this whole situation changed from the first time we talked about it to now this bit? And then, I'm looking forward to the deliciousness of Thanksgiving dinner, and this year, I won't have to feel guilty for not sharing with my dogs, and that's thanks to the sponsor of today's show, Sundaes. Because with Sundaes, my dogs feel like they're eating their best meal every day.

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Just click the link in the description and your dogs will thank you. And take comfort knowing that they're vet founded and vet run. And then... A fan died at the Eris tour this weekend and we've got to talk about it. Because over the weekend, Taylor Swift was in Brazil as part of the international leg of her tour while the country was being hit with a massive heat wave. I mean, temperatures were over 100 degrees and felt astronomically higher as thousands of fans waited for hours outside to be let into the stadium, where notably no personal water bottles were allowed. And one of those fans

was 23-year-old Ana Clara Benavidez, who had reportedly taken her first flight ever to come see Taylor Swift Friday night, and she fell ill before the show. According to a statement from the show's Brazilian organizers, Time for Fun, Anna was attended by paramedics and then taken to the stadium's first aid center. From there, she was taken to a hospital and then died an hour later, with Anna's father giving a statement to a local outlet and saying, I lost my only daughter, a happy and intelligent girl. She was about to graduate in psychology next April, saving money. I have no words to express my pain. She left home to fulfill a dream and came back dead. With him then also calling for an investigation into his daughter's death and asking why the Swifties weren't allowed to bring their own water into the stadium. So the situation has brought a lot of scrutiny to

Time for Fun, and not just from Swifties, but also the Brazilian government, who notably has reportedly said that they will be investigating Time for Fun, and the office of Rio's public prosecutor has opened a criminal investigation into the case. Now with this, when Taylor learned of Ana's death, she shared a statement on Instagram saying she was devastated and adding, I'm not going to be able to speak about this from stage because I feel overwhelmed by grief when I even try to talk about it. I want to say now I feel this loss deeply and my broken heart goes out to her family and friends. This is the last thing I ever thought would happen when we decided to bring this tour to Brazil. Now with this, Anazeth has obviously taken the headlines. But this also, as many other Swifties have suffered in the extreme heat, countless spaining and getting sick.

There are several videos circulating online of Taylor stopping the show as her fans are chanting for water and are asking staff to get some. At one point, she even threw a bottle of water from the stage into the crowd herself. And so following all that time for funds that the fans would be allowed to bring in their own water bottles and free water checkpoints will be set up with eight medical posts. But also as temperatures stayed dangerously high on Saturday, Taylor decided to postpone the show. And saying in a statement on Instagram, I am writing this for my dressing room in the stadium. The decision has been made to postpone tonight's show due to the extreme temperatures in Rio. The safety and well-being of my fans, fellow performers, and crew

has to and always will come first. The show then going on as planned on Sunday when temperatures cooled and the Saturday show will be postponed to tonight. But ultimately, you know, that is where we are right now. And we're gonna have to wait to see what happens. Because remember, this is a developing situation. There's an investigation in place. So of course, in the meantime, I'd love to know your thoughts here. And then purple. That is the first word we've been able to read from a collection of 2000 year old scrolls with a scroll in question being discovered as part of a collection of hundreds in the town of Herculaneum in the villa of Julius Caesar's father-in-law back in the mid-18th century. And they were carbonized by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, when Herculaneum was covered in volcanic

mud and hot gases. Now, a big thing is that with these scrolls, they look like lumps of coal. And when scientists tried to unroll them, the scrolls crumbled without giving up very much of their text. Then in walks in Dr. Brent Seals, a computer scientist at the University of Kentucky. And Dr. Seals and his team pioneered digital unwrapping using X-ray tomography and computer vision. With his team first using this technology on the En-Gedi scroll discovered in the Dead Sea region in Israel. And it allowed the scroll to be digitally unwrapped and read without opening the scroll itself. However, the Herculaneum scrolls proved a much more difficult task because rather than the dense ink used on the En-Gedi scroll, the ink on the Herculaneum scrolls was carbon-based, meaning that X-ray contrast against the carbon-based papyrus wasn't possible. But Dr.

Seals and his team determined that under infrared light, some of the detached pieces of the scrolls are readable, and that data can actually be used for a machine learning model to detect otherwise invisible ink within the X-ray. So the team used a particle accelerator to make the X-rays as high contrast as possible. And they believe that a machine learning model can pick up on very subtle surface patterns on the papyrus that could indicate ink. So Dr. Seals, along with Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross,

created the Vesuvius Challenge, offering hundreds of thousands of dollars in prizes for anyone who can read these scrolls using this process. The grand prize is $700,000 to whoever can read four separate passages of continuous and plausible text from the scrolls. The reason for this giant bag of prize money is that the task is actually very difficult. These scrolls are very long, tightly wound, and damaged, which make them difficult to

segment properly. And then there's a whole issue of finding the ink. And then you have to apply the ink detection model to the entire segmented scroll, and that's a monumental task. While we haven't quite gotten to the point of reading whole scrolls, there has been a winner for the smaller challenge of finding 10 legible letters within a four centimeter squared area. And not only are there letters, there's a word, purple. With Luke Ferreter, a 21-year-old computer science student, being able to identify 10 letters, and among them was the word purple.

Though not actually purple, but a word that could either translate to a noun, meaning a specific type of purple dye, or simply the adjective purple. Plus then, a few months later, another student submitted even clearer results, independently verifying the same letters for a second place prize of $10,000.

And notably, the findings of those young men were only made possible by Casey Handmer. Because Casey had found substantial evidence that there was ink remaining in the scrolls. He was also offered a $10,000 prize. And so these advancements mean that that prize of $700,000 and the ability to read this massive collection of two millennia old scrolls is within reach. And honestly, who knows what kind of information they could hold. But for now, it is just a waiting game. And with these latest discoveries, it does really feel like it's only a matter of time.

And hopefully, if that is true, somebody jumps on this quick. Because one of the big things is that the Vesuvius Challenge is only eligible to be won until December 31st of this year. But I guess the main points, history and science are awesome. And then, South America just got a major political shakeup

after Argentina just elected the self-described anarcho-capitalist Javier Millet as president. And his name might sound familiar because we talked about how recently Swifties weren't a fan of his and they vowed to make sure that he wasn't elected. But in yesterday's runoff election, Millet scored over 56% of the vote and his opponent quickly conceded. And it's really hard to understate how big of a shakeup Millet's win is. First off, he's kind of just a weird fucking guy, which is one of the few things nearly everyone can agree on. He goes to events dressed up in costumes, and his whole gimmick on the campaign trail was to brandish a chainsaw, which was a reference to how much he wanted to

cut up the government. And then there's the fact that he's a political outsider from a fairly new party fighting a deeply entrenched establishment. And notably, other than for a few years, Argentina has been ruled by the same left-wing ideology since 2002. But that ideology has also been widely blamed for Argentina's major economic issues, where they have rampant inflation that's left over 40% of the population poor, despite the fact that unemployment is actually fairly low at just 6.5%. And so Millet is about as far on the other side of the economic spectrum as you can get, with one of his most radical proposals to fix the economy being to replace Argentina's peso with the US dollar. But that's not something

that's unheard of, and other countries have actually done this before, including in South America. Millet also wants to kill off the central bank and remove government positions both because he wants to cut spending as well as thinking they're just not necessary on an ideological level. It also lines up with calls to eliminate what he calls the political caste in Argentina, a group that he and allies have long accused of keeping Argentina poor. Also, Millet's views on cultural issues are extremely polarized. He opposes feminist policies, claims sexual education is killing the family unit, opposes abortion, and wants to repeal a recent law that made it legal. He's also an avid climate change denier, and he wants to reclaim Argentina's, quote, place in the world that it should never have lost. Which is kind of his, like, make America great again. And considering

Argentina used to be one of the wealthiest countries on the planet on a per capita basis, it is a sentiment that many Argentinians feel. And so ultimately, we're gonna have to wait and see what this actually looks like, but this will probably be the largest case study of how such drastic libertarian policies affect a country. Though it wouldn't be recommended to hold your breath for a positive outcome, as I mean, the hold that Argentina is in would be a massive problem for anyone to fix, regardless of politics. And then, listen, y'all, it is normal and quite common to think about how to prevent hair loss or how to stimulate hair growth. I mean, just taking better care of your hair. And thanks to the sponsor of today's show, Keeps, they've got you covered. To date, Keeps has

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offer, just go to keeps.com slash DeFFranco or just click that link in the description. That's Keeps.com slash DeFranco. And then we need to talk about charity hospitals because they are the hospitals most meant to help their communities. And now they're facing increased scrutiny for not really doing that. But yet their CEOs are also still raking in millions of dollars. And again, the big thing here is I'm talking about independent, not-for-profit hospitals, something that the United States has nearly 3,000 of. I mean, that's notably half of the roughly 6,100 hospitals across the U.S. One of the perks of being a not-for-profit hospital, also known as NFP, is that they're classified as a charity by the IRS. And that gets them off the hook for property tax, sales tax, and all income taxes. However,

in return for that, they're expected to put any excess money that they generate, you know, the stuff we call profit, back into their communities. And I mean, that's alongside other benefits. And they all do this. The key issue, though, is the scale and how they do their accounting. For example, there's something called the Medicaid shortfall, and that's the difference between what a service costs and what Medicaid will pay. And most NFPs count that difference as charity, even though there's an increasing pushback that that shouldn't count. Because they argue that higher insurance payouts and uninsured patients paying their bills in cash easily cover these costs. And I'll give you an example and understand these are just

completely made up numbers to try to make it simple to understand. Let's say a surgery that I have costs $1 million, but my Medicaid will only pay $200,000. And then someone comes by for the same procedure and has insurance and their insurance pays $2 million. That alone covers the $800,000 Medicaid shortfall that the hospital had from helping me out. But then they also go on to say that it wasn't charity work, despite it not really costing them anything. Then there's also the issue of just how much in total is being paid out. And with that, I mean, take RWJBarnabas Health. They're a massive NFP chain out of New Jersey that spent just 1.65% of its almost $6 billion in revenue on charity care. And that is actually not a weird outlier. With the United States Health, Education,

Labor, and Pensions Committee, which is chaired by Senator Bernie Sanders, putting out a report last month that looked at the 16 largest NFP groups in the U.S., and their findings were shocking. Because out of the billions of dollars they've brought in, most spend between 0.346 and 1.81% of their revenue on charity. Now, also to try to be fair here, there were notable outliers with the Methodist Hospital, Memorial Hermann Hospital System, Northside Hospital, and Orlando Hospital, all of which actually spent between 3.8 and 8% of their total revenues on charity. But also for many of the hospitals that we're talking about, the numbers look even worse when you consider how much C-suite executives are making at these places, especially at the top 16 NFPs in the nation. I mean, the head of Common Spirit

Health, which brought in $33.2 billion and spent only 1.5% of that on charity is making over $32 million a year. Well, they are a bit of an outlier. It's not uncommon to see salaries between 3.3 and $16 million. And so with all that, for many people, it feels incredibly wrong that a place that's supposed to emphasize helping their communities is spending so much on a single person working there. And to be clear, I'm not saying that if you're in charge of an entire hospital system, you shouldn't be compensated well. But there's also a huge difference between $3 million, $6, $8, or $17 million, especially when you consider how low the charity numbers are at a lot of these places. And all of that points to something that many NFPs have long been accused of.

Their recovery. It's increasingly common for for-profit hospitals to switch over to NFPs in order to save money on tax breaks. And when that happens, there can be serious repercussions, such as when Pottstown Hospital was taken over by Tower Health back in 2018. But the hospital's new tax-free status, meaning that the local school district was losing $900,000, leading to serious cuts in the already underfunded district. And that change, as Superintendent Steven Rodriguez put it, meant that we have less curriculum, less coaches, less transportation. And notably, the courts have actually since revoked its status for abusing the system. There's also the fact that NFPs often don't

serve those you'd think would need the most. Are they more likely to be in high-income areas and serve fewer uninsured patients than their for-profit counterparts? But possibly one of the most important stats is the fact that a 2021 study found that NFPs actually spend about the same amount of their revenue on charity as their for-profit counterparts. And for the largest for-profit hospitals, it was substantially more. And digging into those numbers, it shows some other discrepancies. So remember earlier how I said NFPs often count the Medicaid shortfall as part of their charity? Well, when you take that into account, for-profit places end up spending way more on uninsured patients than NFPs. So when it comes to actually getting care to patients that cannot afford it, for-profits actually end up doing more.

And that's also been backed up by another study that found that for every $100 an NFP had in total expenses, only $2.30 went to charity care, and at for-profit, it was actually $3.80, and government-run hospitals spent $4.10. And it also certainly doesn't help that Health Affairs found that between 2012 and 2019, NFPs had major profits and cash reserve growths, but the amount they spent on charity didn't match. Now, with all this, NFPs argue that direct charity work isn't everything, and that they offer other benefits that are required by the 2010 Affordable Care Act, or things like conducting a community health needs assessment at least once every three years, as well as having clear financial assistance policies

that limit what they can charge eligible individuals. They're also required to take pretty large steps to make sure that people could qualify for financial assistance before hounding them for money, something that for-profit places can ignore. Taken all together, the American Hospital Association says that this means NFPs deliver $9 for every dollar of federal taxes they avoid.

But as you probably guessed at this point, there's some serious doubts about that. But the government accountability office is calling this out as straight shenanigans with a GAO director saying, it's not clear what a hospital has to do to justify a tax exemption. What's a sufficient benefit for one hospital

may not be a sufficient benefit for another. And that's because as a GAO report from April of this year showed, the requirements are pretty vague as to what they actually mean. And in a 2020 report, it found that 30 NFPs actually got the status despite spending nothing on community benefits.

The agency has also recommended that Congress actually act here and make it much more clear exactly what the hospitals need to do to get the status. And so far in April of this year, a congressional committee actually heard about the issue and is considering the matter. Although notably there,

the national government is hardly the only place looking into it. Oregon, for example, first took notice back in 2019 and set floors on how much a hospital must spend on the community based on profit margin and other metrics to qualify. Illinois and Utah have also followed suit and put spending requirements for NFPs that are tied to how much they would have paid in taxes had they been for-profit institutions. And I mean, all in all, you know a system is pretty fucked up when both Democrats and Republicans largely don't like it.

Dems are angry over the lack of charity care given out by NFPs, while Republicans are confused why they get a tax break at all. And so with all that said, it seems like the issue isn't that NFPs shouldn't exist. It's that seemingly most, especially the largest ones, are masquerading as not-for-profit hospitals when in reality they're just cheating the system for a tax break and not giving back to the community at a rate that's actually worth it. If you want to dive even deeper, you're really interested in this, I'm going to include some links down below to some of the studies and reports that we mentioned. Because I mean, the reality is if you wanted to, you could spend three whole days reading up on just that but then also for everyone what

are your thoughts with this news and also what have your experiences been and then let's talk about yesterday today where we take a look back at the last show we dive into those comments and we see what y'all had to say your thoughts where you stood on things why sometimes your experiences actually with that you know we talked about the thousands of starbucks workers on strike and there is all y'all saying things like I'm at a union Starbucks store in Boston I wish my co-workers would participate more being stopped without any negotiating rights as a certified union store has really damaged What made me fall in love with Starbucks in the first place the barista experience connecting with my community and sharing my drink experience is fun

But not fun enough to not be able to pay my bills and then another comment reading just a couple of weeks ago I went to a Starbucks drive-thru to get myself a drink and went through the usual please and thank yous you'd think are commonplace. When I got to the window, the person taking my order said they upsize my drink for free for not being rude. I asked them if people were generally rude at that location and they said, It's been a hectic day, so people didn't like the way that was part of it. And they would be openly upset about the wait time. I didn't even think about the wait time.

To me, it seemed like a normal wait. The fact that normal manners was enough to warrant an upsized drink with no charge was cool, but also kind of upsetting. Can't imagine the type of stuff they go through at work. Which yeah, I will say there wasn't a Starbucks. It was at dinner the other night. The waiter like thanked us for being chill, which I was just like so caught off guard, but we were like kind of the last tables of the night. Yeah, I mean never underestimate the power of just being nice and saying thank you and please. Personally, I'm a big fan of saying sir. It just, it's so disarming.

Though, I do have to catch myself, because I'm like, now that I'm 37, can it come off condescending? I don't know. Also, on that show, there was definitely a lot of talk about the opioid crisis. The comments popping up, like, it blows my mind that we're still as a country

struggling with an opioid crisis this badly, when it's been proven time and time again that harm reduction and decriminalization works. Countries that treat addiction as a mental illness that you can receive help for instead of a crime that will have you thrown in jail for years of your life don't have these issues. Also people sharing, I'm a psych nurse practitioner in Ohio and I work with patients with opioid use disorder. It is definitely an increasing problem here.

Everyone seems to be wondering if we'll find some kind of cure. But the truth is we have a life-saving medication in buprenorphine, which you mentioned. The problem is that people see it as replacing one drug for another, when in reality, it just helps people who have used opioids for years to just feel normal again, which is often impossible without medication. They can stay on it as long as they need to. There is no time limit for treatment. We wouldn't stigmatize using insulin for diabetic patients.

Hope you can shed some light on this and the importance of not just decriminalization, harm reduction, but also expanding treatment. That is the part we often overlook. And the thing I really want to hit on here is thank you to everyone that shared their stories, their experiences with this story. There is a lot that I'm not going to be able to touch on just for the size of the show and segment. But the last one that I will hit on is a comment that read, I know I'm not who you wanted to hear from, but I am a caregiver for my mother who is someone who has an opioid prescription for a legitimate need, crippling pain, and she's been on it for a

while. Even her doctor has tried to suddenly take it from her because of these fears in the DEA right now. It's frustrating. The crackdown on these medications causes more harm to the people who need it than it does the people committing crimes. I wish instead of bothering with this unwinnable war on drugs, our government would start tackling decriminalization and addiction. Get the people who need the treatment they need without judgment and leave everyone else alone. But that is where your daily dive into the news is going to end today. Though, since you liked it so much the first two times, I'm doing it a third time. I've got a secret video and link for you to watch right here. You can click or tap or I got a link in the description for you. I hope you enjoy it.

I've been enjoying that. But that said, of course, as always, my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love your faces and I'll see you right back here tomorrow for more news.