Why Health Insurance Feels Unaffordable (And What Most People Don’t See)

I see this every day… people think they have “good” health insurance.

But then something happens.

A bill shows up. A claim gets denied. Or worse… you realize you can’t even afford the plan anymore.

And no one explains why.

In this episode, I break down what’s really going on behind the scenes—and why so many people feel stuck, frustrated, and confused.

This isn’t about selling you anything. It’s about helping you see the system clearly… so you can start asking better questions.

Because once you see it… you can’t unsee it.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why your “covered” care may not actually be covered when it matters most
• The hidden ways you’re paying for insurance… even when you think you’re not
• A different way to think about healthcare that most people never consider

Connect With Talia Berkefeld: taliangmteam@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Most people in America can't afford their health insurance unless it's heavily subsidized. And it's either heavily subsidized by the government or by the employer. And most people don't realize that this is happening. And what it does is it hides the true cost of insurance, but it costs us in the end. So for instance, the government subsidized, we say, all right, no big deal. But that increases our taxes, increases the deficit, leads to higher inflation, and then we pay that. And then for our employer, we say, well, it's not my problem, the employer's covering it. But all of a sudden, you're not getting a good raise this year. That's the reason why the employer can't afford to give you a good raise. So all this comes back on us. And I think we are at a breaking point in the country right now. People can't afford their health insurance anymore, and they're frustrated. They don't know what to do. There's millions of Americans now with the accessory tax credits that ended up uh stopping at the end of last year, December 31st uh of last year, they just stopped. And now people say, I can't afford my ACA plan. So all of a sudden, what do they do? So millions of Americans say, I don't know what to do. In this episode, we're gonna have an expert, Talia, here tell you exactly what you can do if you don't have insurance. Because a lot of people say, Do I have any other options to not have insurance? And I just want to say this is for educational purposes, not medical advice, not here to tell you any products or services, and always seek the advice of a physician if you have any medical needs. Talia, welcome back. And let's get into what do people do if they say, I can't afford insurance, I don't have any options, and they call you. What do you tell them?

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Um first of all, I'm always glad that they call because it's always exciting to help people uh exit that really expensive system. Um and I offer them uh medically underwritten if they're healthy, right? Which, you know, believe it or not, most people I talk to are. You get your occasional, maybe one in seven are unhealthy. Um they get medically underwritten. So these plans existed prior to the ACA being invented and shoved down our throats. Um, and it allows you to use your health to negotiate the premium price. Um, this is common with a lot of carriers. So a lot of the time I save them, I think most recently I save someone $1,600 a month because their premium was going up to $3,000.

unknown 2:30

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Um, and then they have zero-dollar deductible upfront benefits, and they allow you to go um anywhere to any doctor without a referral. Um, they pay a set dollar amount, and they're what are known as fixed indemnities.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

And people don't even know what an indemnity plan is, and that's different than a major medical or comprehensive insurance. And could you walk us through people, I think are just used to comprehensive insurance. They have this thought in their mind like this will cover everything, there's no limits. Although I'm gonna tell everybody there's no limits on the policy until your care gets denied. That's a hard limit. So you could sit there and go, you know, I got my plan on the ACA, I am set. And then 20% of the plans or 20% of the claims are denied. So you know, please keep that in mind. There's no guarantee, even though you think there's a guarantee. In reality, there's not. But if you could explain the difference between these comprehensive plans and an indemnity plan, please.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Sure. So a comprehensive plan, right? Typically you're getting no coverage up front, right? You're paying into your deductible. You'll have copies, but I always explain to people that's not. Remember when you're young and you go to the bar and you paid $20 to get in, but then everything else you still had to pay for? That's a copay. Because if you go in and they do labs or testing or anything, you're gonna receive a bill for that. Unless you know your plan is designed, but typically you will. Um, with an indemnity, you would get $160 for that doctor's visit and roughly $50 for that lab test up front. Um, and that can be used at any doctor anywhere in the country without a referral. But they will limit, you know, up front what they cover. The some of them do not cover maternity, some of them won't cover inpatient rehab. So you can kind of pick and choose your benefits that you want or that are essential to you. Where on the marketplace or employer plans, it's just you get what you get and you don't throw a fit, you know. Um, with the indemnities, they're great because you can go to any doc. I just love them because you can go to any doctor anywhere. And I have so much customer satisfaction with them. Um, they usually come with telemedicine, um, and you go to any pharmacy, like it's just wild that uh more people aren't utilizing this that can because it's a little bit different, right? You're inheriting some of the risk on the back end, depending on um what happens. But I I've never really seen anybody go into financial trouble with an indemnity, especially if you package it with a cancer plan or an accident plan that'll give you a lump sum benefit if those happen and you have uh any other out-of-pocket costs that may not be covered with the indemnity. And a lot of times you bail those together and you're saving a significant amount of money from uh the marketplace, all the while not paying anything out of pocket, right? You'll have waiting periods on the private sector and um limits to what, if they'll even accept you. So that was the argument for the ACA was that there were people in the United States that didn't have health insurance. Uh, but back then we were a more healthy population, to be honest with you. So a lot less people were sick, and they kind of used the guys that, well, not everybody has access to coverage, so we need to get everybody access to coverage. And instead of using your health, right, like on the private sector, how healthy you are determines the premium you're gonna pay. So if you're an extremely healthy person, they will jet issue you a policy for a significantly lower amount of money. Um, but you're not mandating, they don't look at your income. So they're not like, okay, well, you're really financially well off, so you need to pay $2,000 a month. But Susan down the road, who's not, you know, doing as well, she doesn't get to pay anything. Um, and neither one of you use the market, so who cares, right? It's just uh doesn't use income as a qualifier. So that's really exciting for a good percent of the population.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

And then this is one of the major things that I would say for anything in healthcare, including health insurance, there's no one solution for everybody. And you know, so there's always different solutions. So that's the first thing. And you have to get educated about the pros and cons of any solution. And the one thing with indemnity plans do is they really turn patients into good shoppers. And you know, if you get $160 for a doctor's visit, you can call around and find out and say, listen, if I pay you cash, I'm gonna pay you today at the point of service, I'm gonna pay you that day, that's different than that physician waiting 30, 60, 90 days and maybe getting it now, if at all. Right. So they have a lot more room with that. And then the same thing, one of the dirty secrets of the prescription drug business is that when you have health insurance, oftentimes the price of those drugs goes up instead of down. We think the insurance companies are working for us and are getting us the best deal. They don't care. That's not what drives them. So you might be able to get a generic for six dollars cash pay at an independent pharmacy or through cost plus drugs if it's a maintenance drug. Or the association, or the association, yeah. So yeah, so there's a lot of good options out there. Same thing for imaging. The price of imaging, if you're in a big healthcare center, a lot of them will just send you down the hallway for that $5,000 CT and you can get it in town for $300.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

That's one of my favorite topics, right? Because um I have helped not to brag or like toot my own horn or whatever, but I've helped people save thousands of dollars. And it's very exciting because then they feel empowered. They feel like, oh, they're not like this slave to this system that doesn't serve them. And people have told me that. Like, I can't believe I was doing this that way before. But um, there's this place called Recurral Health, they do great work, they work with a lot of associations, um, I think a lot of um share cost-sharing programs, and they offer deep discounts. I mean, you're talking about a CAD scan with contrast of the brain for like $280.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

Wow, that's fine.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

My plan will give you like $400 for that. So you pay $280 and then you have the rest left over because no matter what, it pays you that benefit. So being able to negotiate these prices, and it goes back to what we were talking about last episode, right? Like how they own everything. They they own everything, they own the CAT scan machine, they own the insurance carrier, they own the farm, the pharmacy. So, what is their incentive to lower prices? And now you're stuck, you have to stay there because that's not a network or this isn't a network. But you can go to these um standalone facilities and pay 10% what they're charging in these major, major health systems.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

And one of the things that people don't realize is it's really important, unless you absolutely need to, to get care outside of the hospital system, because any care you get in a hospital system is very expensive. For instance, if you see a physician in a hospital system, you get an echocardiogram, which alters sound of the heart. You're gonna pay three times what you would if you saw a physician in their own office. But the tricky part is, it's just crazy. But the tricky part is you can be a physician's office who's owned by the hospital can be thirty up to 35 miles away from the hospital and still be considered part of the hospital and you still get that facility fee. So, you know, if you're gonna have physician services, just to ask them, are you owned by the hospital? If you're gonna have a procedure, a colonoscopy, say, are you owned by the hospital? Are you a freestanding center? Because that drops the price dramatically. And it's the same service. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Yeah, that goes for everything, right? If you go to like um, if you go to the hospital to get your lab work done because they have a lab right outside your doctor's office, you're gonna pay 10 times than if you went to Walgreens that has a lab corp in it. I mean, the service might be a little different depending on the Walgreens you go to, you know, but but it's still it is still a part of that whole system. The same goes for surgeries. Like if you go to an outpatient center and you cash pay for a surgery, or if you go to a hospital system and you cash and you pay for a surgery, the prices are going to be entirely different. But it also goes for cash pay at the hospital. If you give the hospital cash, they will literally take your money. They don't care. They will say you can negotiate things with hospital, and everything's negotiable, you know. I I think customers or client people, Americans need to understand that that everything and how it's all negotiable.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Absolutely right. Now, what are your favorite indemnity plans? Which carriers do you like?

SPEAKER_00 11:49

I love New Era. I do a lot of business with them. They they have a great rating with AM Best, which is like who rates the carriers, um, and they have a high claims to pay ratio. There's they're one of the highest in the industry, um, and they're really upfront with what they pay for stuff. Um, we also have one coming out through the NCBA that um is association-based. With the deregulations of the associations that are coming, a lot's gonna change. You can be a part of a welding association and then opt into the health insurance that they offer. So it's really gonna change the game. Um, but I love the NCBA and uh the new era plans. They also operate on a first health network. So they do have a network where you can receive a discount or assign the benefit to the doctor and then not have to do the reimbursement. So there's just so many alternatives. Those are some of my favorites. Not a huge, I will I like the United Healthcare one. It's fairly decent, but New Era has some of the bigger uh payouts. The they're more of New Era and the NCBA are more of a high-end indemnity plan. Or some of these other ones, you'll get by, you know. You just need to add on accident and cancer. I mean, I did a quote for a girl 42 years old yesterday. She was paying 400 or 500 bucks, something close to that. I got her down to 250.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

That's great.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

She's an athlete, she does, you know, she's more worried about accidents. So in that 250, I had additional accident protection just in case. I've never seen it happen where someone has these giant bills that I'm not able to get negotiated down for them. Um and I've just never seen it. I think it's all kind of a ruse. They're the money that they charge. I think it's all a little bit of inflation, like to see who to see who falls for who will pay it. Because nine times out of ten, you're not, you don't want to deal with that. You're just gonna pay it and get it over with. But that that's their banking on that.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Those are interesting because then it takes you from a individual or small group to a large group. And could you explain why that's important if you can get into large group health plan versus a small group or individual health plan?

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Because the more people adding to the premium, the better. It'll drive down the cost of the premium. It's like if something costs a thousand dollars and you split it between all these people, or you used to not be able to get access to them on the individual market space, right? So having a group would allow you to kind of pick and choose, especially if you go with the exemplary health one I was sharing with you. Yes, uh, where Dr. owns the PBM. He manages all the he is like the insurance company, and he's a very passionate about reducing costs for the American people because of um it it it's a roadblock to access to care. So they think they gave people access to care, but they didn't. They they they put a huge roadblock because before you it was so much cheaper to go to the doctor. Um, I I I love indemnities. I will always be a fan of them. Um, but it's important to know the exclusions, right? Have a real conversation. You will have brokers out there who will just that's kind of the norm, right? That's why we have a bad rap, um, who will just put you in in stuff to make a paycheck, but um I don't do that. I'd rather not get paid than leave somebody with diabetes on a plan that's just not gonna. I've had customers tell me, please, I don't care, I will lie. Absolutely not. Yeah, I'm so sorry because if you get in a diabetic coma, uh nothing covers, I will never be able to live with myself. Like that, that's no. Thanks for though, but no, so there's just so many alternatives out there that you're not boxed into the ACA, you're just not, and anybody that tells you different just doesn't know. So that's why I'm here.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Could you talk to me a little bit more about the exemplary plan and how that works, how that's a little bit different? And because I think that's very exciting. And the thing is, that is a new entrant to the market, a fairly new entrant to the market. And it's not one of these brand names that everybody knows. And a lot of times I think the HR people say, well, I'll go between United Health, Blue Cross, Blue Shield, maybe Aetna Sigma, but I anthem, but I don't want to get beyond that. I feel uncomfortable with that.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

And I also think it has to do with the brokers are are not independent. They when you sign with a broker house, like um let's say ABC is a brokerage. When you sign with them, you cannot sell other products other than what ABC offers if you're a captive agent. And a lot of those big broker houses are. So they can only offer you what they have or else they lose their job and their income, right? Like, because if you do that and you're a captive agent and you sell outside, they will take all your residual, they they will just chew you, they will report you to the state. Like, there's all kinds of things they um they will do. So I think that they don't offer it in their wheelhouse, one, because the premiums are a little bit uh lower. He he's the insurance company. He basically makes all the decisions. Um, I'm sure he has at like advisors and things, but he is the PBM too. So he can get those those some of these prescription drugs. He found a cosentics for really like a few hundred dollars. I think it was 10,000 through my through my insurance, and through him it was like 400. It's like night and day. So he's not in it to make money, he's made his money, and um he wants people to have health care, and he also does all the claims management. So let's say he had somebody who they wanted to install a pacemaker on, and the customer, he's like, nah, this doesn't look right. Like he has access to all the claims in the labs. So he looked at it and he called them and um he did an evaluation on them because he is a uh one of the best physicians in the state of Florida. Um, and he didn't recommend the pacemaker, and the guy's like totally healthy, like they didn't need the pacemaker. So to have somebody who's reviewing your claims to say, okay, yeah, that they need this, or oh, wait a minute, maybe they're undergoing um a procedure they do not need is a total blessing. Because you're just a number. I hate, I I'd so sad to tell people that, but you are to the insurance company and they would rather not pay your claim.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

You know, I love this because what you're saying is Exothery really is a physician-led health insurance, which makes sense because we're the experts in healthcare versus having somebody, you know, who is working on Wall Street who is a finance person that because that's who runs so you know, why do you want to trust your health to a finance person who looks at you and says, How can I extract as much value for me out of this system? Right. And I just want to explain that PBMs are pharmacy benefit managers and they're middlemen that in our crazy system get to decide what's on the approved list of drugs for your insurance. And to make matters worse, the way you get on the formulary if you're a drug company is you pay them a rebate, which is a kickback. Now, the interesting thing is if I took a kickback as a physician under a federal health program, I would be charged with a crime under the anti-kick act statute. I could be imprisoned, I could be banned for life from all federal health programs and fined. But they have a safe harbor, they have an exclusion or what I call a hall pass for that. So they don't have to follow the rules. And one of the things that you said that is so uh important is that these are huge companies. United Health has 2,700 subsidiaries. People don't even know. So if you search health grades and you're looking for a physician, what you don't know is United Healthcare owns health grades and they're the largest employer of physicians in the country. So I wonder, are they just saying, hey, go to our physicians? And then it gets worse. The physicians then write a prescription, and are they writing a prescription that's gonna make United Health PBM the most amount of money? And there's been lots of stories for the Medicare Advantage program that they're pressured, the docs are pressured to upcode people to put more money back in United Healthcare. And all of these things in there, this interconnected self-referral, is illegal for physicians to do. We can't do that. We again could go to prison for this stark law. That's that's the law that says we can't self-refer. But not only can the insurance companies self-refer, but they are encouraged to do so by the Affordable Care Act. So that's why they do that. So these, you know, all these problems we have were set up by the government. And that's the system isn't broken, it's working as it was designed, but it doesn't work for patients, it doesn't work for physicians, and that's why the patients are suffering. And that's why we need to educate them.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

It doesn't, it doesn't, it only benefits the insurance companies.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

So it infuriates me. It's I'm if I wouldn't laugh, I would be very angry, right? But um it I'm so passionate about it because there's so many other things you can do. And at the end of the day, your life is your life. You you can't rely on the government or a huge healthcare system to advocate for you because they are just not gonna do that. I mean, I grew up with my grandmother telling me the scariest thing, like you know, Ralph Ruckett said, is if the government comes to your house and they're like, Hey, I'm I'm here to help you out with something, you know, because nothing, there's no such thing in any system. Inside of the natural world that exists on a free lunch. There is always some push and pull. And the people that are in the giving, the being taken from, are the patients and the doctors. There's a lot of good doctors who don't practice anymore, who don't get paid what they're worth. And then you have other people screaming, well, doctors shouldn't be making a lot of money. Yes, they should. He's operating on your brain. Like, what are we talking about? It just all comes from a system of everyone thinks that everything should be equal. And that's just not how systems operate. There's always some that are winners, and there's always some that are losers. But every insurance company is a winner. Every single one of them. And they have set this jacket up. And the people that are paying for it are me, probably my children, and the doctors. And I've seen good doctors leave, like not wanting to work do it anymore that want to sell insurance with me. It's like, what are you doing? You know, like at my my doctor's office. I think I'm gonna leave and just come sell insurance with you. No, we need doctors like you.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

But these systems, if if you exit off of the government-sponsored system, right? The world is your oyster. You can go to any doctor, pay whatever you want, see, like literally, I mean with any reason, you can't give a dollar for an MRI. But there's standalone, there's just so many options out there, and there's no encouragement to spread those options around. In fact, you know, you used to be penalized, which is crazy, and they discredit it, and but it works. So my goal is to get help as many people as I can exit this really crazy system so then we can revamp it and make it work for people who actually need it. Like the ACA should be for people who are very poor, right? And unhealthy. And that's the only people that should be on that plan because otherwise you're subsidizing everybody's care, which is not fair or right, I don't think. So there's got there's many solutions out there, and I think the only way we'll get any real solutions is if insurance agents who know access to very good plans, who are all about this life, um, helping doctors get the word out there because I've had you know CEOs of insurance companies tell me, yeah, well, we deny every claim on first submission. I mean, you didn't know that. And it's like, well, no, I I didn't. I'm naive. I thought you would want to help people. And he was like, no, we absolutely want to keep as much money in our pockets as we can. We don't want to pay claims. It's like, whoa, dude, this is crazy. Like, what are you talking about? You know, just have this real wake-up call where it's like, man, this is not, I can't do this to people.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

No, you know, an interesting thing is the exemplary plan that we were talking about earlier, that is a comprehensive plan. So that's a little different than the indemnities, where that is a traditional plan, but it's a significant discount because it's physician led by a phenomenal physician who has lots of experience with that. So you really sell kind of a wide range of services from limited plans to very comprehensive plans. And one thing, you know, is we're discussing this. I'm really starting to understand that independent insurance brokers are very much like independent physicians that we really need at, you know, because you can go between different companies, you can sit down with a client and say, okay, you know, you are going to be better served by the ACA. You're you're somebody better here, or somebody else, you're young, you're healthy, you're like, you know what, you might be a good person for an indemnity plan, or your association might be better at the exemplary plan. And and I love the idea of the association plans. One of the things that's interesting with insurance is there's a lot of rules. I can't just go out today and form a group, and the sole purpose of the group is to get health insurance. They're not gonna let me do that. There's there's rules, and you have to have another legitimate reason for that association to be in existence. Yeah. So it's very complicated business.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

These operating groups, pretty much, they'll really do a lot of good for associations that already exist, right? Like um the Real Realtors Association, which is thousands and thousands of realtors all across the country. They can just get the association, right? Um, that's part of your membership dues. If you want to be a part of the association, here's this. Now you could just go out, you could just go on the association plane, which has telemedicine service, it offers pharmaceutical discounts, gives you access to recurral health, has behavioral health virtual. You know, there's all these alternatives in those associations, and then you can bring in exemplary health because they would qualify as a true group. So exemplary health is one of the most fascinating uh products I I've ever really seen, and I've been doing this a decade. So I'm really excited about um the people that will be able to benefit from having access to a physician if you call him and say, hey, look, this is a very and he'll give you his phone number, which is insane. But you can call him and say, Hey, look, my doctor prescribed me this cosentics, for example. Do you think I really need it? And pretty much he's like, probably not, you know, but yeah, give me your records, I'll I'll look at them. And I I haven't taken the cosentics in months, and I feel better now than I did like before. And now I realize, oh well, my doctor has two children, she's pregnant again. She probably needs to make some money, and I can only fill it through the pharmacy at my insurance company has, so somewhere along the way. You know, it's just it's too much for the average person to consume all this information, and that's what we exist for. And independent brokers, what's good about us is we're not beholden to any carrier. Like, I really could care less when you call me. I'm gonna give you your my advice and guide you the way I I think you'll most benefit from, but I don't care what you pick. Like, I don't care. I if you want that, I'm gonna give it to you. And I'm gonna be here to answer your questions throughout the course of the history of that of the policy, right? Because if you buy a policy through me, you buy me. I I come with it. I I help you with claims. I I I'm just so passionate about it because I've seen a lot of people really suffer and worry, and there's really not that much to worry about. It's really kind of simple in if you think about it in systems ways.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

And I think that's great. You're a great resource for your clients that you know that they can reach out to you, and that adds so much value. And that's the part I think that's happened as healthcare has gotten very centralized. We lose touch. You know, you have a big health policy with United Health, you're not gonna have a local agent, you're calling somewhere far away, and that part of it is very difficult for people. I think that's where people are feeling lost, and they just give up. You know, they get put on hold for a long time, then they have to talk to somebody else, and then they just say, you know what, I just give up.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

I they're banking on it. Yes, yes, is what I tell my client. They are banking on that you do that.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

Right, where we need an advocate. Patients need, you know, independent broker advocates, they need physician advocates, somebody working for them, you know, not for a big conglomerate. So I know I think that is great. And I love all the solutions that you're bringing forward. And what's your thoughts on the I'll call them kind of community sharing, cost sharing plans, because I know that's another alternative that can be popular. And you know, those are not insurance because they can't, if they they they're not regulated as insurance, they can't say they're insurance. So it's they won't guarantee payment. Right, and they don't guarantee payment, you know. So just what's your thoughts on those?

SPEAKER_00 30:27

You know, that's so complicated because there probably are people out there that it works for, right? Like that it's a great solution for, it's just not it's not insurance. So in theory, like, and most people be like, great, I don't want insurance. Okay, well, have a heart attack. Like you will want some kind of benefit from that. And there's no guarantee that they will pay it. And newer ones, you have to think about okay, well, it's pretty new, they're not having a lot of claims right now, right? Or, and if something happens within, they'll have limitations and all kinds of stuff, but it's just not insurance. So, if you are gonna do something like that, you need to get a cancer plan, you need to get an accident indemnity, you need to get other layers to protect you in case you do have something and they don't have the money to pay it. Because they're operating on people paying into their premiums, and that's the bucket they're gonna pay those claims from. So, if they have a high claims layer, like some, you can think about it like a self-funded plan, right? You have five employees, one has a stroke, one is hospitalized for epilepsy, the other um has a severe accident, and the other one has a heart attack, but your claims just went through the root. They have one year like that, and you come along and you're the last person to make a claim, you're kind of up the creek, you know? They're just not insurance. They they're great for specific people, just like indemnities are, right? So they're they're good in theory. And I I always when I hear about them, I really hope they work because it's it gives other people's solution, a sense of community, a place to go. But like if they paired it with an association and got an accident inside of that crowd or or the group or whatever, then they can reduce their claims too, because they can say, Well, you through us, you got this, right? This $10,000 cancer plan or $5,000 accident plan. File the claims through them, they'll pay out, we'll pay the rest. See, so there's a lot of alternatives you can do to add and create a good package to where you're not paying for crap you don't need, but you also have protection when you need it. And that's exactly it. You want to have the benefits you pay work when you need them to work, not oh, well, this is out of network, we don't cover this pharmaceutical or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's all crap because they don't want to pay your claim.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

I love that you can tie plans together, like you said, you know, supplement something, you know, if somebody's a 25-year-old, you say, okay, most likely would probably, you know, you're not really worried typically, actuarily, about a heart attack as much, you're worried about an accident. So if you've put an accident policy in there, you know, that which are fairly inexpensive and you can add value and you know, and in a lot, there's so many great plans out there where you can get access to very inexpensive medications, labs, I mean, and imaging. So that helps out a lot. And you were telling me the other day about something really cool about the urgent care by your house.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

Yes, AFC. They offer um where you pay them a monthly, a monthly, like kind of like a premium for insurance. And I think it was $75 or $79 for the family at my local AFC, and you can get unlimited access to urgent care.

SPEAKER_01 33:50

That's wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 33:51

If you cannot afford insurance, you should do that.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

Right. No, that's a really basic idea. It's a great idea.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

Fantastic. Yeah. The thing is, is you don't need to go to the emergency room. Like, people need to stop using the emergency room. It's really insane. You should only go to the emergency room if you have a bleed that does not stop bleeding. If you are thinking you're having a heart attack or cardiovascular issue, a stroke, right? Or like a broken, a severe broken bone, like where the bone is hanging out of the skin. Sure. Everything else you should be going to urgent care for. You know, high temperature. Stop going to ER for stitches.

unknown 34:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:31

Like stop. Because the stitches are going to cost you six times the amount than if you go to urgent care where it's like $125 for the whole visit.

SPEAKER_01 34:39

You know, and if you have a question, you know, certainly if it's an emergency, you don't want to call 9-1-1. You know, if you're having chest pain, those sorts of things.

SPEAKER_00 34:45

Well, yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_01 34:47

But if you're not true, you could always call an urgent care and say, is this appropriate for me to come in with this complaint? You know, that's always a reasonable thing as well. And one of the things I see in a lot of these plans, they have what I'll just call, for lack of a better word, I'll call teletalk. Maybe I just invented this word. But, you know, for counseling, I think that's wonderful. I've seen plans where they have telecounseling and they have different ones. They have licensed counselors on there, and you could set that up, and it's, you know, one subscription price, you have access to that. And those are things that I think can be very beneficial as people are getting stressed in life. And I think that's another good option. So I think there's many, many great options out there. What I want all my viewers that really think about is you have to take control of your health care. You're the one responsible for your and your family. You have to get educated, you have to be a good chopper. And one of the things that I read was phenomenal, there was a study from 1998 to 2021, and they looked at the cost of cosmetic procedures. And they looked at the top 16 cosmetic procedures, and over that time period, they went up 38 percent. The average overall consumer price index went up 66 percent. So people were shopping for cosmetic procedures, they were doing the best, they were doing better than the rest of us.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

I believe it.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

So all these people going in, and these are things like breast implants, you know, eyelid surgery, all these things. People are getting a great deal because they're paying cash. Same thing for LASIK. LASIK now costs about the same as when it first started because people shop for it. There, you know, so people are price sensitive to that. Even though the service has gotten much better, they're paying less. And that's the opposite of a hospital. Hospital expense over at the same time went up 240% versus 38%. So it's not the docs. If you can get to the docs, if the patients to docs get together, it's very affordable. But you once you get these big systems involved, it's unaffordable. But but I love what you're doing. Thank you so much, Talia, for working for all your patients. You're doing such a wonderful job. And I just want to close this out by thanking everybody for listening to us. Please like, share, follow. And then you can also follow me on LinkedIn and on X as well. And please send questions in. Let us know what you think. And I'll be happy to send those questions to Talia. We can always do a follow up on questions if we have enough questions. And I think she did a great job. And thank you so much for being here.