[speaker001:] Okay, what do you think about, uh, the self insurance business?
[speaker002:] Well, I watched something on T V a couple of months ago by, uh, General, ex, uh, Surgeon General Koop.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] And he talked about Canada's system and it appears to work fine for the normal colds and things like that, but the expensive stuff, heart, uh, operations and things, they have a managed scarcity. And they said that in Canada, there were as many heart, uh, trauma centers as there is in San Francisco. So in one city of, in America, there's as many, uh, hospitals that are equipped to do hosp-, uh, heart operations as in the entire area of Canada, and that's kind of spooky.
[speaker001:] Well, I, uh, I understand what you're saying, and there's probably some truth to that. I think that, uh, generally I don't welcome added government responsibilities. However, when a, anybody can't police their own profession, it eventually leads to that, and I think the costs and the, uh, the way the medical profession has, every year I, being in my own business, uh, in the last six years, every year there's been at least minimum twenty-five percent increase in health insurance costs, and I think eventually the number of people that can afford health insurance, as, as it is now getting squeezed and squeezed tighter.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] Uh, I think they're asking for it. I, I think the medical profession is just, just pushing until there's no option but the government take it over [faint] and, uh,
[speaker002:] Do you think that it's just, uh, medical guys? What about, you know, you know how expensive new equipment and technology is. That's where I think most of the cost is coming.
[speaker001:] Well, I, I think a lot of it is, uh, I, I don't disagree totally with that, but, uh, my wife this last summer, uh, when we were on vacation tore up her knee, and, uh, uh, it was lig-, ligaments, uh, in her knee,
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] as it turned out, uh, she came back that, uh, we were out at Cape Hatteras when this happened and, uh, she got home, and the leading orthopedic man, who has handled football people for years and is as good as they come, I mean, he knows knee problems okay,
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] I mean if anyone does, this guy knows it. Well, she goes in, he says, well, I think this is what it is, but, uh, you better go to the hospital and have one of these M R I things. A thousand dollars for this, uh, oh, magnetic, uh, resonance imaging type thing. And my wife said, well, do I need that? And he says, well, uh, you know, it, it'll help me diagnose this. I mean, uh, you know, I, I suggest you go have this thing. Insurance won't pick this up unless you're in the hospital. Now, a,
[speaker002:] Oh, great.
[speaker001:] thousand, uh, uh, dollars for thirty-five minutes. I mean, doctors routinely send people in for anything. Now, for years they didn't have this and they solved these problems, and, you know,
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] I said to her, well, look, you know, if you feel you got to go, go, but I, I think a thousand dollars, these guys, I don't know what it is, but there's,
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] no doubt they get kickbacks to fill these machines up night and day. And even if they cost a hundred, two hundred, five hundred thousand dollars, at, uh, roughly a thousand dollars every half hour, uh, that's ridiculous. I, I don't care what anyone says. You know, the costs are not, it's a picture. It shouldn't cost more than thirty-five bucks for something like that, you know, reasonableness. But they aren't reasonable. Fifty, a hundred dollars. They don't have to pay them back in three months time.
[speaker002:] No. Yeah, I'll have to agree,
[speaker001:] You know.
[speaker002:] with you there, but there's another problem, and that's the, how litigious our society is. If the doctor makes a mistake, he can be sure that he's going to be hauled into court.
[speaker001:] Well, I think that should be, that, that's a, another problem, but that's part of our legalese problem. And that, the government eventually will address too [LAUGHTER] just, you know, because it's out of control. I, I agree with you. You know, uh, I was on a jury or I, I didn't make the jury, but there was a,
[speaker002:] [Noise].
[speaker001:] deal where a doctor was going to be sued for malpractice on the death on an infant.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] Like it was three days after it was born, and he was the one that delivered it. And they got four attorneys, one guy out of Houston, he introduced himself as snake so-and-so, and he says, well, anyone have trouble awarding five million dollars, and I says, yeah, I got problems with [LAUGHTER]. I mean, [LAUGHTER] you know, five million bucks isn't going to bring this kid back, you know, I mean, as sorrowful as it is. Uh, you know, if the doctor is wrong, you know, he should be pulled from his license, but five million dollars and away he goes because insurance pays for it, you know, it, it doesn't make logical sense to me, but, uh,
[speaker002:] No, it doesn't.
[speaker001:] Uh, that's,