Key Takeaways

The U.S. healthcare system is collapsing under the weight of perverse incentives, rising costs, and government interference. Marty Bent and Crowd Health CEO Andy Schoonover argue that the Affordable Care Act failed to make healthcare affordable, instead, it triggered a “death spiral” where healthy people are dropping out, leaving only the sick in the insurance pool. This dynamic forces premiums even higher, with families now facing absurd costs of $3,000–$5,000 per month and deductibles exceeding $10,000. Insurers and hospitals, incentivized by regulation to profit only when prices rise, have quietly colluded to inflate healthcare costs while masking inefficiencies through subsidies that are now expiring. Crowd Health offers an alternative: a subscription-based, community-funded model that rewards healthy lifestyles and transparency, removing insurers as middlemen and restoring direct doctor-patient relationships. Healthy members pay less, cash payments lower prices, and AI-driven audits help expose fraudulent billing that affects 80% of hospital invoices. Schoonover also envisions a “Bitcoin circular economy” in healthcare, connecting patients, doctors, and hospitals willing to transact in Bitcoin to escape both fiat inflation and healthcare bureaucracy. With open enrollment season driving record demand and new hospital partnerships forming, Crowd Health’s deflationary approach challenges the monopoly of traditional insurers and offers a model built on aligned incentives and financial sovereignty.

Best Quotes

“This is the year of the health insurance death spiral.” – Andy Schoonover on the unsustainable costs forcing people to opt out of traditional insurance.

“The Affordable Care Act was supposed to make things affordable, but it made them way more expensive.”

“Hospitals and insurers both want prices to go up. When the buyer and seller of healthcare want that, prices go up.”

“Eighty percent of hospital bills have errors or fraudulent markups.”

“Healthy people should pay less. That’s how every rational system works.”

“If you’re paying $30,000 a year before insurance pays a dime, you’re not insured, you’re trapped.”

“Crowd Health is the Bitcoin of healthcare, cutting out middlemen, aligning incentives, and putting power back in the hands of individuals.”

“We can cut America’s $5.6 trillion healthcare spend in half if we rebuild from first principles.”

“Every middleman between you and your doctor adds cost and removes accountability.”

“I’ve had two babies through Crowd Health, both fully funded by the community. I’m never going back.” – Marty Bent

Conclusion

This episode exposes the systemic rot in America’s health insurance model: fraud, misaligned incentives, and dependence on subsidies that punish the healthy and reward inefficiency. As premiums soar and trust erodes, Bitcoiners and health-conscious individuals are leading an exodus from traditional insurance toward decentralized, incentive-aligned alternatives. Crowd Health’s growth, from a few thousand to over 15,000 members, reflects a broader societal shift toward self-custody in both money and medicine. With AI-enhanced transparency, Bitcoin integration, and direct doctor relationships, the company is proving that healthcare can become deflationary when it’s stripped of bureaucratic bloat. As Schoonover puts it, there’s no iterative fix left, only a complete rebuild of the system from the ground up.

Timestamps

0:00 - Intro
0:49 - Tis the season for healthcare
4:16 - Subsidizing the unhealthy
8:01 - Ozempic
10:41 - Keeping the community healthy
13:54 - Bitkey & SLNT
15:43 - Error and fraud
20:25 - Healthcare/insurance collusion
26:25 - DPC
33:47 - Obscura & Sote
36:29 - Deflationary prices
39:44 - Bitcoin integration
47:35 - Andy’s death threat
52:12 - Care advocates
1:02:29 - Doctors catching on

Transcript

(00:00) There's no plan to solve this. This Affordable Care Act was supposed to make things affordable, but in fact, what it did, it is made things way more expensive. They're going to have to jack up rates to make up for the healthy people subsidizing the unhealthy people. I mean, that's the only way the health insurance works.
(00:17) If you combine fraudulent billing activities with what they've tried to do in the past with what they've been willing to take in terms of payment in the past, that I think is the the magic trio. You can get the absolute best prices and that's ultimately what we're good at is getting that best price. They showed the percentage of people within United Healthcare who have diabetes five or six times the national average.
(00:35) They figured out a way to code all of these people as diabetics so they get paid more from the government. Everybody else is getting paid out there to see you sick. I think people have made hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars by stacking sats with crowd health. And it's that time of year again we meet again. Open enrollment is here. everybody's favorite time of the year.
(00:56) It's not because of Thanksgiving or Christmas. It's because of open enrollment. Well, we've been texting pretty frequently over the last couple months cuz obviously we've worked together closely for the last four years. I've been a Crowd Health member for the last four years.
(01:16) I've had two babies on it and I've been texting you behind the scenes like I think this is the year for Crowd Health. Um, if you're looking at the zeitgeist out there, the selfie videos and cars of people complaining about the cost of health insurance, it's getting untenable. And you were saying right before we hit record that you think we're in a health insurance death spiral.
(01:40) Yeah, I'm I was trying to think back of when we first talked. I think it was you what, two, three years ago, maybe? I think four years ago, four I I think I think when we first talked we had like 2,000 customers um or you know 2,000 community members and now we're at 15,000 um we'll have somewhere between 20 and 25,000 by the end of the year. Um and so yeah, I mean I think you're right.
(02:07) I mean this is this is the year of the health insurance death spiral and I think what's happening is is people are finally realizing that the Affordable Care Act actually wasn't affordable. Um and and you know premiums are going up wickedly fast and people are just opting out of the system. You know like the Bitcoiners are opting out of the fiat system.
(02:32) I think the rest of folks are opting out of the uh the the health health care space. So the worst one we've seen thus far is $5,600 a month for a family of four. Like that's that's the record so far. Yeah. So this is I was I was just looking at some tweets before we hopped on. They're not hard to find. If you search ACA premium, uh, it's insane. Says trucking are only employee of my business. This is not, I repeat, not sustainable.
(02:58) This is my renewal not renewal notice for just health insurance per month before Obama. And there's some harsh language in there, but for him and a five dependent, it looks like he's going to be paying 32 almost $3,300 a month. It's his business, so he's eating that chunk, too. Um, he's going to have to pay $2,600 a month out of pocket from his paycheck just to support this.
(03:22) Jeez. Yeah. I mean, that family with us would be like $750 a month. Yeah. And and I didn't know I didn't I didn't see the deductible on that, but you know, ultimately, you know, that that guy's paying what, $30,000 a year or something like that. Um, and then he's got to pay the deductible on top of that.
(03:42) So, he's probably $40,000 into, you know, his healthcare before the the the insurance company pays a dime. Yeah. And here's another one, which is here's Blue Cross Blue Shield. Nine options. Anyway, is that is that Illinois, too? It's uh health insurance. M. I don't know where this guy is, but um deductible 8,600 12,000 3,000 paying upwards $3500 a month.
(04:16) Why is it getting this bad? Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think I think what we're seeing ultimately is that um you know back almost 15 years ago these this affordable care act was supposed to be you know make things affordable but in fact what it did it is made things way more expensive and it was masked you know for the last four years because of the afford or the um I think it was American Rescue Plan that that basically gave subsidies to you know the people who were I think it was like 400% of the of the poverty level or something. Um and and so it masks all these huge these
(04:49) huge changes. And so what what's happening is now these subsidies are going away. And so all the healthy people are going that what the health insurance plans actuaries are doing is they're assuming that all the healthy people are going to exit the system which means you're only having unhealthy people left in the system and therefore they're going to have to jack up rates to make up for you know the healthy people subsidizing the unhealthy people.
(05:15) I mean, that's the only way that health insurance works is healthy people subsidizing unhealthy people, right? And so the the mechanics just don't work when all the healthy people exit the system. Um, so that's ultimately what's going on here.
(05:32) Um, you know, we see we see above inflationary rates for all the medical services and things like that, but that's that's not what's going to increase ACA by 18%. I mean, it's that's a chunk of it, but that's that's not what it is. It's more just the the population of patients within these plans are getting sicker. Does the government have a plan to solve this? No, there's no there's no plan to solve this.
(05:55) I mean, even I I I I won't say who, but I I saw a state rep or excuse me, a US rep at my funny enough my my daughter's uh school's fundraiser. So, I went up to him. I was like, "What's the what's the what's the option?" He's like, "We have none. We we we have the the the Republicans have no alternative.
(06:16) They have no solution to the to the problem. Um and I don't think anything iterative gets there. I mean, I think I said it the last time. I got a whole bunch of [ __ ] for it because everybody on the line is like you, you know, I said burn we got to burn the system down and start over again because there's no iterative way of getting back to, you know, something that's actually feasible, you know, and and and then then the left basically says, "Oh, this shows we have to have Medicare for all." And we know what happens when, you know,
(06:39) the government gets involved in this stuff, right? So, we're either at what we have or Medicare for all. and the Republicans really haven't put together, you know, a a plan for, you know, what their is. Look, I don't like government involvement in anything we do.
(06:58) But I think that people maybe should have a choice where let us healthy people have access to private plans of healthy people. Um, and we're going to pay way way less. And maybe there's some government subsidization of the sick or something, you know? Like there maybe there's a a hybrid system here that works. Again, I know we're all Bitcoiners.
(07:16) like I don't want the government involved, but like at some point like you know for these sick people unless we want to continue to subsidize them. Let's let the let's let the healthy people have our plans and the unhealthy people have their plans and you know if that's not enough of an incentive to stay healthy I don't know what it is right like the last thing you want to do is jump on a government you know unhealthy person plan so it would have to be government subsidized which means it's a taxpayer type of deal but I think it's actually going to be less than what they're we're spending on the
(07:42) ACA this year so I think it's it's not you know massive amounts more money going out the out the door Um, but I think there's got to be some kind of significant change to the system to get this thing right sized cuz I don't I don't see any other options honestly. Well, I wonder if everybody can join crowd health that would solve it.
(08:00) Yeah. I wonder if Trump's I'm sure you saw the announcement earlier this week. I think it was yesterday or the day before about discounted Zmpic. Like do you think they're seeing this problem and to your point what is driving the cost up is the unhealthy people and was this Ompic move like okay let's make OMIC cheap for people so that we can try to make them skinnier and I don't I'm not going to speak to the efficacy of I know there's many people are for it and many are against it and many who believe
(08:32) that there hasn't been enough time to really understand how it affects people in the long term but I I think I would not be shocked if the ompic discounts that the government is sort of forcing on the market is a recognition of okay we've got these massive health care costs are only ballooning going to continue to balloon they're predominantly driven due to the fact that we have to provide health care to people that are willfully unhealthy obese have heart disease I mean look I think that there's something to be said for people who are significantly overweight
(09:08) who have di diabetes and all these other, you know, conditions to take something like this to get them down to a weight that's manageable. Once they get down to that weight, I don't know how you'd structure this, but like once they get down to this that weight, then they're like, "Okay, now you got to pay it for yourself for it yourself.
(09:27) " Like, so it's not a burden on others or um you've got to keep the weight off, right? like you can't go back cuz everything that I've seen is, you know, as epic as great until you get off it, then you gain all the weight back. So, you know, I don't think we're in a structure where you can pay $1,000 a month or whatever it is.
(09:45) I know that he said he's going to bring it down to what 150 or something like that. Um, you you just can't continue to do that without, you know, the person making the lifestyle choices having some skin in the game. you know because if if that happens it's you and I the taxpayers are going to pay this and for the rest of their life which is not scalable we just can't we just can't do that right um so I think I think people have to pay out of their pocket for it at some point or they got to make lifestyle changes I think the latter would be preferable that's why for sure 100% yeah but I think that you know incentives are everything so if if
(10:24) you're stuck with a situation in which you have to make a lifestyle change or you have to come out of pocket for 200 bucks a month or what you know whatever it ends up being to the consumer then I think incentives might change some some some lifestyle changes. I don't know if 200 bucks a month or 150 or whatever it is is is enough but I know it's got to hit their pocket.
(10:42) Yeah. Well, this is something you focus on pretty heavily at Crowd Health is making sure that community members are doing their best to remain healthy as well for the benefit of the wider community. Yeah.
(11:01) I mean, I ultimately think that the healthy people should be paying less than the unhealthy people, you know, and I I think in in many in many parts of society, people are like, "Oh, that's that's that's awful for you to say, but look, you know, if people are putting in the work to to be healthy, then they should be paying less. They should be paying less for for healthcare services than the people who are who are unhealthy, right? And so, you know, we've got a we got a program at Crowd Health where we got three different tests that you can take and if you are in the top quartortile for those tests, I mean, you know, like in the top quartile healthiest, then you get a 20% discount on on your crowd health. So, in
(11:31) essence, those who are taking better care of themselves are paying less. And ultimately, I think that's that's the case. I think we talked before on on your other on previous podcasts where, you know, you do that for uh for car insurance. you know, these car insurance. Yeah.
(11:49) Yeah. You like, you know, stick something in your in your car or you have an app or something that shows how good of a driver you are. And if you're a good driver, you pay less. If you're not a good driver, you pay more. I mean, that seems like a reasonable a reasonable thing. But for healthcare, for some reason, it's, you know, appalling to a lot of people that I would ever even recommend that.
(12:05) Um, but I think ultimately that's where we have to go. So people feel it in their pocketbooks or else they're just they're they're they're going to the grocery store with somebody else's credit card. Yeah. Right. No, to my point of the uh opening sort of statement, like I feel like this year particularly, I don't know if you're seeing it and observing it yourself, but it feels like with these preview increases, it's gotten to the point where it's forcing many people to seriously reconsider whether or not they want to engage in health insurance because it's beginning to materially hit
(12:37) their pocketbooks. Yeah, I I think that's right. And that's what I think is kind of why people are forecasting the the death spiral of of health insurance. And what what are the incentives for me, right? If I'm going to pay $2,000 a month, so $24,000 a year plus a $10,000 deductible, $34,000.
(13:02) If I'm a healthy person, I look at that and say, what's the probability that I'm going to have $34,000 worth of healthcare expenses this year? And and for most of us, it's incredibly low. you know, half a percent, a percent, something like that. And so people just do the math and know Bitcoiners are great at this and and and work on probabilities. And most people are being like, it's just not worth it. I'm just going to self-fund.
(13:21) And if, god forbid, something happens, I'll, you know, try to negotiate the [ __ ] out of it. And, you know, ultimately that's what we do at Crowd Health. And we probably should have just like a negotiating uh product. Like, hey, if you're uninsured and you just want us to help you negotiate, we should have a negotiation product.
(13:39) Um, but you know, I think that's I think that's the mindset that people are taking right now. And so I think a lot of people are just going to dump health insurance um and start paying paying on their own, which ultimately I think is a good thing because I think people need to to, you know, need to feel the the consequences of the healthcare decisions that they're making.
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(15:49) I mean, I sent you this tweet. I forget it was yesterday or the day before, but that individual u Mucuned Mohan tweeted that he took one of his hospital bills and fed it to Claude and basically it highlighted how the hospital was double, triple, quadruple um charging him for things that didn't make any sense and it was able to reduce his bill down by like 85% just by giving him some advice on how the system actually works.
(16:22) So you have this inflated cost being driven by the unhealthy member of societies that are driving actual cost up and then you have this sort of administrative bloat and uh would it go would you call it fraud like whatever whatever it is that these I mean I would call it fraud. Yeah. Fraud on top of it by the hospital systems to try to gouge you for even more. Yeah.
(16:48) I mean we we um we also have our internal you know AI um platform that we don't we use we don't use cloud we use a different kind of platform built on another LLM that's all you know HIPPA compliant and stuff so I'm not giving away data um that that does the same thing but we pair it with what we know that hospital has done in the past so it it basically looks for um shenanigans that they've done in the plus what have they been willing to negotiate to in the past.
(17:16) So if you combine just kind of fraudulent billing activities with what they've tried to do in the past vers with what they've been willing to take in terms of payment in the past, that I think is the the magic trio where you can get the absolute best prices. And that's ultimately what what we're what we're good at is getting that that best price.
(17:38) Um because you can you can you know take a $50,000 bill and say you made one mistake and it goes down to $42,000 which is awesome but how do you get it down to something actually manageable? Um because the 42,000 is still probably 400 or 500% you know higher than Medicare. Um which you should be at kind of 125 to 150% of Medicare. I mean that's a fair price.
(18:05) And so if you don't know that then you know how are you going to really negotiate that bill because that's so I think errors is one component of a kind of a broader negotiation picture um that we really use on our side to ensure that that our members are getting the best price. So and I and I think this you know I I think it is fraudulent.
(18:23) Um I you know you I was in Bitcoin Commons just a year and a half ago and I had my issue where I had you know I thought I was having a stroke. Um, and for thank god Parker was right outside the the office. I was like, "Parker, call 911." I think Will actually called 911 or, you know, one of the two of them did. And um, you know, I went to the hospital and they put me in on an IV.
(18:43) Um, even though I wasn't dehydrated, so it was an IV. I was on an IV for 12 hours. It was 1,000 milliliters. I can buy that off of Amazon for $8. The hospital can buy it for $2. I got charged $5,000 for a bag a,000ml bag of saline solution. That's insane. Salt water. It's salt water, people. Like that. That's what that's what this is.
(19:11) And that's that's the egregiousness of these hospitals when they try to do this crowd. What percentage of bills have errors like this or fraudulent markups like this? 80. Yeah, 80. 80 are very very clear. I would say there's another 10% that you can make a really good argument. Um because a lot of times they use these billing codes and and they they try to to jack the system so they can upcode you.
(19:43) So, you know, for example, if you go to the ER, there's five codes that they can use and it goes from 1 to five, not to bore you, but like 1 to five. And like 80% 80 some odd percent of our bills are n or the the fours or the fives, which meaning there's like critical life-threatening. Like those are the two. I mean, I've seen somebody go into the ER with, you know, a broken finger and get critical or life-threatening coded.
(20:07) yet yet they they say, you know, they they do all these tests and things on you um to say, "Oh, well, we thought, you know, there might be too much loss of blood or something." And so that gets it to that critical area, but they're all they're trying to do is get as much money out of the insurance companies as possible. So, we see that stuff all the time. Yeah. All the time.
(20:24) And we've we've talked about we've talked about this in the past, but for the benefit of anybody who's coming to our large and growing show who has not listened to an episode with Andy yet. Um, can you describe the dynamic between the health insurance company and the health provider and what their incentives are, the level of collusion or um sort of cooperation there is between the two? Yeah.
(20:55) So, you know, back in um 2009, the Affordable Care Act went into place. Um, and you know what they did is they said they told the hospitals, like the federal government told the hospitals, you can or excuse me, the the insurance companies, you can only make 15% of revenue as profit.
(21:14) So, you know, if it's $1,000 of premium this month for my family, they can only profit $150. And the thought process behind that, right, all these smart, you know, lawyers in DC thought, "Oh, well, we can't have health insurance plans gouge, you know, their members and make a ton of money off of their their healthare. So, I'm going to limit the amount that you can profit.
(21:38) " Well, the problem with this is is that most of these health insurance plans are for-profit organizations, right? So, they want to get their 150, they want to grow it 10% to 165. Well, what does that mean? That means your premium has to go from $1,000 to $1,100. So your insurance plan, the the buyer of healthcare wants the price to go up. The sellers are these big hospital systems. They clearly want the price to go up.
(22:01) So you know, you don't have you don't have to I could kind of say you don't have to be, you know, a safeodine PhD in economics to understand if the buyer and the seller of a of a product want the price to go up, guess what? The prices go up. And so, you know, that's ultimately what's happening is there's this there's this wink wink between the hospitals and the health insurance plans that, you know, the hospitals won't raise prices too fast. So, there's no regulatory intervention.
(22:26) Health insurance companies won't push back when you, you know, increase prices 5 or 6% every year, which on a compounded rate, as we all understand, is like massive. Um, and then you you'll see these entanglements once in a while where the hospital, you know, tries for seven or eight or 9% increases and the health insurance plan, you know, pushes back.
(22:45) Um, and I think it's more theatrics than anything, but yeah. Yeah, you have the buyer and the seller of healthcare both having an incentive for the price to go up, you know, and so in in essence, we have a principal agent problem, right? They're supposed to be our agent. the health insurance plans are supposed to be our agent trying to get us the best price where what happens is they're actually benefiting benefiting for the prices going up over time. So those are the perverse incentives within within healthcare. And so what I tell people is
(23:09) Marty Andy I've got more negotiating power against these these hospitals than United Healthcare which is the seventh or eighth largest company on the planet. Um and you know so I can get way better prices. our members are getting prices that are about 50% better than United Healthcare as individuals. Yeah. That's how that's how screwed up our system is.
(23:35) And going back to your point about um United Healthcare and the fact that ACA was really trying to make it so these health insurance companies weren't gouging um their customers at the end of the day and you had this principal agent problem that has existed. That's one thing. Um, I didn't realize until somebody tweeted out earlier today, but if you go back and you, uh, open up United Healthcare's uh, stock chart going to max, we have ACA implemented here around here. Uh, it was trading at Mhm.
(24:11) below $100. It's up almost 300%. Obviously, it's down bad this year, but it's obvious that their profits have gone up significantly since the ACA was instituted. Yeah. If you look at all the health insurance plans, um you'll you'll see that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, these were these were behind the scenes.
(24:36) You know, these health insurance plans love this because in essence, they're getting paid directly by the government for stuff that they hadn't been paid for, you know, in the past. And so this ACA marketplace was a whole new marketplace for them that they, you know, gorged upon. Um, you know, the other thing that was going on there too is there a privatization of Medicare, which typically we really love privatization.
(24:54) You know, um, we think that I think in the Bitcoin community is all about taking it away from the federal government, but in essence what this is is this is just a federal program being administered by for-profit entity. And so you actually have the worst of both worlds, which is, you know, a a government funding with a private entity trying to maximize profit, which means there's some gaming between that that happens.
(25:20) And the reason why it's down this year, United Healthcare is down this year, is you know, they have been found to be gaming the system. Um, and you know, there was a there was a a chart, I don't know, it was maybe six months ago, maybe nine months ago, something like that, where they showed the percentage of people within United Healthcare who have diabetes was something like five or six times the national average.
(25:44) And it's because they figured out a way to code all of these people as diabetics, so they get paid more from the government. So they they it's a total gaming of of the system. The government pays them based upon how sick they are. And so United went and basically said all these people are way sicker, you know, than they actually were by all this, you know, in creative coding. So they get paid more by the government for these folks.
(26:10) So they kind of they um are being investigated by the DOJ now for you know basically fraudulent Medicare billing. Um, so let me add allegedly. Allegedly, so United Healthcare doesn't come and sue me. Allegedly, that's what they're doing. But again, go back to the principal agent problem. Like you said, you would like these programs to be private, but since there's a tight partnership between United Healthcare and the government, it's not really that private.
(26:41) And then United Healthcare, United Health, excuse me, has all the incentive to create that moat, that regulatory moat. was like, "No, the partnership is us and the government, nobody else, and yeah, we're going to bleed the taxpayer dry allegedly." Yeah, that's exactly what's what's going on. Um, you know, then we had Luigi, um, you know, at the end of last year, I think it was December of last year, maybe, which I think did, and I'm wholly against it, I it did it did shine some light on some of the things that, you know, these big health insurance plans
(27:12) were were were doing. And so I think they've gotten a new level of of scrutiny from others. That combined with the ACA subsidies running out um combined with, you know, this government shutdown. I think there's a lot of scrutiny on these health insurance plans right now.
(27:30) And that's why we're just we're overwhelmed with with the number of people calling us, you know, looking for a real real alternative. Um cuz we we've built something you know based upon you know as much as we could in Bitcoin principles which is like the incentives have all got to be aligned for the system to work.
(27:50) Um and so you know typically health insurance plans they bring in premiums um they have claims and everything in between is profit. So what do they want? They want the premiums to go up and they want the claims to go down right so to maximize their profit. And so, you know, we set up and I thought a lot about this when I started the company.
(28:03) It's like how do you how do you incentivize the system, you know, have incentives aligned? And so, we're just a subscription fee. You know, it's like let's just you subscribe to be part of the membership. And therefore, we have the incentive to keep prices down so that more people, you know, come and join us.
(28:21) Um, we also have an incentive to get your your bills paid because it doesn't directly impact our yearly profits. But if we don't get a bill pay, if I don't get Marty's, you know, pregnancy paid and Marty goes on Twitter and says, "Crowd Health sucks. They didn't pay my bill." Like, that that's the worst thing ever that could happen for me, you know, startup. So, I have all the incentive in the world to to get these bills paid.
(28:38) So, just to be clear, I think it was Oh, sorry. Yeah, you they know what I meant. Um, I know. I know. But we've It's 2025, Marty. You never know. We've successfully had uh two children and and paid for their births via via Crowd Health. It's been an incredible experience. And you just said like for us, we're a family of five now. I think we're paying 750 a month.
(29:02) We supplement that with um direct primary care all in. It's like 900 950 a month for a family of five, which we're going above and beyond with the direct primary care as well. We don't necessarily need that. We just like to have that. I think you guys are $6.95 a month. Um, but same thing.
(29:26) And and direct primary care too, which basically is a subscription fee to a doctor that you can call anytime. Um, you know, if you're a member of Crowd Health, I don't know if you're doing this, Marty, but like you can submit 300 bucks of that um to the crowd and it's fully fully eligible for funding. Yeah.
(29:44) So, you know, we like these subscription-based businesses because they don't have any incentive to see you sick. No, I mean that's that's the bottom line. Everybody else is getting paid out there to see you sick because they're a fee for service type of situation. Like the the doctor that you go to, if they see the more times he sees you, you become a recurring revenue stream.
(30:02) Whereas, you know, Marty's DPC doctor, you're just paying every every month and he's got an incentive to see you healthy because if you're not healthy, he's you're calling him a lot, which means it's you're more expensive to him. So, he's trying to he or she is trying to keep you healthy. the incentives are aligned there. So, we're we're huge advocates of of DPC, direct primary care.
(30:19) Yeah. I mean, and it's one of those things, too, where there is such a mental barrier for people. And I know I was I wasn't apprehensive, but I was like, okay, this is new. When I first joined Crowd Health 4 years ago and then when I originally joined, we had DPC in Austin. We were living there as well.
(30:38) and it's a bit foreign and it seems like you're taking a risk, but once you get onboarded and you live the experience for 3 months, 6 months, it's like, oh, this is an much better experience. I don't know how this wasn't the way I was doing it before. I'm never going back.
(30:57) And I imagine that is the biggest hurdle for Crowd Health as a company is really getting people over that mental barrier of believing that there is a better way. Health insurance isn't the only way to do things. Yeah, I mean the the the biggest barrier is uh people like what what happens if the what when we have the big one like you know the big health event.
(31:20) Um and I think ultimately what's changed for us over the last year is we've had enough big health events where people are finally comfortable that we can help them get big health events paid. I mean, I don't know if I talked about it on the last one, but the the guy who uh did I talk about the guy who shot himself in the last one that we we talked about? I don't recall. I I feel like I would recall that, too. So, I don't think he did. Yeah.
(31:42) Well, we had a we had a guy in Montana over the summer who uh who was who was uh fishing in Montana and he had a 44 in his revolver in his holster and he caught a fish. He leaned down and the 44 fell out of his holster, hit a rock perfectly and it the gun went off and the bullet went into his calf, out the back of his calf, into his thigh, out the top of his thigh, into his chest and out the back.
(32:11) Totally destroyed his gallbladder, destroyed his intestines, you know, he said he looked down on his chest and and green stuff, I think it was bile was basically coming out of his chest. So, um, we, uh, you know, his wife was with him, thank God. You know, she took off her shirt. He thought he hit the femoral artery.
(32:34) So, she tied a shirt around his thigh, ran up to the top of the hill, called 911. Um, a helicopter came in and pulled him out of the stream basically um to get him to the hospital. He went into a coma at the hospital. Um, and you know, I think he was in the coma for 2 or 3 weeks, something like that.
(32:52) And then he had to drive home from Montana to California because they wouldn't let him on an airplane. He got sepsis on the way home. Um, and so, you know, that was almost a million dollar bill and the crowd funded that with no problem. Um, and so I think that, you know, most of the people have to just get over the hurdle of like what if something really catastrophic happens? You know, we got a person at MD Anderson right now who's got stage four melanoma or something something like that. I think it's melanoma.
(33:22) Um, and so we've we've taken care of dozens of cancer patients and you know these other big events. And so it's like, man, we can do this. Like the community can do this. We got 15,000 people. We'll probably have somewhere between 20 and 25,000 people by the end of the year. That's a big group of people to be able to get these bills funded.
(33:39) So we've shown over 25,000 bills that we can get these things get these things funded, right? That's the that's the biggest hurdle for people to get over, I think, is is can you get the big bills funded. Sup freaks, have you noticed that governments have become more despotic? They want to surveil more. They want to take more of your data.
(33:58) They want to follow you around the internet as much as possible so they can control your speed, control what you do. It's imperative in times like this to make sure that you're running a VPN as you're surfing the web, as we used to say back in the '90s. And it's more imperative that you use the right VPN, a VPN that cannot log because of the way that it's designed. And that's why we have partnered with Obscura.
(34:16) That is our official VPN here at TFTC built by Bitcoiner Carl Dong for Bitcoiners focused on privacy. You can pay in Bitcoin over the Lightning. So not only are you private while you're perusing the web with Obscura, but when you actually set up an account, you can acquire that account privately by paying in Bitcoin over the Lightning network. Do not be complacent when it comes to protecting your privacy on the internet.
(34:38) Go to obscura.net. Set up an Obscura account. Use the code TFTC for 25% off. When I say account, you just get a token. It's a string of token. It's not connected to your identity at all. Token sign up. Pay with Bitcoin. Completely private. Turn on Obscura. Surf the web privately. Obscur.net. Use the code TFTC for 25% off.
(35:03) What's up, freaks? Been seeing a lot of YouTube comments. smarter. Your skin looks so good. You're looking fit these days. How are you doing it? Well, number one, I'm going to the gym more, trying to get my swell on, trying to be a good example for my young sons, a fit, healthy dad.
(35:21) But part of that is having a good regimen, particularly staying hydrated, making sure I have the right electrolytes and salts in my body. That is why I use salt of the earth. I drink probably three of these a day with one packet of salt of the earth. I'm liking the pink lemonade right now. It's my flavor of choice. Uh this is their creatine. I've added this to my regimen. They have it in these packets as well.
(35:42) Uh makes it extremely convenient if you're traveling. You want to work out while you're traveling, but you don't want to be carrying a white bag of powder going through TSA. It's very very uh nerve-wracking at times. You have to explain, hey, it's it's not what you think it is. It's creatine. I'm trying to get my swell on. Um make sure you're staying hydrated.
(36:00) I have become addicted to these. It's made my life a lot better. I can supplement this for coffee in the morning and be energized right away. I can supplement. I can bring the creatine wherever I need to. Just put a couple packets in here before I head to the gym. Bring this to the gym. Drink it out of a glass bottle.
(36:18) Make sure I'm not injecting any microplastics into my body. Go to drinksotay.com. Use the code TFTC and you'll get 15% off anything in the store. That's drinksotay.com. Code TFTC. Well, and you've been really beating the drum on X in your outward marketing is that like healthcare should be deflationary and you alluded to it earlier, but that's the goal and as the community scales, it should be able at least your monthly payment to come down significantly and obviously you guys are negotiating bills on top of that. So, the sticker price um is heavily discounted in many cases. I
(36:55) think that's one of the best things you guys do on on X is is highlight all the discounts that you're able to get your or Yeah, our our prices are 6 to 8% lower depending upon the month this year than they were last year. So some something is wrong with the system when you're seeing 18% premium increases, but we're seeing prices drop by 6 to 8%.
(37:22) So, you know, come join us. help us help us, you know, continue to change this. The more people we have on the the boat, the better it's going to be, the far the faster the prices are going to drop from my perspective. So, um, yeah. Do you think this is the year that many people wake up to this? If there's if if our phone calls are any indicator, yes.
(37:49) I mean, I was on the phone for two hours today doing sales calls. you know, the I'm the I'm the CEO. I'm doing sales calls. And funny enough, the last guy that I talked to uh found out us from your podcast. He's like, "How do you find out about us?" He's like, "Oh, yeah, TFTC." I was like, "Yeah, I'm talked to him already this afternoon." He's like, "Well, tell him I said hello.
(38:06) " So Jeremy, I think is his name, said hello. And he's a listener of yours, so he probably will listen to this. Um, you know, so we're we're we're getting people from all over the place. We're still about 20 or 25% of our customers are Bitcoiners, which is awesome. Um, and man, if we can get more Bitcoiners, then we can do some phenomenal things on the Bitcoin side that I think could change not only, you know, healthcare, but the Bitcoin system, you know, the financial system, excuse me.
(38:31) Um, you know, so we we we're we're I'm dying for more Bitcoiners cuz they're the best customers, too. Um, you know, they're not entitled. They're like awesome. They like they understand, you know, how the how the system works. Um, so it's cool to have Bitcoiners as a part of the the community. Um, and so yeah, I think this is the year. I think this is the year that it happens.
(38:52) So we got we got more customers in the last four days of October than we did in any other month in 2025. That's insane. Is that in four days? Is that purely because of open enrollment or just um only only uh of we we we signed up um 1,500 customers in October. Um, so we almost signed up as many, you know, customers in October as I had total when I was with you and I think we had been 2 years into it. Um, something like that.
(39:21) Um, only 90 of them were open enrollment people. Only 90 of them had one one start dates, which tells me that the vast majority of those people are, you know, learning about the company and and jumping on as opposed to doing it just for open enrollment. Yeah. So, um I I think I think that's an indicator of something good good good happening this year. Yeah.
(39:46) I mean, we've talked about it in years past about how Bitcoin can help this model, but how has that thinking around Bitcoin being used in this model evolved over the last year specifically? Yeah. I mean, this year I've I've started have conversations with hospital systems about accepting Bitcoin. Um, and I've got some very large hospital systems, ones that you would probably recognize the names of, who are um, at least interested in accepting Bitcoin, which I think is, you know, an incredible step. and and and ultimately what we want to do is we want to get
(40:24) enough Bitcoiners within the community who are willing to receive and then pay in Bitcoin and then enough of these hospital systems who are willing to receive in Bitcoin to create some you know Bitcoin circularity within healthcare. Um the number just came out for for uh total healthcare spend this year and it's 5.
(40:46) 6 trillion and so man if we can just make a little dent in that 5.6 6 trillion of paying in Bitcoin. That would be pretty special. Um, and our database of Bitcoin doctors, doctors who want to accept Bitcoin is growing. And the more people we have as a part of crowd health, the easier it is to get those doctors orange peel because now we have the supply and the demand, right? So, it's it's a it's a little bit of a a chicken and an egg.
(41:13) But that's why I'm I'm so passionate about getting more Bitcoiners involved because I need people who want to pay in Bitcoin to be able to get people who want to receive in Bitcoin. Um, and so that's ultimately what we're working towards. So I I think in the next 12 to 24 months, we're going to see a significant change in in the way that we operate in terms of in integrating Bitcoin into into what we what we do.
(41:37) You know, right now we're working with Fold. You you know the Fold guys well where you can not to get into too too much of the mechanics, but ultimately, you know, we don't ask you for the full amount every single month of because if the community is doing really really well, then we allow you to keep that money.
(41:56) You know, with the insurance system, if the company if the community is doing really really well, the insurance company makes the money. Um, in in our case, you make the money, but there's a a a kind of a a margin between our maximum ask and what we actually ask. So, for for an individual, we ask 140 total max, but we only asked for 85 last month.
(42:21) So, that remaining, what was that 55 is automatically stacked in your fold account. So, it's sent to your fold account, converted to Bitcoin, and stacked. And so it's almost like a a way to, you know, stack SAS while also playing your your healthcare, you know. And fortunately, we started in 2021 and, you know, so it was a great time to be stacking Bitcoin in in the latter half of 2021 when it kind of took that big that big dip. And so we've been stacking the entire way.
(42:48) So, I think people have made probably, you know, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars by stacking SAS with crowd health um as a result of just this little cool component of Bitcoin. But we're trying to integrate Bitcoin more into everything that we do. I mean, it's it's a it's an important part of my life.
(43:05) 80% of my my liquid assets are in Bitcoin, so it's important to me to see it succeed. Um, we do have a little bit of a Bitcoin treasury. It's not massive. I'm I'm I'm trying to talk my board into growing that. Um, but we're we're we're all in on the on the Bitcoin side. Um, and in fact, all of our Bitcoin members, you actually get a care advocate internally at Crowd Health who's also a Bitcoiner. And so you can chat Bitcoin and Health at the same time, but he he knows how Bitcoin operates.
(43:30) Um, and he was at the Bitcoin conference, you know, in Vegas last year. And he'll he'll be he'll be there again in in April. The uh the Fold integration has been incredible cuz I I I have it turned on. Oh, you do? on my crowd health account and like I'll open fold cuz I use the debit card just to check the the rewards balance and I'll notice my other bitcoin balance is is higher than it was before and I'm like oh yeah crowd health is just passively passively stack set it and forget it like you're just stacking Bitcoin and you don't even think about it. It's it's a pretty cool
(44:00) pretty cool thing. Yeah. Do you think um I mean we talked about it earlier like does the government have any plans to change this? No. Seems like health insurance, the industry, as you said, could be in a death spiral if all these healthy people are leaving the plans. What What are these health insurance companies going to do? What are these hospital systems going to do? Is this going to be I mean, I know people gave you flack for saying it last year when you were on, but I agree with you. I think we need to burn the system down and rearchitect it from
(44:31) the ground up. Like, do you think this spiral is a forcing function for more distributed healthcare that actually makes sense and is affordable? I mean, I think I think we step back, right? Like why why does the government not have any really good solutions? It's because the the the you know, healthc care spends more on lobbying than any other industry between insurance, pharma, um hospitals, um they have a massive amount of lobbying in DC.
(45:01) And so they they they want to continue the status quo um because they're all making a crapload of money with the status quo. Um, so I I don't think things change there. You know, I I really do believe that there's probably something here in in terms of, you know, who owns, you know, the Congress and and the presidency in the next cycle.
(45:22) Um, because I would say that probably, you know, if if this thing swings left, it's probably on a path to, you know, Medicare for all, you know, so we'll all have, you know, government, you know, insurance. Um, and and that's a pretty scary thought from my perspective. Um, so I I sure as hell don't want, you know, the government to be in between me and my my doctor.
(45:44) Like that just doesn't sound fun. I don't want the government having access to all my medical records. That that is kind of totally contrary to what, you know, Bitcoiners believe and what I believe. But I think, you know, unless we come up with a really good solution, um, I think that that's going to be the the only other option.
(46:03) I mean, look, I'm I'm naive in some ways probably, but I'm I'm hoping over the next couple of years, like we can really grow into something that says like, hey, if we can build systems to enable people to pay their doctor directly for small or big bills, like why don't we do it this way, right? Like, I don't I don't think big insurance has to be the way.
(46:26) So, I'm we're we're pouring, you know, a crapload of money into getting our word in the word out there so that we can build big enough because I think back in, you know, 2010 or whatever when, you know, Tesla was making its its run, I don't think anybody would have been able to say, "Oh, well, you know, the majority of cars being sold or um are going to be EVs." And now here we are, right? Like, not it's not majority, but it's it's getting there.
(46:50) Um, you know, and so I think that a lot of these innovations come out of things that people come up with that they're like, there's no way in hell this is going to happen. I think our model is significantly better. And if our model was used by everyone, we could take that 5.6 trillion and cut it in half.
(47:09) I mean, it's, you know, probably a couple trillion dollars a year cut out of the system. And that would take a lot of food off the table for for people, but I mean, it would also enable us to balance our budget and lower taxes and and all those types of things, too. So, I truly believe our model can work, you know, at scale for just about anybody if given the opportunity.
(47:28) Um, I don't know I don't know what other option the government I mean I don't I haven't heard any options out of the government that make as much sense as as this. Well, you mentioned it would take food off the table of people, but that's in my mind I imagine it would be the unproductive administrative layer that's been injected into the health care system that really nerve the money at the end of the day.
(47:54) Well, dude, I I I don't I haven't said this publicly, um, but I had my first death threat about a month ago. you know, we had this guy who was, you know, parking outside of my house. Um, holy [ __ ] And yeah, and uh ultimately I got a note that says, "I'm going to effing kill you all." Um, and so, you know, ultimately the police got him. Thank God.
(48:26) Um, but, you know, and and he all the all the police would say is he has an ideological difference with the company. Um, I don't know what that means. Like, they wouldn't give me any more information than that. But I mean, I think you start taking off people's the food off of people's table, right? Or or their inability to put food on the table and you piss off a lot of people and and and and that's just going to happen.
(48:51) Um, so I think, you know, we're there's this great like quote in Moneyball and I don't know if have you ever seen Moneyball? Yeah, I've read it too. Yeah. It's like the first guy through the door is always or through the wall is always bloodied. You know, it's like everybody who's got their hand on the steering wheel, you know, the hand on the stick, you know, driving the is is pissed when you upset the way that they do business, you know, the way you play the game, you know, and it's people are upset, you know, I think
(49:20) and more and more if we not only have 15,000, but what if we have 150,000, you know, I think more and more people are going to be upset about it. And so, um, you know, not to play the victim or whatever, but we had to like increase security in our house and and all these kinds of things.
(49:36) You know, load the guns and, you know, I'm sorry to hear that. It's terrifying. Take some protection. Um, and and look, I I can't say with 100% certainty it was around, you know, the health the medical industrial complex being pissed, but there's there's enough evidence there that they're really ticked at what we're doing.
(49:54) And um, so we just got to got to deal with that. So what my kids were freaked out as you can imagine my seven and nine-year-old when the cops you know are all over your house like that's a pretty traumatic you know experience. Um so it was it was it was quite a a couple of days in the spoon household. Well it it's fascinating because it is I mean you mentioned Luigi Magioni.
(50:18) Obviously we don't condone that. Obviously we don't condone death threats against you either. It looks like both sides are sort of fighting for control over over this system or the options to access healthcare. And I I witnessed this first f firstand, not a death threat, but like people who in the health care industry that like to chirp at you guys when we um collaborated on LinkedIn to post the AI video that we made and I saw obviously I was getting tagged in the comments and there was a bunch of healthcare industry people trying to throw shade to crowd health. So you can tell you guys are certainly threatening
(50:55) them. Yeah. like tell me you're a part of the medical industrial complex without telling me you're a part of the medical industrial complex. Like it's very very clear that the people who are getting paid by the system think that crowd health is crap and a scam and all these types of things.
(51:14) Um and anybody who is impacted by the system, the mi and you's of the world are like dude this is awesome and there is a very clear line between the two. you can tell um you know and so yeah and I I think the the the the medical industrial complex elites and the academics and all these people are throwing shade and all the people who've been a member of crowd health have been like this is amazing like we have you know 500 reviews on on Trust Pilot and you know 492 of them are really really good and if you go and look at United Healthcare it's like the exact opposite Right. So, we must be doing doing
(51:55) something well. Um, and and keeping not only like loving people, our members well, and I hope that you and your your wife and your little one felt, you know, love through your process. Um, but doing it at a much much lower cost than these these health insurance plans. Much much lower cost. Much lower. You get a personal health advocate. By the way, the the latest app update is incredible. The UX, the UI.
(52:19) Oh, good. It's very easy. Who's your advocate? Do you know who your advocate is? um name is escaping me off the top of my head, but I will check right now. It is um Alexis. Oh, yeah. Oh, wait. No, that's for uh No, no, no. You're a Bitcoiner. You're a Bitcoiner. So, you have Naram probably. Naram. Yes, that's what it is. Yeah, Naram's awesome. He's freaking awesome, dude.
(52:51) Let me tell you a quick story about Naram. Um, so this little kid um was in in Colorado and he was hiking with his dad and he fell and he hit a rock and it sliced his cheek open. So he went to the ER, he got it stitched up and you know we called him and he's like, "How's the little guy doing?" Um, you know, Naram did.
(53:19) And his mom was like, "Well, physically he's great, but emotionally he is uh pretty like he almost has like PTSD. He won't go on a hike with his dad anymore cuz he's afraid he's going to get hurt." And so Naram sent him this little like hiking thing that you could put into your living room. So he like hikes around it and he climbs up it.
(53:38) And you know, his mom called us back like in tears being like, "You wouldn't believe it. He's back hiking with his dad, you know, because Nar was able to was willing to buy him a $50 thing. And we actually have, you know, internally we like force our care advocates to spend a certain amount of money every month on our members like doing special things like that.
(53:56) And so, you know, it's really kind of cool to see, you know, these fun stories come out of these, you know, just little little things of of tokens of love, you know, from from the the the care advocates. So, um, all of our all of our new moms now are getting like plush robes and, you know, socks and, um, you know, like really good like chapstick, you know, because you get in these hospitals and they're so like um, we've had coffee from you guys. Yeah, we we give you coffee.
(54:27) Like, what health insurance? United Health doesn't send you coffee. It's Satoshi coffee, too. So, shout out to Satoshi Coffee. Um, you know, who's a it's a Bitcoiner. So that's that's a pretty cool cool thing about our our our system. Yeah, you get your own care advocate.
(54:46) So every time you talk to and the reason I did that is because when I was dealing with my issue, you know, six or seven years ago with my little one, I would call the insurance plan, I would sit on the the phone for 20 minutes waiting to talk to somebody who was in India and you know, they wouldn't be able to help me and so they would point me to somebody else and I would wait on the phone for 20 minutes there. Internally, you have the same care advocate.
(55:04) you get to talk to the same person every single time. So, they get to know you, you get to know them, you schedule a call with them. That's how I want to do it. Schedule a call as opposed to sitting on the line with a, you know, a call center. It just works way way better. Um, and I think the customer service is is a lot better, too, because I can hold them accountable.
(55:22) Like, I know that Marty and his wife was having a baby and Naram is is the u the care advocate. I can hold Naram accountable to treating you really really well and loving you guys during that process. And so, you know, it's it's it's great to have that accountability. I think, you know, way better service as a result of that. Yeah.
(55:43) No, I can't I mean, I can't rave about it enough. Nam. I mean, because that's the thing too for for pregnancies especially like you create a health event in the beginning and through the uh OBG appointments up until the birth, you guys are checking in like how's everything going, make sure you're uploading your bills. Um, and it's just made it incredibly easy. And that's like the one thing too, it's hilarious.
(56:09) Um, and I've told people this who are um thinking about moving to Crowd ask me like, "Is there anything bad about it?" I'm like, it's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's hilarious when you go into a hospital or a doctor's office or you have to an um ear nose and throat doctor um for the kids and you tell them you're paying in cash.
(56:33) They they like immediately think that you are poor and like begin like talking quietly and like taking your debit card and or whatever um and treat you completely differently. Not only that, the price gets cut by at least 50% almost immediately, half the time. Yeah, I mean that's that's one of the things I I just don't think Bitcoiners really give a [ __ ] about that, you know? It's like it's kind of funny and it's almost like a badge of honor.
(56:55) Like I'm uninsured, you know, like or I'm a cash pay patient, you know? It's like I'm a Bitcoiner. I want to pay in Bitcoin and people are looking like what the hell are you talking about? What? You know, um so I think I think we have it as a badge of honor. And in fact, we have t-shirts that say uninsured on the front of them.
(57:14) Um, which means I'm not subservient to some health insurance company who's going to dictate what care I can and cannot get. Like that's what I me the message. But I walked through DFW airport once with that shirt on and people looked at me like I was a total crazy person, you know, and it probably wasn't too different like five or six years ago when you had a Bitcoin t-shirt on, you know, and it it hasn't now it's so mainstream or, you know, somewhat mainstream um that people may not, you know, flinch anymore, but back in the day when you had a Bitcoin on, they thought you were
(57:42) nut nut like a total crazy person. So um I think we're on that same trajectory. No, I can't tell you the number of uh uh individuals working the front desk of either a doctor's office, ear, nose, and throat hospital. And when we say they're like their whole demeanor completely changes when you say are insurance like oh we're not insured.
(58:06) Um it it's like a funny social like signals that like we've been pushed into the system. It's like fish and water. They are not used to hearing that. Um, and I think there's, yeah, I mean, similar to Bitcoin, it's like we're using fiat and they're like, "Oh, I use Bitcoin. That's what I save." And they're like, "You're crazy." It's like, "No, well, actually, my life is much better for having saved in Bitcoin.
(58:33) " And similarly, being uninsured, my life hasn't uh the quality of my health care coverage or not coverage, but healthcare experience has increased significantly. We're fiat poor. We're Bitcoin rich. That's why it's like buying a house now, too. It's uh trying to explain to mortgage brokers that don't worry, just because I don't have a lot of a lot of money in the bank account doesn't mean I don't have uh money at all. And trying to explain Bitcoin to them.
(59:03) No joke. No, it's uh No joke. It's funny though. What? Um so so so bust out of the health insurance system. like you you guys have already busted out of the Bitcoin system. Like bust out of the health insurance system, you know, and and give it a shot, man. That's what that's that's my my plea to Bitcoiners is give it a give it a shot. You know, you can use TFTC.
(59:26) You get it for 99 bucks a month for the first three months. And if you like it, awesome. If you don't, then go buy fiat health insurance. Like, go for it. That would be my that would my my plea. But I guarantee you that you're going to be you're going to have a much better experience with us than you've had with with health insurance.
(59:45) Um just like Bitcoin is a much better experience than it is than than fiat. Well, I tweeted it out a couple I think a month or two ago. Like with the premiums going up as much as they are within the Affordable Care Act, like the opportunity cost is like incredibly diminished. Like what is the risk of switching to crowd health considering how expensive traditional healthcare is becoming? Uh health insurance is becoming like you can go spend if you got a family of five 30 grand a year 25 to 30 grand a year um just to get coverage and then an additional
(1:00:19) 8 to 15 depending on what your deductible is. So, anywhere from 25 to 35 grand a year or you can pay $700 a month by seven grand if that um a little bit more than that. And I know most people think like, oh, I'm not going to get the same same quality of care as I would on health insurance. It's like, no, you actually get better because you have the health advocate.
(1:00:50) you guys are actively looking for the best um specialist. If you have a special um event that that that dictates you need somebody who's focused on knees or whatever it may be or does a procedure very well, you're going to go find the best. You're going to get the best price.
(1:01:08) Um and I I think the point being this year specifically, the cost, the opportunity cost of switching is lower than it's ever been since I've been on Crowd Health. Well, I think I think more importantly is you're taking, you know, between the doctor and the patient right now in health insurance, you have probably your employer, you have the government, you have the insurance company all in between you and your doctor. So, the the doctor I always kind of say like you you work for whoever pays you.
(1:01:32) The doctor is getting paid by health insurance. And so the health insurance plans dictate what you they can and cannot do, what care they can and cannot provide. Right? If you take those middlemen out, now it's directly between you and your doctor. You have a direct relation. The doctor patient relationship is reestablished.
(1:01:49) And so now you and your doctor can decide what's best for your health, right? And that that's where I think we're getting the most upside in terms of better healthcare. You don't have all these intermediaries telling the doctor what you can do.
(1:02:05) So, it's like now the doctor is a customer of mine or I'm the I'm the customer of the doctor, right? I'm paying him so he now has to abide by what I need um and take care of me as opposed to taking care of an insurance company. And we hear it all the time like, "Wow, my doctor actually changed his tune when he knew that um you know, I was paying him directly.
(1:02:24) He knew who the customer was now." And so, that's that's a pretty significant change. Um, and you're beginning to see a number of doctors begin to realize this too and drop out. Like I had Mary Tally Boded on uh earlier this year and she just went DPC. Obviously her story is pretty unique considering what the Houston um hospital system did to her during CO.
(1:02:50) But her and many other DPC doctors I've spoken to basically said I've I just didn't like the time I spent dealing with the insurers was taking away from my ability to treat patients. So I'm going DPC and um cutting them out of the equation completely.
(1:03:09) And so that that worked in your favor too because I think that's a trend that's going to continue to grow is you're going to have a bunch of doctors opting out of it on the other side. And and who do you think are those doctors better than normal or worse than normal? probably better than normal, right? Like if if you can start building a a a a practice where you only take cash, that means you have the demand.
(1:03:27) Like you don't rely upon the hospital to send you demand. You're not a part of that system. Those are the best doctors. The best doctors now are transitioning out of hospital systems, transitioning out of the insurance systems and are now doing cashonly type of of systems.
(1:03:47) So, I think we will see over the next few years the best doctors in the world only accepting cash. Like, I truly believe that because they're so fed up with the insurance system. And so, our system is perfect for that. Right? If you want to go to see the best best orthopedic surgeon in Austin, and we send a lot of our people to the best orthopedic surgeon in Austin, which is where I'm at.
(1:04:09) Um, you know, he you know, and he only he transitions to cash only. You're not going to if you have a health insurance, you're not going to be able to go to him. You you're have to pay cash. But our members pay cash at the point of care because you you you have an issue. We fund it for you. You now have the money to then go and pay that doctor in cash. So we open up everybody to to our our members.
(1:04:29) And I think some of the best doctors in the world are going to be cashonly doctors. And they're starting to see that. You know, Dr. Bowen is in itself probably one of the best ENTs in Houston. Only cash now. Um, so I think you know those those types of things are are important. It really is. And it's funny.
(1:04:48) I know I think they'd be comfortable with me sharing this cuz I think they've talked about it publicly, but the doctors and and dentists are some of the earliest movers in terms of small businesses adopting Bitcoin for payment. I know this from Zapright. Zapright Parker and John and Will are always telling me, I'm like, who's your biggest sort of uh cohort user archetype? what's what's that look like? It's like doctors, they get it. They want they want hard money. Uh particularly primary care doctors.
(1:05:15) I was paying my primary care doctor in in Austin and Bitcoin when I was there. So, you have this like combination culmination of sort of factors getting pushed out of the health care system, finding Bitcoin, finding like-minded Bitcoiners who are using crowds to pay. And you can you can begin to see the momentum building.
(1:05:35) And we're starting to build a database of these folks. So, if you want a Bitcoin doctor, if you want a doctor who's great with um you know, a lot of red meat intake, you know, okay with a little bit higher cholesterol, my cholesterol is through the roof, but you know, I don't really care, you know, but and most doctors are going to try to put you on statins and things like that.
(1:05:55) And so, I mean, which route would you prefer? A route in which you pay directly in cash where the the doctor patient relationship is what it is. Um, and you have unlimited options in terms of who you can go to because you know everybody taking insurance will take cash and all the people who take cash will only take cash.
(1:06:13) But if you go to the insurance, you're stuck within this very limited network of doctors that you can go to. And so if you want to go to someone doctor outside of of the insurance network, you have to pay cash for it because they won't accept your insurance. Um, and so I think that this cash pay, direct pay, um, method of kind of healthcare financing, um, or Bitcoin pay, um, you know, is going to be the future.
(1:06:38) Um, and so I I I think it's it's inevitable that that's going to going to take place. So, as we were talking about earlier, even if everything does transition to a government-based model, I still think there's going to be a a place for crowd health because I think all these these uh doctors are going to transition to um being yeah being cash pay only and are not going to accept that. Mhm. One last thing I wanted to touch on before we wrap up here.
(1:07:02) It's a Friday afternoon. We should get back to our families. But um a lot of people will say, "Well, my uh my job they were putting up a portion of of my health health insurance costs on a monthly basis that is harder with Crowd Health." Are you guys working on ways to sort of teach people like, "Hey, maybe you go to your employer and you say instead of uh putting up a third of my health insurance cost per month, maybe we just cut health insurance and maybe increase my pay by that." Like what how are businesses that want or employees of
(1:07:35) businesses that want to use the employee wants to use Crowd Health, their employer has a health insurance plan, but they want to sort of reap benefits from their employer. Yeah. If if you're if you're um Yeah.
(1:07:55) If you're if you work for a small employer, you can go to them because typically the small employer is paying $25,000 for a family to have health insurance. A family with crowd health is about seven. So, you can go back to them and be like, "Listen, instead of paying 25,000 for my family, why don't you give why don't you raise my um salary by 10 or 12,000, you know, you save money. I'm going to go get crowd health. I save money.
(1:08:12) " We've had a bunch of members go and do that. And it and it works for small employers. It doesn't work for big employers. Um but I ultimately I think that the government needs to bifrocate the um the employer um health insurance, you know, kind of connection.
(1:08:31) Um, and you know, as your video pointed out so beautifully that you put out about crowd health that TFTC produced, you know, let's like we keep people in their employment cages by shackling them to the company with their health insurance. Because a lot of people are like, "Oh, I can't leave my company cuz I can't lose my health insurance." Like, that's just a way to trap you in that company. It's a sad state of affairs.
(1:08:50) something like 3 or 4 million people would go do something entrepreneurial if it wasn't for health insurance, their their employer based health insurance, which is just unamerican to me. Well, I think if you were to poll people that were thinking about leaving their job but didn't, that would be the number one or at least the top three um sort of they didn't leave is I need the health. Absolutely.
(1:09:14) So, go ask your employer like there's there's a differential there. go ask your employer if they can just pay you more and and you can opt out of the of health insurance. A lot of people are doing it right now. So, this is a conversation to be had. Worst they can say is no. Um, you know, and if they say no, that's fine. But they might say yes because it's it's beneficial for both parties. Yeah, it really is.
(1:09:33) No, I I remember right before I joined Crowd Health as a member. It was when I left Great American Mining, which was paying my health insurance to really focus on um TFTC in 1031 and was in that low period and I was on Cobra. I was paying like $1,800 a month. I was like, "This is we wanted to keep the health insurance.
(1:09:51) " We did it for like 2 months. I was like, "All right, we're going Crowd Health." That was the thing that that pushed me over the edge. But that was the scariest thing about going out and doing focusing on this as a a solo entrepreneur at the time. It's like we have no health insurance. Had just had a one-year-old child at the time.
(1:10:11) Um and it was didn't make us think like twice and three times about all right, do we really want to do this? Um went to stomach the cost of Cobra and was just like okay, there's a better option. What what what do we have to look at? We appreciate you joining man. It's you've been incredibly um we're incredibly grateful for for all that you've you've done for us and um you know look if if anybody wants to join use TFTC the code um you get 99 bucks for the first uh three three months um and it's worth a try and then you know anybody out
(1:10:46) there who's a Crowdalth member thank you thank you for being members you know tell your friends about crowd health and if you they use your code we'll we'll We'll pay you 250 bucks um as a as a referral fee and we'll pay it in Bitcoin too. We'll pay you in Bitcoin.
(1:11:02) Um I would way prefer to be paying our members to help us grow the company than Google and Facebook and all these other companies, right? Like that's my it's the that's my that's kind of my rationale behind doing that. Um and we have dozens of members who actually get more from us per month in referral fees than they actually pay for their healthcare. They're actually making money off of Crowd Health, which is which is kind of awesome.
(1:11:26) Like, you have healthcare and you're making money off it. It's a pretty cool thing. So, thank you all seriously for for the support. And um we're we're we're fired fired up about 2026. It's going to be an awesome year. You cut out there for a little bit, but I think I think that I I would um I would concur. It's uh it's a beautiful thing. The the feeling is mutual.
(1:11:52) You know, me, Andy, we're working out the same office together for three almost four years. Uh, here at TFTC, we do not, we're very stingy with our advertising partners. Um, and we like to make sure that we actually use the products. And I can say I'm more than happy to be uh partners with you in in the professional sense, on the sponsorship level, because I am a happy customer.
(1:12:19) And I not only feel safe uh recommending Crowd Health to the audience that is listening to this, but I feel compelled to push it because like you said, if you get Bitcoin, you understand that the money's broken and the traditional system, the way it's controlling money is corrupt. Uh you begin to see that in other things.
(1:12:44) And I think with health insurance and the health care system, it become it has become abundantly clear to me and this is the Bitcoin equivalent of of healthcare uh in the health healthcare system in my mind. So it's been a great partnership. Oh, appreciate it. It's been a great conversation and uh I'll be back down in Austin at some point in the next couple months. We'll have to catch up. I would love that.
(1:13:02) Thanks for having me, brother. All right. Peace of love, freaks. Thank you for listening to this episode of TFTC. If you've made it this far, I imagine you got some value out of the episode. If so, please share it far and wide with your friends and family. We're looking to get the word out there.
(1:13:23) Also, wherever you're listening, whether that's YouTube, Apple, Spotify, make sure you like and subscribe to the show. And if you can leave a rating on the podcasting platforms, that goes a long way. Last but not least, if you want to get these episodes a day early and add free, make sure you download the Fountain podcasting app. You can go to fountain.fm to find that.
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