The Meat Mafia Podcast

Andy Episode
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Harry: [00:00:00] Andy, welcome back. Or yes,

Andy: it's great to see you. Yeah.

Brett: Good to be here. Podcast appearance. Number two for you. I love it. First one was over zoom. I was in my parents basement and now we're doing in studio.

Andy: How times

Harry: have changed.

Yeah. And we had Andy at the alt health summit as well. Oh, that's, that's right. Yeah, that's right. So we can do like two and a half. I'm ready for round two of that. Yeah, we need to make that happen. Yeah,

Brett: we'll do an Austin one, probably like early 2024. That

Harry: was fun. The in person stuff is where the magic happens, I feel.

Yeah.

Brett: Well, what was amazing is before you spoke, our other guest speaker, Jay Guglielmo, had that mic drop statistic of, I think, what do we spend, like 6 to 9 percent on defense every single year, like in percentage of our GDP? And our healthcare costs are, I think, 19 percent of our GDP. So his point was like, why fight when you could just eat yourself to death?

Yeah. So I'm curious what your reaction was to that statistic.

Andy: Yeah, I mean, it's huge. We spend 4. 3, he and I disagreed on what the number was. It was either [00:01:00] 4. 1, something like that. Still, it starts with a 4 and it's got a lot of zeros at the end of it. 4. 3 trillion dollars, which is bigger than any other GDP other than Japan and China.

So, our healthcare system is basically the fourth largest country, you know, by GDP in the world. Like, that's, that's, that's how crazy it is. So, um, you know, there's unfortunately lots of money to be made in healthcare. Yeah. It puts a lot of food on people's table. Definitely. And therefore, it's very difficult to get people to change their...

The way that it works, because anytime you try to take food off of people's table, it's just gonna be an uphill battle. Um, but in the end, it's gotta happen. It's gonna, it's gonna bankrupt their country eventually.

Harry: Yeah. It's interesting, the existing paradigm, I feel like everyone's kind of just like watching from, or at least it feels like, we're just like, this isn't working, [00:02:00] but there doesn't really seem to be like a clear cut solution out of it.

Everyone just knows like, this is the path where you, Get old, eventually you get sick, you have to get on medications and have to have high levels of care. But if you kind of look backwards in history, it wasn't always that way. We had a different model where, you know, you kind of just get, you got older, you aged gracefully if you were taking care of yourself and had resources and then like you got sick and.

And now we have this new model that's so different, and I'm just curious, like, how do you think about the current paradigm around health?

Andy: Yeah, it's too pronged, right? Because not only is the system broken, but our food system is broken, too. So, not only do you, oh, so, you're setting your body up for a long, drawn out death, as opposed to falling off a cliff.

Because we're eating like crap. You know, our diabetes is 1 percent in 1970. To I [00:03:00] think it was almost 10 percent now that is a human made thing, you know, it doesn't go from one 1 percent to 10 percent to 1 or 2 percent to 10 percent in 50 years because of some environmental thing going on. I mean, this is human maids.

You're, you're putting unhealthy bodies in to a system that is unhealthy. And so it exacerbates, you know, the each other. And so, you know, it's just, it's just totally And then you have the legislative component of this too, where, you know, Republicans are yelling at the Democrats because of Obamacare, Democrats are yelling at Republicans because we should just have Medicare for all.

And so we sit in this status quo, which is crap for an extensive period of time, and you see, you know, health insurance premiums go up 300%, I think, in the last 20 years. Wow. Like, crazy. Just totally crazy and the other stat I saw the other day was over the last 50 years the [00:04:00] middle class Adjusted for what they pay for health insurance has never gotten a raise.

Mm hmm. So the middle class hasn't got a raise in 50 years Adjusted for health care. That's insane. Like you want to know what's like sucking up the middle class. It's health care. That's what it is So it's sad in so many different ways. It's

like

Harry: access to food like quality food is now making it harder to Like, make those decisions on a day to day basis to like, invest in your health and potentially give yourself a chance to break away from the health insurance model where you're spending so much money just like on these baked in premiums.

It's like really a system set to keep you in your socioeconomic status and like at the same time kind of like health status, like you're not really gonna, um, yeah, have the Same level of like lifestyle trajectory. If you can't, is it

Andy: education? I think that's why I'm wondering, right. Because we did a, we did a [00:05:00] little video together just a few weeks ago around, like, can we have healthy food?

Can we get healthy food in a food desert? You know, and I think Donny delicious went out there and looked at, you know, Taco bell, you know, it was, I think the average is. 2. 22 spent per meal in the lower quintile of the economic spectrum. 2. 22. So he went to Taco Bell and got a beef burrito, I think. And then he went to, uh, Or was it McDonald's and got a crispy chicken sandwich?

And then he went to the local grocery store and, you know, got, you know, I think he made, you know, cheesy meatballs or something, um, for 2. 22. And so, like, you can get access to this stuff. Yes. And I think, you know, all of us, at least in this room, would agree that the cheesy meatballs are gonna be way better than the crispy chicken, McChicken or whatever, from, from McDonald's.

It's just like, people don't understand. how [00:06:00] that food impacts their bodies. Yes. Um, and so, and I don't even think it's a time thing too, because, you know, Donnie, you know, made this stuff up in like 15 minutes. So it wasn't like it was a ton of time. It's just education, I think. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, maybe I'm being totally naive in that, but it feels like, man, if we could just educate people.

And take this food pyramid, flip it upside down and say, now to go. You know, like, now do it. Um, I think we'd have a much better, you know, results. Um, this diabetes thing is, it's all about, you know, just a high carb, highly processed food diet, right? It's McChickens. Yeah.

Brett: Totally. Well, one of the things I was going to ask you, and we definitely need to get into your backstory because you have a fascinating perspective, you know, coming up through traditional health care, realizing that there was a better solution.

You opted out of the systems, founded CrowdHealth, which is, which we view as really disrupting the healthcare space. It's something that's personal to both Harry and I, because we've been CrowdHealth customers for, for, for, Nate, close to a year. Cause I [00:07:00] think we had you on the podcast of November of last year, Harry and I immediately signed up for it.

And it's been a saving grace for us just being solopreneurs, not having healthcare coverage, wanting that protection. But one of the things I wanted to ask you is that when you founded Crowd health, because you were asking the diabetes question. Did you see the connection between food and like the metabolic health crisis we were currently in?

Because I feel like you've gone deep in the alternative health space. Carnivore, keto, connecting with ranchers, that seems like a big part of what you guys are doing now. Yeah, I mean, I'm

Andy: just, it, uh, you, the cool thing, and you guys know about this too, like when you're starting your company, it's almost a reflection of you, and your values, and your morals, right?

And so, I just, I've, I've done keto for a long time. Um, I've done Bitcoin for a little bit, too. I'm into healthcare, and so, I'm like, when I'm starting a company, I was like, man, I'd really love a healthcare company that could utilize Bitcoin and get a bunch of people who Eat the same way that I do which I know over the [00:08:00] long term will produce much better outcomes And I would like to help them with health care costs, right?

And so it's it was just one of those things where it wasn't all super strategic. It wasn't MBA'd. Yeah It was just like this is who I am This is who I get along with. You know, I was on your podcast, you, I mean, we, I get along with you guys. Mm-hmm. , because I think we have the same worldview or similar worldviews.

And so it's just like you start hanging out with people who have the same worldviews and ultimately your customers start ending up with very similar worldviews, which, you know, coincidentally, I, I think is a worldview that leads to healthier humans, lower costs. And so, dude, we got a group of people who are like, Mid thirties, their BMI is super low.

They're all keto or carnivore or, you know, like Bitcoin people. I mean, I would say 70 percent of people that are on crowd health fall into that, you know, group. Um, which is kind of fun. You know, it's a fun group. It's really cool. And [00:09:00] it's a group of people too that take like personal responsibility for their, for their health.

Definitely. A lot of entrepreneurs too. A ton of entrepreneurs. You know, a ton of people who are like, I'm sovereign over my own, my own body, my own health care. Like, I don't feel entitled for, to anything. It's just a good group of people. Um, and that's why I have so much fun doing what I'm, what I'm doing.

It's like, I get to hang out with my, my tribe, you know, all day. Um, you

Harry: talked about flipping the food pyramid on its head. CrowdHealth is really flipping the insurance model on its head. Yeah. And it's cool because. There's a actual community element to CrowdHealth, too, where I feel like there are a lot of people who actually just know each other within the network of people who are also members of CrowdHealth, which is unique, and you feel like, I feel like there's an element of CrowdHealth that is this almost, uh, like tribe esque CrowdHealth esque incentive model where you're trying to B is how you are a healthy [00:10:00] person.

So, you know, the community doesn't have to spend as much, but if something does happen, you know, your community has your back, which is such an amazing

Andy: model, you know, but it's an amazing model. But before kind of the 1970s, it's just how we operated as a country. Yeah, we operated in communities. If somebody in our community got hurt.

Like we would help them, you know, if somebody in our community like moved and somebody else came in, we brought them cookies like, you know, you don't, you just don't do that anymore. You know, and I think it's a result of the government primarily. And in my case, health insurance companies, they've stuck themselves in between us and our neighbors and said, Hey, you don't have to worry about them anymore.

We got it. You know, let the government take care of it. It's like, man, no, like we as a community should take care of each other, you know, and I, I get into especially like Bitcoin circles, which I know that you guys are, you know, in similar circles. Um, and they talk about this sovereign individual, like I'm responsible for [00:11:00] myself, but that group is one of the most community focused groups that I think I've ever.

experience. Like they will care for each other. You know, we were talking about before we got on, I had a health issue last, last week and who rallied around me. It's all these bitcoins guys. Like it's these guys who like, we'll sit with you and like care for you. And you're like, this is awesome. Like, yeah, let's be a part.

Let's get back to the community as opposed to sending our money to,

you And, um, Who knows where our money goes? Yeah. Like, the biggest differentiator between CrowdHealth and, you know, UnitedHealthcare, from my perspective, is if, uh, you know, Brett needs help, Brett will get money from me and Harry directly. Like, my money goes directly to Brett, right? Or directly to Harry. Yep.

You know, it's, it does not touch CrowdHealth. I don't touch it. And so, you know, you know that there's a... I'm making up something here. You know, a guy in Austin who, [00:12:00] you know, hurt his ankle and needed to get an x ray, you know, it's like, okay, like that's where my money's going, which is, I think, super powerful.

Amazing. We had a woman, um, a few months ago who had a miscarriage. And, uh, so we sent it out to a bunch of people like, Hey, would you help this person? There was some medical costs associated with that. And we had people come back and say, that's a part of my story. Like, I know how she's feeling. Like, I know the pain that that family's going through.

Like, instead of 50 bucks, can I give a hundred bucks? Yeah. And you're like, what? Yeah. This is crazy. You never call it United healthcare and be like, can I give you, you know, a Another 50 bucks this month since you're so great. Like, yeah, never would do that. Yeah, you know, but the humanity of sending your money directly to another person, it's a powerful thing.

Yeah. It's a powerful thing. It's an

Brett: incredibly noble mission. And a quote that I think a lot about in the context of either like nutrition or ranching is. Like the secret to the future might actually be learning from the past. [00:13:00] So what I mean by that is like we've intuitively eaten meat for 2. 5 million years.

Back in the day when it comes to ranching, it was all local farmers. There was typically like one processor per county and that was just how we did things and people were way healthier. You know, flash forward to 1950s, 1960s, you start to see this demonization of saturated fat. Um, we're incentivized for farms to get really big.

We kind of broke the back of the local farmer. Processed food really starts to get introduced. U. S. dietary guidelines. And I kind of, I think it kind of explains the health crisis that we're currently in. But I'm curious, so it sounds like there's some parallels to health care too, where it was like maybe we used to kind of have things figured out and then things started to go wonky.

Like, what time period do we start to see shit get broken in regards to

Andy: health care and insurance? It's, uh, I, I, I call it back to the future. Yeah. You know, it's like, let's, let's take what we've done in the past and then use it in the future. But yeah, I mean, before the 1970s, um, where the HMO Act kind of went into [00:14:00] law, um, which was supposed to open up access to these networks, these HMO.

Networks to people and supposed to reduce costs But as a lot of things you start seeing in the 1970s like a hyperinflation, right? You know the monetary base went through the roof because we'd you know Deplatformed from gold the health insurance went up the obese rates. What is the website WTF? 1970 yeah 71, right?

Like everything fell apart in the early, early 1970s. Um, but before then, like my mom pulled out a bill for my brother's birth that she paid in cash. She didn't, it wasn't insurance paid in cash. I think it was like 80 bucks or something like that. 80 bucks. And my brother's 10 years older than me. So it was, you know, the 19 say sixties.

Um, but like, And now you can't get out of birth for under 15 grand. You know, it's, [00:15:00] it's, it's crazy. And then you, I'm sure you've also seen that inflation chart. The chart where it shows over the last, I don't know what the time frame was, like 30 or 40 years or something like that, where TVs, you know, cell phones, you know, going straight down.

Healthcare costs, you know. And then everybody says like, oh, well, you know, healthcare has gotten so technologically advanced. I'm like, have you seen this thing? Like, this thing is technologically advanced, and this is, you know, falling off a cliff in terms of price per, you know, computing power, and everything in healthcare is going, you know, the exact opposite direction.

Um, so, yeah, I mean, I think pre 70s it was reasonable, and then 1970s it started just absolutely disaster. United, Cigna, Aetna. Uh, all were, the, the origins all were in 19, between 1970 and 1975.

Brett: Wow. Yeah, we had on, um, Veronica Max a couple weeks ago. So good. Who, she's the founder, she's Tucker Max's wife and she's the founder of [00:16:00] Ultra Personal Healthcare.

Okay. Um, she's, they're based out of Dripping Springs. And we spent a lot of time talking about home births and just kind of the broken incentives with convention, the conventional birthing process. And I remember when I first heard about home births a few years ago, I was like, that sounds a little bit kooky to me.

And then the more I've connected with these incredible mothers in this, in this area, I'm like, it seems like one of the most natural, natural, incredible experiences you could possibly do to bring life in. But outside of that, they've exposed me to this, the commercialization around birthing, which I'm sure you can talk extensively about.

And one of our friends told us that, Apparently, like you can't, they don't let you take home like the placenta, but then they'll actually like turn around and sell it for like 40 or 50 grand, which is just so wild.

Andy: It's wild. It's wild. Yeah. Here's, here's back to our conversation around the crowd health tribe.

Um, so 1. 4 percent of births, um, in the United States are home births. 1. 4, 1. 4, um, crowd health. It's almost [00:17:00]

Harry: 50. That's insane. 50%.

Andy: That's crazy. It just shows you like the group of people who are like the group of people with crowd health are like, I don't want the big house. They have

Harry: both middle fingers up in the air.

Yeah, exactly. As they're

Andy: coming out of the womb. it's

Harry: like not, not playing part of this game. That's our group,

Andy: man. That's our group of folks who like want to do this without. Intervention from big, you know, institutions, organizations, and they do it right. I imagine

Harry: you as a founder probably love the fact that you have such a strong core DNA of your customer base.

That's not just like one thing that they have in common. It's probably like five layers deep of things that they have in common to build that like true community around what you're trying to do. And I also feel like With crowd health, there's, there is a lot of on ramps to like outside of [00:18:00] Bitcoin, which I think is like this extreme case of personal ownership outside of health.

And like outside of that, I feel like in the world of like entrepreneurs, there's a massive case for this exactly what Brett was saying. It's like. The biggest thing that we were both worried about is like if we got hurt as an entrepreneur and we don't want to have to, we don't have to burden like a thousand dollars a month in health insurance costs while we're like bootstrapping this business.

What do we do? And like, this is the perfect solution. But it seems to me, my observation is like just the idea of personal ownership. Is really what your customer really gets. Just wanting to own their own health on their own, like with Bitcoin currency and their own business, potentially it's like all these things.

Yeah, that's well

Andy: stated. And when you have personal ownership, entitlement falls, you know, and, and, you know, we've got to create people because. Yeah, look, crowd health is not as easy as just slapping down your insurance card and not having to worry about it. [00:19:00] Like, there's a little bit more work, like, and so our people are like, Hey, if I gotta do a little bit more work and save a bunch of money, um, I'm, I'm down, you know?

And so most of our people are like, yeah, I'm down. For you helping me find a doc, you know, I'm down for you, you know, getting attorneys involved and negotiating and going to war with this hospital who's trying to price gouge me. Um, you know, they're, they're, they're down with it. And so, I mean, I think the big question is like, can we get to a hundred thousand people who are down with it?

Yeah. You know, and I think that's the, what we're trying to do. We're at, you know. A little over 5, 000 now, um, now it's been two years, but every new customer is easier than the last one because you can imagine like being the first guy in CrowdHealth, like the first guy in CrowdHealth is some guy I don't even know in Houston.

It's like Facebook. Yeah. It's like, you're like, well, this is... What is the value of me being here? Yeah. But, you know, we got to 5, 000, we've done, you know, a bunch of cancer cases and, [00:20:00] you know, a bunch of ER visits and, you know, all kinds of stuff like that. So people I think are starting to trust. That if something happens, um, you know, there's a very high probability that the community is going to help me out for the majority of those costs, if not all those costs.

So, I think we've processed 8, 000 bills, more than that, 8, 500 bills. Every single one that we submitted to the community has gotten funded. Wow, that's amazing. So, you know, I can't guarantee it, because then the regulators will call me health insurance. But, it's like, man, like, thousands of bills submitted and...

I think the stat is like 98. 7 percent of the time we ask somebody, they'll say yes to helping somebody else out. It's amazing. And so, it's a pretty cool, pretty cool thing. And I would have to

Brett: imagine when you're a new CrowdHealth customer, there's almost like some psychological conditioning that needs to be done to the customer just because they've been so negatively conditioned by traditional healthcare.

Yeah, totally. It's like before I used you guys, when I quit my consulting job. I think my Cobra [00:21:00] was going to be like 1, 500 a month or something like that. And then I got, I had to go to the ER for something. They assured me that it was going to be fully covered. And then I got hit for like a 750 bill. And I'm like, why the fuck am I paying for this when they're not even covering?

So, uh, yeah, I'm just, I'm curious, um, Like how you kind of help customers like, Condition them to make them understand that like, look, you're only paying us, you know, you're paying 150 a month or whatever it is, but like, we like, we've

Andy: got you covered. Yeah. So it's a couple things. One is, um, we are now forcing people into a 15 minute, uh, intro call.

Yes. Um, it's really like, hey man, just have a 15 minute intro call. So you're not freaked out by how this works because it's different. It's totally different than health insurance. The second one is once they get that first request via email, um, they're like. Wait, hold on. What? Like, I don't understand. You know, so for the, for the audience who hadn't didn't hear me last time, like we, we send out one email per month to our members saying, Hey, [00:22:00] Hey, here's an opportunity for you to help somebody else in the community.

Will you do it? Um, and so people are like, you're actually asking me to help somebody else out in the community. I'm like, yes, we're asking you. Um, and so, you know, like I said, 98. Point. Five or seven or something like that percent of the time they'll say yes. So they inevitably the first after the first email, they'll, they'll respond to it and be like, help me get this again.

Like, how does this work exactly? Um, so we can have a couple opportunities, but like we have, it's last over the last 12 months, 87 percent of people who started with crowd health are still with us. So only 13%. have fallen off and the vast majority of them have fallen off because of, you know, got a new job or, you know, So they had corporate health insurance and I still think that's a bad reason to to, you know, leave but yeah You know, it's it's it's hard to compete with like zero cost, you know health insurance If

Brett: you were taking one of my issues because I'm this will be good for the listener So with my colitis, [00:23:00] I have to get a colonoscopy every two years So if they're a CrowdHealth member, can you like walk them through the behind the scenes mechanisms of what you guys are doing to actually cover those

Andy: medical bills?

Yeah, sure. So, um, let's just say colonoscopy is a great one. I don't know.

Harry: I guess. Terrible experience. Do you want to elaborate on that?

Andy: I'll talk about colonoscopies for the next 20

Brett: minutes, guys. Well, they're super, it's like a 6, 000 bill or

Andy: something like that, I think. Well, you know, it's so crazy, and before you get the next one, you need to call us, because I got a colonoscopy because we have a little bit of a family history.

Um, I got one, like, two years ago, maybe? It was, it was during, uh, Snowmageddon, whenever that was, maybe three years ago. Um, and I searched around, tried to find one, it was 3, 500. And so I called, you know, CrowdHealth. So it must have been right in the beginning of CrowdHealth. And CrowdHealth found me one for 800.

Wow. So I got my colonoscopy for 800. And so the way that that would work is I paid the first 500 of it. So any bill that you have, you pay the first 500. Mm hmm. Or [00:24:00] any health event. If you pay the first 500, we'll submit the remaining 300 to the community. So we'll find six people and say, Hey, you know, Brett, Harry, Adam, James, Mary, right?

Will you each give 50 bucks to help Andy with his colonoscopy? And then, you can say yes or no. If you say yes, 50 bucks goes from your account to my account. I ultimately have that money to pay for the colonoscopy. I show up with my credit card and pay the colon for the colonoscopy. Nice. Wow. So it's super easy.

Yeah. And And why we're so much less expensive is because your health insurance plan will pay $6,000 for a colonoscopy. Yeah. Whereas we've got people in Austin who are all over the country actually, who will do it from between 800 and 1500, depending upon the location. Yeah. So, you know, it's like, why would you pay six, six grand when you could pay, you know, a thousand?

Yeah. Like, that's the benefit of crowd

Brett: health. And the kicker with you guys, too, is the cash component, right, of just paying them up front. So the doctor's [00:25:00] office is like, well, now I don't have to negotiate with the insurance company for months. I can just get the cash. Yeah. And it's, how much cheaper is it if you're paying cash on average?

Andy: I mean, for the little bills, you know, it's 30 percent. For the big bills, it's like 50 or 60 percent. It's huge. Wow. Yeah. And so that's, that's kind of the whole. So a couple things is why the costs are so much lower. One is, when you pay in cash, you rip out all the administrative costs. So for every doctor, there's three billing people in that office.

So if you go to the cardiology office, every doctor you have three billing people to bill health insurance. Super expensive to do. So, versus showing up with a credit card and just paying it. Which you get, what, a percent and a half or something like that of credit card fees. You know, with a debit card. Um, so you rip that out.

The second part is... As we were talking about in the beginning, we got a tribe of people who are just healthy, you know, and so we don't get tons of illnesses every month on Twitter. You guys probably see this. We very transparently say, Hey, here's [00:26:00] all the health events that were crowdfunded by type. So, and it's always, uh, injuries like mountain biking face plants like.

You know, um, or scooter faceplants as it was a couple of months ago. Shout out, John.

Harry: Oh, yeah. Shout out.

Andy: Um, or pregnancies, right? Because we're in our 30s and, you know, people just get pregnant. Yeah. It is what it is. Um, and so I was like, man, I'm, I'm down for helping people. With pregnancies and like just bad stuff happening when you're active.

Yeah, I have no problem if I'm not doing this but if crowd health asked me for an extra hundred bucks today because Somebody got in a really bad accident falling down a you know mountain biking. I'm like hell. Yeah, I'm gonna help that person Yeah, you know like I would way prefer to do that and send it to United Healthcare, you know percent so there's a humanity of that that just really I think really powerful.

Mm. Yeah.

You,

Harry: um, you [00:27:00] said the word cost before, when, when you were talking about health insurance, like the, just the cost of health insurance. Yeah. And it made me think about like, what is the cost of health insurance that people don't see. Like there's the price tag of, you know, paying 1500 for Cobra. Yeah.

But then there's actually like the big cost, which is, you know, there is no free lunch. Maybe you are paying zero when you get to the counter, but. We see the inflation going like crazy when it comes to health care. So, curious to just hear your opinion and perspective on that. Yeah, I mean,

Andy: I think that, um, we as a culture have a high time preference generally, right?

So it's like, we're gonna be satisfied now and not have to worry about it now, even though it bites us in the ass later, right? So, what I was mentioning before was like, when people throw down their insurance card, like, I don't have to take care of it now. But I'm going to get something in the mail in the next month Called the explanation of benefits where you will have no idea what it what it [00:28:00] means, right?

Um, you know, I was I may have mentioned this to you guys last time But I have a buddy that I went to Stanford with who was I think number one or number two in my class He's like there's one thing that makes me feel like an idiot And that's health insurance. Right? Like, super smart guy still can't figure out what, what health insurance is, right?

And so there's a whole bunch of steps in between that. You go to the, the doctor or the ER or whatever to the explanation of benefits that creates just incredible amounts of costs. You know, and one is, the primary one is this billing. So, uh, doctors have to fight with health insurance plans to get paid.

Then they don't get paid. If they agreed to get paid, You know, the insurance plan agrees to pay them, they have to wait three months for it. So there's a time value of money in, you know, waiting and then include in that all the broker costs, like all those costs of actually buying health insurance. If you can rip that out, you're ripping out 50 percent of the costs right [00:29:00] there by just, just administration.

Which is crazy, right? And so, when people look at crowd health, and it's like, oh, it's just too, too good to, too good to be true. I'm like, look, if you can rip out 50 percent of the cost, by just paying in cash, you get, there's your difference. Right there. And then add to it, we just gotta help with your group of people that have opted in.

It doesn't, it's not, shouldn't be shocking that we're so much less expensive than your health insurance. I don't know if I answered your question perfectly. Yeah. Yeah, that was, that's. That's why our model works. You rip out all those costs.

Brett: A statistic that I keep going back to is that I think 83 percent of Americans that are pre diabetic don't actually know that they're pre diabetic, which is incredibly concerning.

Yeah, it's an insane 83%. That's wild. So I've been thinking a lot about just continuous glucose monitors, CGMs in general, just how effective it is. Like Harry and I both use it, have a ton of success. You have too. Yeah. And my initial thought process is like, [00:30:00] Why would a, why would a healthcare company or an insurance company not want to pay for someone to get a CGM if they're not diabetic?

Because my initial thought would be like, wouldn't they save a ton of money by doing this? But I'm just curious, like, why would they not be incentivized to want to pay for something like that? They

Andy: probably would. I mean, it's a slippery slope a little bit with healthcare. Because you want to pay for all of these things, but then you start paying for them in the...

Price goes up as because you lose the market forces, right? So let's talk about, um, Car insurance, right? Like, why doesn't car insurance pay for oil and tires and things like that, right? We have to pay for them, and therefore our car insurance is less, but we have to go and, you know, pay for the tires. But getting tires on your car is not that expensive.

I can go to Jiffy Lube and get, you know, the 29. 99 or whatever it is, you know. Oil change. Um, any time because the market forces are there, it pushes the prices down once you get an entity paying for it and you're not [00:31:00] paying for it directly. Prices go up. I mean that you lose the market forces of that.

And so what I'm trying to do is saying, listen, let's try to get the cost of crowd health down as low as possible. Keep driving down costs. Let's not pay for more. Let's pay for less. Yeah, right. Let's drive those 200 bucks a month, Um, or three or four and oftentimes, you know, 1000, then you can go and use that money for whatever.

You want yes, right and if you are personally responsible for your health care, not me the health insurance plan. Yeah, right I'm not a health insurance plan, but I'm talking as if I was a health insurance plan Not me. I'm not responsible for your health. You're responsible for your health You should go and get the stuff that you feel like you need to take care of your body.

Mm hmm, right? Um, and so that's where I'm like, man, I think we just have a backwards people who are like, why don't you pay for this for me? And why don't you pay for this for me? I'm like, no, no, no. Let us drive down the cost and, and fund as little as possible. So you can go get whatever you [00:32:00] want that you think is going to make you healthier.

Yeah. Like that to me is just like a change in mindset. Um, you know, a few years ago, um, There was a, I think it was Obamacare, that they forced people to pay for, or they forced health plans to pay for, um, birth control. Birth control was wickedly inexpensive before that happened, and the inflation on birth control over the last 7 or 8 years has been astronomical.

Really? Like, now some of these health plans are paying a couple hundred bucks a month for people to be on birth control. And you're like, this is like a 2 pill. Like, why, why is this happening? So, anytime you put it into the health insurance, you know, um, realm, that inflates. And so I'm like, no, no, let's take as much of it out.

You can pay for it yourself. And you don't want to pay for somebody else's, you know, CGM. Like, if you want a CGM, get a CGM. Yeah. Um. I think that's just [00:33:00] better. By the way, these CGMs are a perfect example. Like, why are CGMs so expensive? CGMs levels I think was like 200 bucks or something a month. Why is it so expensive?

It's so expensive is because health insurance plans are the CGM, the manufacturer, the Dexcoms, manufacturer of the CGMs primary customer. And so they're getting 200 a month from health insurance plans, so they can't offer it for less. to, you know, us because that health insurance plans come back and say, well, hold on a second.

If you can give it to Harry for 75, why would, you know, you charge us 200? Yeah. Right. So it's inflated. It won't come down. There's got to be another CGM that's created out there. That's not the one sell to the health health insurance plans because they'll bite themselves in the ass. Dexcom 99 percent of their revenue comes from health insurance.

So they can't undercut it. Oh, I mean,

Harry: that would be. Blow them up

Andy: and how much is that little [00:34:00] thing that you hammer into the side? That's probably, I don't know, a few bucks, a couple of bucks.

Harry: That's a business that's waiting to get disrupted. I was short that immediately, but then

Andy: you have the government intervention on this, right?

Where the government wants to say the CGMs should be FDA regulated. And so there's this regulatory capture by these big CGM companies. Let's say, oh, well, I got the big FDA study that shows that it can, it works. And so, you know, they've captured all that, like I said, regulatory capture is, is brutal in that space.

That should be a 25 a month system. Yeah. And everybody should have one. Yeah.

Harry: The benefits of it are amazing. We're talking about making people more informed. Like you said, at the beginning of the podcast, like it's the information that people don't have and there's no better information than. Just throwing a cgm on seeing how your body is reacting your blood sugars reacting to the food that you're putting in your body Like I know you and I both benefited massively from [00:35:00] just tracking that and seeing how we feel Seeing the number on the screen.

Like how is that reacting? What are my energy levels at and Yeah, I think it's it's actually like the perfect one of the many tools out there that I get excited about Just in terms of like unlocking this idea of taking more personal ownership over your health. Like, think about like the oral ring, another great example, like a whoop or some sort of heart rate monitor.

Um, you know, levels, garments, all these things are great. And I don't, I think you need them like transitionally, like as you're transitioning from not understanding where your health is at to getting more in touch and building intuition.

Andy: The other thing, which is a little more old school is like just labs.

Like, I'm all about like, I tell people you should get labs at least once a year. You know, and, and we've, you know, through crowd health, I can get a full set of labs for, I mean, everything under a hundred bucks. Wow. You know, and you go to any lab now or whatever that, you know, [00:36:00] it's probably four or 500 bucks.

So you can get them for. Really inexpensive. Yeah. You know, that tells you a lot. I mean, it at least gives you a starting point. Yeah. We've

Brett: worn a lot of wearables, whether it was like the Garmin, the Whoop, the Oura Ring, the CGM. I feel like out of anything that I've worn, the CGM for me was the most impactful.

I think, and I'm trying to figure out why that is. I think there's just something about the real time feedback and actually

Andy: seeing the graph. The accountability a little bit. Yeah.

Harry: Like you, yeah. It's like almost like a big brother effect. Like, you know, the CGM is like.

Andy: There. But I think, I know for me it was like, I, I, I don't want to look at it after I had something I knew I shouldn't have had.

Totally. You're like, you're like, oh man, I have to look at this . You know? So it kept me from eating a lot of crap that I probably would've eaten otherwise. Yeah. So, and, and you know, if, if Donnie would've done it for my, a little thing and had a beef burrito, you know, or this McChicken, like you would've seen the blood sugar spike through the.

ceiling. And then if you can get people to understand, okay, that is what's causing you to gain [00:37:00] weight. Like if there's a one to one kind of, you know, correlation there, um, for people to understand, I think people would start being like, okay, I understand now that a McChicken sandwich probably is not our bean burrito, or I forget what it is.

Cheesy beef burrito, I think it was. Um, it's just not good for my health. Um, Um, maybe off topic a little bit, but my previous company, we were one of the first telehealth visits, um, ever done in the state of Texas. So this was back when it was dial up the video. All right. So we had these little, these little phones that you would dial up.

You would be able to see the video is super scratchy and whatever, but we were focused on folks with diabetes in the Rio Grande Valley. And so we would call them, uh, every week and we say, take your blood sugar. And so we have this whole, you know, log of blood sugars. And we said, okay. It was all Hispanic.

And so we said, okay, this week takes, you know, have. First was like don't eat [00:38:00] tortillas with your meals and they look at you like you're like Satan Yes, like I have had three tortillas with every meal since I was five years old Like don't tell me that I you know, like okay, but this is impacting your blood sugars and they're like, no, it's not It's not sugar and we're like, okay, so we had them take their blood sugar You know, every day, three tortillas per meal and then track it.

And then the next week they did two tortillas per meal. And then the next week it was one tortilla per meal. And then the next week it was, you know, one tortilla every other meal. And they actually saw their blood sugars. come down as a result of that. And they, they realized there's a, you know, a direct impact on the amount of tortillas they had with their blood sugar.

But before that, they had no idea that tortillas was impacting their blood sugar because it wasn't sugar. Right. And they just didn't understand the fact that. You know, these flour tortillas were, you know, getting converted into whatever it is, glucose, and then your blood sugars would spike. And so education, I think, is just a really important part of it, and so the [00:39:00] CGM for me was educational, because there were some things that popped my blood sugar, and I didn't...

Yeah. Right. And there's things that didn't pop my blood sugar that I had expected. And so you're like, okay, you know, or having protein before you have a little bit of carbs, you know, totally leveled out, you know, your blood sugars as opposed to, you know, spiked it. And so things like that, you just learn.

Yeah. You're like, man, like if everybody knew this information, um, these metabolic disease, which is, you know, insulin resistance in essence is the number one. You know, factor for, you know, diabetes and, and heart failure and, and all these things. And it's like, man, if we could get people metabolically healthy, we would stop having to talk about, you know, LDL cholesterol.

Yeah. Yeah. Zaladino said on his, on his Instagram today, he's like, I've got super high cholesterol. And he's like, but I'm metabolically healthy. Yeah. You don't see people who are metabolically healthy, who have high cholesterol, die of heart attacks. It just doesn't happen. It is a terrible predictor, you [00:40:00] know?

So. Yeah. So, as you start learning these things, you're like, wow, my, you know, your brain just almost explodes to, with, with new knowledge. So. Yeah.

Harry: Just outsource so much of our thinking around health to other people. Yeah. Like the responsibility of just, even like what we put in our mouth, you know. Fewer people have gardens.

It used to be like 50 percent of people in the 1950s had gardens, now it's like less than 1%. Like, we're just not connected with our food, our health, and all of it is just, plays into this massive narrative of like, we get very myopic around the science of like cholesterol and not understanding. Just like, you know, if you're someone who looks like Paul Saldino, I don't think you even really need to be totally worried about.

Andy: Yeah, totally. That's totally right. I do get

Brett: a little bit worried with his content. The transition that he's made from carnivory to the animal based diet. Because I do worry that there are people that are overweight or not metabolically healthy. And just being like, oh, I can have as much like fruit or raw milk or sugar.[00:41:00]

or honey as I want, not understanding the sugar content that are in those products. And I just feel like that, I think the lower carb approach is just the most effective thing for a lot of people that are trying to get their waist size

Andy: lower. I agree. Yeah. I, I've, I have noticed that as of late too, and I'm kind of like, Ooh, like, yeah, that's a slippery slope cause I could eat fruit all day long.

Yeah. And you mean, Honey. Oh, yeah. I can have, you know, I take a big spoonful of honey. I tried that once. I don't know if it was Saladino or somebody else. I was like, Oh, yeah, you know, if you have, you know, raw honey, it doesn't impact your blood sugars. And I'm like, it was like, you know, took off, you know, 140 before.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like, I'm not sure that's totally accurate. Yeah. And I'm fairly metabolically healthy. I think of the five, I'm good on four of the, you know, metrics. Um, yeah. So, you know, Yeah, it's weird. Yeah, the

Brett: approach that Harry had makes a lot of sense of like, And developing that intuition around your food, going lower [00:42:00] carb, getting yourself into great metabolic health.

And then developing that intuition of like, you know, experiment with some fruit and some honey and see how it is on your CGM or see how you feel over time. And then maybe you pull those things back or you incorporate them. But it's like just going from off the couch to, okay, I'm gonna eat all meat and then a bunch of fruit and a bunch of sugar.

It's like, I just feel like that's not the right bridge method for a lot of people that are trying to lose weight.

Andy: I think there's a, um, there's a, I don't know if this is a word, like a dogmatism, like a kind of a dogmatic view of some of these things. We'll allow it. Yeah. Huh? I said we'll allow it dogmatism.

Yeah. I think I made it up. Um, and I'm, I'm a little bit hesitant on that too, you know, but I, I think Veia, you guys know, right? Mm-hmm. , yeah. Yeah. Um, who I really enjoy, um, he was talking on, on the podcast, uh, a, a few months ago about like, if you are poor, You poor, like you can't go and buy, you know, a nice 100 steak like you just [00:43:00] can't do it.

But you shouldn't be doing it. And so he's like if you are metabolically unhealthy. You should not go and have a big bowl of ice cream. Yeah, right. If on the other hand, if you are not poor of your you know, wealthy, Yeah, for sure. Go and haven't enjoy 100 steak once in a while, you know, if you're metabolically healthy.

Then, if you want to have a, you know, thing of ice cream once in a while, go have a thing of ice cream once in a while. It's not that big of a deal. Um, and so, like, I like that perspective where if we get so dogmatic about, like, we can only have this and if you don't have this, then, you know, you're in deep, I mean, it's just, I was like, ah, that just doesn't resonate with, with me.

Um, I, I mean, I totally appreciate people who are totally carnivore and won't have anything else. Doesn't work for me. Um. And I think, man, there's some joy in sometimes having a big bowl of vanilla ice cream. Yeah.

Harry: A lot of times, a lot of times, I think about like how much mental strain we put on [00:44:00] just thinking about the foods that we're supposed to be eating, and I'm like...

Like it shouldn't be like the perfect place to be is where you're not even thinking about it. You just, you live your life, you make decisions that make that support your health. They're not like, you're not like constantly on this, like stressed out. Oh, I'm dieting. I need to be worried about the food I'm putting on body.

I'm fear based like. That is the, that is the worst approach to being healthy is having a fear based approach to nutrition. You should be thinking about nutrition from a place of abundance. Like, oh yeah, I'll go have the ice cream. Like, it's a high quality ice cream, sure. Go for it. Yeah, my

Andy: kids love, love pizza.

So I have pizza with them on Friday nights. It's just what we do. You know, it's like, they're gonna remember when they grow up that they had pizza on Friday nights. Like, that's our family tradition. And I don't have seven pieces of pizza. I might have a couple pieces of pizza, right? Yeah. Why not go and have some of those joys in life?

I think God gave us those taste buds of joy to really enjoy what he's given [00:45:00] us Yeah, pizza and ice cream or some of those just don't have it every day Yeah, you know and if you're metabolically healthy go ahead and do it if you're not metabolic healthy Then you shouldn't probably go and do it. Yeah, that should be the incentive to go get metabolically healthy and everybody almost without exception.

There's some few exceptions, but almost everybody has the ability to get metabolically healthy. There are very few people that are so far off the The, the path that they can't get back, you know, um, so that's, that's the hope in all of

Brett: this. It's one of the coolest things about metabolic health that Harry and I talk about is that, um, it's one of the fairest pursuits ever where it's like, you know, you try and play football or baseball or something like that.

You could work as hard as you, as you possibly can. There might just be someone that's more talented that beats you out, that treats their body like shit, but they're just more talented than you. Where it's like fitness, metabolic health, if you put in the reps and do the right things, like anyone can get the dream.

body or the dream health outcome that they're looking for to. Um, and I love what you said to around. Like, I think a lot of people that follow our [00:46:00] content that meet us just for whatever reason, I think that we're carnivore all year round. And it's like, I think it's an amazing tool to really develop that intuition around the food that you're putting into your system.

There's also this argument to be make that, that Actually eating pizza with your girls on a Friday night might actually be really healthy for you, too, because of like, you know, the endorphins that you're releasing and the, I think it's a very healthy experience, too. Yeah. And like you said, dude, that's

Andy: There's an emotional component of that.

Definitely. Our

Harry: relationship with stress in life is so backwards, like Having a pizza with your kids is probably the biggest de stressor you could possibly have. Whereas like, you know, there's so many other things that we do on a day to day basis that are worse for our health, that add to the stress levels.

Um, that like, yeah, a little bit of like, joy food with your kids are great people. It's like medicine.

Andy: Same thing with alcohol. Like, I don't drink alcohol other than on vacation. Yeah. You know, and it's just my preference. Yeah. Like, I don't feel good. I don't sleep good. I don't judge anybody else for drinking alcohol.

I just love having, you know, a [00:47:00] good beverage with my wife, you know, on vacation, sitting by the pool, overlooking the beach. That's my joy. Yeah. I don't need it every single day. Yeah. I don't need it every weekend. I don't, it just doesn't make me feel good. Yeah. But I'm not going to judge people. Yeah. So let's not be dogmatic about it.

You find what works for you. And as long as you're staying within a metabolic health range, then you do you, as they say. Um, so it's, it's, I, that's the only thing when I've gotten into this kind of food, Uh, you know, conversation over the last couple of years that I found that I didn't like is just the dogmatic approach to some of this stuff.

You know, like I don't want to have to look at every single little ingredient on every single thing that I eat. It's just like, guys, like I, I understand, like I try to avoid seed oils. We don't have seed oils in my house. You know, once in a while I'm going to have something with a little canola oil. Um, I'm not gonna worry about it, you know, like I'm not [00:48:00] gonna freak out about it.

Um, where some people are like, Oh my God, I can't believe that you did that. You know, like guys, like it's, it's okay. Like I think our bodies are a little bit more resilient and having a little bit of canola oil once in a while. But, you know, you shouldn't be having it every day. Like, you shouldn't be having it in every salad dressing that you have.

You shouldn't be having it in every processed food. Like, stay away from it. But once in a while, it's not that big of a deal. Like, let's not be super dogmatic about it. I'm not gonna keel over and die.

Brett: Yeah, it's like when I travel. In the Austin airport. I'm basically like the best option I can probably get is like the steak salad from Taco Deli.

Yeah. And I know for a fact that they're definitely putting some type of canola oil blend in the salad dressing. But I'm not going to stress out about it because it's like my macros are still fairly good. And it's one meal out of the 21, 14 to 21 meals I'm eating this week. Like this like insane aversion to seed oils.

And that's something we talked about. We had Jason Karp on from Hugh Kitchen. And it's like there's so much validity to the anti seed oil movement. [00:49:00] But there's also this camp of people that are basically single handedly pigeon holing seed oils for like the entire metabolic health crisis And that's also not right either being so extreme.

Andy: Yeah, I totally agree with you I totally let's let's take down the extremism because I don't think extremism really captures the heart Of the most, you know, if we, if we, if we do a little more pragmatism, I think we'd have a much better job of getting people to a healthier spot. You know, like I, somebody said on, I don't know, what's Twitter or Instagram, but maybe it was one of you, maybe it was one of you guys, it was said something like, look, uh, a pound of ground beef in a grocery store.

is a hell of a lot better than a bag of Doritos. Yeah. Like, that pound of ground beef may not be perfect. Yeah. Like, it may not be raised the way we want it to be raised, or whatever, but it sure as hell is better than a bag of Doritos. Yeah. Right? Like, let's, let's, let's focus on making steps to improve, as opposed to, like, being so dogmatic and, like, you cannot have anything from the grocery [00:50:00] store.

It's like... Yeah, people are trying to do their best here. You know, yeah, it's good.

Harry: It's good to have the extremists like put like leading the way towards this idea of like, we can fix a lot of these problems if we start to attack these issues with a little bit more diligence and like thoughtfulness. But the fact is, it's going to take decades to unwind the decades of problems that were created through bad guidelines.

Incentives were broken. And. And now our consumer behaviors are very attached to those sorts of things where it's like, yeah, pizza is cheap and like people loaded with seed oils, it's going to take people a long time to educate themselves and get off the, uh, the merry go round of just like, yeah, the food that's

Andy: out there is poison.

And it's formulated to get us addicted to it. Yes. You know, that's what I'm saying is like, man, if, if, if I could get somebody to swap out, you know, ground beef or Doritos, like I would do that. It's a [00:51:00] huge win every single time. Like that's a win. Like let's, let's do steps, you know, in the right direction.

And then once they're there, they're like, okay, like now. Would you consider, you know, getting a local rancher to get you there? You know, your ground beef. It's so, yeah. Take, take, take steps in the right direction. Like those are wins.

Brett: Yeah. It's a progression over time. And the tweet that you referenced was inspired by the, uh, the Warren's at Holy cow beef.

And they have that really good, it's the good, better, best model. So the good model is just buying, you know, Cheap red meat from the grocery store still better than any of the process shit on the inner aisle The better model is grass finished beef maybe from like some type of DTC service You're disconnected from the farm and then best is actually like regenerative grass finished beef from a local farmer Yeah, but for yeah, but it's like for me when I was healing myself of colitis All I could afford when I was 23 was the cheap Meat at the outer aisle of the grocery store I ate that for a year and I got off all the drugs and medication that were costing four hundred thousand dollars a year So for us to be like you need to [00:52:00] eat regenerative meat right off the bat It's like that's literally disingenuous to my story because that's not what I did and I still got super healthy from the cheap

Andy: budget meat Yeah, amen.

Yeah,

Brett: the other the other thing too is we don't look at things on a per pound basis. So what I mean by that is we're like, Oh, regenerative beef is 10 to 11 a pound. If you take a bag of lace potato chips, but put it on a per pound basis, it's actually more expensive than regenerative beef. We're just not conditioned to think about those things like that

Andy: psychologically.

And the nutritional value to like, what is the dollar per, you know, Gram of protein or something like

Harry: that's like actual theft like there. There's like no nutrition in those Lay's potato chips. It looks like

Andy: there's a lot in there. Yeah, but once you open that bag, there's nothing Yeah Yeah,

Brett: yeah. Yeah, it's also a good point about like food and buyer psychology in general That's another thing that Jason had said to us on the podcast as he was like, what was he saying?

He was like a [00:53:00] McDonald's cheeseburger is cheaper than the food cup on the menu. Yeah, and it's point Yeah, this point was like the red meat should be the Should be the thing that costs us the most because it is the most nutrient dense that the protein the calories the nutrients in that And also like the the energy intensive work that the rancher goes through it's like yeah That should be the most expensive thing you pay your money if pay

Andy: your money on and again You're paying the rancher directly.

It's like money going from you to the rancher as opposed to some big Conglomeration of corporations, you know, like kind of going back to the crowd health thing It was like man if you can impact somebody else's life directly Support them, love them well, you know, truly like, love your neighbor. Like, that, there's, man, there's a, there's a psychological, you know, component of that.

That is so rich,

Harry: I feel like. Yeah, I mean, Brett and I are early on in our, like, building the business with the Meat Mafia. And having employees who are, [00:54:00] like, working for us. And even that, just the element of responsibility. And, like, actually feeling like... You know, people are relying on you. Builds a different sense of community, but we've also gotten more involved with church.

And it's like, that type of community, I hadn't felt that in like, a long, long time. Just the feeling of, like, you know that these people are going to be there for you. Like, they'll step up when you need them. It's such a missing piece to modern culture.

Andy: You gotta think, and I don't want to go down this rabbit hole, but you gotta think that elimination of community, it has mental health consequences.

Absolutely. Right? And so, community's going down like this, mental health is going up like this, like, I think there's a correlation there that's legitimate. Yeah. You know? I think if we're, yeah. Because we're all lonely. Yeah. Yeah. Isolation is. There's so many. It's some silly stat about guys in their 30s who are, you know, they have one friend or something like that that they could call and they're like, there's a loneliness here that's leading to mental [00:55:00] health problems, which is leading to, you know, bad health outcomes, including you know, suicide rates and drug use and all these kinds of things.

It's like we need to bring community back into our, our lives. Culture doesn't like that, you know, and so it's like, man, that's why I love I love our little crowd health community because it is. It feels like a little community like people are like loving loving each other. Well, another one real quick.

Another quick story. And I may have mentioned this last time, but like we have, we had a woman in Tennessee who got her fingers cut off in, uh, in a boating accident. You know, and so again, like we went and there's a lot of money, a lot of big, some big bills. They try to, you know, prosthesis and all these kinds of things, trying to put it back together and, ugh.

And, uh, so we sent it out to a bunch of people. And again, people came back and were like, man, I, I feel for that woman. I don't know her, but she's in my community. I feel for her. Like, can I give more to her to help that family with? with those medical bills. I'm like, [00:56:00] dude, like that's so cool. It brings joy to see other people being so, so generous.

But like I said earlier, we've gotten the generosity component. Stolen from us because the government has stepped in is that I've got this like you don't have to be generous You don't have to help each other. I got this Yeah, you know and I'm like no no, like you shouldn't be the one that gets this It should be me helping Brett or me helping Harry You know, and so that's cool, you know I had a medical event last week and I had so much pouring of love like you guys sent me a nice gift That was sweet of you guys.

Thank you for that. Like I got so many texts and things. It's like man What would you do without the community? You'd just be lonely and lost and sitting in a hospital room. Yeah. That sucks. Literally. You know? Yeah. We've got to bring back that. That community component, and here we are, you know, Squatch is down the street.

Like, there's community there, and there's community at Bitcoin Commons, and there's community in, in CrowdHealth, and it's like, we need to put ourselves in more communities so we can be there [00:57:00] to support each other. I think it's just so important to the human condition. Yeah. It's

Brett: like what you're, what you guys are doing just reminds me of these like ancestral tribes where something happens in the rest of the community, you know, just steps up.

And I even think about now, like just how backwards we've gotten, where, you know, the, our elders have always been like the prize members of the tribe because they have all the wisdom and you, you know, it's common in other cultures to live with your grandparents, your great grandparents. And now it's like, what do we do with our elders?

We just like isolate them in a nursing home by themselves. So it's like, it's, It's insane how backwards we've gotten and it goes back to what you were saying before of like, just back to the future and actually learning from the past to push

Andy: forward. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, all my grandparents at one point lived with us in our home.

You know, it's kind of the tail end of their lives, you know, that was cool. Like, yeah, it was like, I think that will impact me for the rest of my life is like being able to be there with my grandparents in the last days of their lives. Like there's. Um, you know, and in that selfishness, selflessness of my [00:58:00] parents to be like, okay, come and live with us.

That's just the way that we're going to do this. I mean, you think about it like our parents wiped our butts, you know, in one way or another for 18 years, like, and then they get into their seventies or eighties or whatever it is and they're like, ah, you know, we're going to let somebody else take care of you.

It's just like, it ain't right. It's just not right. Definitely. I mean,

Harry: there's something very powerful about. Like, not only knowing your grandparents, but getting to see them live later into their lives and them sharing their experience with you, there's almost this like mystical or mythical feeling of like them telling you these stories of their experience of life back in like the fifties and sixties and what it was like.

And you just have to like imagine it, you have to use your imagination of what your lineage was doing back in that time and like just the things that they experienced. It's like, I just have memories of my grandma talking about. Her brother coming back from World War II, and he like, went in on D Day, and he was one of the people who survived, and just how that affected him, [00:59:00] like, just like, what thoughts that brings to my head is like, gratitude, it's like, you know, I'm so thankful that I didn't have to go through that, and, but she did, and, um, had to experience that, so I, I just think like, again, like, part of the things that are happening in the world, it's like, a lot of it is just like, this disconnect, um, and like, inner, you Intergenerational disconnect, but also like.

Yeah, just like isolation in general, like people just don't have that, um, like almost family and tribe feel. Yeah,

Andy: totally. Totally.

Brett: We have a lot of people that go to our church that are like just in the early stages of like believing in Christ or God or whatever. And they're like, I'm not quite there yet, but this, the community and just being here with all of you just makes me feel really good.

So I think that's a testament to like how much we actually need community where it's like there's people that are barely believers, but they feel so good being around a tribe of amazing people that they're like, I'm gonna show up every Sunday because I feel good doing this compared

Andy: to being on my own.

Yeah. And, and it's those people [01:00:00] like all the other, it's like, let's not be dogmatic with them and ostracize them because they're not, you know, perfect in what their belief system is. It's like, man, just love them well, you know, just love them well. And they will, you know, make steps in the right direction.

I just feel like that incremental steps in the right direction is, is just so powerful, you know, um, Whether it become becoming a believer or eating right or whatever it is like we've got to take incremental steps The human condition just doesn't go from zero to one Very easily. It's a very difficult step to take.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,

Brett: I kind of have a Question for both you guys. I've been thinking a lot about this. This came up on our podcast that we did with dr Anthony Gustin and I was thinking about Me taking control over the food, the bites of food I was putting into my body led me down this pathway towards like the ultimate form of personal sovereignty compared to anything I've ever done in the past.

And what I mean by that was, I swapped the foods I was [01:01:00] eating, I went carnivore. Got off all the medication. My mind, my mind completely shifted of like everything I've been taught about. Conventional nutrition is wrong. I then start sourcing my meat from regenerative farms. We start the podcast. I get into Bitcoin.

I kind of refined Christ and now I'm going to church too. Um, You know, maybe in the future, like, you know, what, if I ever get married, exploring home birthing, it's like, but that all started from just changing the food I was putting into my system. And I think that for some people, maybe it's Bitcoin that leads them down the rabbit hole.

Maybe it's finding their faith that leads them down the rabbit hole. But I don't know. I'm kind of just speaking out loud, but I'm just curious what you guys think about that, like, progression of autonomy from like one thing. Maybe it's just the food you put in your system and then it leads to all this other incredible change down the road.

Andy: I mean, there's a lot of

Harry: overlap in art. I think our paths, because, I mean, I was the same way, where it was like, take personal responsibility over my health, um, then take the next step of taking personal responsibility over my time, and how, [01:02:00] like, I felt like I was giving a lot of my time away to a mission or purpose in the corporate environment that wasn't really aligned with what I wanted to be doing.

And then the next step was like, well, actually before that was like understanding Bitcoin was also kind of like understanding money and time and just like personal ownership and who's actually able to affect my long term savings mechanism. I feel like Bitcoiners understand that like, you know, a limited money supply.

Allows you to save in a way that is different than the U. S. dollar. So that was like a lightbulb moment for me. It's just like bringing everything kind of back to yourself, in some ways, personal ownership, which then allows you to be, I think, being the ultimate owner of your own, you know, responsibilities, allows you to be a better member of the community.

Um, yeah, I think we have a very similar path there. I'm curious what you have to say on this topic, Andy.

Andy: It's a hard one. It's a deep one. Um, [01:03:00] and I'm, I'm trying to figure out, I mean, I'm just kind of thinking through scripture and figuring out like, you know, personal responsibility and, and how that, you know, can maybe ignite the spirit within us.

Um, and it's, it's, it's a hard one, but I, I do come back to, you know, what, what are the commandments, you know, and, but. Uh, you know, loving your neighbor, right, is, is, love your God is one, love your neighbor is, is two. Like, those are the commandments, you know, that we are, we are given. And so, you know, if you love your neighbor well, then that should incite some fruits of the Spirit.

So, I'm getting very theological here, so. You know, where does that come from? Love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithful, faithfulness, self control. Like, those are the fruits of the Spirit. So, if you're feeling any of those things, that means you have the Spirit within you, right? Um, and so, what are we doing with the personal responsibility that is igniting that?

Is that's the [01:04:00] question that I probably have and self control is one, right? Like self control probably is the hardest thing to do now in this culture because we are like, you know, it's the one that's most under attack. It's the one that's most under attack. And so if you feel like there's a, a, a component of self control that's been added to your life, that is scripturally saying the spirit is Playing a role in your life, giving you self control, and there is joy that comes from that, right?

I mean, I, and, and so, like, once there's joy that comes from that, like, man, I want more of that. Um, and so, I don't know if that totally answers the question, because I still have to think through it a little bit, but there's, there's definitely a component of that, that all of those fruits of the Spirit are given to us as gifts, and if we, um, can show them in one way, then it does bring joy.

Like, that's all scripturally, you know, um, Accurate, so that's that's the way that I would probably start thinking about that and analyzing it, but you know [01:05:00] All those all those characteristics love joy peace patience goodness kindness gentleness faithfulness self control like once you See those things once you do those things.

It's there's a there's a power to that. Yeah, that's probably indescribable Yeah, it

Harry: is. Yeah Have you always had? Relationship with God or was that like something you developed later in life?

Andy: No, I mid 30s. I'm 44 now mid 30s and I grew up Catholic and so I really had a a rules based kind of approach, which, you know, at some point the rules aren't that fun.

And this is probably back to what I was saying before. It's like, let's not get dogmatic. Once you get dogmatic and you have all these rules that you have to follow, like, the rules, you can't follow rules. It's shown, again, The whole Old Testament, I think, was to show us, like, you have, whatever it was, thousands of rules.

Like, you can't follow them. It's impossible. We, as human beings, can't follow rules, [01:06:00] right? So, um, just don't do that, right? So, I, no, I'm sure there's Catholics listening to this. I'm not digging on you. I'm just, for me, personally, like, that just didn't resonate. So, I, in my college years, in my, uh, uh, B school years, like, the rules, like, weren't that fun.

And so, I didn't follow them. And then I met a cute girl who was going to church, and I was like, I can go to, I'll go to church with you, you know, she's not my wife, which is great. Um, and so kind of created that relationship with, with Christ as, as a result of that. So it's, I'm, I'm less than a decade in. Um, but it is a core component of who I am drives everything that I do.

Um, crowd health is not a faith based organization by any means, but it is one where like, I truly believe if you love your neighbor, really good things happen. You know, and so can I create an organization in which we can love our neighbor well, you know, can I love people who are having in their desperate time of need?

Can I set up [01:07:00] an organization that helps them in that? I think that that brings glory to God. Again, we're not a faith based organization. I got a lot of people who are, you know, atheists and agnostics. I'm like, God bless you. Like, come on in. Like, come and be a part of the community. I'm, I'm just as happy of giving to you as I am to somebody who believes in, you know, a God that the same God that I believe in.

Um, but I was like, man, there's something powerful. If you can build organizations where they truly love, you know, you can love another human being by, by taking an action. There's power to that.

Brett: Yeah, I think there's, you know, right now there's power in the fact that with you guys being a startup, obviously you have a lot of members, but a lot of members do know each other, whether it's to the Bitcoin community or the Nutrition community.

It'll be a really interesting challenge for you to be like, as we grow to 100, 000 customers, how do we keep that ethos of love your neighbor and connectivity? I don't know if it's like, Local crowd health meetups, or I'm sure you're thinking about all these different ideas, but I'm really interested to see how that plays out.

And I think you can do it too, but I'm sure it's something you spent a lot of time thinking

Andy: about. It is. And [01:08:00] what we're going, what my goal is, let's just say it's 100, 000. If I could have 10 crowds of 10, 000, you know, and it is like, The, uh, the Meat Mafia crowd, right, and the Bitcoin crowd, and the, um, Naturopathic crowd, you know, like, and each one of those crowds could maybe pay for different things.

Like, hey, if there's a crowd that wants to buy CGMs for everybody, like... Have a blast. Yeah, like go for it. Like, um, and so we could have little crowds where you could keep that tribe where it's like, these are still members of my, my, my people, my tribe. Um, but not lose, you know, not lose that community. And I think probably 10, 000 people is probably the right number.

It could be less than that. Yeah. But that's my goal. Yeah. And so right now we have a Bitcoin crowd. So most of our Bitcoiners are helping other Bitcoiners directly with their, with their bills. So, you know, for me, my bill coming up that I have to submit to the community will all... Go to all the [01:09:00] Bitcoiners and so, you know, like Bitcoiners, like, please, if you get a bill that says er visit, like from Austin, Texas, be generous because it might be mine.

Um, and so we've already had that, that crowd start. Um, and so we're going to have a bunch of those. I think, um, and maybe it's like, you know, we've talked about before this influencers, maybe it's, you know, a Mr. Beast crowd or a Paul Saladino crowd or, uh, Peter Atiyah crowd or, you know, something like that.

It's like, there's anybody out there that wants to, you know, join crowd health and create their own little crowd. Like call me. Cause I'd love to do it. Like, Let's build these, or maybe it's an Uber driver crowd or a Lyft crowd or something like that. Yeah. Like that I think has some, we've had companies come to us and said, Hey, can we build a X, Y, Z company crowd?

Yeah. Like, okay, let's talk about that. Right. Interesting. So you can keep some kind of, um, shared value that is, you know, impacts behavior. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It'll be, it'll be tricky, but I think [01:10:00] we can do it.

Brett: I mean, you might even have a plant based crowd at some point too, because a lot of those people have a decentralized mindset.

They're super anti processed food, government setting recommendations. Maybe I don't agree with how they're approaching it, but it's like they do have that decentralized mindset. I think crowd health would

Andy: agree, right? Because it's like, Hey, this is your crew. This is your crowd. Like you guys. Own it, operate it, we'll be kind of the, just making sure that all the bills are right and aren't fraudulent and we'll send them out, but you guys can own it and manage your own crowd.

Like, that's my goal. It's like, you guys can own it. Like, you guys can decide what you want to do with it. Yeah. We'll be the back end to help with the bill processing and stuff. Like that, that's the ultimate goal. Yeah. I love it.

Harry: If you're comfortable talking about it, I'm curious to hear about just any perspective shifts that you've had.

You mentioned the health event that you had last week and you're building a company in the health space, particularly around costs. Um, have you had any perspective shifts on just what you're doing? Yeah, just

Andy: real quick. So, you know, [01:11:00] last week, um, I was on a zoom and my, my, uh, I, I, I just couldn't talk like my words turned into.

Gobbledygook. Um, and so I called 911 and they came there, put me in the stroke unit because they thought I was having a stroke. Um, sat there for 24 hours and you know, I think the beauty of it was I didn't have to ask if they were in network or out of network. I just, all I wanted them to was to provide me great care.

Like, and I was so confident I am confident that the community will step up and, and help me, you know, when we finally get these bills all settled, like there was just a sense of peace around that, the bill component, whereas I think in the past, like I was so, you know, be so worried about like, what, you know, what is this?

What is that? Are they gonna charge me for this? The other thing too is if I was on Obamacare, um, it would have been, I think it was It's going to be. 12 or 1400 a month. It would have been for me and my [01:12:00] family, and it was a 14, 000 deductible. So that E. R visit. It's going to be over 14, 000 would have cost me 14, 000.

And under crowd health is going to cost me 500. If the community, you know, helps me out, which I'm hoping they will. I know they will. Um. And so like there's a huge economic. I don't have to worry about the 14, 000 like I I got to worry about my health and getting healthy. Which is, which is what it should be, right?

Yeah. And imagine you have a 14, 000 deductible. By the way, people, the number one, the number you need to worry about is not your monthly premium. It's your deductible. If you don't have enough money in the bank to cover your deductible, you don't have health insurance. Like, it will put you into bankruptcy.

Like, don't get super high deductible health plans if you don't have the money in the bank. Right. Um. Yeah, so I, I don't have to worry about the 14, 000. I have to worry about getting healthy. And the last thing I want is, when I'm going through this, is I have to worry about the monetary component. I just want to get [01:13:00] worried about getting healthy.

And that's what I'm, you know, worried about now, is just making sure that my body's okay, and this was a fluke or whatever. Um, it's not, most likely it's a complex migraine. Um, I haven't had those in a long, long time, but that's probably what it is. But I have to do some followups to make sure that that's what is not a small stroke.

Brett: So, yeah, in a bizarre way, it's almost like the ultimate case study for what you're doing. I've never even thought about it from that perspective when you an experience at a traumatic event or you need surgery. The thought process of like, can I actually go to the best of the best? Because I don't know if they're in my plan or not.

You didn't even have to think about that. You take me to the best doctor. And because I know the community is going to step up and handle it. Like the peace of mind that you had was probably amazing.

Andy: Yeah. Well, the, the EMS guys were talking to my wife, like right after I called actually, um, Will Cole, you know, will Bitcoin called for me because I couldn't.

Talk. Um, Parker, uh, was there with me. Parker Lewis, people who know Bitcoin, no Parker, he [01:14:00] was sitting there and just like comforting me. It's like, these two guys were awesome. Like, thank you guys. I appreciate you all. Um, and so, you know, the EMS guys were like, Hey, what hospital do you want to take him to?

Like talking to my wife, um, through Will's phone. And my wife was like, I don't care. And she, they're like, well, insurance, like, what do you want to do? And she's like, just take him to the closest hospital. Yeah. Yeah. Like how beautiful is that? We don't care. Just take him to the closest hospital, you know, and the other thing too is like, I could have said if I had 14, 000 deductible, I could have sat there and been like, Hmm, should I do this?

Like, should I go to the ER or maybe not? Because it's gonna be 14 grand. It's gonna be a lot. Like maybe I shouldn't. I'm like, no guys, if you're having trouble talking, something is wrong. Go to the ER, you know, like you don't even have to have any of that mental gymnastics. You just go right, you know, and so some people will be like, Oh, well, you're just getting it going to get an overutilization of health care services.

No, you're getting appropriate utilization of health care services. We had a guy who [01:15:00] has colon cancer. He's currently battling colon cancer. Now he's a member. He reached out to us. He's like, look, I want the best doctors that money can buy, but I want them at a real reasonable price. So will you guys take the lead in negotiating all these bills for me up front?

Like, I don't, he literally says, I don't want to screw the crowd. Yeah. You know, you're like, what? Like, this is, this is like a total behavior change. Yeah. You know, he's like, he wants great care. Of course you do. Like, I want great care. But you don't want to screw the community either. Right? Because people are treating your money like it's their money.

And that's really what you need in healthcare. And if you send all your money to UnitedHealthcare, you're not using Brett or Harry's money, you're using UnitedHealthcare's money. And at that point, you want to suck as much value out of it as possible. Give me all the tests that you can... You know, some guy on the other day, I was like, give me an echocardiogram, give me an Instagram, give me a whatever gram you got.

Like, let's go, you know? It's somebody else's [01:16:00] money. Um, in our situation, it's like, no, it's like, it's another human being's money, and they're gonna help you with it. So, like, treat their money like it's your money. Yeah,

Brett: I know it's still super fresh. It hasn't even been a week, but just any perspective changes you've had on life in general since that has happened to you.

Andy: Yeah, I was telling a group of guys, I've got a group of guys that I meet with once a month or CEOs, 12 of them. Um, and I was telling them last month, I was like, man, I'm just feeling anxiety, you know, like for for whatever reason I was You know, listing off all these, now looking back, just stupid, stupid things, you know?

Um, and so I'm, I'm sitting in the ambulance, and all I can think about is my wife and my two girls. Like, everything else disappears. Yeah. You're like, I just want them taken care of. Yeah. Like, if something happens to me, I want them taken care of. Yeah. And the fact that my, you know, jet ski at the lake is not registered, and I'm worried about it.

Like, you're like, What the F? Like, you know, like, why am I [01:17:00] worried about jet ski at the lake? You know, like, you're the first world problems. You know, the jet ski at the lake house is not registered. Like, come on, dude. Like, get, get a life, you know? So it was, it was one of those things where like, I, we all worry about so much that we don't need to be worrying about that in the grand scheme of things doesn't matter.

And it kind of gets back to what we were talking about before. It's like the community of people around us, whether it be direct family members or people we love, like. Those are the people we should be worrying about. Not stupid crap that gets into our lives and just muddies up the water. So it's, it really is just an appreciation for what you got.

You know, like, when my wife came in bawling, you know, into the ER. Like, I was like, man, thank you for that woman. Like, that's all I could think about. Yeah. You know? All the other stupid stuff just disappears. Yeah. So. Yeah. It is, it's been a change of perspective. Now the goal here is like, how do you not let that...

Get diluted by, you know, others life, [01:18:00] right? It's like, how do you hold that and pour it to concrete or whatever? So that it doesn't move, that you continue to remember that. But I will always remember that ambulance ride to the hospital. I had that very, um, clear, vivid thought of like, Man, I don't care about anything except my wife and my girls.

So, you know, it's a life changer for sure. And I've never... Gotten close to death before and that was the first time in my life that I can remember that's like mmm I could die right now. Yeah, you know, yeah, it's It brings things into perspective. It's heavy. Yeah Yeah, well, it's interesting how there always is your listeners.

You're gonna be like, he's talking about Jesus. He's talking about, you know, like,

Brett: Well, it's like there's just also questions that we wanted to ask you because I feel like we are always so focused on crowd Health you're just a guy that You know, we look up to in a lot of different ways and you have knowledge in so many different buckets And I mean number one, we're just [01:19:00] so happy you're here.

You're okay, and your wife and girls are doing okay Secondly, like we had you on in November of last year, it's special for us just to see the way the relationship has been built. Like you've done a huge service to us. We went out on our own, no, no healthcare coverage, no idea what the future was going to be like, just have that protection through crowd health and get to connect with different members of the community and meet a founder that's so mission oriented, like.

We just like tip our caps to everything that you're doing, man. And we're just so appreciative for you to sit down and do this episode with us. And, um, dude, if you could just point our listeners in the right direction where they can connect with you and crowd health further,

Andy: that would be amazing. First, you guys do like, I'm looking at you guys.

I'm like, man, you guys are crushing it and really. I'm thankful for the friendship and the relationship and the community and things like that. I'm thankful for the Noble product that you give me that I can put in my coffee every morning. Get you more of it. I appreciate that. It's good stuff. It's good stuff.

So I appreciate it. Um, yeah. So go to joincrowdhealth. com. Um, and I think [01:20:00] you guys, what is your code? Mafia. Yeah. It's Mafia. Mafia. Yeah. So use, use your code Mafia. Um, it's six months for 99 bucks. Um, it's a good deal. So it's a great deal. Um, and so you should just go use it. And, and honestly, like, people are starting to think about health care because it's the end of the year.

People are making health care decisions. If you go, whether you're single or a family, it tastes like five minutes to sign up. Like, this is not a big, long application. It's, it's five minutes. Do it now. You can start. And at any point in the future, up to six months, so you don't have to worry about health care for the rest of the year, right?

You can have a great Thanksgiving, um, a great Christmas, a great holiday. You don't have to worry about your health care. You don't have to think about it. And, uh, we'd love to have you. Um, yeah, it'd be part of the, the, the crowd health mafia crew. And it's

Brett: so easy to set up that 15 minute consultation call too.

Andy: Yeah, it's totally easy. Yeah. And our people are awesome. You'll enjoy it. It's like, it's, it's, it's like our tribe. [01:21:00] Like it's, you're talking to a friend, but like, hey, I just want to give you the basics of, of, you know, if something happens, then do this. And it's, it's, it's painless. It's painless. Yeah. If you're

Harry: listening to this and you want to learn more, just DM Brett or myself, we can give you the full.

Testimonials as well. And just like how great it's been for us working with you guys. Um, it truly is just like for entrepreneurs or people who are just trying to like do things without having to pay an ex an exorbitant amount of money on health insurance costs. A no-brainer. So

Andy: yeah. Yeah. And follow us on Twitter.

Join Crowd Health on Twitter. Yeah. We always kind of put some fun stuff up there. It's not your like, typical corporate Instagram, you know, or it's a little punchy. It's a a little punchy. It's a little punchy. It's a little punchy. We give away cows once in a while. Actually next week we're gonna give away a quarter or quarter cow.

Oh, let's go giveaway or quarter ca quarterly cow contest. Which ranch? Um, oh, oh, uh, K C or no, it was, uh, who's Jake Freddy. Who's the guy, who's the guy that we met at, uh, at Meat Mafia, uh, [01:22:00] the thing in Nashville? Steve, is it Steve? Steve.

Brett: The Walt, was it, uh, the guy from

Andy: Missouri. Oh, Jake. Jake. Jake Stakes. Jake

Brett: Stakes.

Yeah, Horseman's.

Andy: Jake Stakes. Jake Stakes. Yeah, Jake Stakes. We're gonna give a quarter, quarter cow giveaway. Nice. Um, you don't have to do anything for it. You don't even have to be a member. Just. Like, like the post. So yeah, we do stuff like that. It's fun. Um, yeah, we have a bunch of contests and stuff. So follow us on, on Twitter or Instagram.

Um, we'd love to have you. Awesome, man. Well, we appreciate you, brother. Thanks for doing this, Andy. Thank you guys for, for having me. It's been, been fun. Thanks, Andy.