The Meat Mafia Podcast

Andy Schoonover is the founder and CEO of CrowdHealth, a revolutionary platform redefining the healthcare industry. With a mission to challenge traditional insurance models, Andy has built a community-driven alternative that emphasizes personal responsibility, cost-effectiveness, and support. His approach draws inspiration from tribal support systems, aligning modern technology with timeless human values.

In this episode, Andy Schoonover returns for a third conversation about the groundbreaking work of CrowdHealth. He dives deep into the flaws of traditional healthcare systems, the power of community-based solutions, and the importance of personal responsibility in healthcare.With practical tips, real-life stories, and a clear passion for change, this episode is a must-listen for anyone reconsidering their healthcare options.

What we cover:
- The Different Types of Healthcare Coverage
- The Flaws in Traditional Healthcare
- Cost Transparency in Healthcare
- Healthcare Options for Entrepreneurs
- Challenges in Healthcare Reform
- Building a Healthy, Aligned Community

Timestamps:
(03:45) Navigating Health Insurance Costs and Options
(17:44) Reviving Community-Based Healthcare Model
(24:15) Community-Based Healthcare Funding Model
(32:19) Challenges With Traditional Healthcare System
(43:55) Building Niche Health Communities
(48:28) Empowering Personal Health Through Community
(58:35) Building Community Support for Healthcare


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Creators & Guests

Host
Brett Ender 🥩⚡️
The food system is corrupt and trying to poison us... I will teach you how to fight back. Co-Host of @themeatmafiapod 🥩
Host
Harry Gray 🥩⚡️
Leading the Red Meat Renaissance 🥩 ⚡️| Co-Host of @themeatmafiapod

What is The Meat Mafia Podcast?

The Meat Mafia Podcast is hosted by @MeatMafiaBrett and @MeatMafiaHarry.

We're two guys who walked away from the typical path to carve out something different. Based in Austin, we’re on a mission to figure out what it takes to live a fulfilled life in a world that often pushes us away from meaning.

We have conversations with people we believe can help us, diving deep into the pillars of health, wealth, and faith, as the cornerstones of our mission.

Whether it's challenging the modern food system, questioning conventional health advice, or building something from the ground up, we're here to explore the tough questions and share the lessons we’ve learned along the way.

If you're tired of the noise and ready to find meaning, tune in and join us!



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Full Audio
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[00:00:00]

the top 5 insurers

their aggregate revenue

is larger than

the US military budget

They're nickel and diming you

to make sure

that you get every little piece out of you that they can

and it's masked in

all of these terms

that nobody fully understands

That's the reason why I started CrowdHealth

it needs to go back to like this community component

If something big pops up

why not have a community of people

in the back of you who'd be like

man I'll help you

CrowdHealth is disrupting healthcare

I am opting out of the system and we're going to build our system our way

and it's going to be better than anything else that exists

I want to give people the option of not propping up the evil empire of healthcare

Andy, welcome back. Glad to be here. Fired up. Always good to have you. We already had, we have a pre talk and I'm always kind of like, let's go! I should have recorded it. Yeah, exactly. Is he the first Hattrick guest that we've had on?

I think we've had one other. I [00:01:00] need to think about it. Charles. Yeah. Charles Mayfield, Farrell, of course, Charles. Yeah. But welcome back for the third time. Yeah. This is gonna be good stuff. I'm excited about it. Yeah. And we were saying we're going to do things a little bit different for this episode. We've covered your backstory pretty extensively.

You know, we love to have you on the show because we firmly believe that what you guys are doing at CrowdHealth is disrupting healthcare insurance. And we'd love founders like you that are actually taking on the 800 pound gorilla. But at the time of this episode, you know, October, November ish, people are going to be hearing from their employers about different healthcare options.

Elect election cycle is coming up too. And Harry and I were saying when we were in corporate jobs and we turned 26, you go off your parents healthcare insurance. And honestly, in full transparency, I really had no idea what my options were at all. So before we talk about disrupting healthcare, I think it's important to understand for the listener, So if they're going through a similar process this season, you know, what are their options actually look like from a healthcare standpoint?

Yeah. I mean, for those people, whether you are turning 26 and you, as you said, [00:02:00] coming off your, your insurance, your parents insurance or you're 36 and you're, you're still in that place of like, man, I have no idea, you know, how this works. The reason you have no idea how this works is because they try to confuse you.

They try to make it as complex as possible. Um, you know, if you look at any of the. These things are 125 or 150 pages long. Like, for your health insurance. What percentage of people are reading that? Zero. Zero. Zero. And like, I know health insurance pretty well, and I read through it, and I'm like, I have no idea what this means.

Like there are portions of that, like, I have no idea what you're talking about. So it's, it's pretty complex. It's pretty complex stuff. So happy to get into it. So if you're, I guess, just setting the stage,

if you're a younger person or just honestly, somebody who's looking to maybe revisit their health insurance and maybe take a different route than what they're typically used to, what are kind of the standard options for someone, um, from uncovered to, you know, their corporate plan?

Yeah, I think, I think you have. kind of four options. One is if you're [00:03:00] employed, um, your employer most likely will have an option for you. So we can talk about that. Um, if you're not employed or if you work for a small company, then you have to go to, uh, you can go to healthcare. gov, which is an option. So this healthcare.

gov is something that was started with the Affordable Care Act about 15 years ago, plus or minus a couple of years. Um, so this is a government in essence, sponsored, um, health plan. So it's not Medicare, Medicaid, but it is still for sure government sponsored. Um, third is you can go uninsured or four, you can go and do an alternative to health insurance like, like crowd health.

Um, you know, so if, you know, we're, we're talking, it's, this is, we released in October, November, you're going through this employer based thing, so we can talk about that one first. And I think the thing that people need to understand, there's a couple of numbers here that you need to really focus in on one is how much is coming out of your paycheck every couple of weeks for this.

So take a look at that. If you're a single person, it's probably around a [00:04:00] hundred to 200 bucks every two weeks. So that's two to 400 bucks a month that you're Spending on health insurance. A lot of times you don't pay much attention to it because it comes out of your check Um, but the things that you need to look at there are one, how much is coming out of your check and two is what is your deductible?

And so the deductible is how much you have to pay before the health insurance plan will pick up anything. Yeah. Right. So let's just say we have a 5, 000 injury. A lot of times these deductibles are 2, 500 bucks. You got to pay the first 2, 500 and that before the health insurance will pay anything. Yeah.

There's also something called co insurance. So above that deductible, oftentimes there's a 10 or 20 percent co insurance. So you have to, in addition to that, your deductible, you have to pay 10 or 20 percent up to what they call the max out of pocket. Right? So let's just say your co insurance is 10%. So 2, 500 deductible 5, 000 [00:05:00] total event.

You're paying the first 2, 500. And then you're paying 10 percent of the remaining 2, 500, so another 250. So that's, that's the way that that works. In addition to that, you're paying co pays. So if you go to the ER, there's probably another co pay. If you're going to the primary care doc, there's a co pay. If you're getting meds, there's a copay.

So there's pretty much a copay for everything else that you have to pay for. So what they're doing is they're nickel and diming you. Yeah. To make sure that you get every little piece out of you that they can. And it's masked in all of these terms that nobody fully understands. So pay attention to all of those, um, because they're all very, very important.

It's, it's not one of those things. If you get insurance, everything is covered. Yes. Um, the other thing to pay attention to is in network versus out of network. Right? So most of the time, 99 percent of the time you have a network. So if you go to a doctor outside of that network, there is an additional [00:06:00] deductible on top of your existing deductible for out of network doctors.

There's also additional co pays. And so, um, if you go to the hospital, very few people understand this. If you go to the hospital that is in network, very few of the doctors that are in that hospital are actually employed by the hospital. So you can go to the hospital for an ER visit. Say you're totally unconscious, right?

It's something big. Your anesthesiologist to do the surgery on you to get you back to health might be out of network. So, you're paying the in network for the hospital, you're paying out of network for the anesthesiologist. Reminder, you're unconscious, you have no decision making skills in this. And, that anesthesiologist is really expensive.

Right, so, that's a lot of data and a lot of information. All of this to say is,

be careful. Be careful because people think again, health insurance is going to pay for this. In reality, there's a lot of other things that you have to be consider when, when you have health insurance. So with option one, if you were listening to this and you were an employee, [00:07:00] Um, are there any differences in terms of what you would elect for your insurance if you were single versus if you were a dad that had kids and was married?

All of those, um, terms, all of those, uh, financial payments are the same if you're with a family or, or not. It's just going to multiply by four in essence, you know, so while it's, you know, a hundred to 200 a paycheck for your, um, as an individual, it's probably four X that. If you are with a family, so you're, you're paying probably three to four X.

So it's three to 400 a paycheck. Most of the time when you're, when you're a family. So some of the bigger companies are a little bit better. Some of the smaller companies are a little worse. And that's why that has a pretty significant range there. Um, the thing that a lot of our members do, which you can do as an employee is asked to get paid as more, as opposed to getting health insurance.

So what we've had members do, and we've had members do this for [00:08:00] small companies and big companies, is if you go to your employer and say, Hey, listen, I know you're offering me health insurance, but what if I say no to this health insurance? So for a single, single person, it costs the, the employer somewhere between five and 7, 000.

Wow. You can say, Hey, I'm going to say no to this. Will you up my pay a little bit since you're going to save money for not having, you know, to pay for my health insurance. And oftentimes, especially with the smaller companies, they will do that. Oh yeah. So they're totally incentivized to do that, right? So instead of paying five to 7, 000, what if you say, Hey, will you pay me, you know, an extra 2, 500 bucks a year?

Um, they are, they're better off. Oftentimes, you're better off because then you can do with that money what you want with it. And that oftentimes work. We've had a lot of people do that. A quick tip for people who are going into an employer at this time, um, and want to negotiate this. What we have found to be successful [00:09:00] with CrowdHealth members is people go in and negotiate their salary.

Let's just say it's 100, 000. Um, and they have a family, a family cost an employer, about 20, 000. You can say, Hey, instead of me taking the insurance, will you give me 110, 000? And oftentimes if you negotiate your salary first and you get to a resolution on the salary, then you can go back to them and say, Hey, we, I know my salary is a hundred, but I know this insurance is here.

Will you give me a little extra? If I say no to your insurance again, Small companies often times will, will say yes. That's awesome. Yeah. Where do you think most of the fear lies in this decision making process when you're a corporate employee? And you're trying to figure out, you know, what path to take.

Cause it just, it's either fear or like lack of education, which is probably a combo of both. But people just seem to opt in because it's just like the path that everyone else does. Yeah. It's, it's, um, the lack of transparency [00:10:00] is the biggest, biggest question mark and the inability to know exactly what's going to happen.

Yes. Right. So you can say, Oh, I'm going to look a really low deductible plan, which means you're going to pay a higher premium. Um, Or you can have a high deductible plan, which means you're going to pay a lower premium. Right? And so people, oftentimes, when you're young, you go with the high deductible plan because we all think we're indispensable.

Right? Um, and, and that often isn't the right case. All I would say is make sure you have enough money in the bank for that deductible. And what would those deductible ranges look like? It could be anywhere from anywhere from a thousand to five thousand for an individual for, you know, a family, it could be a couple thousand to 10, 000 on the employer side.

Now, when we move to the healthcare. gov side, those numbers change a little bit. They all kind of go up. Um, and so, you know, on healthcare. gov, most states have a healthcare. gov website. State exchange is what they call it. Um, so when I say healthcare dot gov, it's you're either your state [00:11:00] exchange or actually healthcare dot gov.

But in essence, this is a state sponsored, uh, marketplace where plans put their, their, um, their different policy options and you can go in there and choose one. Oftentimes these are significantly higher in terms of cost. So for me and my family, I looked at the healthcare. gov plan for 2024. So this was about a year ago and mine, I have a wife and two girls and it was 1, 400 a month.

And it was, I think it was an 18, 000 deductible. Um, I think the co insurance was 20%. And the max out of pocket was 25, 000. So in essence, what they're saying is I'm paying 1, 400, you know, a month. So just call it 17, 000 a year premiums that I pay for the first 18, 000 before the, the, the health insurance plan pays a dime.

And then I pay 20 percent up to my total out of pocket being [00:12:00] 25, 000. Wow. Right. So that's the healthcare. gov plan. And that's where people get in trouble because. They don't have 25, 000 sitting in the bank. The vast majority of Americans don't have 25, 000 in the bank. So under that plan, if I were to go to the ER and it was a 20, 000 bill, um, you know, I would be paying the vast majority of that out of my pocket with the health plan paying very, very little.

So if you don't have that money sitting in the bank, you in essence are paying for something you can't use because you, you, it's going to put you into bankruptcy for most people because they don't have. you know, 000 in the in the bank. Um, on top of that, it gets worse. Um, one out of every six claims with the healthcare.Gov are denied.

So, if you get denied, then you're responsible for all of it. 100 percent of it. 100 percent of it. That's crazy. And that's the reason why I started CrowdHealth. I was on a healthcare. gov plan. I thought it was going to pay for [00:13:00] everything. You know, my daughter has an ear infection. Another one, another one, another one.

Oh, you got to get tubes in her ears because she got a hole in her eardrum. And so I go to the hospital and, uh, and get it done in network. I did everything right. My ear, nose, and throat doctor's like, you have to go do this. And I get the bill and it was $8,000 you know, thinking my health insurance plan was going to pay for it.

And they denied it. They said it was medically unnecessary. So, and that happens one out of every six bills. So, you know, it doesn't sound like a lot, but when it's a $8,000 or man, think, think of it as a 20,000 bill, right? Like you have a one out of six chance of that being, being denied. Um, so that's the downside of those bills.

You have all those other, um, payment. scenarios too, where you have co pays and you've got, you know, co insurance and you've got deductibles and all those kinds of things. And so employer plan is, is fine. There's some drawbacks to that. There's a lot of things you got to worry about in network, out of network, healthcare.

gov is [00:14:00] even worse because there's all kinds of claim denials. Um, and then, you know, the next one is you can just go completely uninsured, um, which is, which is fine. I think a lot of people, Who are within our range, you know, late twenties to maybe late forties. You're kind of in this place of like, I'm fit, I'm healthy.

I eat right. We're all animal based, primarily animal based eaters. We're not going to have a lot of the illnesses. We're not gonna have diabetes, all these things. I'm indispensable. Um, before we started talking, I told you the story of the guy who was doing things that you and I would go and do, you know, he was out fishing in the middle of the wilderness.

And he had, you know, a 44 in his holster, he caught a fish, he leaned down, the gun fell out of his holster, hit a rock, perfectly, and, you know, went in his calf, out the back of his calf, in his thigh, out the back of his thigh, into his stomach, and destroyed a bunch of organs. And that's gonna be a 500, 000 to a million [00:15:00] dollar bill.

Um, or, you know, I see you working out on Instagram all the time, like, you could, um, You know, God forbid, like pull, pull, pull something, pull something, tear something, do whatever that could be a 10 or 20, 000 bill. And it's like, those are the types of things that guys like us have to worry about who are out and doing active things.

And we think we're indispensable until you're not until you're not right. And so, you know, can you, if you're uninsured, have a 20 or 30 or, I mean, again, 500, 000 or a million dollar bill and still survive. Probably not. Right? Um, so those are the decisions you have to make with being, with being uninsured.

Yes. You know, so those are the kind of the three primary options that people are looking at right now. And I think there are, you know, they have drawbacks on every one of them. And that's why we built what we built was our fourth option, which is, hey, being uninsured, but having a community of people who share your lifestyle, who share [00:16:00] a lot of the same, um, Kind of vision for our, for our being as, as we do.

And

if something big pops up, why not have a community of people in the back of you who'd be like, man I'll help you. And Brad, if you tear your ACL, like, I'm there for you. Like, I'd love to do that. Or if you have a baby, I'm, I'm there for you. Like, I would love to help with babies and, you know, think do people doing things that are active, like that's the way we should be living life is being, being active and, and, and reproducing.

Like, those are the two most fun things in life from my perspective as a dad to multiple girls. Um, so, you know, that's your fourth option. So I think people have to look at this time of year. Those four options, which one do you want to choose? And, um, you know, I think, you know, I'm biased, obviously, but I made that fourth option specifically for folks like, like us.

Yes. Um, a bonus option would be if there's anyone [00:17:00] that either has a startup or is building something from scratch. If they did want to go the traditional healthcare route, have you heard of any good healthcare options for startups or small businesses? Like if you're actually a founder? Yeah. I mean, I, well, I mean, the great thing, right, is our number one category of people are, uh, founders and, and business owners.

Um, and so, and our number two, interestingly is a clinicians, they're nurses and doctors. So I think it's the business owners who are saying, Hey, Man, I really want to go start a business, which is a risky venture. We all know that's the three of us know what it's like to start a business. It's risky. It's not a hundred percent probability.

The last thing I want to do is add risk to my plate by not having some kind of healthcare. Right. And so there's two to 4 million Americans in the United States who would go and do something on their own entrepreneurial. If it weren't for healthcare, you know, and everybody's like, man, that's un American, right?

Like that we have all these people. This pent up demand of people who want to [00:18:00] go and do something entrepreneurial, but can't because of, of healthcare, like we give them an option. It's low cost It's easy to use. Um, it significantly reduces your risk. And so we think it's a great option for, for people. If you have two to 10, 20 employees, there's very limited options out there other than just, you know, giving your people some money every month and being like, Hey, Go do with it.

What you want at a crowd health. We have, you know, say 25 people. Now, um, we give everybody kind of a monthly stipend and say, go do with it. What you want. And everybody, of course, chooses crowd health, but that's just the way that we've, we've opted to do that. And so we think that's a really good option for people to give them the money and let them decide what to do with their money, as opposed to you telling them what to do, you know, with, with, with, with their money.

I think that's the best option. Definitely. Do you think it's fair to say that crowd health has the ethos of what healthcare was supposed to be or what it [00:19:00] used to be in the, like, the origin, like, whenever healthcare was originated? Man, I think, I think it goes back before people even knew what healthcare was, right?

I think there's this back in the day. You know, the tribal days where people, you know, got hurt, got injured, needed help, like your tribe, your community. I mean, we even see it in the animal kingdom in many cases, like your clan comes around you to support you and to help you. And I think that is the way that it's meant to be.

I mean, these agrarian communities, you know, back in the day. Where, you know, it's, if somebody, you know, gets sick and you can't, you know, plow the fields or sow the seeds or whatever, like, people would come out and help you so that your family is taken care of. And I think especially over the last 50 years, we've lost that spirit of generosity because, The government has come in and say, Oh, no, we got you.

We'll help. We'll help. Right. Trust us. Right. What does that like mean? Like, where are the Ronald Reagan? It was [00:20:00] like, you know, it's like, we're here that we're the government. We're here to help you. Right. Like, in essence, that goes the exact opposite direction. And I do believe that, um, and insurance companies too, like, Hey, you know, I got you, you know, insurance, big insurance companies got you, if you need to get hurt, where I think it's, it needs to go back to like this community component.

And what we're seeing at CrowdHealth is, we've got a community of carnivores now, we've got a community of Bitcoiners, we've got a community of people who want to do, you know, non Western based medicine techniques, you know, kind of core, um, core problem, you know, get down to the core of the issue as opposed to just, you know, medicating the symptoms, who are willing to step up and be like, man, I want to be a part of a community where people take care of themselves.

This is not socialism. This is a bunch of people who take, you know, kind of personal responsibility over their own health, getting together. And if something really bad happens, um, I'm willing to step up and do that. So I think it's come all the way back to [00:21:00] caveman times where people take care of others.

Yeah. You know, like, and again, people are going to say, Oh, that's socialist. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. That's the exact opposite. Socialist is when the government takes care of you. Community is, is when. You and I take care of each other because something bad happens, right? Like, that's, that's a beautiful thing, and to answer your question, like, yeah, that's the way it was supposed to be, I think.

Yeah, there's definitely something to just having that more, not gonna say socialist, but just community, um, like, It almost, it is a little bit socialist in the sense that like you are helping one another, but like on a very small local community level. Like that's when that is actually an effective model.

It's not effective from the federal level at all. But when you can do it, you know, guy up the street gets hurt. Alright, like, let's take care of him. Yeah, sure. He's part of your community. There's, there's reasons why you would want that. Yeah. But by the, so, socialism is a form of government. Yes. Right? And this is a form of helping people in our [00:22:00] community.

Yeah. Which I think is a beautiful thing, right? And so, with us, like, I know where my money is going directly. So, you know, we'll ask you once a month, will you help this guy, you know, who got, you know, this, you know, firearms accident in Wyoming? Yeah, I'll help him. Like, my money goes directly to that guy. It does not go through CrowdHealth.

We can talk about the mechanics if we want to, but like, it goes directly to that person as opposed to a big insurance company or a government who then decides what to do with it. And so the core question is like, do you think you're better at allocating your, your resources? Or do you think a big corporation like United healthcare or a big government like the United States government is better at allocating your, your, your, your resources?

Yeah, I personally, I think most of the people listening to this will be like, no, no, let me allocate my resources. I can do it a hell of a lot better than, than the U S government or United healthcare. So it feels good every, I think it's feels good every month to be able to pay Directly to help somebody out.[00:23:00]

Just a quick, quick story is, and I may have told this story on the pod before, so I apologize, but like, Uh, we had this, this member, Abby, in, in Tennessee, who got her fingers chopped off in a boating accident. And we sent, you know, she's 19. We sent this request out, and these bills are huge, as you can probably imagine.

And people responded being like, man, instead of the 100 that you asked me for, can I give her 200? Yes. Like, you would never do that. Oh my gosh. With United. Like, you wouldn't call United and be like, hey, can I, instead of 1, 000 of premiums, can I give you 1, 500? Like, never in a million years. Yes. But you're helping another human being directly.

And there's like, that feels great. Like, I love it. I love when I can help the abbies of the world. Yeah, I hope this doesn't feel bad too, but I understand the sentiment of traditional healthcare of like, if I was getting hit with a bill or if I got dinged with a request for it I'm like, is this going to someone that's morbidly obese because they were eating ultra processed foods?

Like, where is my dollar ultimately going? Where it's like, actually That the fact that Harry and I have been part of the carnivore [00:24:00] community for almost two years now, it's like number one, I know a lot of the members personally, which I think is really cool. Yeah. You never see that anywhere. But even if I don't know them, I know they have this shared ethos and I know my money is going to a really good cost.

Exactly. Exactly. And I think, you know, we've talked about before,

a quarter of all your, your dollars sent to UnitedHealthcare or whatever your healthcare plan is, goes to diabetics. And so, you know, you eliminate that immediately in our, in our community.

There are not a lot of carnivores out there that are type 2 diabetics.

No. It's just, it doesn't happen. Yeah. Right? Um, I think a Harvard study just came out and said that, you know, red meat leads to diabetes and everybody has absolutely been poo pooing it because it's the most ridiculous thing that I, you know, any of us who are in this community have read. It's like, no, no, no.

It's, we are the anti diabetes. Um, and, you know, diabetes has gone from a percent 50 years ago to 10%, you know, and that almost entire growth has been type two, which is a lifestyle condition. You're not paying for lifestyle issues. [00:25:00] With, you know, the crowd health community, especially with our carnivore crowd.

So you said a quarter of all health care dollars are allocated to people with type 2 diabetes. Is that just straight insulin? Is that what that's going towards? Oh, it's insulin. It's all the cardiovascular issues as a result of that. It's, you know, the organ failure as a result of, you know, over stimulation of insulin.

It's, you know The, the removal of, of limbs as a result of lack of circulation doing to advanced diabetes. I mean, it's all of these things that are going towards it. I mean, diabetes leads to all kinds of, of health issues beyond just the insulin. Is that underlying issue? Trillion dollars, by the way?

Trillion dollars. Trillion dollars a year. Trillion, yeah. That's insane. Is the underlying issue there. So like if we're looking at the four options that you just laid out. We have the one corporate plan that, corporate and health. gov, that's ultimately going to be supporting that type of person who, a trillion dollars in care needed [00:26:00] by mostly lifestyle things, versus crowd health and uninsured, like, that person's probably not in those two camps.

Do you see the model, like, where if that goes to 30, 40 percent of healthcare costs being covered? Diabetes, like, is there any way that these corporate costs can stay the same? Are they like almost guaranteed? They're almost guaranteed to go. I saw, um, a stat. It was, it's almost, I think, 11 or 12 percent that increased this year of, of healthcare costs on the, on the corporate side.

So, and by the way, it basically is like, they, they take a survey of all the corporations and what they have gotten, all the corporations have pretty much gotten their quotes for next year. And they've said, Hey, what is your quote for next year? And what was it last year? And the average is somewhere between 11 and 12%.

So, and by the way, you're paying for all the kinds of other things, like, and the number one driver of that, can you guess [00:27:00] what it is? Ultra processed foods or GLP ones. Oh, wow. GLP ones is one of the primary driver is the number one driver. of increased cost, if you categorize the reasons for the increased cost for next year.

So all these employers are starting to do GOP1s, and which are ridiculously expensive, um, that I believe over the long term are going to be detrimental to humans. Um, and there's all kinds of other kind of social health, I'm not going to get into the details, but like, you can kind of use your imagination here.

Other, what have become socially acceptable surgeries. Um, that are now being paid for or you're required to pay for them as health insurance that we just will look at that and be like, that's not what I want to. What I want to fund, you know, so, um, we don't do any GOP ones. We don't do any kind of reproductive issues.

We don't do any, you know, uh, gender transition stuff. We don't do any of those kinds of things. And [00:28:00] so paying into the health insurance system, you are paying for those types of things, especially if you are in, you know, a lot of the kind of the progressive states who are requiring health insurance plans to pay for this stuff, you know, for us, you know, exactly what you're paying for.

Like I'm going to say. A member in Austin, Texas tore his ACL, you know, working out and will you help him with a hundred bucks, you know? And so that's the cool thing. You know, exactly that, that you're paying for that. Not. Some of this other, you know, craziness. It's really the ultimate form of sovereignty.

You're just like, I am opting out of the system and we're going to build our system our way. And it's going to be better than anything else that exists. Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. It's, that's what we say. Opt out of health insurance, being uninsured, which you actually are with crowd health uninsured.

And it's, I say, it's delightful. It's delightfully uninsured because there is no limitations now on what you can do. Like, it's, I mean, um, Other than the crazy stuff, um, which we wouldn't do [00:29:00] anyway. But it's back between you and your doctor, right? Like, you and your doctor decide what the right care path is, and you go and do it.

Like, there's not an insurance person in the middle saying, you can do this, you can't do that, all these kinds of things. It's like, no, no, no. It's back between you and your doc. Which is the way it should be, I think. Um, so. Yeah, I just remember, like, quitting my consulting job for Harry and I to do this show.

you know, my risk tolerance was I really just felt this psychological need to have some type of coverage. So I immediately opted into Cobra. The price, I think the price quadrupled potentially. I think I was paying 800 a month just to have Cobra. And then I eventually went off that when it expired. And then I think I was, naked for like two months.

This is before we had ever gotten connected and just being able to be like, this price is super affordable. The, the, what is your payout rate? Like 99. 6 percent or something like that. Yeah. 99. 8 percent of the bills that are submitted to the community are funded. Yeah. So, and then, you know, it can be talked about [00:30:00] mechanics, but if you have given to others, um, on a recurring basis, then a hundred percent of the people who do that get their bills paid.

So. It's like, look, help other people and they'll help you back. So that's, that's the way that it works. So there's a little bit of an uber element to like social, like social proof that you've done stuff. There is, there is. It's proof of work, right? It's proof of work. And so. If I were to ask you for, for help, um, you know, I break my arm, whatever.

Um, you get to know, you know, two things about me. One is like, Hey, did I get a reasonably priced, you know, option for my broken arm, or did I go to the Mayo Clinic for my broken arm? Like you don't need to go to the Mayo Clinic for a broken arm. Right. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Um, and then the second one is.

Have I said yes to other people when I've been asked? So, if I've said yes, yes, yes, yes, yes to other people, like, I've been a good member of the community, I want to help other people. If I've said no, no, no, no, no, you'll see that and you're like, dude, like, you're not a good member of the, of the, the community.

[00:31:00] Yeah. You know, um, you're just trying to mooch off of others. And so I'll say no to that. So, Like I said, everybody who said yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. They've gotten their bills paid. And most of the people who said no, no, no, no, no, no. I have not gotten their bills paid. It's just how we are as, as communities.

Yeah. I think that 99. 8 percent is so important too, because I'm not going to lie. When I first heard about you guys, I was like, this has to be too good to be true. Too good to be true. But the data doesn't, the data doesn't lie though. Data doesn't lie. We've had, um, and you know, like, okay. So how many of our, we, we call them red bills.

Like those are the ones that. Either you paid like a ridiculous amount, you went to the Mayo Clinic for a broken arm, or your generosity score was really low. We've done 11, 000 bills now, we've crowdfunded 11, 000 bills, and I think 19 of them were, were read. Wow. So, um, most of the time, we don't, we don't have people who are trying to just, you know, take advantage of the community.

It happens. Once in a while But it's just not very often and are those red bills like [00:32:00] partially funded or sometimes? Yeah, sometimes gotcha. I mean if You got a pregnancy or something and you haven't really been a good member of the community There are some people who like you know what they're pregnant like I'll help so they get part some of them get partially funded most Of them don't get funded at all.

Gotcha. Yeah, so I saw, uh, Mark Cuban and you were going back and forth for a little while back on Twitter. And I'm curious, kind of, just to get your take on his positioning. You know, put your, put your mind in, or uh, yeah, mind through his eyes. Yeah. What was his kind of pushback? Yeah, a couple things there.

One is, is, uh, you know, Mark's an interesting guy. He's got an opine on everything. Um, let me say this first, is 10 percent of our cost are pharma. Yeah. Yeah. Not ours, CrowdHealth. It's the 10, 10 percent of healthcare costs total is pharma, which means that 90 percent isn't, you know? So what I said to Mark is like, Hey, you go focus on the 10%.

We'll let us figure out the 90, right? And so even if you're able to cut pharma costs by, you know, [00:33:00] 50%, you're saving 5%. You don't even make up for the increase this year. And that's with a new company that he's, yeah, he's, he's doing a new company. In essence, what he's doing is he's cutting out. The pharmacy benefit manager, which is the kind of the intermediary between the drug companies and the insurance company.

And they take a huge chunk, a huge slug of the profit as a result of that. It's a total fraud from my perspective. Really? And he's actually doing really good stuff by cutting those people out. Nice. Um, you know, I think his is all, uh, mail order. So you have to, you know, Submit it, and it'll, they'll send you the money, or send you the, the, the meds.

Um, so it's, it's, it's fine. We don't use it at CrowdHealth, just because I want to go to my local Walgreens and pick up my, my, my meds. I've, I've had one prescription in my entire life and I filled it and I never used it. So I can't say like, I'm a pro, you know, I'm a pro at this. Like pharma is not like my number one go to.

I try to figure it out with other [00:34:00] ways, like, like food. Um, it's the other benefit of being a part of the community is like, I think we were, if something were going on with us, we'd be like, okay, how can I resolve this root cause as opposed to resolving symptoms with medication? Yeah. You know? And so. I don't do Tylenol or Bayer or things.

I was like, man, I, my body's telling me something's wrong. I'm going to let it kind of do its thing because I mean, I feel like God made our body so perfectly incredibly that's like, if I have a fever, I'm going to let my fever do what my fever is supposed to do, which is knock out all this stuff in my body.

That's not supposed to be there taking a Bayer or Tylenol or whatever, like circumvents that process, that's just me from my perspective. So I guess what I was trying to say there is our community spends so little on pharma. You are not subsidizing pharmaceutical companies, right? Just within our community.

I think it's less than 1 percent of costs goes to pharma. And those are the big [00:35:00] ones. Typically like cancer, like Sometimes you just got to do it, right? You're going to be, yeah, you're going to be paying. Yeah. We had a non Hodgkin's lymphoma case, um, where the, the med, it was like 40, 000 a month for meds.

And we negotiated with the, the, uh, the pharmaceutical company to get it down to, I think it was 2, 500. So we can negotiate even those meds down significantly. If healthcare companies, Did cover chemo and cancer and things like that. Would those expenses just bankrupt them? Is that why they don't do it? Um, if companies do that, if, if companies just say the question again, I'm sorry.

Is it, um, aren't like a lot of these expensive chemo treatments and things like that, not covered by traditional healthcare? It really depends upon which one you have. Yeah. Got it. And, and all the kind of alternative ways of battling cancer are not paid for. Right. So that's the other thing we allow too, is like, Hey, Whatever you, you want, like some [00:36:00] people are anti chemo, right?

Don't do chemo, you're poisoning yourself, and in essence you are poisoning yourself, you know, on purpose. Yeah. And it's like, look, if you don't want to go down that path, don't go down that path, right? We had, uh, I said something out on, on social media, Two or three weeks ago where we had a person with non Hodgkin, I think it was not Hodgkin's lymphoma, um, was starting their chemo treatment.

And we had a bunch of blowback, like, well, they shouldn't be doing chemo that blows up your body. And it was like, Hey, here's the beautiful thing about decentralization. We let individuals make their own decisions about their own bodies, as opposed to somebody telling them what they can and can't do. Yeah.

You know, if you want to go to Costa Rica and have some alternative form of therapy for your, your cancer, go for it. Like, if you want to go the traditional route, which is just blow it up with chemotherapy, go for it. Like, who are we as CrowdHealth to say what is right and what is wrong the way that you want to go and battle your cancer?

Yeah. Totally. It's none of our business. Yeah. Right? Health [00:37:00] insurance plans tell you exactly what you can and can't do in that scenario. That's a crazy concept. Which totally, which totally sucks from my perspective. And I might go the chemo route if I had cancer. I don't know. I'm not in that situation. I might go the other route, but it's great to have the freedom of saying, I can go either way.

Right? Totally. Yeah, as you're talking, I'm just sitting here thinking,

you're really opting into a lot of costs that you don't realize that you're opting into when you take that traditional insurance route. Like, you don't really understand the nature of all the decisions that you're saying yes to with that one yes.

So. I think that's the whole point of this podcast is like taking the time to pause Understand that even just beyond the deductible the co insurance the co pay and potentially some other costs that are that are in there Yeah, there's a lot more. Um, you know things that are happening down the road that hey Maybe your insurance doesn't pick it up and you have to pay for that.

Anyways, somehow. Yeah I mean, I think a lot of the folks that listen to you have made a [00:38:00] conscious decision You to change the way their lifestyle around eating, especially, um, and have decided that they're not going to prop up the, what is it? Four or five or six or whatever that is. Huge conglomerates of food that are poisoning us.

And we are going to go and support the local farmer, the local rancher, the local, you know, artisan food manufacturer. And like, I dig that, right? You made a decision not to prop up. What I think is an evil empire of food, you know, like I want to give people the option of not propping up the evil empire of healthcare, right?

That's what I want to do. Right. And I think a lot of like minded people will be like, yeah, I don't want to support that either. Right. And so I'm going to. You know, support each other directed directly. Um, and so that's why I think there's a lot of like mindedness between the food group, you know, you guys on food, we've got a lot of like men is with the Bitcoin folks.

You're [00:39:00] like, I'm not propping up this evil financial empire that, you know, we think is tearing down our country. Um, for you guys, it's the food empire tearing down our bodies. Yes. I think it's the healthcare empire, which is tearing down our healthcare. Right. So I think there's a lot of alignment within some of these groups.

And then you add kind of the integrative, holistic, naturopathic people who are like, I don't want to prop up pharma. I want to, you know, figure out what the root causes of my, of my, uh, my healthcare issue without. propping up this pharmaceutical industry that clearly is not in it for our best interests.

Yeah. As you're speaking, my mind is keeps going back to just how mind blowing the 1 trillion statistics for type two diabetes. And it makes me think about one of our best episodes was with Dr. Gary Fetke and his wife Belinda Fetke. I don't know if you've connected with them before, but he's a doctor based out of.

Uh, Tasmania. Yeah. And so he was a surgeon, so he would perform surgeries on type 2 diabetic patients and perform amputations. [00:40:00] And he got so tired of, he said that there was a noise that like a foot or a body part would make after you amputate it and you drop it in the bucket. And was just so tired of these patients not being taught anything about nutrition, low carb.

He went low carb, lost something like 50 to 100 pounds. It changed his life. So as a surgeon, he started talking to some of these patients about things that they could be doing from a nutrition perspective. Australian Medical Board caught wind of that, didn't like that at all because they just wanted him to specialize in surgery.

And he went on this massive trial and was like this close to losing his license. Thank God he ultimately didn't end up losing his license. But then his wife did all this digging and found like concrete evidence that tied the medical board to being paid off by these massive sugar companies in Australia too.

So like, as you're talking, there just is this almost like sadistic interconnectedness between sugar companies, traditional medicine, healthcare, et cetera. And you're just like, let's keep it really simple and like opt out of this whole thing entirely. There's a corporatization of our, [00:41:00] uh, you know, economy that I think is, is ridiculous.

I mean, we saw it during COVID. where pharmaceutical companies are the number one advertisers on cable news,

right? And so cable news won't come out and even question this because they are afraid of losing their, their pharmaceutical, you know, benefits. I mean, we look at Tucker Carlson, who was the number one cable news guy.

And so why the heck would Fox news let Tucker Carlson go? If there was a total boycott. From these big food, big pharma, because he's questioning all these people. And they're like, I can't even make money on the number one, you know, uh, news personality on the planet because nobody will advertise on him.

That's how much power that these people have. That's crazy, right? Like that's, that is the power that we're, we're, and we're handing our money to these people, to these organizations to allow them to do that. I'm just like, I'm not doing it anymore. No. Right. Like I refuse. So, um, [00:42:00] By giving your money to United or Blue Cross Blue Shield or whatever, you know, you're, you're enabling that, that behavior.

And let me say also like, Oh, some people are like, Oh, well some of these are nonprofits and they're good. And I was like, no, no, no. Like, let me be very on it. Like the nonprofits that we work with, especially in the hospital systems are worse than the for profits like. They clearly are, are in it to, to make a month, make money.

Like yeah, they say no margin, no mission, which in essence is they saying we gotta make a lot of money. Yes. And so, and these, these CEOs of these non-profit hospitals are making millions of dollars year literally millions. Millions. You can look it up. So the way they make money is they just juice up salary and.

Salaries of people and then, yeah, and it's still a non profit because there's no, you know, shareholders, but all these people are being enriched. Yeah. Like, let's be very clear. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's crazy how the insurance model is really kind of the crux of all those different pieces that you just touched [00:43:00] on.

You know, whether it's like our community of just wanting to eat healthier or, um, you know, the anti pharmaceutical people who are just like the holistic health people. Like, The insurance model is just baked in to society today and it touches so much, um, to the point where like it's affecting, um, like Tucker Carlson and his ability to, to make money.

Absolutely. It's crazy. Absolutely. I mean, it is, it is. 4. 6 trillion dollars is the amount of money that is, you know, within healthcare. It's about 20 percent of our economy. Um, and I may have mentioned this before, but it's I think the 4th largest, if it were a country, it would be like the 4th largest GDP.

So our healthcare is the 4th largest in GDP. Um, the top 5 insurers, so, Um, United, Cigna, Aetna, the Blue Cross Blue Shield plans, um, their aggregate revenue is larger. Again, five, five companies is larger [00:44:00] than the US military budget. So those five have a trillion dollars of revenue. The U. S. military budget is 950 billion.

That's how monstrous. This is, um, and so the power is held in those hands. And so people, when they're, when I started crowd health, they're like, dude, you are like entering a world of, you know, it's almost like a holy war, right? Like these are people who have tons of power. And I was like, look, let's rip the power out of the hands of these people who, from my perspective, don't care about me and you.

They care about, you know, the bottom level profits, which, which sucks. Yeah. Yeah. Let's, uh, let's talk about the carnivore crowd for a little bit. Cause your second crowd that you just launched, first one was the Bitcoin crowd, second one carnivore crowd. Why was that the next step for you guys? Yeah, I mean, I, um, so I'm not a carnivore, but I'm animal based.

I'm keto primarily. I will, I will cheat here and there. Um, and so, you [00:45:00] know, the great thing about, you know, starting companies, you can really like do whatever the hell you want and you guys know this, right? And so like, I was like, man, I really want a group of people. Who have the same, you know, lifestyle as me funding each other's healthcare expenses.

Because I don't want to fund the guy who's, you know, sitting on the couch eating brownies all day. Like, I just don't want to do it, you know? And I think there is, and that might sound harsh, but I do think Money motivates. And as I was seeing more and more people who couldn't get into crowd health because they were overweight, and we don't let obese people into the crowd anyway, I had people over and over and over saying like, hey, I so want to be a part of crowd health, I've changed my diet, I've changed my exercise routine, and now I'm in.

We had a guy who, was I think over 300 pounds and he sent me a picture a couple months ago of him and his wife doing a triathlon. And I'm like, that's awesome. So awesome. You know? And so I think to get people to [00:46:00] change, they needed incentives. And if a lower price saving money, is the number one incentive, um, for a lot of these folks, then like, let's, let's figure out how to incentivize like better behavior.

I truly believe that an animal based red meat heavy diet is the best diet for, for people to thrive. And so if I can build a community, and we are doing it now, of people who are focused on, you know, red meat is kind of the core of their, of their diet, of their lifestyle, and we can get costs down significantly versus others who don't think that.

Then I think it will actually incentivize people to, to, to give this a shot. So I think the carnivore crowd is going to have costs that are substantially lower than anything else out there. Cause the group of people who are taking care of themselves and are getting benefited directly from that, not only because they feel good, but because they're saving money.

Right? And so I think it's just, it [00:47:00] makes tons of sense. Um, it's who I am. You know, the company is kind of a manifestation of, of who I am as an individual. And so I just think it's, you know, a great idea. And candidly, like if anybody's growing a business out there, I truly believe that the, the way to success is to niche down, not to scale up.

And so if I can find niches like the carnivore community or animal based eating community. Who can get excited about this? I think it's a great way to grow a business. Yeah, like I'm talking to you guys and I bet you you guys know better than I do 75 or 80 percent of the people listening to this are probably red meat, you know based eaters Maybe it's higher than that.

I get to talk to all of those people at once very focused like Hopefully they're nodding their head. Like, yeah, I don't want to, you know, subsidize these people either. You know, we have t shirts that are great. It says, don't stop subsidizing vegans, right? Like it's just a poor lifestyle habit from my perspective.

And you don't have any vegans in this crowd. It's all [00:48:00] animal based, you know, folks. So anyway, I, we've niched down to Bitcoin, we've niched down to carnivore. We're going to niche down to holistic integrative health, the groups, and then have these little communities where it's like, yeah, let's, let's make community the center point of this.

And I think it's going to be super effective. And we've, we've seen it be effective on the Bitcoin side. We think it will be on the carnivore side too. There's a lot of overlap there. Well, it's already been an incredible success and I can't wait to see the way that it grow grows even up until the point that we released this episode.

But that niching down as like the Peter Drucker thousand true fans are, I don't think that's who, who said that. But, um, to the point where like these people are so, including us are so enthusiastic about it where they're like, no, when you hit me with the bill, I want to contribute more to this girl that had this thing that happened to her.

Right. Those are the people you're attracting for sure. Yeah. That's our group. And we have a lot of people who are like, Hey, I could save 50 bucks a month. If I had with my corporate, you know, if, if I went with my corporate insurance, I'd save 50 bucks a month, but I'm going with crowd health instead, because I want to be a [00:49:00] part of this community.

Right. And so I think that's a pretty special thing when people choose mission over economics. Um, but I do think the economics are gonna work out really, really, really well. Yeah. I mean, last month, dude, like July, we've only, you know, the way that we work is you pay me and as an individual, you guys are both members.

Thank you. Um, send me 50 bucks to crowd health. Like, that's how I pay my bills. And then I ask you for an additional 1 35 to help the community. But we only ask for what The community needs that month. And so we've only asked for the max twice in three years. Um, and that's when we had like five NICU babies hit at the exact same time.

Um, and so, and in July, we only asked for 60 of the 135, right? So the community is benefiting when the community does well. Health insurance plans benefit if the community does well in the other model. Like, we give you all the money back, like you're the ones making the money. It's unheard of. Yeah, it's great, right?

So you guys give that money [00:50:00] back, like, In that one 30, one 35, and you only had to spend, spend 60, but Delta is just going back to, you keep it, you keep it in your, you know, go buy a couple of ribeyes with it. Like you could do whatever you want with it. It's amazing. Even just members that are getting so fit, they're doing triathlons to join the community.

It's so counterintuitive, traditional healthcare. That's so cool. Where it's like, you're creating a business where not, they're not just going to be covered. They're actually like, if that guy loses 50 pounds, his life is also going to be changed for the better. Yeah, I, man, this is my favorite part is hearing these stories of these people who are changing their lifestyle to become a part of crowd health.

People are now changing their lifestyle to become a part of the carnivore crowd because they want to be a part of that community, you know? And so, we force you to have a fasting insulin under 5 or a visceral fat in the top or the bottom 25%. So, um, people are, are, are not making that and they're like, okay, I'm going to do it.

Like, I'm going to get to that [00:51:00] level, like, because that's healthy. Yeah. Um, and during that process, we're teaching them like, okay, what is fasting insulin? Why is that important? What is visceral fat? Why is that more important than your overall weight? Like the education component where in. health insurance land, you're just kind of put on like auto drive, right?

Like put your car down, get it paid for and leave, right? Like we make you think about like, okay, what, what are these different components of your health that really, really matter? And I think ultimately like the ultimate vision, and I've said this before, it's like, I want a bunch of members who are, you know, when they're 80, they're playing with their grandkids out in the backyard and running around like that's thriving.

Right. So we have to make the decisions in our twenties, thirties, and forties that are going to impact the, our seventies, eighties, and nineties. Um, so hopefully we can make a small difference on that. Um, but I do think we are incentivizing and maybe even inspiring a hope people to be like, man, this is great.

I need to take care of myself. When, when there is this like personal sovereignty, and you're not [00:52:00] dependent upon an insurance company, things change. And we talked about this on our last one where, when you become carnivore, things change. When you get into Bitcoin, things change. Like your mindset. Reef gets reframed and saying no.

No, I don't have people there to take care of me I don't have a government or an insurance company to take care of me. I got to take care of myself Yeah, and as a result of that you're you are the community member that I want to be a part of mm hmm, right? So it's this all personal sovereignty like get a community of people who are personally sovereign And you've got something fricking special, right?

There's some resiliency there. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. Um, what happens when you put the incentives in the right place. And I just, uh, commend you and your entire team, just like what you guys are doing is so awesome. And it's just great to be able to have you on the pod for the third time. Yeah. You know, I'm glad to be here, man.

Get to talk a bit more. the hat trick. Um, and especially now where people are trying to decide. Like now is where people are deciding and so hopefully this will resonate with people. Um, because there are other options. That's, that's [00:53:00] the, the, the lie in healthcare is you have to have health insurance.

There are no other options. That's what people think. That's what people think. I bet you if you polled every single 26 year old in the U. S. Yeah, you have to have, you have to have it. It's the biggest sign up of all time from my perspective, you know? And, and I hope if one thing people get out of this is like, Hey, there are alternatives to supporting this, you know, behemoth that I think is taking down our, our health.

You know, like, these are the entities that have gotten us from 1 percent to 10 percent diabetes, right? These are the entities where we're actually seeing our, our life expectancy decline as a result of all this garbage. Cause they're making money off. Yeah. Yeah. These are the entities that just put us through three years of hell with, with COVID and we haven't been able to talk to each other or see each other or all these kinds of things.

Like that's what we're propping up. There is an alternative. Yeah. That's, that's what I want people to, to kind of hear. Yeah. And whether crowd health is right for you or not, like, Hey, cool. Whatever way you decide, that's great. But like, At least [00:54:00] consider the alternatives. That's why I think the carnivore crowd makes so much sense because I almost couldn't imagine seeing the value in what you're doing until I went carnivore and realized, looking back, I was like, oh, why did I get put on all these drugs and oral steroids and biologics and colonoscopies and everything.

It's like, but once you have that, light bulb moment and connect the dots looking backwards. You're like, Oh, is there a better system with healthcare? Did I, what if I had a doctor that was promoting these things? What if I had a system that was incentivizing the right behavior? It's almost like. I would be so curious that the percentage of members across Bitcoin carnivore, any crowd health member who really does take their nutrition and their health seriously.

Cause it's gotta be like North of 80%. I would think the first number that came to mind was probably 80%. Yes. I mean, we have 20 percent that just do that. There there's going to be none of those people in the carnivore crowd. Yeah. Like you've got to have, you know, fasting insulin, visceral fat, and or physical fat levels that are indicative of you eating a low carb diet.

diet. [00:55:00] You just don't get there without having a low carb diet. I can't look over you, we call it the carnivore crowd, um, but you know, it's carnivore, keto, low carb, animal based, whatever you want to call it. It's like, I can't, I'm not looking over your shoulder, you know, when you're at Bob's Steakhouse and saying like, are you just eating meat?

Like I don't really care. I'm gonna be a part of the carnivore crowd. I don't just eat meat, but mostly that's, that's where the vast majority of my calories are coming from is meat. And that's what we want. Like, and that's what I think is right. We're not getting dogmatic about like, Just meat or meat and this and that.

It's just like, no, no, no. I mean, you and I have a conversation, a quick conversation on Twitter where it's just like, I'm meat 95 percent of the time. And there's that 5 percent of the time where it's my, my, my daughter's, uh, birthday, you know, last week and I had a piece of cake with her because that's the thing that you do with your kids, you know?

And so it's like once in a while and I can do that and feel great. Like, yeah. I mean. It doesn't, you know, feel [00:56:00] great right after, but I can feel okay and not shamed or, you know, guilty or anything like that. Like, alright, I'm metabolically healthy, I can have a cake, you know, once in a while. It's called being a dad and being a human being.

And I applaud Sean Baker, who just eats meat. Like, that's what he wants to do. God bless you. I met him, he's a great dude. It's not for me, um, but I like to have, you know, a cake on my daughter's birthday and I'll have a drink when I'm with my wife at the beach. Like, it's okay, you know? So, that's the beauty.

The freedom of that is pretty great. Dr. Ovadia, who I think you guys know, and if I've said this already, I apologize, but like, I thought his analogy was brilliant, which is like, look, if you're poor, you can't go to the nicest restaurant in town. You just cannot afford it. If you're rich, go for it. Go to the nicest restaurant in town once in a while.

It's great. And the same on the metabolic side. If you're poor metabolically, you cannot go and have that piece of cake. [00:57:00] Without it totally destroying your system. If you are rich metabolically, go for it. Have a piece of cake once in a while. You know, like, I can go two or three days after that and eat very, very, Well, you know, mostly I try to get like less than 20 grams of carbs a day.

That's kind of my goal. If I can do that for three days or like I'm back like quick, it's where I need to be. Yeah. So it feels great. Yes. Totally. It's like Mark Sisson's concept of metabolic flexibility. It's like, yeah, 95 percent of the time you're just hitting it out of the park, crushing it, doing your thing.

But, you know, if there's a few occasions here and there, you know, it's not the end of the world. Yeah. Carnivore crowd, if you want to have cake with your kid on his birthday, go for it. Carnivore and cake. Yeah. Carnivore and cake. We'll rename it after this. I'm guessing from this episode, you'll probably, our audience will probably have some good questions for you.

Is there a way that they can? DM those questions to you, or I don't know if it's Twitter or Instagram. Yeah, Twitter, um, or Instagram [00:58:00] is, uh, is the best way. And we're Carnivore Crowd on both of those, or join CrowdHealth. Either one works. We were very responsive to those. You know, I think one indicator of the interest in the Carnivore Crowd is I think the Carnivore Crowd Twitter account is now twice as large as the regular uh, CrowdHealth Twitter account.

Um, and so I think we just have tons of interest in this and it's resonating with a lot of people. And so, um, yeah, hit us up there or join CrowdHealth slash Carnivore. Um, you can go check us out there too. We're happy to answer any questions that you have. It's, you know, straightforward the same way that, you know, the rest of CrowdHealth works.

It's just a group of carnivores who are funding each other's health care expenses. And that's the benefit. You'll see lower prices as a result of that, more money in your pocket, more money for a nice, you know, steak at Bob's. Oh yeah. Who doesn't want to be healthy and have more money? Yeah, exactly. I had a great steak experience at Bob's and at the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville.

I sat solo at the [00:59:00] bar, oyster, shrimp cocktail, and then I got a nice ribeye and sparkling water by myself. And it was incredible. Sounds beautiful. That's like my like, My last meal. You know, like that very much sounds like my last meal. Yeah. Yeah. Well, brother, we appreciate you so much, man. It's just, I think the coolest thing that Harry and I always talk about the show is getting people on the podcast and then forming real friendships and then being able to work together and just believe in what each other are doing.

But you've positively impacted our lives in a bunch of different ways. And we just hope to like help continue that message and just spread it as far as wide as possible. But thanks for what you do, brother. Yeah. Thank you guys for your, your support. You guys have been huge in helping us grow this thing.

As you guys know, as entrepreneurs, like you need to band together as, as entrepreneurs who are like helping each other, grow each other's businesses and turning things, You know, in the, in the, from ideas into something that's special and impactful. And that's ultimately what we're all trying to do. And so, um, it's been fun to be here in Austin, especially with a group of people who are entrepreneurial and trying to grow things, [01:00:00] whether it be food or Bitcoin or healthcare or whatever, like that's the beauty of this place is we can all kind of gather around each other and help out, which is a lot like the community, right?

Like gather around and help each other out. Like, I think that's fundamental to being. Human beings. Yes. Um, so thank you guys for all you do. Thank you Andy, appreciate you.