#1825 Insurance Let Me Down - Part 2

Welcome back friends to another episode of the Juice Box podcast. Hi, my name is Laura Keller. I am 52, so I'm dead solid into Gen X and I spent 25 years working in diabetes and I live with type 1 diabetes. I've had type 1 diabetes for 27 years. This is part two of a two-part episode. Go look at the title. If you don't recognize it, you haven't heard part one yet. It's probably the episode right before this in your podcast player. If you're looking for community around type 1 diabetes, check out the Juice Box podcast private Facebook group. Juice Box podcast type 1 diabetes. But everybody is welcome. Type 1 type 2 gestational loved ones. It doesn't matter to me. If you're impacted by diabetes and you're looking for support, comfort or community, check out Juice Box podcast type 1 diabetes on Facebook. That nothing you hear on the Juice Box podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. Always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan or becoming bold with insulin. U.S. Med is sponsoring this episode of the Juice Box podcast and we've been getting our diabetes supplies from U.S. Med for years. You can as well. U.S. Med dot com slash juice box or call 888-721-1514. Use the link or the number. Get your free benefits check and get started today with U.S. Med. Today's episode is also sponsored by Omnipod. Check out the Omnipod 5 now with my link omnipod.com slash juice box. You may be eligible for a free starter kit, a free Omnipod 5 starter kit at my link. Go check it out omnipod.com slash juice box terms and conditions apply. Full terms and conditions can be found at Omnipod.com slash juice box. The podcast is also sponsored today by the EverSense 365. The EverSense 365 has exceptional accuracy over one year and is the most accurate CGM in the low range that you can get. EverSenseCGM.com slash juice box. The only one they cover and better covers is the Libre. No, but they're covering the pump. The pump needs the CGM. But no, they cover the Libre as a standalone. And here's what's really crazy. I also yelled at them for this is that I like to use first person language. Because I was an advocacy director for a long time. I also don't think diabetes defines me. It's something I have. I have type 1 diabetes. I am not a diabetic. That's just my own personal thing. Okay. Everybody's different. Okay. So anyway, when I searched on the PDL, like for all the right things, I searched every word I could think of. The one word I didn't search for was diabetic. They said, well, it's under diabetic supplies. Well, first of all, under diabetic supplies, the only thing they list is the Libre. So they don't list landsets or needles or whatever. And I was like, that's not even good English people. Like, how would I know to search for that? Because when I searched for a continuous glucose monitor, which is the correct category for the Libre, that didn't even show up in your little PDF. And I was like, it's so bad how they treat people with type 1 diabetes. Are you here to tell us that people are incompetent and large corporations are trying to keep their money? Yes, that's exactly it. Totally. And here's the thing. Make money. I have a 401k. I want corporations to make money, but the system with health insurance is broken. They're making billions. The parent company, they're making billions. I looked up their reports, you know, that they give to their stockholders and all the things. Like shareholder reports and stuff like that. And I get it. I looked that stuff up. Fine. Make some money. But the reality is, when you have something like a chronic disease and they're not even going to cover it for a copay anyway for a long time. It's all about holding the money as long as possible. Yeah, it's terrible. The money in their account is more valuable than giving it back to you. And they will give it back to you eventually if they owe it to you. But you are like you said. You have to fight it. You're going to have to fight and claw and cry and scream and... Exactly. Doesn't it feel like you're being put on the phone purposefully with people who don't understand? I don't know if it's that. I feel like they're doing the best they can. These are clearly people in different call centers or working remotely. And I've talked to some nice people who really have tried to advocate or at least showed some compassion. But these are frontline people. And yeah, I'm not saying they're not good people or they're not trying. But I'm saying isn't it possible that the company itself is putting them in a position where they don't know what to do so that it frustrates you? Yes, 100%. No, and they're told like when this first happened and my first prior authorization got denied, I said, well, can I speak to a supervisor? Can I speak to someone else? And they were like, no, no, you can't speak to anybody else. This is it. You can only talk to us. And I was like, you assholes. Like that is not true. There is somebody else. And then the next time I called back, I was even more forceful. And I guess what? I got to someone else, right? Yeah. I mean, I'm surprised they don't block my calls as many times as I've called. And I told my husband, I was like, they might decide to drop me after all this. And it can't be any worse than what I'm dealing with now because I'm not paying for my type one stuff. And what I think is crazy too is that I'm very healthy. My diabetes is the only thing I have one other medication that I take. And that's an estradiol patch, which is cheap because I am 52. And well, there's this thing called menopause that every woman hits at some point. But other than that, like I'm not a high utilizer. I'm not usually sick. I get my flu shot. I get my vaccines. I'm very healthy. I work out a lot. I have low cholesterol. I'm not even on a statin. Why do they have to be jerks? Well, why do they have to be jerks? But you know, though, you have your answer, right? Yeah, I know. I did this for so long. And that's why I cried because I was so frustrated. Yeah. But that's why I was like, I have to tell people, do not give up. And warn people that this is how am better treats, unless you're lucky enough to get into one of their diabetes plans. But even then, it says they cover syringes, meters, things like that. I don't know how they cover type one diabetes in those plans. I think those plans might be a little more targeted for type two diabetes based on what I can find. But they don't even sell that one in the exchange, their diabetes plans. Sometimes I feel like they just really don't like people with type one diabetes. That's what it feels like. Well, like ridiculous. I would tell you that no one even understands what it means. Yeah. I don't think they're like, oh, we won't help people with type one diabetes. I don't think they're helping anybody with anything. I would imagine if you called with completely different circumstances, completely different disease state, you'd be running into a very similar situation. No, I think you're right. I think advocating for yourself and the health insurance system is the same. To your point, it's universal. You have to keep going and you can't wait for them to send you something in the mail. And the fact that the way doctors' offices have to send them a fax is so 1995. Like, come on. I love that. Like the fax machine thing is hilarious. Right? We don't have a fax about it. I'm like, I like it when they ask you, can you fax it to us? And I go, no, because it's 2026. No, I can't fax you because I don't own a fax machine. And by the way, no one else does either. Exactly. And it's intentional, right? They haven't. And they can pretend to hide behind HIPAA, which is BS, because you know who actually uses apps like Clara all the time? Healthcare services. That's like my endocrinology office in Scottsdale. It's a HIPAA protected app called Clara. And I just text them and they text me and it's efficient. And you've got digital records now and all this stuff that are HIPAA protected, but they hide behind the fax machine because they can say, oh, we didn't get it yet. It's this, it's that. There's a delay. There's whatever. It's so much easier for them to hide. Yeah. Slow down claims by using a fax system. And by the way, how HIPAA protected could a fax machine be now? You send my information to my doctor's office. It's sitting on a fax machine somewhere that anybody could see. It fell on the floor and slipped underneath with some desk and yeah. Listen, you're 100% right, but there's no answer to this. I know. Well, here's the answer. The answer is, especially on the state level, they need to pass legislation that prohibits health insurance companies from doing things like this. So the health insurance companies will testify against bills and they'll say, you know, a consumer has to do all the right things. A consumer needs to advocate. They need to look at their plans and need to look at the PDLs, whatever. I did all that and I still got screwed, right? And I know what I'm doing. But here's an example. There in Arizona state, there's a bill right now in session that would go into the statutes where we've protected people's rights with diabetes and health care, saying health insurance has to cover these things. And they were going to try to codify that if you have type one diabetes, insurance plans have to cover CGMs. OK. That sounds great on paper. But here's where the insurance companies still get away with not covering CGMs is that the last line of that bill, because I was so pissed, I looked this stuff up, said nothing prevents insurance from using deductibles and coinsurance prohibits them from using those, right? So until you change that language, it doesn't matter. You can say you've got to cover type one diabetes CGMs and insulin pumps. But if they can still do deductibles and coinsurance, that's not insurance. Deductible is you have to meet it. And some people pick deductible plans that are like $10,000 that you've got to meet, right, before you even get there. And then you have coinsurance and coinsurance is such BS because people get screwed, right? Like it's expensive for coinsurance. And a lot of people don't understand the difference between coinsurance and like a copay, right? And coinsurance makes it sound like you've got extra insurance, not. Oh, you've got to pay more and you're only getting a percentage, right? Like, yeah, even the language is confusing for a lot of people. Look, I can't tell you for certain what's happening in the world, but I can step back and be as thoughtful about it as I think I can be. This is just clearly about people with money keeping the money as long as they can or is hopefully forever. It's just a business. They're not a health care business. They're providing insurance. They're a casino, right? Like you, you are giving them money and they are hoping you don't need it back. Yeah. And then they get to keep it. They invest it. They make more money off your money. They pay dividends to stockholders or, you know, however, you know, wherever the money ends up going after that. And then anybody who asks them for money is hurting their bottom line. So you saying, please pay for this, they're going to put it back. And please pay for this. They're going to put five or six low level, low paid employees between you and their money, hoping that you give up on the way. Yep. That's all it is. And listen, I talked to you for the first half an hour, not about this on purpose, because even in the last 20 minutes of talking about this, you sound crazy now. I know, right? Because they made you nuts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. And I don't think you are. I think that this is incredibly frustrating. If I started talking to you about what had happened to me, I'd sound just like you by the time I got done talking about it. Yeah. But how many people get to the end and forget to make the call on time or the right form doesn't come through in the third time it's kicked back to them? They just go, you know what, just I'll just pay the goddamn thing. Like, who cares? And like, I can't keep doing this. And then they smile and keep your money. Or they don't get the care that needs. And they switch from an insulin pump to two shots, right? And they take their care backwards, you know, where they don't use that CGM. I do think it's kind of ironic that the year that changed everything in terms of health care in the United States was 1973, which is when Richard Nixon in Congress, he signed it into law. Congress passed a bill that allowed health insurance to become private and to be like private companies and make more money than nonprofits. Really codified that. Not to say that before that there weren't some health insurance companies that were a little more private, but not to the extent that they are today and what they're allowed to do today is the same year that I was born. Yeah, I think that's really funny. And I was like, they think they were coming after you, right? I don't think they were coming after me. At least I'm better picked the wrong girl to piss off with type one diabetes. It's also easy to say like if they just change the language or the law or something like that. But, you know, as soon as some public official says, like, let's say you beat your head against the wall with your local representation and you've got somebody to, you know, say, all right, I'll propose a change to this law that'll help. And as soon as they do that, those insurance companies are going to send all kinds of, you know, muscle to D.C. to pressure people out of doing that. Because they're always, listen, this hasn't take this out of our conversation for a minute. No one's giving away their money if they don't have to. If I walked up to you right now and I said, Laura, give me a hundred dollars, you would say no. Right. Yeah, you would say no. And I say no, but I really need it. You go, well, I need it too. You can't have it. And that's all we're talking about here is people are trying to hold on to what they have. Yeah, it's a business. And get more of it. Everything's money and power. And, you know, and you have less of it when you're in this situation. You've been told that, you know, buying insurance is going to do these things. But there are so many rules and the language is so incredibly confusing that you don't know really what's going to get covered until they turn it down. Yeah, because their their systems and their websites are designed not to be transparent, right? It's all intentional. It's 100 percent intentional. Yeah, it is not difficult to make a user-friendly website. If it's not user-friendly, it's not user-friendly on purpose. No. If the people you're talking to on the phone are not knowledgeable, they are not knowledgeable on purpose. If they are not empowered to make a decision for you that gets you to an end, that's on purpose. They are layering, layering, layering, layering ways to keep you from your end goal. And I know this is true because I've been married for 30 years. There is a lady putting up roadblocks between me and my happiness constantly. OK. And and if you think this is different, you're out of your mind. She's protecting herself. She's protecting. Yeah, I don't want to tell you what she's protecting herself from. But she's protecting herself from something. And so are the insurance companies. Yeah. And you are fighting a war with a P shooter, you know. And because your weapon is but I need this or it's right or it's for my health. And they don't care about that. That's not their end goal. They have a different end goal than you. You have an end goal of being healthy. And they have an end goal of keeping your money. This episode of the Juice Box podcast is sponsored by the EverSense 365. Get three hundred and sixty five days of comfortable wear without having to change a sensor. When you think of a continuous glucose monitor, you think of a CGM that lasts 10 or 14 days. But the EverSense 365, it lives up to its name, lasting three hundred and sixty five days. That's one year without having to change your CGM. With the EverSense 365, you can count on comfort and consistency. Three hundred and sixty five days a year, because the EverSense silicone based adhesive is designed for your skin to be gentle and to allow you to take the transmitter on and off to enjoy your shower, a trip to the pool or an activity where you don't want your CGM on your body. If you're looking for comfort, accuracy and a one year wear, you are looking for EverSense 365. Go to eversensecgm.com slash juice box to learn more. This episode is brought to you by Omnipod. Would you ever buy a car without test driving at first? That's a big risk to take on a pretty large investment. You wouldn't do that, right? So why would you do it when it comes to choosing an insulin pump? Most pumps come with a four year lock in period through the DME channel, and you don't even get to try it first, but not Omnipod five. Omnipod five is available exclusively through the pharmacy, which means it doesn't come with a typical four year DME lock in period. Plus, you can get started with a free 30 day trial to be sure it's the right choice for you or your family. My daughter has been wearing an Omnipod every day for 17 years. Are you ready to give Omnipod five a try? Request your free starter kit today at my link, Omnipod.com slash juice box. Terms and conditions apply. Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions can be found at Omnipod.com slash juice box. Find my link in the show notes of this podcast player or at juiceboxpodcast.com. Yeah, you know, it's like Mark Cuban, really smart guy. And I've heard him talk and I know that, you know, he's got his prescription drug platform and he's trying to get people, you know, cheaper medications and things like that. But I've heard him talk. He's like, and even Scott Galloway, Prop G, he's really cool guy, love to listen to him. They talk about how they don't have health insurance, that health insurance is kind of a racket. And that, you know, but they're like billionaires, right? So yeah, they're millionaires, you know, several times over. They can afford to pay cash for the health insurance, which I think is why, especially in the Scottsdale area, there's more and more of these concierge doctors where you pay a monthly fee to them. And instead of paying for health insurance, the problem is though, That's for people with cash, with excess cash. Yes. Yeah. And if you need a surgery or like, let's say you're playing pickball and you snap your Achilles or something like that, because you haven't played sports in forever, which I think happens a lot in the Scottsdale area. A lot of people start playing pickball as they age and they have these injuries and they're at PT. They don't have cash prices for all those things, but if they do, you have to have so much. So you still kind of need some level of health insurance if you're a semi average person. And so the concept is great. And I would love to give up health insurance and just pay cash for everything, but I don't have the kind of resources that they have, right? You know, and I go on Mark Cuban's website periodically and I try to see if they've got type 1 diabetes things like insulin pumps and CGMs and they never do. And I'm that one person who every time is like, you need to start helping people with type 1 diabetes for their pumps and their CGMs. I do every time I go on there. Yeah. Well, also, I hate to say it like this, but what is that? Two million Americans? Like, you know how many Americans there are? Two million is not a big percentage of that. No, no. Even if you're a company, I don't know everything about Mark Cuban's company, but like, even if he's out there trying to do the right thing, they have limited resources and limited manpower and they're not going to start with something that only benefits two million people. Exactly. Right. So, and to your point about people with enough wealth to pay for their healthcare, not keeping insurance, my son, actually the irony of this conversation, turned 26 today. Today's his 26th birthday. So we jettison him from our insurance now. He can't participate in our health insurance any longer. So he's been looking at it through his job and they present him with three PDFs that are like four years old. You read them, they use a lot of lingo. They're difficult to figure out what they mean. You know, this one's $400 a month and this one's $350 a month and this one's $72 a month. And as you're reading through, if you don't, like, seriously, like who and who in their right mind reads like industry lingo and understands it? So what we did was we took the PDFs and threw them into a large language model into an AI and we asked it to break them down for us. Nice. And then we went in and talked to it about his health and then asked for pros and cons and then that stuff was at least, it made sense to us. And then we could go back and then look at the lingo and then make sense of the lingo through this plainer English that we were, you know, surf back with. And it's funny because I'm an adult and I, you know, I have a bit of a savings. I have an income, like I'm a little ahead and everything. And when I looked at the three, I thought to myself, just buy the most expensive one because, you know, there's no way you're going to buy the $72 one. So like one's $350, one's $420, just pay the extra $70 a month because that'll probably be better until I looked at it and then looked at him and then took out the diabetes because my son doesn't have diabetes. My son has Hashimoto's and nothing else. He needs T-Rison and a T3 all year long. Other than that, he's incredibly healthy and athletic and doesn't get sick or hurt very often and doesn't have a family. Right? And when we got done, I was like, oh my God, get the one that's $7,200 a month and just pay cash for the medication. Yeah. And you just saved almost $4,000 if you don't get hurt. And if you do get hurt, then you'll have to pay the $4,000. Okay. Before it kicks in, but you were going to pay it anyway. So you're basically, he's basically setting a bet that he won't have a catastrophic illness this year. And if he doesn't, he saves four grand. Well, if he does that for four years, he saves $16,000 and that's a lot of money. Right? And so now he's got this, and then I just told him, I was like, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I guess we have the insurance we have because of Arden's diabetes. Because generally speaking, we're not particularly unhealthy people. We're not buying a lot of medication. My wife's your age. She's using one of those patches too. You know what I mean? By the way, God bless them. She's way less crazy than I remember my mom in her fifties, you know, so rock and roll. Yeah. My mom used to have something we called insane Sunday. I'd be happy to tell you about it sometime. And so we, you know, we're using a patch. Now she and I both use a GLP medication. And so okay, having an insurance policy that covers that, that benefits us, right? Because I would tell you that I think to cover the four of us, you know, keeping my son in the picture for a second, we're probably shelling out like six, $7,000 a year in health insurance premiums. Yeah. But Arden has type one diabetes. I use a GLP. She uses a GLP. So right on. Yeah. That makes sense. If we didn't have a GLP, and you know, five years from now, we're older then. So then the value kind of stays again. And you think, okay, well, maybe we'll stick with that one. But my son, I was like, man, unless you get married or something happens, I think I'd throw my dice and try to ride this out for a while. And I never thought I'd say that till I really dug into it last week with him and talk to him about it. Yeah. If you get type one, I mean, you just need as much coverage and help as possible. But then you're in a situation where you're getting as much coverage as you can. And then you're like, Hey, I would like my 60 cents back on the dollar. And they're like, Oh, you can't have that. No. Yeah. Yeah. When they told me it wasn't medically necessary. I went ballistic. I was like, Are you kidding me? I was talking to the person on the phone to your point. Do they really understand type one? Because I was like, so I could die like just to be clear without an insulin pump. If I didn't have access to insulin and what I need, like, but I could die. Well, they're going to be happy to give you needles and insulin, right? I have always disliked ordering diabetes supplies. I'm guessing you have as well. It hasn't been a problem for us for the last few years, though, because we began using us med. You can too us med.com slash juice box or call 8887211514 to get your free benefits check. Us med has served over one million people living with diabetes since 1996. They carry everything you need from CGMs to insulin pumps and diabetes testing supplies and more. I'm talking about all the good ones, all your favorites, Libre three, Dexcom G seven and pumps like Omnipod five, Omnipod dash, tandem and most recently the Islet pump from beta bionics. The stuff you're looking for, they have it at us med 8887211514 or go to us med.com slash juice box to get started. Now, use my link to support the podcast. That's us med.com slash juice box or call 8887211514. Right. That's so archaic in terms of management. Like my blood sugars are so stable. I to your point, I barely have lows and I hike and I do play pickleball and I do go to the orange theory and work out five days a week, right? Like that kind of stuff. Like I used to have lows way more often, but once I got on the Omnipod and the Dexcom, like my blood sugar has gotten so much better, right? You're not going to get an argument from me. You're going to be way better off, but way better off is not medically necessary. Right. Which is such BS. Of course, because they're not calling medically necessary as healthy as you can be. They're calling medically necessary. You don't drop dead from having diabetes because here's some needles in your insulin. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's just so frustrating. Also, it probably is part of the reason why like pump adoption is as slow as it is. Because by the way, insulin pump adoption is much less than you think it is amongst the entirety of the type one community. That is insane to me. Yeah. Far fewer people have insulin pumps than you think. And I tried them all, by the way. Like, well, not all. I've been on Metronik. I've been on the T-Slim and now the Pod. And the Pod is by far my favorite. I didn't know how cool it would be to go tubeless. And so I do owe that to my friend Vicky. Shout out to Vicky. She's a big fan of the show. She'll get a kick out of that. But it's amazing what technology has done in comparison to where it was when I started, when I was diagnosed in 1999. I met maybe a dozen people this weekend using the I-Lat pump. And I think they all would have described themselves as having a concern about not wanting to be that involved with diabetes. And they tried the pump for that reason and they seemed happy with it. Like, I think there's a pump out there for everybody. I agree. If you and I want to be like reasonable for a second, take out on the Pod, take out tandem, take out Metronik for a second. Just think of all the people probably running around with 10, 11, 12, A1 Cs. And imagine if you just put an I-Lat pump on them and they didn't need to do anything, they didn't need to get educated. They just said, this is a small breakfast, right? Or an average breakfast. Whatever those buttons tell them. Like, even if that system's not perfect, and I have to tell you, like, from my perspective, the way it sits right now, I wouldn't want my daughter to use it. But hurry once he's also in the sixes. But for everyone else, imagine the alleviation on the healthcare system and on insurance if everyone could have better outcomes like this. You're not going to get them to go with that because what they'll tell you is, well, yeah, but not enough people are going to adopt it for us to actually get our return back to begin with. Like, it's always going to be about money. Like, always, always, always, always going to be about money. That's why I kind of crack up a little bit when people are like, there's going to be a cure for type. There will be a cure for type when diabetes someday, whether it's a mechanical cure, eyelid cells, whatever it is. But the reality is, if I can't get insurance in 2026 to pay for my insulin pods, you don't think they're going to pay for your eyelid cell transplant 10 years from now? Hell no. You know how long that's going to take? For just $800,000, you can cure me of my type on diabetes. Right. Like, the only people who are going to get that cure are going to be rich people who can afford to pay cash for it. Insurance is not going to pay for that. It's going to need organizations like the ADA, Beyond Type 1, Type 1 International. All the organizations are going to have to come out and advocate hard. And that's going to take years before any cure is going to be paid for by insurance. It'll basically be a rich person's cure. Yeah. I definitely don't think that's going to work out in anybody's favor to any great number. No. No, it's honestly, it's a limitation of so many different things. To fix them all would be two lifetimes. You would either need a government plan that just said, hey, look, we have a functional cure for type 1 diabetes, and everybody who wants it, it's just free. We'll pay the bill. Yeah. It's either that, which, I mean, that's not going to happen. No. Right. Or it's somehow through technology, the price falls so much that there's another company that comes along, almost like a generic company that comes along and says, like, well, we can reproduce this and do it cheaper. So we'll do it for everybody to make that money. You know, it's like with anything else. I was talking to a CGM company the other day and I said, why don't you cut your price down so everyone can have it? And then make the money that way. Yeah. Instead of charging a dollar for it and selling it to one person, why don't you charge 25 cents for it and sell it to four people? And you know what I mean? Like, and you still make your dollar and everybody else gets helped. I don't know. It's just that's not how it works. No, it's not. Unfortunately, it's not. Listen, I very purposefully apolitical on my podcast, but if you're waiting for government to come save you, that is not happening. If you're waiting for government to tell the private sector, hey, we don't want your money, so don't bother lobbying with us. We're just going to go do what's good. That is not going to happen either. If you think, if you're waiting for insurance to stop lobbying because they just want you to be healthy, I'm going to give you the same advice that I gave those 75 women when I was talking to them about advocating for themselves in a hospital setting. You are the only one that cares about you. And if you don't treat things that way, you are very likely not going to get the outcomes you deserve. It's true. And I hate to say that, but you got to come first and you got to find a way to fight your way through it because no one's coming to help you. A woman looked at me sideways when I said that. And I said, we're in a rowboat. It's me and your kid and my kid. And the boat starts to sink. I'm going to throw your kid right in the water. And I said, and I would expect if it was you and my kid and your kid and the same thing happened, you'd pick my kid up and toss him right in the river too. I said, would you, would you throw yourself in and leave your kid behind? Would you throw your kid in to save mine? No, I'm not judging you. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that instinct. I was like, but you've got to take that instinct and pointed at your daily health with diabetes. It was a nice conversation. And nobody was saying anything wrong. You deserve better care. The hospital should know better. You're right. All that should be that way. But since it isn't, what are you going to do? You're going to sit here and wait to die and point and go, oh, the world's letting me down. It's letting me down. Yeah. And I know that there's a barrier to that when we're talking about insurance and these kinds of things and that barrier is cash. But up into the end of your ability to help yourself, you have to believe it's on you. If that's a realization you have and you can't afford it, I don't even know what to say about it. I'm not sure how you're supposed to keep your head up in that situation. Perfectly honest. It's hard. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's really hard. And I think having done advocacy for people with diabetes and passed legislation on the state level that people have told me that'll never pass, or whatever, it can make a difference. The problem is laws can be changed anytime. They can be rolled back. They can be adjusted. So it's never a 100% permanent solution. And the average person can stand up, but it takes a lot. And you're pushing a boulder uphill, basically, right? And that's a level of depression on this. I wasn't even going to go to it. You're saying if you somehow find a way to get the law passed and it helps somebody, as soon as you do that, just be sure those other people are going to try to push it back the other way again. Exactly. Because they will. And why? Because you just took their money from them. You took their money from them. They can't let that happen. They can't let that happen. No, there were so many times I testified and other companies, insurance companies, and health insurance companies, and things or whatever, they would say things that were blatant lies so that these bills wouldn't pass. And we'd have to counteract them as advocacy groups. And there's not one group who's doing all the work. It's a coalition of people, it's people sharing their stories. People don't share their stories enough. And it's hard because they're also afraid of retaliation, right? They're afraid to share their stories and complain against health insurance or whatever because they're afraid they're going to get retaliated against. Yeah, Laura, this might be a good time for me to say I don't stay in hotel rooms on high floors. I'm not depressed. I don't feel suicidal. I just want everyone to know I'm a happy person who wants to be alive. Exactly. I mean, listen, I don't know what the answer is. I don't think there's an answer. The answer is Star Trek. You know what I mean? Like until you can get society to get to a place where everyone's working and it's all about trade and nobody's trying to be wealthy and everybody's just trying. I mean, maybe that helps more people, but it just does not, to me, seem like that's the way humans are wired. Yeah, I believe in the greater good in people. I believe there's a lot of people and there's a lot of good in the world. And there's some people who are straight up evil 100% or super greedy. I mean, I grew up Wall Street, right? That was a pivotal movie in my life. A greed is good, right? There's a whole generation of people that's very common. I think what is hard is that yes, make money. Yes, be profitable. People should be paid good wages. They should be able to have nice things and whatever, right? If you work hard and the American dream, believe in that. But at some point, there's this line where that exceeds human decency, right? Like how much money do you need to make? Like car insurance, they raised my car insurance this last year so much. It was insane. And so I called my insurance person and I called and I was like, okay, wait, well, the Florida and this tragedy, I don't live in those places. I live in Arizona. So you're telling me I have to cover their costs so you're raising my and then they snuck in a bunch of like other charges for stuff that I didn't ask for. And I was like, why is this in my plan? Why is, and I cut it out and I cut it out and she's like, well, we're not making any money. And I looked up before I talked to them and I was like, your company made $2.5 billion last year. And I get you're just a franchise, but you can't tell me you're not profitable. And she was like, uh... My state farm office told me you should really consider turning that in because we might drop you. Right. I don't think I've asked them for money in 20 years or something. We had a small thing happen and they were like, I wouldn't if I was you. And she said it right out to me. She didn't even hide it. She just said it to me. But listen, here's the other side. May I give you the other side for everybody who's listening right now? It's like, right on the rich people, blah, blah, blah. They got too much. All of you out there listening, shut up. If I came to your house and I said, hey, I just wanted to give you $10 million and a boat and you'd be like, thank you. And you would take it immediately. Right. So don't be mad at the people who figured out how to do it. Because if you could have figured out how to do it, I'm pretty sure you would have too. Look, there's some of you hippies out there. I get it. You're like, I don't need that, man. Like it's good. And I believe you. I believe you hippies. And I will tell you too that I've had conversations with people. We were talking about the lottery recently. There was one of these like lotteries that was like, I don't even know. It felt like it was a billion dollars or something like that. It was just a number that was so insane. And it sparked a conversation in our house about like, oh my God, like if you woke up tomorrow and somebody's like, oh, you did it. You won a billion dollars. Like what would you do? I have to tell you, like, I didn't have a lot of thoughts around it. I say things very similarly over and over again. I'd collect up my family and my very close friends and I would bring them all to one location. And I'd say, hey, listen, I've just won a whole lot of money. I want to make sure your health is okay. I've brought doctors here to help you. Like if you have any health issues you haven't been dealing with, like let's talk to these people about this. And when we're done, I'd like to talk to you about clearing off your debt and giving you a little bit to get started with. But then after that, I would say, please never call me again. I don't want to be your mom for the rest of my life. So that's like a healthcare version of a George Clooney. I told my friends, if I ever win big, I'm going to pull a George Clooney. And they're like, what? I go, if I tell you, you have to get on a plane to Scottsdale on these dates, your ass shows up because I'm going to pay for the taxes. I'm going to pay for the money. There's going to be a security guard. They're going to roll in some suitcases with some money in it. We're going to throw a kick gas party. I know the hotel I would choose. Yeah. And then go live your life and try not to piss my money away because I'm done. That's it. But at the same time, like I got done saying that, then somebody said, but what about for you? And I was like, I don't know. I think I'm okay. Like I take your point. I also, like I also don't think you should limit people about how much money they can make. No, I take your point about like millionaires and billionaires. And at some point, like they're just numbers and everybody else doesn't have any. Like I could have that conversation forever and probably come down on your side of it. But like, I'm not comfortable telling somebody they can't be innovative or they can't be greedy because I'm sure there's a lot of good things in the world that came from someone's greed as well. 100%. I believe in people being able to make money and make good money. Like again, I have a 401k. My husband and I are invested in the stock market. I am considered well off. I am not poor. I am blessed that way. We've worked hard. We've made good choices, all the things, right? I am not complaining about my status in life. I think we're, what's frustrating is when you're paying into something called insurance, particularly health insurance, insurance insure you call me crazy. But I was hoping my health insurance would pay for my healthcare needs. They're not losing money. Like that's the thing. They're not losing money. If they were losing money, that'd be different because they were paying for everything. If I brought them on here and they were being honest, don't you think that they would tell you that if they did pay for everything for everybody, they would be losing money? Well, of course they would probably say that. Still, I don't necessarily know that that's true, right? Because we know that if you pay for preventative stuff, people don't get the complications and the things, but that's not the way our healthcare system right now is designed. I was going to say, can I play healthcare doubles advocate for a second? Yeah. I talk to people all the time about their health. You know what one of the last things people are? Preventative. I know. I think it's a thing we talk about, but I don't think it's a thing that even if we paid for, that people would do generally speaking en masse. In a world where it takes 20 years to talk to somebody out of smoking or drinking soda, you really think they're going to go to the doctor four times a year to check their vitamin B and D levels and make sure that they're blah, blah, blah, blah, or like you really think that's what's going to happen? Some people. It depends, right? Some people can and some people do and not as many as one would hope, but some of it is, have you ever been to the grocery store and I'm like you said, I'm doing well, I'm doing okay. I'll go to the grocery store and I'm looking at buying organic foods and I can buy one bag of organic fruits and vegetables and for the same price, someone could buy 12 frozen pizzas, processed junk food, all of the things. So it kind of depends, I think, on your socioeconomic level, what you can afford to be preventative and what you can't. I think it's also crazy that as a healthy person with type 1 diabetes, I have to go to the doctor what, three, four times a year to make sure I have prescriptions and stuff and things like that. Well, that's just a waste of the healthcare system right there, right? Like if I'm healthy and I don't have anything wrong, why do I have to go in and see you? Why can't you just upload my data and look at it and go, yep, things look good, great, moving on, right? Did you know that when you turn 65 and you have type 1 diabetes and you go on Medicare, you have to prove that you have type 1 diabetes? What? I'm going to live my whole life, knock on one, I'm going to get turned 65, I'm going to be healthy and Medicare will still be there. And in order for my type 1 insulin, CGMs, pumps, whatever it is at that point, get covered, I have to re-prove, they have to give me the test again to prove that I have type 1 diabetes. That is a stupid waste of money. Why? You're talking about what makes sense versus how things work. Yes, well, that's true. And if this just happened, if that just happened, if we only did this and if we only made sense here, like, yeah, I'm with you, but like, that's not going to happen. Yeah. At every level of this conversation, the base of this conversation, as is everything else that you talk about is people. People have limitations. They have a limitation on how much energy they have, how much desire they have, that they also have lives and girlfriends and boyfriends and kids and bills, and they don't have 24 hours a day, seven days a week to think about something. And even if they did, they're not computers, they can't come up with the right answer all the time. There are plenty of people who come up with an answer and spend their adult professional lifetime doing the wrong thing, trying to do the right thing. And so while all that's happening, this mess, you're not just cleaning up your bedroom. This is a billion intertwined things that are intertwined with billions of people, and they all have an opinion about what to do about it, and they all have pain points that are different than others. They all have different intellects and financial concerns. You can't fix this stuff. This is how it works. We will find a better way, just as we have over generations and millennia and all that stuff, but it is not going to be because someone woke up tomorrow and said, oh, I know how to fix this. It's just going to bleed towards the answer. And then eventually, in ways that our minds can't grasp, so many different things are going to change and morph over time that will just end up in a better place or will end up in a worse place for 50 years. And then it'll ebb and it'll flow. The truth is, my lifetime might be the lifetime where it goes the wrong way. So that eventually when my kids are 50, it starts to go the right way. Like we're measuring success based on our lifespans, but you need to be measuring success or change based on humanity. And sadly, enough, the speed that humanity runs at is not the speed that my life is running at. No, it's true. I really like that there's a lot of people in humanity who are fighting the good fights and trying for the right things. And I'd like to believe I'm on the right side of that line of fighting for other people and caring about people's rights and access to health care and healthy foods and the environment, all that, but you're right. It's a slow moving thing. And in the meantime, I think to sum it up, you have to advocate for yourself. That's kind of where we started, right? You talked about how you were talking to those women. You have to advocate for yourself. You have to advocate for yourself in your job, in your health insurance, in the hospital, whatever it is for other people, because that really will make change over time. And you can have positive impacts on your life and other people's life, even when it's hard, don't give up. Because like I said in my story, I am a trained professional and I still got screwed, and I'm still advocating for myself. I'll follow up with you if I ever even get my insulin because you just don't know I might be paying out of pocket for the next year until I can get out of this silly plan. But so much of it is perspective. Whether you're sitting there listening now and you're thinking like I'm broke and there's no reason for somebody to have $5 billion in the bank and look at all the people that could help. I guarantee if you take that person and set them down, they have a different perspective than you. Yeah. And their perspective is going to be trying to take care of them and theirs and what they see is the world order. And so are you. And so is everyone else in between. And you are not going to get somebody to just agree that they should give you their money. Whether that's you being asked to pay 60 cents on the dollar for something, or that's some maniacal like cartoonish character out in the world that has all the money in the world. And you say to them like, I mean, they all figure it out in the end, right? Because you see they get old and they give it all away. They figure it out at the end. They go like, oh god, what am I doing? And then it's but in the middle, you can't get people to do that. Yeah. To give away your money. Imagine how hard it would be to make all that money. And then imagine in your 30s, someone said you give it to somebody, but you feel immortal still. You're like, I can't give it away. I have to stay alive. Like what if this happens? What if that happens? You don't think a person with a billion dollars has a like, what if I lose all this feeling? Of course they do. Probably more so than somebody who makes $60,000 a year does. Yeah. Again, everyone's perspective is different. Their pressure points and pain points are different. And by the way, even if there was a right answer, I don't trust you to come up with it. I'm talking to people listening and you don't trust me to come up with it or somebody else, right? So when you hear people say like, the only answer is to like hope the AI doesn't kill us and then ask it for an answer that considers all of us, like our brains are not big enough to hold the entirety of what needs to be considered to make a decision that big. Having said that, I go back to what you just said. I want to say a million percent. I agree with you. If everyone's out there doing their best and fighting, I think the fight moves us in the right direction. And I do think it's important to stick up and argue and push for what seems right because overall, I'm sure whatever it is you out there think is right is probably right. And so, just think about civil rights or something that's a little easier to comprehend. If people don't stand up, if people aren't willing to stick their neck out, these things do not move forward. So whatever the thing is you're worried about, I hope you can find a way to get out there and fight for it. I agree. I'm doing that in my own life in ways that some of you might know in some ways that are more private and you're never going to know about. Laura, we fixed the whole world here. That's fantastic. I wish because then I'd go buy a boat or... You don't need a boat. It would be free. Yeah. Well, there you go. I don't know that we need to go 100% free. I have a business major, so I was a business major, I believe in nice things and working hard. I just hope that everybody is able to be happy. Sometimes attitude is everything. Can I paint a picture for you? Yeah. We're all millionaires. You couldn't even get your yacht out of the harbor. There'd be too many yachts there. It would cause a different problem. It would cause a different problem. There's going to be a different problem. Yeah. You're going to get murdered by one of your crazy kids who wants all your money. Yeah, it's like that Taylor Swift song. Yeah. What is it? There's a Taylor Swift song where she talks about how her daughter-in-law thinks she left money for her in the will, but she didn't. It's that thing. Yeah. Wow. I don't know anything about Taylor Swift. I just realized. Oh, I'm a big Swiftie. I'm a big Swiftie. I'm happy for you. You think that she'll marry that football boy? I do think she's going to marry Mr. Kelsey. Yeah. I like it. I think they're a good match. Will she be Taylor Kelsey when it's over? I think there's a difference between what she might do privately and what she'll do publicly because she's obviously a billionaire and her name, obviously, is copyrighted and all of the things. So you never know. Especially if they decide to have kids. It's easier for your kids if your kids have the same last name than different last names. And that's even true if your parents aren't rich. I think sometimes that can be tricky. The only thing I have to say about her marrying Travis Kelsey is that I'm a 49ers fan and they beat us one too many times in big games and things like the Super Bowl. So when they lose the Super Bowl, it doesn't make me sad. But I am happy that a lot of young girls have started watching football now because of the Taylor Swift phenomenon because I started watching football when I was a kid with my dad in Oregon. And we would bet quarters on quarters and things like that so that I would get into the games. Your dad used sports betting to get you excited. He did. He did. We played with quarters. It was part of my allowance money. It was very fun. I learned how to swear while my dad was watching football. He was a LA Rams fan when like Eric Dickerson and stuff was there. Yeah. Oh, that'll make you curse. Right. It can be a very good bonding for girls and their dads to watch sports together. So I commend them for that. That's pretty cool. That Taylor Swift, her dad noticed years ago that they were spending so much money on tour buses. And then he thought about all the acts are out on tour. So they took some of Taylor's money and bought up tour buses. And now they're basically the largest owner of tour buses in the world. So they make money off of that too. That's brilliant. There's an interesting way how money makes money because if you had a thought like that, you'd be like, oh my God, if only I had enough money to buy tour buses, but I don't tour bus, right? Anyway, I'm just going to say this here and then I'm going to stop the recording because I don't even want to hear your reply. I don't think she has a very good voice. Disagree. Disagree. 100% disagree. I'm in the Amazon top 0.5% of listeners to Taylor Swift in my year review from 2025. She's got so many albums. You can listen for hours. It's possible you're in a cult, Laura. It's possible. But we can agree to disagree. We can agree to disagree. It's totally fine. Everybody can like- I don't care if you listen to Taylor Swift or not. That's for certain. Exactly. Not hurting anybody. She has a few Boppy songs I like. I'm not against it. I'm just telling you why. I think there's a reason she started in country. There, I'll just piss everybody off and then we'll stop right here. Thanks so much, Laura. You were terrific. It was a pleasure. Thank you. Of course. Hold on a second for me. The podcast episode that you just enjoyed was sponsored by EverSenseCGM. They make the EverSense 365. Nothing lasts a whole year. One insertion. Every year? Come on. You probably feel like I'm messing with you, but I'm not. EverSenseCGM.com slash JuiceBox. This episode of the JuiceBox podcast was sponsored by USMed. USMed.com slash JuiceBox. Recall 888-721-1514. Get started today with USMed. Links in the show notes. Links at JuiceBoxPodcast.com. A huge thanks to my longest sponsor Omnipod. Check out the Omnipod 5 now with my link. Omnipod.com slash JuiceBox. You may be eligible for a free starter kit, a free Omnipod 5 starter kit at my link. Go check it out. Omnipod.com slash JuiceBox. Terms and conditions apply. Full terms and conditions can be found at Omnipod.com slash JuiceBox. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of the JuiceBox podcast. If you're not already subscribed or following the podcast in your favorite audio app like Spotify or Apple Podcasts, please do that now. Seriously, just to hit follow or subscribe will really help the show. If you go a little further in Apple Podcasts and set it up so that it downloads all new episodes, I'll be your best friend. And if you leave a five-star review, ooh, I'll probably send you a Christmas card. Would you like a Christmas card? The JuiceBox podcast has been in production since January of 2015. And in that time, we have amassed just a fantastic catalog of information for you. 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