Kansas Talk: Saturday May 16th, 2026

Truly unfiltered. Broadcasting live from West Wichita in the K-QAM studios. It's time for your weekend kickstart with Wichita's number one conservative talk radio host. This is Kansas Talk with Andy Huzur. Well, I guess those temperatures are here. Golly, 90 degrees into this weekend across the state of Kansas. What the heck is going on? It is not July. It is not August. It is May. And we have to deal with that kind of garbage. What the heck, man? Global warming. It's best to AOC and Al Gore were right. I guess. Welcome into the show. Hey, great to have you here. It's a Saturday morning. What is up, my friends? It is Kansas Talk with Wichita's Big Talker K-QAM Broadcasting out of the West Wichita K-QAM studios. We are all over the great state of Kansas here. Western Kansas, our Big Talker of Southwest Kansas K-I-U-L, the five state Big Talker K-G-Y-N and so much more. Great to have you along for another Saturday morning. 316-721-8255-316-721 talk. If you want to jump on the maximum outdoor equipment hotlines, we got plenty to talk about today, plenty of guests that will be joining the program. I cannot wait to talk to each and every one of them as we start off your weekend, but I'm just, I'm sorry, I'm coming down from the 90 degree temperatures that we get to look forward to today. In life, say look forward to in a very sarcastic manner. Plenty to talk about. We have the campaign updates. Bottom of the hour, Joy Aiken. She's candidate for Governor for the City of Kansas. We'll be chatting with her in just a little bit. She'll be in studio here in the city of Wichita on her tour across the state. We've been chatting with the different candidates and getting an update on the campaign trail. How that looks like we are now officially two weeks away from the filing deadline. What does that mean? That means that right now all the candidates on the campaign trail are speculative, but unless you've officially actually registered with the Secretary of State's office, you are not technically an official candidate yet. There are rumors that some may drop out before then. We'll see if that happens or not. Everybody seems pretty strong at least right now, but we are two weeks away. There's also been a hint, hint rumor that the Trump administration, Donald Trump himself may be throwing out an endorsement to candidates here in the state before that filing deadline to see if that won't thin some of the herd. So I ask you the question, where do you stand on the Governor's race right now? There are a lot of great candidates out there and it's exciting to see and talk to them on the campaign trail. What they stand for, what they're doing, what the response is with people on the ground. So we'll do that with Joy Aiken coming up at the bottom of this hour. Hour number two. We have a week's head down with the US Senator Roger Marshall, our Senator here in Kansas and chatted with him in Washington, DC on a few different issues, especially the passage of the Farm Bill out of the House of Representatives and the Farm Bill at the US Senate is working on. What does that look like? And I really enjoyed his response if you didn't hear it earlier this week already. I really enjoyed his conversation on the Mahaw movement and the Farm Bill with new types of fertilizer that are number one built here in the US of A as opposed to being created abroad like in the nation of China that we just came back with with a diplomatic trip. But we like to make American fertilizer, which is awesome. And also one that has less chemicals in it that is more natural. I see that as a very good thing. So I'm excited about that. Thank you, Senator. Thank you for that. So we'll play that interview coming up. And hour number two with US Senator Roger Marshall. He had to say that Washington, DC on all the issues and more. Also bottom of next hour, we're going to have on the program a new guest as a Jared Scheme, Scheme, Schemeca. I'm going to I'm going to slaughter his name and I apologize for feucary. Gary Schemeca is the chairman for the consumer action for a strong economy. He'll be joining us at the bottom of next hour. We're going to talk about the hospital system here in the state of Kansas. Us not expanding Medicaid and with rural hospitals, the healthcare industry in general, where are we at? Especially is Washington, DC looks like trying to reform healthcare at a federal level. That could potentially be in one of the reconciliation bills over the summertime. We'll see if that actually takes hold. All that being said, it's open lies to you as well. Three, one, six, seven, two, one, eight, two, five, five. Before we go any further, we have to thank God. We have to give kudos yesterday, yesterday evening, there was a flight going out of Kansas city that was grounded due to smoke and an odor that was inside the cabin. And it was grounded. People were evacuated right there on the tarmac and our congressman Tracy man from the big first district was on that flight. And he posted a video on social media saying that everybody's okay, but a little bit scary. Obviously sitting in a plane about ready to take off and all of a sudden you start smelling an odor and start getting smoke in the cabin. Probably not a good thing. So I'm glad everybody's okay. And I don't know any more details other than that. We don't know what was the cause of it. That congressman Tracy man was on that flight and we want to make sure that everybody is okay, including him for that one. So that's all we have from that information on the healthcare front. By the way, speaking of have you heard three different individuals are under surveillance right now by KU's health system for the potential exposure of the hand to virus. What does that mean? Well, that means that now we're going to have this whole pandemic scare. But for those that don't know and have not been following this hand to virus. And even I will give them credit somewhat, according to the World Health Organization, they have said this is not the same thing as what we had seen with the COVID pandemic. It does not spread as easily. However, the Andy's hand to virus, the Andy's at strain, not Andy, Andy. Why but Andy ES like the Andy's mountains that I got to clarify that because people are like Andy, what are you talking about? You don't have a virus? No, the well, allegedly. We'll see the Andy's hand to virus is transmutable by individuals, although it is much more difficult. You have to have long term exposure to individuals like, you know, staying in the same rooms and being really close quarters, living together, that sort of thing. But it started off with the cruise ship off of the coast of Africa. The hand to virus is something that you get originally from breathing in or inhaling dust particles that have rat feces or urine in them and you get this virus. And it is relatively more severe than COVID. It has a 30 to 50% death rate if you do contract this thing and do not handle it immediately. However, it is much more difficult to actually obtain. However, again, this one does spread by human and one individual or a couple individuals from the state of Nebraska were on that cruise ship and they were confirmed of having the virus. Now we're hearing that three individuals here in the state of Kansas were in contact apparently with that individual. So they're under close monitoring of the potential hand to virus here in Kansas and they are sitting at the KU Health Facility. Now here's the thing, you do not spread it unless you're actually showing symptoms according to what we've heard from the health departments. So three of these individuals in the state of Kansas are actually showing any symptoms of having it so far. Therefore, if they were exposed to other individuals, they were not spreading it around because they were not showing any symptoms. But you may not show symptoms for a week or two after. So they're under observation. We will see. This is another pandemic. I say that loosely. Another concern of a pandemic because health departments are going crazy about this. The media is having a heyday with another potential pandemic. And of course, the pharmaceutical companies are going out there and saying that now they're rushing to try and come out with another vaccine to try and dose everybody up. And I really hope that the dosing of this vaccine is not going to be one where everybody has to get it. We just included in with our normal routine of getting our flu shots and everything else because there's no need for it. I mean, it may have a higher death rate if you actually contract it, but how often you actually going to contract a hint of virus. But that doesn't mean that they're not going to be the sun. But still, by the way, wear masks out in public, which to each their own, I guess, do your own thing. Aren't going to run out there and get that vaccine. So I ask you the question. Are you worried about the spread of this one here in the state of Kansas? And this is going to turn into another COVID-19 pandemic with everybody locked down. And this is obviously going to enforce the idea of isolation and social distancing. Remember all those terms? Yeah, got a social distance. Got to be six feet away from other individuals. You can't be around other people. You want to cap how many people can actually walk into a building at the same time because if this spreads by people and it's long term close exposure, then of course, that's what they're going to be coming out with guidelines for relatively soon. I really hope we don't see that. Come on. We just came out of that. I think too many people are awake now and don't want to follow those types of guidelines. But we'll see. Health Department here in Kansas say they aren't too necessarily concerned as of right now, but keeping a close monitor on it. I have not heard, to be honest, have not heard federal health department agencies talk about this issue. RFK Jr. He may have made a statement on it. I don't think he has not really aware of it, but who knows. We'll see what happens on that front. All right. Three, one six, seven, two, one, eight, two, five, three, one, six, seven, two, one, talk on the maximum amount to our equivalent hotlines. Plenty to talk about this morning for a Saturday. There's a lot going on in the state of Kansas. More counties around the state that are pushing back on the data centers. I know that here in Cedric County, we did that a week or two ago. Next week we should have some county commissioners on the program to talk about that, but other counties around the state pushing back on data centers. And in fact, now some are looking at some other alternative. and windmills is that the future of some of these counties, especially when we are limiting ourselves on the amount of agricultural land that we are utilizing here in these states. So we'll get to some of that and other concerns going into summertime weeks away from Memorial Weekend. We'll cover it all. It's Candidstalk right here in Wichita's Big Talker, KKOM. Good Saturday morning. Let's kick off your new weekend. Hang tight. One of our big come, now that I've been trained, everyone I've ever loved, I've pushed them all away. And that will be the same. All right, 21 minutes, passing hour. Welcome back into it. It is Candidstalk, which does Big Talker, KKOM. Great to have you. By the way, if you have not downloaded our app yet, I highly recommend that you do so. We are getting closer to the 250th birthday of the country. Well, it's the entire year celebration. Thank God for the Trump administration wanting to do that. But you do have a chance to win some great gifts. Download our app, S.C. Wichita. It is a yellow icon with a microphone on it, S.C. Wichita, and you can download that. We will have all of our stations on that app with KKOM, KGSR's, S.C. Wichita, with the sports, Hank FM with our classic country, and of course, a little rouse, I want a 2.5. All of them on the app. Make sure to put the star next to KKOM, though, to make it your favorite. We do have that competition. And we can see those numbers. So you can listen to all of them, but make sure to make KKOM your favorite. On there, we have our weekly surveys. We have ways to register for great gifts. We have our entire list of schedules on all of our great shows. You can listen live on there, send us messages, and so much more. Again, download S.C. Wichita. Go and check it out, and we look forward to seeing you on there. I should probably bring it up in case you are sending me messages on that app throughout the program today as well. All right, let's go to the phone to your shall we? 316-721-8255. Good morning. Who's this? >> Does that be me, Andy? >> Mr. Sean, what's happening, brother? >> Well, I'm having my coffee and like you, I do not like the temperatures. >> Yeah, 94, 95 degrees. Not okay. Not okay. Especially for me. I will try to suffer through it in July and August. But come on, man. I mean, AOC and Al Gore were right. Global warming must be happening, right? >> Yeah, well, it is a little early. I mean, it's nothing that wasn't common when I was young. But what makes it worse is the humidity. The humidity is low. It's not bad. You know, 90 degrees feels pretty good, but to me. >> Well, but it's human, man. And it's supposed to get up to 91 or something like that today. I heard. But anyway, let me make this quick since there are many issues that I can think of. I feel like sticking to. Hey, I remember that county in Colorado. That was a rap of whole county went to in 1980. Okay. Yeah, to go camping up to the blue lake. And then we went to also went to. I don't know if you've ever been to these places, but the garden of the gods. Oh, yes. Great. The great sand dunes. Oh, yes. Bents for. Okay. And then I think on another trip, we went to Denver. Later that year. And did the museum and natural history to then resume. And Casabanita's. You ever eat Casabanita? I'd love Casabanita. And in fact, when we went back there in September of last year, we went to Casabanita. Now with the new ownership from the owners of the TV show South Park. They purchased it, renovated it. They sunk $40 million into that place. And it is absolutely incredible. And yes, we used to go. There's a kid growing up in Colorado. We went to Casabanita. But we went now just last year. And it's pretty, pretty amazing. It's expensive, but it's pretty amazing. That's what I thought back in 80 is pretty amazing. I heard there was only four in the United States and the active Ricardo Montabon owned them. Yeah. Yeah, it was. The Cal Park. Yeah, the the tray, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the founders of South Park. The ones that make the South Park cartoon. Yeah, they're the ones that purchased it because it went bankrupt and it shut down for the longest time. And they finally just closed doors so that they said it was a Colorado icon. They couldn't let it go away. So they purchased it a few years ago. They spent about a good year to renovating it and sinking $40 million in way more than what they had anticipated. And now it's up and running and it is hopping and booming. And it's a great place to go visit. Well, no wonder Eric Carson loves gasmen ages. Well, and that's why that's that's right. Everybody really really enjoy that. And if you if people don't know what Casabanita is. If you ever travel back to Colorado or Denver, it is a site to behold. It is literally it's in Denver. It's in a little strip shop just with a there's like a dry cleaners there and there's like a dollar store there. And then all of a sudden in the middle of this strip joint, there's a some massive pink castle right there that was built in what the 70s. Obviously with all the weird colors and it's a Mexican restaurant and it's incredible. But inside of it, you have the cliff divers. There's a waterfall. People are literally just doing cliff diving. There's like rocks and stuff that you can walk through and go check out. The scenery is amazing. It's it's just a blast and and a lot of fun to go get to. Now you mentioned the camping and I've still had this question open for people hearing Kansas. I I have failed as a parent and I apologize profusely for this. My daughter, she's going on 12 now since she was the age of like five has wanted to go camping. I have yet to take her camping and as a parent and as a father and as a guy who wants to teach her how to survive and become a survivalist. I apologize profusely. But here's the thing. I'm not taking her to a campsite where you just have a little plot and then right next to you 20 feet away is another plot and then feed a couple feet away from that is an RV with a battery and with people playing music and do as I'm going to teach her how to camp. And by camp I mean go into the woods where there's nobody around and teacher how to survive with absolutely nothing. I don't know where to do that in Kansas around here. Well, I'm sorry. I don't think I've ever been anywhere. Camping in Kansas except for out in the field of four Riley. Yeah. Years ago, but. Yeah, I'm sorry, but I mean RV camping is not camping and camping on a plot with a lake when you have you know people every 20 feet away in a new different plot. That's not camping. That is just moving the city to the outdoors and pretending to be an outdoors. Going out there and yeah, going to and that's what we're going to do. We need to find the time and to do it, but to go to Colorado, go out to the National Forest and say, hey, whatever you can fit in a backpack is what you're taking and you hike two three miles up into the mountains in the middle of nowhere and hope that a mountain line and a bear doesn't eat you and teach you how to actually survive out in the wilderness. That is camping and that is the proper way to actually be an outdoorsman. Hey, camp next to the screen because we can't do the screen maybe in the summertime that water coming down from the mountains to be nice and cold. Now you could put a watermelon in there overnight and can't there is a bit of time and it'll be nice and cold. That's right. You put your six pack in there with your adult beverages in the stream and you know it is freezing cold and it's almost a little slushy and it's incredible. It's amazing. Yep. Okay, man, got to go. There you go. Appreciate it very much. There you go. Sorry. And for those of you that like to go camping on the lake here in Kansas, I'm not you're throwing shade at you and all the power to you if you take your RV out there to me, that's not camping. That is glorified moving the city out into the wilderness and pretending to be camping. And if you enjoy that, that's cool. If that's your thing, there's no shade on it. That's just not camping. It's just it's not we need to relabel it. That is not camping that is glorified city dwelling out there. You got to survive like survivalist mode on what you can carry in and hope that you, you know, come out of it at the end of the day like that. That's the proper way to go camping and I know I'm going to get a lot of heat for that. But I don't really care. And if there's a place like that in Kansas, I please for the love of God for years, I've been asking where is a good place to do that in Kansas. So I don't have to leave the state and do that. And I can do it relatively easy, but might just have to go back to that national force there in Colorado. I don't know. All right. I'm going to take a break when we come back with shift gears latest on the campaign trail. What's happening for the midterm season and a heck of a lot more. We're going to talk about today for a Saturday. There is a shortage of life guards around the state. Not just here in Wichita or Cedric County as the public pools are opening in a couple weeks on Memorial weekend. But there is a shortage of life guards in every community. Why is that and what happened to the young generation wanting to be the life guards to make some money be around the pool. We'll talk about that throughout the show today as well and get your thoughts. What's happening in your neck of the woods. It is canned stock KQM. We're going to get to stay here. There can be only one and he's right here. This is Kansas talk with Andy Hoosier. That is what's up. Wichita's big talker. KQM. Thank you very much. Voice guy. I appreciate that very much. Great to have you here. 1-6-7-2-1-8-2-5-5. Now that I've. and trash the campers here in Kansas. I know they're getting all their campers ready for Memorial Weekend anyways. That's all right. Welcome into the program. Great to have you. All right. As you know, a lot of things going on. We are officially about two weeks away from the filing deadline here in the state of Kansas for candidates running in the midterms for 2026. We have a major primary coming up in August. We have the general election in November. So it is going to be, is Donald Trump would say, a huge and bigly year. And I think we're going to make it bigly. And I can't wait to see how this is all going to play out. So we do that. We've been getting some updates with the candidates on the campaign trail as we go to our-- It's time to get to know the candidates. We already know her. She's been on the program before, but I'm making her way through which it's all this weekend. As she's been on the campaign trail across the board. And you can find her website, can'tjustcomeback.com. Joy, Aiken, candidate for governor. Joy, good to see you. My friend, how are you? It's great to see you too. Yeah. Thanks for having me on your show. It's always good to chat with you. I know that you have been out talking. And it's been-- we were just talking off the air a little bit. You've been on the campaign trail for almost a full year. How does that sound? That's right. It's hard to believe it's been a whole year. But I'm not a career politician, so it takes longer to build the momentum for the Kansas comeback. But we're seeing that momentum grow everywhere. And it's been a great trip. Yeah. When I talk to different people and talk to people around the community, the candidates and the election, and your name pops up all the time. So you're getting the name out there, and that's really exciting to see you. So how do you feel right now? Even though we're still ways away, filing deadline, just right around the corner is kind of the big first milestone in this campaign. How do you feel right now? Yeah. Well, there's a lot of work to do for everyone in this campaign. The last poll numbers I've seen show 70 to 80% of Republican primary voters are still undecided. So there's a lot of room in this race for people to define themselves. And we're certainly working on doing that. That's exciting. Let's talk about legislative session. I know you've been paying attention to that. We got that done. We overrun a lot of the governor's vetoes. There's a lot of issues we got done, a few issues we didn't get done. Based on how we finished off with the session, kind of leads into the issues that we still need to focus on going into election season. But overall from your opinion, how do you think the session went this year? And how has that been able to transcribe into what you've been talking about on the campaign trail? Well, I think we have to give some credit where it's due-- we had some great legislators step up and do some great work around school choice, around gender transitions and the gender issue in Kansas, as well as some areas around the pro-life movement. And I think those are good and important. We should give grace where that was able to get done. But I also think the single biggest failure of the-- into Peacock, not just the legislature, but also with the governor, was the inability to get anything done on property tax, or taxes in general, or to get our spending down. It just continues to go up. And so I've said this before, but the governor really was pointing fingers at the legislature and the Senate's pointing fingers at the House, and the appraisers are pointing fingers at the county commissioners, and where's the leadership? In the meantime, your grandmother-- grandfather's out there opening property tax bills and wondering if they're going to have to give up a home that's been in their family for generations. So we really need people to step up and have leadership and get something across the line for our people. Yeah. Obviously, it's difficult right now. Hopefully we can see a Republican governor in there where we don't have to do everything with a veto-proofed supermajority, which is going to help out immensely. If you become governor and get in there, what would you like to see done? I know they had a few different ideas this year of a constitutional amendment, capping property valuations at 3% growth every year, another one that was kind of an average compared to a five-year period, others that are forcing the limitation of growth of county budgets. All decent ideas, interesting concepts, how would you like to approach an issue like this? Yeah. So we put out a property tax reform plan in January at the debate, set the GOP held. And I think that's a starting point for us to have conversations. It does three big things. One is it did cap the appraisals at 3% or inflation, whichever's lower, because we wanted to protect people and give them some ability to understand where their appraisals might go over the course of the time they live in the home. But the second thing it does is really, this appraisal system is very difficult for people to understand, to work through, to understand if that's really the value or to even protest. And so a big piece of this bill, based on what we've heard from people around the state, is just making it way in favor of the people, instead of the favor of the bureaucrats. And so things like if you want to-- you get in appraisal and you think that numbers too high and you say, where are my comparables? Well, now you have to go work really hard to find them. And those comparables are just other appraisals. They're not what the actual market sell of those properties were. So it's a very difficult complex system. And then when you have the education system turning out, kids who can't read or do math, how are they ever going to handle this in the future? So we wanted to do that. And the third is, look, property taxes local is what raises that. And so we think there should be a local property tax relief fund that's fed by the locals who are raising taxes in order to offset some-- and give some relief to seniors and veterans in our state. Sure. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. You mentioned education. It's hard when we talk about the budget, especially too, trying to cut some of the budget, trying to reform some of it. When 60% of our state budget goes to higher education or goes to K through 12 education, it's difficult to cut things in as difficult when that education system consumes so much of the budget and they don't turn around like you said, with the quality and the proficiency that we need, how the heck do we solve something like that? Yeah, when we talk about the Kansas comeback, this is the number one thing we talk about. And people all over the state are concerned because look, Kansas are willing to pay for quality education. They believe in education. We've had a longstanding good education system. But in the last few decades, we've gone from number 7th in literacy to number 40th. But we pay the 15th highest in the country. So the issue hasn't been money. It's been about how we fund outcomes and how. And this finance formula that we have right now is creating this incentive to float administration instead of impact the classroom. So we put out an education plan last September that looks at comprehensive education reform. And it includes how we make sure we get good outcomes. It includes school choice. And make sure that teachers who've barely kept up with inflation are actually the ones getting the money when they perform well in the classroom. So I'm excited. One of the things we've talked about is in an Akin's administration, that's the first session, comprehensive education reform, not this piecemeal thing. But we really need to get things across because if we don't change what's happening for our kids, then there can be no Kansas come back. Yeah, no, it's very true. And you're right. Every time in for all these gannon cases in the state Supreme Court case that said, we need more funding, need more funding. Not a lot of it went to the actual classroom. It went to this administrative state. It went to the bureaucratic state. And it never trickled down into these teachers and into the classrooms. We still have a teacher shortage in the state of Kansas, which blows my mind because when I was growing up and in Joe, I'm sure you saw the same thing, that there were two industries where we heard everybody wanted to go into and that was teaching and nursing. And now we have shortages of teachers and nurses in Kansas. That's kind of weird to me. Yeah, well, and next door in Arkansas, they were just named to the number one place to be a teacher. And what Arkansas has done is invest in their classroom teachers, including giving them real money when they perform well in the classroom and providing training so they can keep up with the new skills that are needed in the workplace. And so, but we have not done that. We've fallen way behind and our teachers are suffering. And they're not, they don't feel safe in their classrooms. They're not protected. They're not supported by that administration that we're spending so much money for. And so, you know, a few people want to get into it. Right. Yeah, it's really unfortunate. Are we getting better? I know that we haven't had the lawsuits for a while, but are we at least trying to work in the right direction here? I know this year they tried to address a few things, you know, no cell phones in the classroom. And a few ways of trying to get the kids to refocus again. But are we at least trying to move in the right direction right now? You know, I've been working on education reform for at least 15 years in Kansas. And we've made little micro jumps. But we need full force reform and moving forward. And we haven't done that. We haven't all gotten behind and pushed in one direction. That's one of the things I've advocated for. I've worked with the state board. I've actually already been talking to state board members in the Department of Education, the legislature, and the government. We all need to get in the same direction and start pushing together instead of infighting and about what the right-- it's not rocket science. How to move this education system forward. And we know that because you look at states like Mississippi, who've been 50th, think about that. I mean, we all know, oh, they're the worst in education. Not anymore. They're fourth. And if you adjust for poverty, they're first in the country. So they've done it. And they did it in a very smart way. And it's duplicate of here. We just have to get everybody on the same page and start doing it. And we need a leader who's willing to say that and then do the hard work and hold people accountable to get it done. Hey, man, to that. Let's talk about business growth for just a moment here. I know the economy is weird. It's wonky right now. We're on the cusp according to Donald Trump on the golden age of America, the tax cuts, and the job growth, the investment that we're seeing right now. But right now, we in Candace, things are just not quite sure what direction that we're going to go. Under an A.C. administration, what would you do when it comes to job growth? Getting new small business in here, getting new investment in the state of Candace. How can we get this economy really cranking along? Yeah, well, first we have to get the fundamentals in our state, right? So when states do things like fixed education, so they become competitive for businesses to be here. And when they get their tax structure and their regulation structure right, then it's easier for businesses. But businesses don't like all of this uncertainty, of course, in the economy. But our regulation systems here in Kansas are really choking businesses out. I was in Great Bend a few months ago. I met a man who he's a crop duster and he decided he wanted to open a drone company to do that to do more precision testing. And so he invested in all the equipment, started hiring people. And then the state put a moratorium for two years on the, or a year on the how you get a drone pilot and how they're going to regulate his business. And by the time he went through this two-year process with them, he was out of money, and he had to close his business. And that's the kinds of things we see happening over and over and over again. Look, that precision agriculture is really important for us. As a state to be able to do, it gets better yields, uses fewer chemicals, which means it's healthier. And it costs less when you get, you know, when you're only, when you're not dusting, just, you know, across everything. And so we have ignored that in the case of wanting to have more regulation. Why can't we work faster in those areas? It's not the only story I've heard, but it's one that I've heard most recently. - Well, yeah, deregulation, get the private industry to work. And if they have a great idea, we need to encourage that. Not try to kill it off. - How do we help them get it to market? And now what I think is government should get out of the way so they can get it to market. - Exactly. - Not get in their way. And so we're seeing that more and more around the state, people complaining. And we've seen it in childcare, we're the fourth most regulated childcare industry in the country. And so that impacts the workforce, impacts small business. So we need to get those things out of the way. And we have to stop taking money out of small businesses hands and putting it into corporate welfare. And I've seen that firsthand in my own business where companies have been offset by $80,000 a job to compete for the same workforce I'm competing for, which raises those salaries, but not in a way that the market can bear. And so when that money goes away, they lay those people off. And I've lost an opportunity to hire those people because they now think their job is worth, you know, 80,000 more than the market can bear. And so, you know, when government starts to interfere like that, it creates all of these problems. We have to stop doing that and create a more fair system that everybody gets. - Between government and labor unions, they always like to screw up the private market on how everything balances out itself, which is really unfortunate. We're talking to Joy Akin's candidate for governor, Kansas, come back.com is the website. And you can find her, do we need to diversify our economy a little bit more as well with different types of industries? I know, Witchtah obviously is the aviation capital of the world and we love that idea, but at the same time, we've seen that tech industries and that people working from home remote workers for the tech industries, one of the biggest growths here in Witchtah in particular, which is really awesome, but different types of industries to diversify around the state. Do we need to focus on that as well? - That's something I have been working on for a long time and I know Witchtah has worked on how they diversify that. I think the new medical school downtown that just graduated their first class and then now we have this biomedicine going in. I think those are good ideas and then there's technology I've been working with a group called flagshipcansist.tech. I was one of the founding members of that to talk about technology and Kansas, how we prepare workforce for that, how we make sure our kids are ready for those jobs and that fits nicely with smart manufacturing, which is also part of our aviation industry. So these things can work together. And then finally, I think cyber security has become an issue here or a growing industry here. We've had people from the coasts move into Witchtah to be part of that. And so I think those are things that we can do going forward. But notice we didn't necessarily put, I mean the medical school downtown, the state did not do anything to really help them. This is a private investor who said, this is a great idea and I wanna do it. - There's a band for it. - She literally had to fight government to get what she needed, even just to get parking. And those are the kinds of things where you just wanna hit your head on the wound. You like, just get out of her way and let her do this. 'Cause she's solving, or she's helping to solve the rural health crisis. Because a lot of the doctors graduating from that school, that's where they're going is to rule Kansas. And we need that. So why wouldn't we get out of the way and help her do that instead of put barriers all the time in the way for people. And so again, it's just this mindset of government can do it better. But I don't believe that. I think Ronald Reagan said it best when he said that most dangerous words are. I'm from the government and I'm here to help you. - Exactly, yeah. Well, in today's times, that's even scarier than what it was back then, which is really wild. You mentioned rural Kansas. How do we encourage businesses to grow out in Western Kansas or rural Kansas? Or how do we get populations to move out there? We've seen the largest population growth in the witch-taught area, up in the Kansas City area, Shawnee County, Johnson County, that area. How do we get people to go out west and actually start building up that population again? - Yeah, our rural counties are really struggling in some parts of the state, but there are places where there's good things happening. If you look at Goodland, in the Goodland area, there were some entrepreneurs who decided to start a school to teach people how to do programming and use technology. And then they partnered with some companies in Colorado that needed remote workers. And so they've had people move to Goodland, Kansas to take the training and then stay there in order to have this rural lifestyle and then be able to work from home and then some of them also have gotten into farming. So I think there are places that that kind of thing is happening, I was in Garden City this week, you see what's happening there, it's exciting. So what we need to do is look at those ideas and then see where the leadership is in some of our other counties to try and get those things going. 'Cause you look at Great Bend, there's some good things that they wanna do, but they're not sure. And so who's the leadership that we can help inspire to get those things going in a place like Great Bend? - Yeah. - And then that will grow. - That's exciting, we need to focus on that. And I'm glad that we're seeing that. I did not realize that we're seeing some tech people go out there in the work remotely. That's cool, that's a great idea, especially with some of the agricultural industry that we have. Join, we got about a minute or so left here, talk about the campaign trail, where are you at and people finding you and finding you around the state of Kansas? - Yeah, well, our website is KansasCombact.com and we love for people to go there and see all the information about the campaign and me and what I care about and then interface with us. And then we've also launched an AI assistant named Eli, that's helping people find us. And he'll be on that website in the next week or so, so people will be able to talk to him directly. But in the meantime, if they reach out through our social media channels, we can connect him with that. - Gotta talk to Eli, that's right. Refer to Eli for it and you can get all the information in KansasCombact.com. Joy, we appreciate it, my friend. I always enjoyed chatting with you. Good luck on the campaign trail. I know things are about ready to heat up for the mad dash for the next couple of months until the primary. - Yes, it's gonna be quite the trip, gotta running season. - That's right, got the running shoes on. Joy, good luck on the campaign trail. Let's get you back on for another update soon. - Thank you. - Hey, appreciate it very much. Alright, gotta take a break as we wrap up this hour of the program. We got plenty more to talk about here, but great stuff on the campaign trail with more candidates that are working their way, talking to individuals like you around the state. We'll get your thoughts on that and more when we come back around the corner. It is Candice.KQAM, stay here. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Alright, wrap it up this hour of the program. Thanks again to Joy, Aikens coming on the program. Candidate for governor here in the state, as you know, we are about two weeks away from the filing deadline. We have about 10 candidates in the race right now for governor for the Republicans, which is encouraging because that shows that we're really, really, really tired of an angry librarian administration, AKA Governor Laura Kelly, and I cannot wait to see here get out of there. We have to give her the proper farewell as soon as it's over for good, but that means that we also have a lot of options and a lot of choices. Where do you stand on it? I want to hear from you on that. Alright, when we come back around the corner, I want to number two, we got plenty more to talk about. We have shortages of life guards. We have summer convention, judicial reform, election season, and more plus what the heck's going on out in Washington, DC. We're gonna play our interview with US Senator Jerry Moran. I'm sorry, US Senator Roger Marshall. Jerry Moran, we still have to get on the program. He hasn't come on this show yet, but we're working on that. We'll see if we can't get him on the show. Senator Roger Marshall, we played that interview earlier this week on the Voice of Reason. We will play that for you here on what the heck's going on at DC and how it affects us here in the state of Kansas. Our number two rider on the corner, lots more to get to stay here. (upbeat music) (whooshing) - Unfiltered. - Broadcasting live from West Wichita in the KQAM studios. (upbeat music) This is Kansas Talk with Andy Huzure. (upbeat music) - Yeah, here we are, our number two, we have the big program for your Saturday morning, starting off a whole new weekend. Great to have you along for the ride today on Kansas Talk, Wichita's Big Talker KQAM. 1480 on that AM, dial 997 HD4 on that FM site. If you want to listen to us in high definition, also, our friends out in Garden City, Kansas, KIUL, the Big Talker of Southwest Kansas, KIUL, and the five state Big Talker KGYN. We're just across the entire state of Kansas. We also have the Facebook Live Feedup and we're going to roll in today at facebook.com/1480KQEM. However you want to hang out and join us today on the show. If you want to jump on the program as well, talk about whatever's on your mind, bothering you. We are your therapist for Kansas as well. You can do so at 316-721-8255. That is 316-721-8255. one talk on the maximum out to our equipment hotlines. Bottom of the hour we have. Gary Skameka. He is the chair of the Consumer Action for a strong economy. We're going to talk about rule health care, health care reform in general, hospitals here in Candice and more. It has been an ongoing conversation. Governor Kelly, she went the entire eight years begging and pleading and kicking and screaming and throwing the temper tantrums and throwing the fit about wanting to do Medicaid expansion. And I will say at tip to our state legislature and the Republican leadership that we have, especially the last few years, time master since and at president Dan Hawkins, Speaker of the House, on stopping that push for Medicaid expansion in the state. Round of applause on that one. Yeah. We appreciate that very much because how disastrous would that be? The Trump administration already announcing we're not going to be doing the 90% reimbursement of statewide Medicaid programs. If the federal government is funding 90% of a statewide program, is it really a state wide program? That's one of those conundrums that I think would break your brain, especially for the other side, almost like if a tree falls in the woods and no one's there to hear it, does it really make a sound? Well, theoretically, according to quantum physics, if you're not in the woods and the woods doesn't technically even exist until you think about it. Oh, that just broke your brain for a Saturday morning too, right? It's true, though. It's true. If you're not actually there, then in your reality based on the particles that make up the world, then it doesn't actually exist until you're actually physically there seeing it or you actually think about it in your mind. Other than that, it doesn't actually exist. Kind of like a video game. It doesn't create the world around you until you actually get there. That's kind of weird. So if that's, I know. All right, too far. I'm sorry. I have not gone into the adult beverages this morning. I promised you, but that's something to think about for sure. But if the tree falls in the woods and it doesn't make a sound, if a federal government is reimbursing a state at a statewide program by a 90% rate of the statewide program, that is it really a statewide program. Hmm. But Barack Obama said back in the day when we expanded Medicaid and we did the Obamacure that that would not last forever. And the Trump administration says now they're not doing that. So with Governor Kelly out there saying that we're missing out on all this money coming into the state because we did not expand to get that 90% reimbursement rate. Then or at least more of the 90% reimbursement rate by expanding it to more eligible individuals in the state of Kansas. Then now that we're cutting back, are we really losing out on all that money? I would say we're sounding new on that one. That would be a negative ghostwriter because we don't want federal money coming into that level and we don't want to become dependent on that. So yeah, I will give credit to our legislature on that one. That being said, we'll talk about healthcare reform and hospitals in the state of Kansas at the bottom of the hour. That being said, though, I don't want to waste any time with the government's shutdown. Let's go to the maximum outdoor equipment. We sat down with our senator here in the state of Kansas. You have Senator Roger Marshall earlier this week on the voice reason to talk about what's going on in Washington DC along with healthcare reform, reconciliation bills, DHS funding after that 75 day government shutdown. And where are we at with the farm bill and the agricultural sector is we chatted with him on all of those issues and more. And this is what he had to say. Senator, how are you, my friend? Andy is great to be with you and I think we got a great show today. We got some really important topics and appreciate a moment to dive down into them. Yeah, there's plenty to talk about for sure. First and foremost, let's go to a farm bill, the house in the past week or so past their farm bill, sending it over to you guys a five year extension of a farm bill, some reforms going on when it comes to crop insurance and so on and so forth. It's really great that we're seeing some movement. That kind of came out of nowhere on the house. Where are you guys out on your side for the senate working on the same thing? Well, as you can imagine, the senate moves a little bit slower than the mayor's. The house does remind your listeners that we took care of crop insurance and reference prices in the working family tax cuts bill. We put another C by billion dollars into those programs. We double the death tax exemption. We gave some farmers some great tax business benefits as well. So there's not much of a farm bill left to do, but we're very willing to do it. But here's the hold up. Also, the hold up is over food stamps and we're going to get a lot of money. We're going to get a lot of money. We're going to that field. So the soil is one of the three big carbon anchors in the world. The other carbon anchors are, of course, the ocean and trees. So let's turn that soil over. You leave more carbon in it. And then when you use less fertilizers and use these other modern techniques, also a cost factor, you can use less fertilizer. Of course, that's going to save the American farmer money as well. So so proud of my American farmers practicing regenerative agriculture and all this leads to healthier food. That there are nutrients in the soil that we don't even know what that exists yet. And when you, and some of these fertilizers and chemicals kill those natural nutrients. And that's why our food tastes so bland these days. And I remember going up going, you know, when the strawberries were ripe, my brother and I, it's just to have run out to the strawberry field on our, on our family farm and just goers on these strawberries. It was, they tasted like candy. The same with cantaloupe. So the foods have lost their taste because of the lack of nutrients in the soil. That's exactly it. It lost their taste. It lost their nutrients. And we're trying to rebuild that, which is amazing. We're talking with you, Senator Roger Marshall from here in the state of Kansas, my senator here in the state. Let's shift gears to plans to this summertime. Now that we've for the most part reopened up department of Homeland Security and the battle with ice funding and FEMA funding and everything else, which has been insane on why we had it shut down for so long. We're working on trying to get that fully back open again. We also have the opportunity for a reconciliation bill this summer where you guys don't need that 60 vote supermajority in the Senate. What can we potentially see in this? This seems like the opportunity going into midterm season where we can throw in as much of the conservative Republican, Maga, Trump agenda as possible going into to the election season saying, Hey, look at what we're getting done here this year. Yeah. So the first reconciliation bill we're going to pass next week is to fund the border patrol and ice officers. Only Republican votes are willing to support funding ice and border patrol. So we got to get that one done next week and that leaves us an opportunity for reconciliation 3.0. And in my mind, we should be addressing the cost of living, Andy, that we should have five buckets. One of them is the cost of health care. And that would be my specialty. Happy to dive into that one, the cost of housing the cost of child care, the cost of property insurance and then just the cost of gas and groceries, that type of thing as well. So I think the whole focus here should be on bringing down the cost of living. And we know ways to do that. Our price tag bills in the health care sector forcing every health care provider to show you the price upfront. Look, your doctor orders an MRI. You could do it in his office for 600 bucks or go over to the hospital and do it for $6,000. Customers need to know that there's a huge difference in the price. And I think once we make them shoppers again, with today's technology, we'll bring down the cost of health care. I'm not kidding, you $1,000, $2,000 a month per family. Wow. That's insane. It is so needed. The health care reforms, the permitting reform for energy tax cuts. I mean, you guys did the one big, beautiful bill. But yeah, this is a great opportunity for us and we can ram it down. I always say Senator right now with the Democrats wanting to hold everything up. But when they get into power, they love to cram things down our throat. It's our time to cram our agenda down their throat and make them say, thank you. And please, we want more of it. That's what we're excited about, Senator. Are you tired of winning? We are getting tired of winning. No, we want to see more of that. And we want to see, we want to see them get get a little squirmish when they go into election season. Last thing for you, Senator, but I obviously it is going into midterm season. You've been going around the state and talking to individuals. What's been the mindset of people on the campaign trail and how are you feeling as we go into early parts of the midterm? Well, it's the cost of living. That's what folks want to talk about. It's interesting, though. I every business I visit is exploding and they can't keep up with the sell. They need more workforce than this and that. And I think a lot of it is because of the tariffs on foreign stuff that people want to buy. America made good. The window company out in Ford Scott, you know, comes to mind all the different people to make farm, implement. So everywhere I go, they tell me business is really good. That this tax structure is that we changed in the working family tax cuts to help small businesses out. You know, letting the new bonus depreciation interest, deductibility, it's coming to fruition. But there's a group of people out there that are struggling. They're typically under the age of 40. They're folks that hadn't bought their first home yet. Their credit cards are maxed out. They have a big college loan and you know, they're paying a lot for childcare. Those are the people that are struggling right now. And that's my priorities. How do we help these people, these working families that are out there? We gave them some good tax breaks. People are getting the largest tax refund in American history right now. As we speak, those tax refund checks are coming back to home and that's a help. But we got to give them relief on the home front and it's charged right there at the kitchen table that has the gas pump. We're making it happen. You are Senator Roger Marshall from the state of Kansas Senator. Always a pleasure to talk to you, my friend. Keep up the fight. You guys have a lot of big battles coming up here soon. We look forward to getting another update from you again soon. And you take your time. You know, everybody have a safe, great week. Welcome back into the program. You are Senator Roger Marshall. He's sitting down with us here, at least on the voice of reason earlier this week. Great information coming out of Washington. DC. Look, I am slightly more optimistic that we can get some things done for the summertime. As we've mentioned before on the other programs that Congress needs to do a little bit more action in DC to get the energy riled up for Republicans to turn out to vote again in November. But at the end of the day, I'd still the lack of action is better than the action going in the wrong direction. So, you know, hey, it's really kind of a nonsensical question to think, "Gee, am I really going to show up to vote? I'm really angry. They're not doing what they promised." While that's true and we need to put that pressure on them, we're still, I'd rather see no action done in not moving anywhere than moving in the wrong direction because, as you can see, it's very difficult to actually repeal that and move back and swing that pendulum back the other way all over again. So we appreciate Senator Roger Marshall in what he's doing. We got some big races here in Kansas. There are just as we have like 10 candidates in the governor's race right now for the Republicans, there's like eight to 10 candidates of Democrats on the Senate side trying to challenge Senator Roger Marshall in this race. So, turning out to vote is going to be key. And while we're frustrated with the lack of action going on in the Senate, Roger Marshall's been pushing a lot of different bills and focusing on us here in Kansas and focusing on what needs to be done in Washington, DC. And we appreciate what he's does because if we have a Democrat get in there, can you imagine what they're going to do? The Senate has the power. Just FYI, the Senate has the power to repeal cabinet members in the Trump administration. The Senate has the power to not confirm Supreme Court justices if one does step down and Donald Trump gets a chance to nominate somebody else. The Senate has the power to do a lot of things in Washington, DC. And we need to be one of those that remains red and remain your Republican. So, getting out to vote is going to be crucial on that front. Speaking of, by the way, the courts, we have is not going to be in the November midterm election. It's going to be in the primary in August. Constitutional amendment, judicial reform. We are working hard to where we're going to make sure people are aware of this issue and you have to vote. Yes, we are going to get the actual writing of the bill and read it to you to where you can know exactly what you're going to see when you go to the ballot, when you're going to read these issues, it is going to be a major one because we can change how we select our Kansas State Supreme Court and the other side is kind of losing their mind on this one. So, yeah, they're angry because they're realizing that that has been their stronghold. We have the supermajority in the legislature. The governor's race goes back and forth every couple of years, but the Supreme Court in Kansas has been predominantly progressive and left and to think that the bar association, left-wing radical elitist lawyers are the ones that get to nominate our Supreme Court justices. That's just weird to me and why we started going to that process back in the day. I don't know. That's been really dumb and you can see how well it's worked out to where now Kansas's Supreme Court has been ranked as one of the worst Supreme Court's nationwide. And not just like political opinion wise, I mean, the most overturned cases from a state Supreme Court of any other state Supreme Court in the nation because of how incompetent they are because they're a bunch of activist legal attorneys that have been chosen by activist legal attorneys from the bars association in Kansas making those nominations. That's got to stop you and I can vote on them. You and I can have actually have a choice of who we're going to put on that state Supreme Court and I guarantee you that when we have that choice, things are going to look just a little bit different. Really excited about that. All right, we'll talk about some healthcare reform when we come back around the corner. Plus your phone calls the 3167218255. Plenty of things happening as we heat up in ramp up for an upcoming midterm election season 2026. Candice is going to be a focal point of how this nation looks and we can't wait to cover it all right here on KQEM. Stay here. You're listening to Kansas Talk with Andy Hoosier. Boom, there it is. Yeah, you are. Welcome into it on the home stretch here. Flying right on by through a Saturday morning. Candice Talk, which talks big talk, KQEM. Our friends out in Garden City. Candice, what is up? In Western Kansas and of course the five state big talker. KGYN. We're just all over the place. We do have our Facebook live feed going on at Facebook.com/1480k QAM. So you can go and check it out there as Always covered a lot of ground today The Trump administration coming back from China as they did announce especially here in the Wichita area aviation industry You're gonna be very happy with the announcement of China planning to buy 200 at Boeing planes So that will keep you busy for a while some of the other contracts that have come in as well So the aviation industry seems to be going well and that's kind of exciting for the city of Wichita and Beyonce round of applause for that Thank you Trump administration. We appreciate that It's gonna help out with the economy for sure And that's where we want to go to with our next guest on the program as we go to our Let's go to the maximum outdoor equipment house. Let's talk economy. Let's talk the uncertainty for midterm season And of course ways that we can get the planes the mid-America region back up and going use the chair for the consumer action for a strong Economy happy to have on here. Gary Shemek. Gary Harry. My friend I'm doing great. Thank you for having me and don't forget I don't know how much soy is being grown in Kansas these days, but I think the Chinese put in a big Order they did soybeans. Yeah, so he means in corn. So that always helps all of us. Yeah, yeah Yeah, so here's the I really hope that they follow through with it. I know under the I guess it was the Biden administration So take that with a green assault, but they they had their three-phase Agricultural plan where China was gonna buy a whole bunch of stuff through three different phases I think they got through phase one and then it kind of stopped So you know, they're always uncertain when they say they're gonna buy something But I really hope they follow through with these because that would be great for us here on the home front It would be and it's like you know when someone puts an offer on a on a car you don't count your money yet because they may not come back onto the lot so The probably will be used for leverage in many ways going forward So now we have a deal on the table as they start Getting into the negotiations about Iran on Taiwan, you know the Chinese can always say Well, you know, maybe we don't want that many planes. So you're absolutely right You just have to hedge your bets, but at least there isn't even place. It's on the table And it's something that as as long as we can maintain that momentum We do have tried as a one country that has leverage with us. There's no other country really that economically has leverage with us But they're losing it very swiftly their economy is is You know on top of their demographics and they're declining The yeah, we need it more than we do so. Let's yeah, let's hopefully follow through well We'll see whether it happens or not. Let's talk about the economy for a moment here across the mid-America region You're on the Missouri side of Kansas City over here on Kansas side We're seeing as we talk about China. We're seeing a lot of them Manufacturing coming back to the United States and we're not fully at least right now We're moving in the right direction to not completely rely on China any longer for things like the production of pharmaceuticals Or the production of computer chips with Navidia and some of these others and in fact I believe there's a pharmaceutical plant being built here in Kansas relatively soon to start making some of this stuff Along with computer chips is that good are we moving in the right direction to become a little bit more self-sufficient? You know, it's it's not necessarily in a free market issue because you know We are free market and you know We believe that whoever can produce the product the best the competitive advantages of resources the nations and all that fun stuff You know they should get your business. We shouldn't be mercantilists. We say no only You know we could make tires here or things like that But there are some products especially what it relates to national security You know metals also pharmaceuticals the the Formulae that go into Prescription drugs as well as chips and AI you do not want to have We're never going to be completely free market because of course other nations are not they're very protectionist They have quotas and they subsidize their own industries So number one we have to have a have a fair playing field if they're going to skew Towards their own domestic industries. We should do the same I think president chopper the first President I don't know no since when maybe World War two with Eisenhower that actually has You know cut these kind of deals where he said we'll just walk away. We'll just make it ourselves I think that we do want to maintain a free market in the sense that if you know a company is trying to sell us a product and they need the Materials or they didn't even manufacturing done. I think they should have the freedom to do it where it can be done correctly With quality you know no abuses of labor and things like that if they can So that shouldn't be our concern, but when it does come to some of these key things that are with the especially minerals rare earth minerals and chips there is a smart It's a very least trying to make sure that no one has leverage over us You're right If they are building plants here we're giving tax breaks the South Koreans and Taiwanese also have a major chip makers and they're building here and I think you know It's great. It's not even just manufacturing which is very important because it creates jobs, but it's the know how it's the skill the mental Like our chips are the best because we have the best brains here. We track the best brains and we have the best brains So you know Navidia and Groc and Google so it's What do you call it the knowledge of Knowing how to do something is is key as well, but yeah I would agree with that that's very important for national security Yeah, and it's nice to see hopefully if we are moving that direction with these investments for these types of industries that were also diversifying the workforce Right, I mean we saw here in Kansas. We've seen over the past year. We've seen you know Tyson food plants that shut down It which essentially a decimated small towns were 80% of the workforce in that town was working at that facility So you know, it's a we've kind of put all of our eggs in one basket in particular areas and when those go sideways Then we're kind of so well, but diversifying the workforce doing something a little bit different. That's all around kind of a good thing Yeah, I mean if you're in a a county or rural county or in a community You have an opportunity to you know address You know to attract businesses in small growth businesses. You see You know it's interesting just like the film industry you should be heavily based in California California now it doesn't even have a majority of number where they tax everyone to death. Yep number one I think but you know shows like Breaking Bad and You know all the all those are all the streaming shows Very very few things are filmed in California. You've got you know refineries and pipelines that are crossing the Midwest and going through Areas they hadn't before which is yeah, I'm just thinking of you know energy some key things but Yeah, it is the idea of the the sand dust. He's in the rest about that's how they all you know they went down So yeah, they should it looks like there's a ton of what President Trump has also created He's implemented AI and a lot of the agencies to try to cut down on fraud and waste and to see where the money's going You know we were looking at that with the health care and hospitals and You know a Medicare and Medicaid So there's there's saving money and They're also Using a lot of what the investment would you see them almost every week? He's posted with a foreign leader who's looking to invest in America Building these plants and It would be yeah, if you can get some of these things into the small communities or That would certainly help them of course. Yeah, that's very true You mentioned health care. Let's go there for just a moment health care reform Candace is one of the few ones that is not expanded Medicaid our Democrat governor has been pushing forward for the entire eight years She's been in office wanting to expand we did not do it now We're seeing the reimbursement rate of Medicaid not be at 90 percent which is what the federal government's been doing under Obamacare so probably a good thing that we did not expand but rule health care the the conversation is always revolves around rule health care and rule hospitals Right now are we seeing a change? Do you think in how we're going to be doing health care and especially for rural communities instead of having a major centralized Massive hospital that can't sustain itself going back to the idea of small practices and doctors with their own individual practices Are we seeing kind of reform and how we do health care? You are seeing the growth and concierge Medicine for one greater Expansion of roles from nurse practitioners. I don't know. I think the doctor roles are not really increasing Like they they used to be that might be an issue going forward because you know you were Estudious and you're interested in becoming a doctor the idea was that you would put in long hours Have a very rewarding career and and do and do well and there's nothing wrong with a boy. We need doctors You know, we need people who can you know pull you back from the other side when you're on on an operating table But I don't think some of our best and brightest minds are going into it anymore just because it it we do to an extent really do have not as bad as Europe But we do have socialized health care to where the government dictates the prices of everything they regulate everything so the the providers and the physicians and even the nurse practitioners are saying well, we just will take Medicare Medicaid and go out on our own. Yeah, you're going to kind of have that spread. I mean, people don't forget that when President Obama first got into office, the whole rationale for Obamacare was we need to get a control of our budget deficit and our debt so the guy who doubled the debt in the years. That was his-- this is why we need health care reform is in order to control spending. And of course, it was a massive lie, just like everything else. They're-- I mean, right now with hospitals, you have the-- they're moving more and more than on profit. Even though they make tens of the profits are surging. And there's just no transparency or oversight. You have no idea what's going to-- you think of Chris Wald in vacation. You know, he broke his card. He asked how much it was to fix it, and me and your response was how much you got. And we're seeing-- that's literally what the price is on hospitals. They are-- the cost they're rising, three comes faster than inflation. And it is the main driver of health care rising costs. It's not prescription drugs. It's not what physicians are charging. It's not even procedures that MRIs. But you know, sorry to-- Philobuster a little bit, but it isn't-- and same we spend $80 million in billion dollars for the federal government to provide this 340B prescription drug program that's supposed to let hospitals take care of more low income and vulnerable people. What we're finding is the more that they take, participate in the 340B program, the less charity they're giving, the fewer vulnerable patients they're seeing, and the greater their profits are. And so we see-- we've been very active in trying to communicate this to when the states are looking at expanding Medicaid and the 340B program. When-- take a look at this. It's not going well. You're throwing money down the drain, and these people are lining their pockets. Again, hospitals are a great concept. You know, especially-- they have an emergency room, right? It's like, you don't schedule. Let's see, I can't see Tuesday. It has Thursday. When you need an emergency room, there's no. So they are off in the last resort, too. So obviously, they're very critical to our health care infrastructure. But the way that they're making profits right now, the way that they are totally unaccountable and lack transparency is-- it really needs to be changed on the state level and federal level. No, the whole system. Yeah, the whole system does. I don't trust the medical system at all. It's unfortunate. My wife was in the ICU for a week-- more than a week last year with a major issue. We don't have health insurance. And luckily, we fell under the category where we can-- a lot of it didn't get counted. But it's so wild to me that there's a different pricing plan for those that don't have health insurance and for those that do have health insurance. If you have your kid break an arm and you go into an urgent care, if you have insurance, they're charging you $3,000 for it, plus the deductible and everything else. If you don't have health insurance, it's $80 to get the cast and walk out the door. Why in the world would we set up a system like that? That blows my mind. And it almost makes me want to just hit the reset button on the entire insurance industry and start the whole thing over. It's not just that, Andy. If you go to a hospital, it could be $10,000. And if you go around the corner to another provider, it could be $1,500. And there's also places where if you don't have health care, they-- what they charge is higher than-- if you are covered because they try-- part of the-- it's with 340B and a lot of the subsidies and breaks they get the more-- if they can show the number of patients that they take care of like pro bono, is it they get all that credit from the government. So there are some places where if you don't have health insurance, you're charged an arm and a leg. So it's really hard to keep track of, honestly. We did a study and we did a survey too about a year ago where we looked at a knee fracture of a senior and adult fell and crack their knee and had to have ambulatory care. It was arranged from $6,000 to $66,000. Same care, same treatment, same everything. But where you get treated and what they then turn around and charge the government or the insurance company for that is-- it's sort of that wheel. Nobody has any idea whatsoever. So yeah, you should be able to know roughly what something is going to cost you. And you should be able to afford the health insurance that risk needs to be spread out. But we have a system now where I have to have-- because of Obamacara, I don't know if any young children, but I have to have pediatric. Well, that raises the cost and that keeps people from buying health care. Or at least health care that'll be there when you need it. So if we could just end this nonsense where we could pick and choose and it could be portable and you made the insurance itself more free market, that would solve a lot of it. Because there would be very few barriers for people actually having health insurance that could meet their needs. Yeah, oh yeah, it would solve a lot of issues. Last question for you on that front. And we've got just a couple minutes left here. Direct primary care providers, a lot of these getting away from that industry all together, just doing a paid membership every month. Is that the future of health care, do you think? For those who get afforded, I think it is going to be the future of health care. And on top of it, having a choice as well, you may get it through your employer, you know, Aflac and some of these additional providers coverage is, are there for what you just don't get. Democrats are saying after, like, it hasn't really changed a number of people that have coverage of the percentage of people. It's slightly up under Obamacare. But it's not health insurance they can use. The deductibles are outrageous. And, you know, the co-pays are way up there, but they say, hey, people have health insurance. But you wouldn't use it. But there's some doctors, you can say, you know, $300 a year as a membership. And every time you have a telehealth appointment, or you go into the office, it's $150. It's not great, but at least you know, you know, you say, I'll give this a day, see if it goes away. We don't, then you go see them. But it's better than just sitting around and waiting for the, you know, what the heck I have nothing else to do. But I think you're actually right. There are a lot of the systems. It just makes no sense. And it's built upon a crazy incentives and disincentives. What a world we live in. And I don't see a lot of major changes happening anytime soon because there's way too much money involved in it. So we have to chip away at it little by little. I think we're moving in the right direction. God bless the maha movement that we're seeing right now trying to push back on this a little bit. But we have a long ways to go for sure. It is the consumer action for a strong economy. Go check those guys out here. We appreciate it very much. My friend, great conversation. I'd love to get you back on. Let's do it again soon. Anytime. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah, you bet you great stuff. All right. We'll take break. We got one segment left as we wrap things up for you or Saturday this morning on what the heck's going on. A healthcare reforming Kansas. Remember, we are the ones that started the direct primary care provider movement actually here in Wichita. The very first one I believe in the country that started pushing that idea. And I think it really is going to be the future. Do a membership with us. And we'll take care of you instead of going through this insurance debacle of charging up charging three, four times higher than what it needs to be. Got to take great lots more coming up right around the corner for the last few minutes. Open lights for you when we come back. [MUSIC PLAYING] All right. We're going back to it. We got just about a minute left as we're wrapping things up. Man, a flu right on by for the show today. Plenty to cover, of course, across the state of Kansas. As a reminder, by the way, the state Republican convention, the summer convention of 2026, gearing up and kicking off election season. That is happening in about a month or so. It is June 19th and 20th. It will be in Pittsburgh, Kansas. If you would like to go to that, it's going to be a short convention, like less bankwitty, less speakers, less time sitting down and just mingling that way. And more actually training, hot and knock on doors, hot of campaign, how to make phone bank calls, how to go and knock on doors. We're actually going to be doing door knocking across the city of Pittsburgh, Kansas. So it's going to be awesome. Find all the information at canjus.gov, canjus.gov, and get ready for election season that way. It is going to be a massive training session to get you ready for Republicans to win bigly for 2026. That's it. But we're back at it again, next Saturday for Candice talking. Until then, always a pleasure to have you join us as usual. Or back at it here soon. Also check out our syndicated program with the voice reason later on this afternoon at 4 p.m. on all these stations and like 30 or 40 more across the country. Until then, we'll see you back on the radio soon, bye. [MUSIC PLAYING]