As declining birth rates continue to be prevalent each year, Solidarity HealthShare president Chris Faddis joins The BS Show to discuss the long-term effects of this. Read the transcript or listen to the interview below.
Bob Sansevere (00:00):
We are joined by Christopher Faddis, co-founder and president of the Nonprofit Healthcare Sharing Ministry Solidarity HealthShare, which is an ethical, affordable alternative to traditional health insurance and is faithful to the moral teachings of the Catholic Church. Chris, there’s news out there about basically the US birth rates have fallen. According to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 3.6 million births in 2025, a 1% decline from 2024, and the fertility rate dropped to 53.1 birth per 1,000 women, ages 15 to 44. That’s down 23% since 2007. Now, is this something that is alarming to me? I read a story about it, and people are having two kids. That’s the average now. I did my part to keep it up by having five kids. So the rest of these people out here are not pulling their weight, as it were. I mean, is this something we should … I don’t think the government, because there’s a headline, as US birth rates fall, Fed’s response may make pregnancy more dangerous.
(01:05):
I don’t know why the feds are even getting involved in this, or should they? Maybe I’m wrong.
Chris Faddis (01:10):
Well, there’s definitely … It’s interesting, because there’s different countries who have done public policy methods to help increase birth rates, and they’ve actually been effective. In Hungary, for instance, they did a policy where I think they helped … I’m trying to remember now what it was, but they actually get help towards a mortgage based on each kid they have, that kind of thing. And there’s some other things that they do to incentivize childbirth and to offset the cost of-
Bob Sansevere (01:38):
Because it’s expensive, no question about it.
Chris Faddis (01:41):
It is expensive. And so I think that’s part of … Some of those kind of policies can help encourage it. At the end of the day though, yeah, what are you going to do? Mandate people have five kids. I mean, you can’t do much. The other side of it would be, of course, education and those things. But look, yeah, the reality is I think our replacement rate a few years ago was you had to have almost three kids. It was like 2.75 or something. And we haven’t been near that. I think we’ve been under two kids per household for a few years, several years now. So I mean, we’re getting to that point where you are going to need to have five kids per family to replacement. I mean, you’ve got the baby boom, what they call the silver tsunami now. Everyone who was baby boomer was born in the baby boom era is now retiring.
(02:26):
I think you might fall in that category, Bob, not in the baby boom era, but you’re getting close to that age. I’m a
Bob Sansevere (02:32):
Baby boomer. I’m in the baby boomer. I’m a baby boomer.
Chris Faddis (02:36):
So, you’re the young side of the –
Bob Sansevere (02:38):
Yes.
Chris Faddis (02:38):
Tsunami. But the reality is if we don’t replace that, first of all, we’ve got issues with social security. How’s that going to be kept up? We’ve got issues with who’s going to take care of all of these folks as they get older and need help. I mean, there’s a lot of issues there that have to be solved. But also the reality is, what’s our country going to become if we’re not replacing ourselves? Yeah. So I’m doing my part. We’ve got six, you’ve done five. Maybe each listener can pledge to have some more or something.
Bob Sansevere (03:03):
Well, we have done more than five families worth right now between the two of us. They’re averaging two. We’ve done our part. We could sit back in the La-Z-Boy and know we’ve done our part.
Chris Faddis (03:14):
I think there’s some interesting strategies different countries have done. This isn’t my world, but I know some folks who are really into this kind of stuff of how do you encourage it? And I think that there’s certainly some merit to that and maybe that will help. We’ll see.
Bob Sansevere (03:32):
Well, and the other thing though is people who have come into this country illegally, I don’t think they’re abiding by the two babies rule.
Chris Faddis (03:42):
No, exactly.
Bob Sansevere (03:42):
And I also, and this is obviously, I think where the change started is when mothers decided to become working mothers. I mean, it was a time like when I was a baby, my mother, I mean, she worked, but she did not work when we were young. She became a seamstress. Maybe was I a teenager? I mean, they were a tailor and she did it for 50 years. But a lot of women, I mean, they want to have professional jobs, and I understand that. But in order to work out of the home, and if the husband is working too, you have to make enough money to afford daycare, which we never had to worry about daycare because my mother-in-law watched the kids when they were growing up and my wife was working, but it’s astronomical. I mean, you got to have a good job to make it worthwhile.
(04:30):
My daughter- Absolutely. They have a baby that was born in late November and they’re doing daycare and that’s just one kid. Imagine if you have several in it. So I guess I understand why people are cutting back on the number of kids they have. And what does it all mean? I don’t know what it all means going down the road. It’s not like we’re going to run out of people or will we? That’s not going to happen. I don’t think.
Chris Faddis (04:51):
Yeah, I don’t think, but you do have to consider the replacement side, right? Like you said, I mean, people, different countries, well, I mean, it’s already happened in several countries where the makeup of that country is very different now and it’s not the same. And then the culture starts to change and a lot of other things. So it is definitely an issue. It’s something we should pay attention to. I think children are such a gift, Bob. And I think there’s personally, my feeling is of all the things, even with solidarity, any good we can do, the best thing we could do is just have great kids and take care of them and teach them how to live and be good citizens. Absolutely. And you leave behind this legacy in your family, which is such a gift. I think about my grandfather and his seven children and what that’s merited.
(05:42):
I think that seems to be something we forget to highlight for people that this is a great gift that we get to be part of.
Bob Sansevere (05:48):
Well, I will say that I have advice for people. And I don’t know if you went through this with six, but we did such a great job with the first three. We coasted with these last two and oh my God, what a mistake that was. We thought it was all so easy. The two youngest are the ones that, whatever gray hairs I have, they’ve put them there.
Chris Faddis (06:08):
Exactly.
Bob Sansevere (06:09):
But anyway, that’s just some advice for people who are having a bigger- Yeah, don’t
Chris Faddis (06:14):
Set it, forget it.
Bob Sansevere (06:15):
Don’t think it’s easy because they’re all individuals. They all come with their own … You got to have a plan for each of them. So there’s that to keep in mind. All right. Now the other thing I wanted to ask you about is AI and there’s a headline where AI tests … Clinicians trust them and how providers are responding. We’ve talked about AI a little bit in the past, and solidarity’s using some AI, but you’re not going full bore into it, right?
Chris Faddis (06:46):
No, and we’re using it at a minimal level right now. We’ll be adding more. And it’s really, again, more for giving people more resources is our focus. It’s interesting, over the recent months, I’ve met several people who are doing different AI technologies for medical, and there are definitely some really, really interesting ideas and concepts that are beneficial to the individual. But yeah, you have to be very careful. I even talked to somebody who does some things with hospitals and insurance companies, and he agreed with me that you have to be careful. A lot of these people want to just take away the member experience, and that’s something that he’s really trying to avoid. So it’s an interesting space. I think, look, we need to reduce costs. So there’s certainly some reasons to pay attention to it and to come up with ideas to improve patient experiences, for sure.
Bob Sansevere (07:33):
Well, one of those things I saw, it’s like in rural areas, they’re doing … Ultrasounds are being done by AI, but I don’t know how you take the human person out of that. Who’s putting a little bit of gel on the belly? Do you have to come in with your husband and he puts it on you? I mean, I don’t really know how it works with AI.
Chris Faddis (07:51):
Yeah. And I think that’s one of the things that’s interesting. There’s a really incredible advancement with 3D CT scans of the heart and the heart vessels and everything, all the major arteries. What’s interesting is using AI in that context is actually helping predict and find more serious disease than you could have found with traditional CT scan.
Bob Sansevere (08:17):
Yes, and that’s a great thing.
Chris Faddis (08:18):
And so there’s incredible stories of that, that you take that and it’s able to actually using the AI, find the actual active plaques and things that are soft that are more dangerous than the ones that have already hardened and kind of be able to see like, “Hey, this person’s really close to potentially having a heart attack.” And so that is an interesting thing. I think there’s some advancements that could be really good. This story we’re talking about, one of the interesting things is two of these major health systems are using AI to sort of advise their physicians as oversight. That’s a little interesting to me because it’s like, if I’m a physician, if I’m an expert in my field and now I have a computer telling me, no, this is the diagnosis, to me that could get tricky because the hospital could be saying, “We don’t want, ” or the insurance company, for instance, could be saying, “We don’t want you leading a person down this path, and it might be the best path for them.” So there are other tools where I’ve seen people are using AI to help flag things for the physician to say, “Hey, you might want to look at this because based on the data, AI can more quickly put all the data together and say this might be an issue.” But this particular instance is the opposite.
(09:25):
It’s the AI telling the physician or giving oversight to the physician, and that’s concerning to me.
Bob Sansevere (09:31):
Well, where to me it’s concerning, the AI is only as good as the information available to it.
(09:37):
And I know here in Minnesota, there was a lawsuit that the attorneys used AI and it was wrong. It put in information in their brief or whatever they did, they got fined for it. So you got to make sure you’re getting good information in. And I’m going to give you some good information now. Solidarity HealthShare, solidarityhealthshare.org, great alternative to traditional healthcare. Go to the website, check it out. The numbers are there. Everything is there. Chris, as we mentioned, as the co-founder and president, and really it’s going to save you money and it’s a great alternative. So just check it out. There are people on the phones you can talk to. You won’t get stuck in some kind of an AI maze when you call. So take advantage of that. Chris Faddis, thank you. Take a quick break. The BS Show will be right back.