Solidarity HealthShare President and Co-Founder Chris Faddis joins Bob Sansevere of The BS Show to discuss bird flu concerns in the U.S. as well as what the healthcare landscape may look like in the coming four years. Listen to the interview in full or read the transcript 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, I’ve been seeing a lot lately about bird flu. There’s someone I think in Louisiana who’s hospitalized and is this the next pandemic and how worried should we be? Or is the government just trying to scare people?

Chris Faddis (00:27):

Yeah, I think Bob, obviously that people are talking about it. I think there’s been more than just one case. (It’s been 40 since April, I think.) Expecting it.

Bob Sansevere (00:37):

Yeah,

Chris Faddis (00:37):

40, is that right? Yeah. But I still think, I mean, I would say based on the numbers, I mean we’re really nowhere near a pandemic. We’ve been reading up on it, kind of paying attention other than some kind of government agents, I’m sorry, agents is probably the wrong word, but government folks, I’m not really hearing a whole lot of concern. Of course, there is a push to have a vaccination done, so that’s always raises my skepticism. So I don’t think it’s something for us to be fearful of yet. And certainly be mindful if you have chickens, if you have birds, you’d all do all the precautionary things. But I think for the most part, we’re probably still okay. And 40 some cases in nine months to me does not a pandemic make.

Bob Sansevere (01:27):

And it also appears that people that are getting sick, it involves dead birds. They were already in people.

Chris Faddis (01:33):

Exactly.

Bob Sansevere (01:34):

And if there’s a lot of people at have, I mean, more and more people in the cities are having chickens because they want ’em to lay eggs for ’em. Just be careful if your chicken dies, put a mask on or puts, I dunno, about a hazmat suit.

Chris Faddis (01:46):

Exactly. Take the precautions. I just told my neighbor the same thing. There was a couple of chickens at people’s homes that were found with bird flu recently. And so you need to read up on it. You need to know what to do. But again, that’s how it’s spread is through interaction with a bird and a human. And so if you take the precautions, if you wear the mask, if you glove, do those things, you should be okay. And then from there, you shouldn’t spread it from human to human.

Bob Sansevere (02:20):

And also from every time we’ve had a dead, anything small animal or a bird at the farm, I got to shovel, I don’t even touch ’em. They find their way to our, we’ve got one of those big industrial dumpsters. We have a farm and we go through a lot of bags of feed and things so that we need to throw ’em in. So those things go in the dumpster with the lid closed. Now that might be not be the smartest thing, but I’m not touching them. I’m not going near those things. I am wary of anything that’s dead. Alright, now.

Chris Faddis (02:55):

Yeah, I’m the same way. I’m the same way. We’ve had some animals found on our rats or cats or whatever and you just kind of-

Bob Sansevere (03:04):

Be precautionary.

Chris Faddis (03:05):

Yeah. Be precautions to get rid of that. I don’t really want to look at it either, so I’m masked up. I’m gloved up.

Bob Sansevere (03:12):

That’s right. You know what? I think I will look into the hazmat suit just to have it on hand.

Chris Faddis (03:17):

Exactly. Exactly. Just in case.

Bob Sansevere (03:19):

Get ’em. Alright. Now I want to ask you, a year from now, a year from today, just a year from roughly a year from now, will we be saying, my goodness that Trump administration did incredible things with healthcare? Or will we be shaking our fists saying that doggone on Trump administration, they really blew it. What do you think? Because a lot that could happen over the next year.

Chris Faddis (03:44):

Yeah, I think from a regulatory standpoint, I think there’s going to be a lot of good changes. I think obviously it takes time to get all these rules

(03:53):

Written and then put in place and there’s a public comment period. So how much can actually get done in the next year? Obviously it’ll be probably less than, there’ll be a lot of announcements, a lot of plans made, how much it’ll actually get implemented will be the question. And then I think with Congress, it’s still yet to be told I how much will they get done? I mean, they’ve got a lot of things in front of ’em like this debt ceiling and tax reform or tax bill they’ve got to do. And so there’s some opportunities there to get some things done with healthcare. We’re hopeful to use reconciliation to make some quick fixes in Congress. But yeah, I would say my over under Bob is that we’ll say it’s a net positive in a year.

Bob Sansevere (04:37):

Oh, that’s good.

Chris Faddis (04:39):

And hopefully on its way to much more positive that there’s things being implemented that are going to take effect over the next year or two. But remember, we really have presidentially. Of course, he’s got four years and hopefully his cabinet and everyone he’s putting in place sticks around that whole time. And we have a really good consistent flow of good things happening. But then you also have to realize that in a year the house starts to focus on their reelection, so we start to get less done. So I think a lot needs to get done in this first a hundred to 200 days to really be a meaningful change.

Bob Sansevere (05:18):

You talked to obviously a lot of people on the Hill. You have a lot of consultants and people you talk to. Is there concern or is it again, it’s the other side of the aisle and both sides do it? Whether if it’s Democrats controlling or Republicans controlling, they always find a way to rip the other side. Should we be concerned about Robert F. Kennedy Jr running Health and Human Services, or are people taking a wait and see? I think they should take a wait and see, but what are they doing?

Chris Faddis (05:47):

I definitely think they should take a wait and see. I don’t think, first of all, he’s not a vaccine denier. He’s not just saying we’re going to get rid of all of it, but he is saying, we’re going to uncover what’s really there and look and really study these things. I mean, there’s real concerns when some of these drugs have little or no testing or studies done, and yet we’re enforcing them on American people. So those things are going to be good. I also think there’s some good people being brought in. I mean, Dr. Marty Makary coming in to head. I think it’s one of the main agencies now. I keep forgetting which one, but Dr. Makary is one of the leading epidemiologists and a physician from John Hopkins. Before he went against the narrative on Covid, he was considered, he was the expert. Fox, M-S-N-B-C-C-N-N.

(06:37):

They all had him on a regular basis. This guy is incredibly brilliant, very knowledgeable. He’s heading one of the main agencies. There’s good people being brought in. So I think RFK is, hey, let’s have good hope. I think he wants to do the right thing for the American people. One of the big things Bobby wants to bring back, as we’ve talked about, is this idea of personalized medicine. This idea that we get to direct our healthcare, which is something we talk about a lot on our time together. That’s an important thing and I’m excited for it. So I’d say wait and see and let’s cheer him on because I think he can do good things. Opacity is not a good thing for healthcare, and we need transparency, and that’s what he wants to bring about.

Bob Sansevere (07:21):

Well, have you heard him say anything about, because you’re much more attuned to this than I’m about health sharing. I mean, is he a proponent of it or is he not really weighed in on it yet?

Chris Faddis (07:31):

He hasn’t really weighed in on it yet, but I think enough people in his sphere know about it and know what we are up to and others are up to. And we’re hopeful that he’ll be excited about it. One of the benefits we have is to be able to share, not only do we what we do and health sharing and price transparency and all that, but the fact is we support the kind of medicine he’s saying we need to bring about in America and this idea of personalized medicine. We’re very active in that space. So I think it’s one of those things that he is interested in. I had a chance to meet him shortly before the election and share a little bit of that with him, and he was very intrigued and so we’re hopeful that there’ll be some positivity there from him. But definitely some of the other folks that are coming into HHS and other parts of the administration are very knowledgeable about healthcare sharing and favorable to it.

Bob Sansevere (08:25):

I’m not going to go on a tangent here, but the one thing that does, and I have a lot of people I know and friends who I consider very bright, except they buy into the narrative that the media feeds them. And RFK Junior is bad, but I don’t understand why you can’t be an independent thinker about things. And now so many people, I feel bad for all these families, Thanksgiving, Christmas, now New Year’s too, that have become estranged because Trump got elected and there are people who are so much smarter than the rest of us who it’s just terrible.

Chris Faddis (09:03):

It’s a sad thing. I think what you’re seeing, and I hope people more and more people will catch on. I think a lot of people have, what you’re seeing is that some of these partying lines are being erased. Obviously RFK is not a MAGA guy, but he sees in Trump the ability to say, Hey, we need to look at these broken problems in our government and we need to fix them. And Trump in his, obviously he doesn’t agree with RFK on everything, but he saw and heard from RFK what he wants to do. And look, the reality is it is not okay that the American people have had blindfolds put on them when it comes to their healthcare, when it comes to pharmaceutical drugs, when it comes to vaccinations, all those things. And again, RFK is not trying to get rid of those things, but he’s saying we need to bring about true transparency and true testing and take away the fact that a lot of these pharmaceutical companies have a hold on these government agencies.

(10:01):

And that’s not okay. So it’ll be very interesting. You mentioned healthcare sharing. One thing, Bob, the former director, executive director of the Alliance for Healthcare Sharing, which is our organization that the different ministries use to do policy work and all that, is a former congressman named Dave Weldon, and he was appointed to the CDC spot. So Dave Weldon, Dr. Marty Makary. There’s a lot of really smart, very knowledgeable people coming in. It’s not just RFK and I think people are going to find that these guys are on our side and they’re trying to fight for us. So I would say wait and see. Let’s give ’em a shot. Let’s hope for the best. I think we’re going to see a lot less regulatory punishments of ideological divides, which is what we saw with the Biden administration.

Bob Sansevere (10:54):

Well, that would be absolutely terrific. Alright, Chris, as always greatly appreciated. Chris Faddis, president and co-founder of Solidarity HealthShare, solidarityhealthshare.org. Check it out, great alternative to traditional healthcare. Take a quick break. The BS show’ll be right back.

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