08.31.26 Shopping Healthcare / Dealing With Debt Collection

The American healthcare and financial systems can feel deeply broken, but you are not powerless. With healthcare costs skyrocketing and deductibles growing larger every year, many people feel trapped when facing a medical procedure. Clark shares an instructive real-world story from The Washington Post, explaining how price transparency (and lack thereof) impacts your wallet and why price-shopping non-emergency medical procedures is essential for protecting your savings. Clark also addresses the growing wave of financial stress facing millions of households now. As inflation strains budgets and credit card default rates rise, debt collectors are taking consumers to court in record numbers. If you or a loved one are dealing with aggressive debt collectors, Clark walks through your legal rights, how to stop harassing calls, and why getting every agreement in writing is non-negotiable. Plus, Christa shares your #AskClark questions and Clark gives his take. All this and more on the August 31, 2026, episode of The Clark Howard Show. Submit your questions: Ask Clark. Compare Medical Procedure Costs: Segment 1 Ask Clark: Segment 2 Debt Collection Help: Segment 3 Ask Clark: Segment 4 Mentioned on the show: [WPost] His surgery was $23,000. After shopping around, he paid less than $5,000. Americans seeking affordable doctors and medicines abroad — The Conversation Is Medical Tourism Right for You? - Clark Howard 10 Ways To Save Money on Health Care - Clark Howard Remove my private info from Google Search / Results about you Is the Privacy App Permission Slip Worth It? A Review 4 Rules Every Consumer Needs to Know to Fight Back Against Debt Collectors NYT: Debt Collection Suits Rise Sharply. Help for Consumers. How To Send a 'Drop Dead' Letter to a Collection Agency 6 Things To Know Before Contacting the National Foundation for Credit Counseling How To Find and Choose a Financial Advisor - Clark Howard What Is Umbrella Insurance and Do You Need It? - Clark Howard Best Free Password Managers: 10 Top Picks - Clark Howard How To Create and Use Passkeys - Clark Howard Clark.com resources: Episode transcripts Community. Clark.com / Ask Clark Clark.com daily money newsletter Consumer Action Center Free Helpline: 636-492-5275 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:06Speaker 03

  I'm so glad you're with us here on The Clark Howard Show, where our mission's to serve you with advice and information that empowers you so you make better financial decisions in your life. And wow, do we have to make financial decisions when it comes to our healthcare in ways I don't think any of us ever could have imagined we'd have to do. And so I've got some advice for you about shopping around, which is really where we are being forced to do with something that's hard to do. And something else that's not fun, but it's a reality for many of us as Americans.

• 1:50Speaker 03

  Debt levels are rising. I want to talk about your rights. If you're overwhelmed by debt and the letters and phone calls start coming, we're gonna talk about that later. But right now, we're gonna talk about something that accounts for about half of debt that people have in the United States: medicine. And I've talked forever and ever and ever about how we have the most expensive healthcare in the world. I mean, just astronomical compared to other places. But that's not the whole story.

• 2:29Speaker 03

  One of the things that I want to point out has become essential because the number of people who no longer have healthcare coverage has gone way up over the last year. I mean, huge millions of numbers of people no longer have healthcare coverage in the U.S. And then those who do have larger and larger and larger deductibles, you have to meet before you benefit from the very high premiums you may pay for health insurance. So the system obviously is broken, but I want to tell you, you're not powerless.

• 3:13Speaker 03

  There are things you can do. I want to give an example from a story I read in The Washington Post. And this is just one example of something that proves a point. A guy named Ron Rangel needed a surgery, and it was a hernia repair. And the hospital-based physician practice that he had gone to, he asked upfront, "What's the surgery gonna cost?" And they told him, after some hemming and hawing, they came back with an answer: $23,000 for the hernia operation. And it was just a normal hernia operation.

• 3:58Speaker 03

  And he couldn't afford having to pay all that. So what did he do? He shopped around. And he didn't shop just near, he shopped far, too. And what did he end up paying? $2,900. So I want you to think about what I just said. The hospital-based was $23,000. When he shopped around, including the surgeon's fee and anesthesia, $2,900. I mean, think about how most people go for non-emergency care and whatever they're told, "Okay, so you need this, you need that."

• 4:44Speaker 03

  Nobody ever, ever, not ever, unless it's a cosmetic surgery or something like that, that insurance is never involved, then they're really upfront with the pricing because they want to make sure they get their money. But for routine kind of medical stuff, the industry is not wired to tell you what the price is gonna be. They want you to eat the meal and then give you whatever bill they want to give you indigestion from. So shopping around is so key and essential for you to do. Now, if you're in an emergency situation, you're not conscious, you roll up to a hospital in an ambulance, this doesn't apply.

• 5:27Speaker 03

  But the overwhelming percent of procedures and surgeries people need, even if they're urgent, they're not emergency. And so shopping around is really important. One of the big problems, now, you can be someone without insurance, and you're being quoted these retail prices everywhere, or someone with insurance, and you've got the big deductibles and all that. Whichever case it is, you're facing potentially a mountain of a bill that may turn into a mountain of debt. So, you know, the simplest stuff, I've talked about going to get MRIs not at a hospital, cutting the price 90%. 90%!

• 6:11Speaker 03

  The surgery reduction cost was, what, 80%? If I do quick math. When you take the time to check the marketplace, it makes a big difference. Now, there are people who go a step further. And what they do instead, Ron had his in Maryland, by the way, so that's why it was a Washington Post story. But there are people who leave the United States and go overseas for expensive procedures. And then it's more difficult because assessing the quality is harder. We have information on Clark.com, how you can, as best as possible, assess the quality

• 6:56Speaker 03

  of care outside the United States. But most times, people are going to stay in the U.S. But a big mistake is to stay local. Because many times, traveling a little bit or a long way can make a big difference. And there are people whose health insurance will offer them a deal. They say, "Well, if you go to this place instead of that place, you'll have no deductible. We'll pay the full bill." Because the bill will be so much less. And so, these are the kind of things that people with insurance or without should be thinking about.

• 7:38Speaker 03

  And there was an attempt years ago by the Congress to try to force price disclosure from the medical industry. And hospitals have done everything they could to not comply. Because there's a dirty thing you gotta know: hospital bills are made up. Do you know that if you have a procedure, whatever, a hospital, they will add on an additional charge that basically doubles the cost of whatever you're having done? That'll be under euphemisms like "facility charge," "facility fee."

• 8:18Speaker 03

  The whole idea is to run that bill up to the sky and let everybody else pay for it. So, I know from time to time, I talk smack about hospitals, but there is a clear problem in the United States that these massive run-ups in healthcare costs, almost all of it is because of hospital concentration in a market, where hospitals have kind of carved up metro areas in the country and gotten enough market dominance that they can charge whatever. So the deals tend to be independent, particularly for things that are routine surgeries, outpatient

• 9:03Speaker 03

  centers, not affiliated with the monster hospital in a market. And so, it's your money, and we're gonna talk later about debt and what the debt collectors can do to you. I want to try to prevent the problem upfront when it's not an emergency.

• 9:21Speaker 04

  Joe in Tennessee says, "I love the podcast. Yours has been my number one podcast played on Spotify for years."

• 9:28Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 9:29Speaker 04

  Thank you for that. "I enjoy the vibe and interaction while driving or walking. My concern is about data broker removal services or personal data removal services. These platforms advertise searching for and requesting removal of your sensitive information, like your full name, home addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses, and family relations, on people's search sites and data broker databases. I know they cannot be 100% effective. I tried one big one for a year, but I never knew if the reports said were true. They included nice graphs and tables. I have no way to know if this is some kid in a basement making this stuff up. If it's a hoax, it is very elaborate. Are the big names legit? Do you recommend this service?

• 10:13Speaker 04

  The value of this service is an individual value judgment, I realize, but are they generally legit and effective? It seems like a lifetime commitment to keep information off of legitimate sites," and "legitimate" is in quotes. "I suppose there's nothing to stop scammers, thieves, and rapscallions from harvesting, stealing, and pilfering our data for their nefarious plots." I love that sentence. Your thoughts are appreciated.

• 10:41Speaker 03

  So, all right. This is one of the hardest things we have in the United States because we have an emerging patchwork of state laws that provide protection or would be protection in certain locations. We have no national law. We have no, uh, what the European Union uses, which has been very effective, what's known as the right to be forgotten. If you are not a public figure, you have the right to make yourself vanish from the web. Now, Google, as a worldwide company, has had to comply with the right to be forgotten in Europe. And they allow you to use the same tools in the United States

• 11:26Speaker 03

  that a lot of the information that aggregators pick up and post about you, it emanates originally from what Google has on you. So the only one that I know is a big player that has an effective way for you to suppress data about yourself is Google. And Google has something called the Google Removal Request Form, which you can use. And again, they automatically assess, are you a public figure or not? If, and most of us are not, you're able to wipe out what's there. And most things start from a Google search. A lot of the others, we have not found proof or evidence that they are effective.

• 12:11Speaker 03

  Consumer Reports, like something called Permission Slip.

• 12:15Speaker 04

  Well, they started it, I believe.

• 12:17Speaker 03

  And now they, they funded it.

• 12:19Speaker 04

  It's owned by Delete Me now.

• 12:21Speaker 03

  And so.

• 12:22Speaker 04

  Which is one of the big ones. Delete Me and Cogni, they're always advertising.

• 12:26Speaker 03

  But it's, this is a game of whack-a-mole, actually, because things just, they, you try to get them suppressed one place, they pop up somewhere else. And this is one that the answer is obvious. We need a legal right to control our own information about ourselves. I have no legal right. As a public figure, people are allowed to post anything they want about me, say whatever they want about me, put it anywhere, whatever. And that's fair game. But for a private citizen who is not in the public eye, it's absolutely ridiculous that we don't have

• 13:11Speaker 03

  this right to be forgotten. At the very least, use Google's tool, which is, as best I can tell, the best we really have right now.

• 13:21Speaker 04

  Sheri in Georgia says, my son inherited a large sum of money in a trust. He has just completed ATP flight school.

• 13:28Speaker 03

  Congratulations.

• 13:30Speaker 04

  Yes, the cost of the loan is now $143,000.

• 13:34Speaker 03

  Yuck.

• 13:35Speaker 04

  Should he take his inheritance and pay the loan in full or let the stock market make the payment? He is 21 years old.

• 13:42Speaker 03

  So Sheri, your son's going to have a great career in front of him. My 20-year-old, 21-year-old son also is on the same path. And it's a long, long journey to go from being an initial student pilot to being an, uh, professional pilot flying for a major airline or a big charter company or something like that. And so this debt that he has is kind of normal for someone going through a program to become a professional pilot. So the problem here is the interest rate on the loan is the key variable that helps you answer your question.

• 14:27Speaker 03

  If the interest rate is where I would suspect it would be, somewhere around 8% or above, there would be a direct advantage. Uh, at his age, he's not in a high tax bracket. He'll pay minimal capital gains. If the loan is in that kind of territory and interest rate, then it would make sense to pay this off. And then over time, what he would have paid towards the student loans, have the discipline to put in the retirement plan at the airline or, or whoever he's going to work for. He can use his twenties, as his income is rising, to keep putting money in.

• 15:11Speaker 03

  And initially as a pilot, because it's a seniority-based thing, he would absolutely want to be in the Roth version because then he's building tax-free money for his long-term future. Um, if by some wild stretch of the imagination, the loan rate is, let's say, below 6%, then it would make more sense at that point to pay the loan over time. But I would be highly skeptical that a private loan for flight would be below 8%.

• 15:46Speaker 04

  Richard in New Jersey says, I know you don't say, don't close credit cards as it impacts your score. Due to a lot of previous travel, I have over 25 credit cards.

• 15:56Speaker 03

  You can close some cards if you want. 25.

• 16:00Speaker 04

  Five are not active, and I would like to start closing these, not just for fees, but for relevance. I closed my first one with an annual fee of $495 and my score dropped from 850 to 838, but it's back climbing.

• 16:14Speaker 03

  It's great.

• 16:15Speaker 04

  What strategies did I use? Wait until 850 again, or every two months, close the next one?

• 16:20Speaker 03

  No, no, as long as your score is 760, 780 or above, you can do whatever you want. So I wouldn't willingly close all those cards at once, but I would, I would periodically close cards that are no longer relevant to you that have annual fees. Cards that don't have annual fees, I would keep them open. But the annual fee cards that have no relevance anymore, you should give them the heave-ho. On this point, I'd like to add one annex, Krista.

• 16:50Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 16:51Speaker 03

  For people who have been playing the mileage game and you got a card because they had a signup bonus of, you know, 60 to 120,000 miles seems kind of like the minimum, maximum and that. And you really don't fly as much as you thought or anything like that. Go ahead and bite the bullet and downgrade that card to one with little or no annual fee. If it's an airline-issued card and you're just not doing it a lot, they all have the entry-level card for them. It's $95 to $99 a year, somewhere right in there. You get a free bag if you check bags and a few other token benefits, but not the big package.

• 17:36Speaker 03

  You don't get the lounge, anything like that. Downgrade that, at least to that. You keep the card in the game with that airline and you reduce your expense so much because the airline cards are getting up to the point they're like 700 bucks for the premium cards. And this one, 500 bucks. It's a good idea, at the very least, if it's not truly relevant, to do the downgrade. Coming up ahead, we're going opposite direction. Not credit, but debt. Yuck. The debt problems are bad. And let me tell you what's happening. You have to be prepared for, or make sure a relative or a friend

• 18:20Speaker 03

  who's worried about their debts, what you got to know how to protect yourself.

• 18:27Speaker 05

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• 18:54Speaker 00

  This holiday, all plans, even unlimited, are just $15 a month. A holiday deal this good obviously deserves an enormously expensive holiday song, like All I Want [BLEEP]. Right, okay, we can't afford that. You know what? Forget the music budget. We're going to stick with whatever's in the public domain. Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch.

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  From the studio that brought you WandaVision.

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• 20:54Speaker 03

  Debts are going up at a crazy rate in the United States. For a lot of people, they are continuing to exist to pay bills, to buy groceries, having to borrow money to do so. Enormous financial stress in the midst of a time of big inflation. And pay raises have been really puny for a lot of people. People are falling behind financially in this thing that you've heard me talk about before, the K economy, where there's been a huge divergence between higher income earners, how they're living, how they're earning.

• 21:34Speaker 03

  And then people in the lower half of the income ladder. The gap is just getting larger and larger and larger. And so think about earlier in this podcast and YouTube show, talking about reward cards and, you know, big annual fees and all that. And then we have people who are doing pawn loans and in states where it's legal, doing those horrific payday loans and running up debt on credit cards and having auto loans that they're way upside down on. I mean, we really are a split economic picture right now in the United States.

• 22:17Speaker 03

  And for people who are struggling, the struggle is worse than it's been in a long time. I mean, you have to go back to the Great Recession to find people struggling with debt like they are right now. Credit card debt has doubled in not that many years, overall credit card debt in the United States. And the default rate has gone through the roof. So you know who's busy as could be right now is debt collectors. So first things first, if you are somebody or a relative, your kid, your sister, your

• 22:58Speaker 03

  brother, your, your best friend at work, if they're being harassed by debt collectors, you have the right, even though you still owe the debt, you have the right to tell them to get lost. And what does get lost mean? It means that they cannot contact you further about the debt by phone or text or any way they want to do. From that point forward, the only thing they're allowed to do, once you've given proper notice, is they're allowed to sue you against the debt. I'll come to that in a second.

• 23:37Speaker 03

  But for a lot of people, those harassing texts and phone calls, the brutality of them is so upsetting that people can end up with medical problems from it. And there's people who kind of try to avoid their debts. There are people who just can't pay them. If you can't, you can't. So that's number one, and we have information at Clark.com. If you do wish to properly notify a debt collector that they can't contact you further about it, we've got it for you. And that's really important. Second thing, if you do owe a debt and you'd like to make an accommodation on it, you

• 24:22Speaker 03

  can negotiate. And depending on the debt collector, they may offer you a deal. But do you know that deal is only valid if you have it in writing? Way too many times over the decades, I've heard from people who negotiated a deal with the debt collector in good faith, paid what the deal said. And then the debt collector came after them for the rest of the debt, saying, you can't prove you made a deal with us. That's why the deal must be in writing. It can be in an email, a text, I'm not so sure. It can be in a letter, but you have to have it in writing that payment of X amount of

• 25:04Speaker 03

  money is a full and complete settlement of the debt, period. Now, it's not going to necessarily improve your credit if your credit's gone in the toilet, but over time, your credit heals from those debts. Now let's go to what's happening today. Remember I said you can stop them from contacting you, but it doesn't stop them from suing you. A lot of debt collectors as a strategy today, don't even bother trying to collect, they just go straight to court. So this is what's really dangerous. So you get a notice of a debt. They could be wrong, they could be seeking from the wrong person, the wrong amount, or it could be something you already paid, whatever it is.

• 25:48Speaker 03

  When you get that notice, you must answer it. Now usually it's going to be not a legal action is the first thing you're going to hear. You will get a notice. Don't ignore it. Don't say, oh, they're wrong about that and throw it away. You must answer it in writing, not by phone call. You must answer that because if you don't, it's considered to be valid. And it even says that on the notice, that if you dispute this debt, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Dispute it if it's not accurate. Even if you might owe money, the amount may be really wrong. If you don't say anything, that amount becomes the amount. But then it can get worse.

• 26:31Speaker 03

  And this is where the lawsuits come in. If you do not respond to a lawsuit, you don't go to court. I've seen estimates that the percent of people who respond or go to court is something like one or 2%. That people just somehow think the problem goes away if you ignore it. You can't do that. You have to go stand up for yourself. And so often, when you're being sued, it will be from what's known as a sewer buyer, a debt, you know, somebody who buys old, old, old debts that may not be valid under statute of limitations anymore.

• 27:14Speaker 03

  So just the age of a debt could invalidate it. But what happens is the production lawyers go to court. They're before the judge, they say, we're seeking this much against this person, this much against that person, this much against another person. And if you're not there, which apparently is 98 or 99% of the time, people don't show up, that judgment is granted by the judge. There's nobody to say to the judge, well, your honor, that was 14 years ago and the statute of limitations, four years or five years or six, or whatever it is in your state. Just showing up usually means that you are going to win, or at least not lose as badly.

• 27:57Speaker 03

  Default judgment is your enemy because at that point, once they have the judgment, they can garnish you your wages, take money from your bank account. I mean, it gets really, really ugly in a hurry. So stand up for yourself. Silence is acquiescence and leads to further pain.

• 28:20Speaker 04

  Okay. Anonymous in California sent this one in. I know someone who is a big fan and is constantly listening to your podcast. I would love for you to discuss taking frugality and saving too far. All conversations are focused on the cost of things. Behaviors are borderline hoarding. This person doesn't enjoy life because they feel like they have to save everything, but will also buy things just because they're on sale, even though they're not actually needed. They have plenty of money and can retire comfortably. I've also recommended speaking with a therapist, but I seriously think hearing it from you would be helpful.

• 28:58Speaker 03

  All right. Well, anonymous, I can tell you're very worried about this person. And the only thing that kind of threw me off in what you wrote is the thing about buying things just because they're on sale. Somebody who's extremely frugal and is depriving themselves, usually they're not even doing that. But you don't know what happened in this person's history that has made them, by your estimation and your, your knowledge of them, frugal to a fault. There is such a thing as frugal to a fault. And, you know, we've talked from time to time about some of the goofy things I've done to save money over the years.

• 29:43Speaker 03

  But I also learned over time that I had created the kind of financial security independence in my life that I am willing to spend on certain things that I really enjoy. Obviously, we talk a lot about how much I get to travel and what a privilege that is for me. And it's one that I'm willing to spend the money on. And it's all about trying to help your friend.

• 30:13Speaker 03

  Think about, instead of, instead of saying, you know, you really are being terrible to yourself. You know, this frugality is not working. Talk to them about their dreams, what things they'd love to do. What things are really fun that they haven't gotten around to? Make it, make it an aspirational kind of conversation. And maybe you're right, maybe the person has deep seated trauma from earlier in their lives that they do need therapy for. But a lot of times it's just really getting somebody to focus on loosening up. One of my best friends from college is someone who also has plenty of money, like your friend.

• 30:53Speaker 03

  And he and I have talked over the years about loosening up some, and he really has gotten there. Where he is spending more freely than he ever did. So sometimes it's just talking about, wouldn't it be great to go do this? Or what would you love doing? Do you want to go? Krista was talking in another podcast about the joy she had on an Alaska cruise 15 years ago. And lit up, you lit up talking about it. So it doesn't have to be travel, it can be who knows what will bring your friend joy. So instead of doing it like, this is terrible, you're doing this.

• 31:34Speaker 03

  Talk about it positively, aspirationally, what things really would be fun to do. You know, you always talked about doing blah, blah, blah. Why don't we go do that?

• 31:45Speaker 04

  I also, if you don't mind me putting in perspective.

• 31:49Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 31:50Speaker 04

  I would say you're talking about joy. For me, it would, the line would be, does this give my friend joy or give my friend stress? Is this person stressed and that's why they're constantly frugal? They're afraid to retire, they feel like they need to have all this stuff because they're never going to have enough? Or do they, do they talk about it a lot because they love getting a bargain? Like for me, it's the, what is it doing for that person? Because maybe part of their joy is doing that. But yes, if it's become stressful and they're not living their life, that's a different situation.

• 32:22Speaker 03

  You know, it just occurred to me, as you were saying that. This individual may benefit from sitting down with a fee only fiduciary financial planner. Who can say, hey, you know, you're really set for life here. That might help if there's great fear about outliving their money. I mean, we don't, we don't know, other than what you've said anonymous. What other things may be there that this person is dealing with deeply inside? But maybe it is just fear of not being broke.

• 32:58Speaker 04

  Sure, that's a lot of people's big fear.

• 33:00Speaker 03

  That's a real legitimate fear.

• 33:02Speaker 04

  Stefan in Pennsylvania says, with thanks to Clark's years of advice, our net worth exceeds $11 million. Wow.

• 33:11Speaker 03

  Wow, and, and it's thanks to you, the things you implemented in your life, that you're sitting there with 11 million plus.

• 33:20Speaker 04

  We've been taking Clark's advice to buy personal liability insurance. And in the past, it was reasonably priced. We just think of it as a rich tax. However, personal liability insurance premiums have increased exponentially in the past three years. With the most recent annual increase of 40% to $2,650. And that was for $8 million of coverage. Also, I'm told that our insurance company, who also ensures our house and car, no longer sells coverage above $10 million. The premium for $10 million is just above $3,000 plus. Additionally, the internet is full of advice that says, the more liability insurance you carry, the more of a magnet you are to litigious activity.

• 34:02Speaker 04

  Do you have any advice for us? Thanks for all you've done to help us be successful.

• 34:07Speaker 03

  Again, congratulations. And it is true, when you have a large umbrella insurance policy, when a lawyer is coming after you. That does become like a target. But what you don't want is exposure to liability risk. As you've worked for 20 plus years to build up this enormous wealth, this $11 million. That could vanish instantly. Now, one thing you didn't read, and I'm not going to say, is who your current insurer is. They are the wrong insurance company for you to be with, with your level of wealth. You are in a different category now.

• 34:49Speaker 03

  And a mid-market insurer like you're with, doesn't want you actually. They don't want high net worth individuals. They're very worried about the lawsuit risk involved. And so they would really like you to go away. And they're saying that with the premium increases, tapping the amount of umbrella insurance you can get. And you should look at one of the insurers that specialize in insuring extremely wealthy people. Which you may not think of yourself as extremely wealthy. Let me tell you, you are. And so Chubb is considered to be the biggest player in this.

• 35:30Speaker 03

  There's another one called Pure, and then AIG. Those three are probably the, the dominant players in insuring high net worth individuals and families in the United States. And that's the real important thing here, is for you to give the heave ho to the insurer you're with. Because you're not their customer, you're not who they're looking to insure. They're terrified of the risk you may represent to them.

• 36:05Speaker 04

  Hal in New Jersey says, what is your perspective on password managers, like OnePassword or LastPass? LastPass was hacked two years ago and the perps were supposedly mining for crypto credentials to this day.

• 36:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, Hal, Krista was in the, you were in the LastPass hack, right?

• 36:24Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 36:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, and this is no fun when you pay for something to give you these crazy weird passwords. Isn't it funny, the passwords it generates?

• 36:37Speaker 04

  It is.

• 36:39Speaker 03

  Passwords are an obsolete technology. And I think using a password manager is superior to what we can do for ourselves. I use Google's password manager, because that one's free. Anyway, and it, it creates these, I have trouble typing them in manually myself. There's so many letters and numbers and characters and symbols and whatever. But the best thing to do, Hal, is as it continues to be offered to you, switch to pass keys. Pass keys are biometric, they are much.

• 37:18Speaker 04

  They could be pins.

• 37:21Speaker 03

  Pass keys?

• 37:21Speaker 04

  Yeah. They can be, sure.

• 37:24Speaker 03

  Because I only think of them, the way I use them.

• 37:27Speaker 04

  It's something that's stored, but it's not, but you, you enter it, you, you get access to it through a biometric or a PIN, however you set it up. That's not the actual pass key, the pass key is like stored in the computer.

• 37:40Speaker 03

  Thank you. It's biometric access to sensitive stuff instead of password based. Which passwords, no matter what people have tried, they have not ended up being secure. So that's why, and, and when you think about even LastPass itself being hacked. I mean, my goodness. So as more and more companies adopt technologies that are biometric. That will give you an additional layer of protection. Except if you watched a movie decades ago that Krista always mentions.

• 38:18Speaker 04

  Minority Report, all came true. Yep, it was crazy.

• 38:23Speaker 03

  Yes, I, I never saw it, I don't know what it's about. But Krista always gives it an example when I talk about biometrics being the best way to protect yourself.

• 38:33Speaker 04

  I mean, it was very, it was interesting. It was like this future world where everyone, you could use your fingerprint or your eyeballs were a big way to get identified. And then people would sell, like sell eyeballs and do these black market surgeries to, you know, have someone else's eyeballs. And then you'd walk into a store and the store would automatically say like, hello, mister whoever it was. Like the name of the person whose eyeballs you got, like, so everything was watching you. And it all happened. I mean, not the eyeball thing yet, that I know of. But somebody did get their finger cut off, remember when this was first happening with the, for their Mercedes, with the fingerprint?

• 39:11Speaker 03

  The most expensive Mercedes and the car thieves wanted it. Yeah, pretty gruesome. Yeah. Okay, so.

• 39:20Speaker 04

  Anyway.

• 39:21Speaker 03

  So anyway.

• 39:22Speaker 04

  Fun way to finish the podcast.

• 39:24Speaker 03

  Anyway, Hal, I still think that using biometrics, when that is made available. It's a consortium of tech companies trying to deal with all the hacking. And they're using biometrics as a way to seal off your sites as best they can from the hackers. I think that is the best answer. And how you could leave people with the image of somebody's finger being chopped off to steal their Mercedes.

• 39:51Speaker 04

  Isn't eyeballs on a black market worse? Eyeball surgery?

• 39:55Speaker 03

  Well, all I'm thinking is. If you steal an expensive European car, then you're stuck with the repair bills that come with an expensive European car. Because everything's times 10 or 20 in one of those. Wow. Anyway, we're gonna end August, our last podcast of August, the last day of August. You know what it means? What about September do I love so much?

• 40:27Speaker 04

  Football.

• 40:27Speaker 03

  Football. Well, college already started, but I mean, real football.

• 40:32Speaker 04

  Your NFL.

• 40:32Speaker 03

  NFL, my beloved NFL, just around the corner. So even though the days are getting shorter and the hot weather that I adore is looking more in the rearview mirror. I do have coming up my NFL football. All of you who know that I'm a Falcons fan. I was debating with my son, how many games the Falcons will win this season? And he was the optimistic one.

• 41:05Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 41:06Speaker 03

  That they'd go seven and 10. Oh, it's gonna be a long season.

• 41:11Speaker 04

  Now's the time to be optimistic.

• 41:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, you always are. You say that thing that, so you're saying there's a chance?

• 41:19Speaker 04

  You always call, say, I have crystal colored glasses.

• 41:21Speaker 03

  You do have crystal colored glasses. It's just, it's been a lot of rough seasons in a row, so.

• 41:28Speaker 04

  You have been, yeah, you were at that famous Super Bowl.

• 41:32Speaker 03

  Infamous Super Bowl.

• 41:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 41:34Speaker 03

  In Houston. What a great stadium. That stadium is wonderful. That was the good part of the game.

• 41:40Speaker 04

  You sent me a picture I still have of you drinking out of a water fountain to show me you didn't buy the drink.

• 41:47Speaker 03

  I mean, the cost of refreshments at that game? I mean, I would have to work an extra year just to cover. What'd they want to charge in that beautiful stadium to have anything to eat or drink?

• 42:01Speaker 04

  After you bought a ticket to the Super Bowl?

• 42:03Speaker 03

  Well, that's a story in itself.

• 42:06Speaker 04

  I know. Tell it. It's the end of the podcast. First of all, you didn't even fly to Houston.

• 42:10Speaker 03

  No, it was too expensive. All right, so I'm giving a speech. And while I'm on stage, you know, I wear these smartwatchy things. I see on my phone a text from my brother Neil. I bought you a ticket to the Super Bowl in a bar I'm in. Get here. And this is the night before the Super Bowl. And so I just stopped right in the middle of giving the speech and read the text and people are like doubled over laughing. Like, how am I even gonna get there? So I finished the speech. And by the way, my brother said, I bought you this ticket. You owe me that, I say?

• 42:52Speaker 04

  Right.

• 42:53Speaker 03

  $1,250.

• 42:54Speaker 04

  No, you didn't say, okay.

• 42:55Speaker 03

  $1,250, which is actually, for the Super Bowl, not a bad price, but I wasn't gonna go. And so the closest city I could get a last minute ticket to that was less than an arm, a leg and a foot was Austin. So I flew into Austin, rented a car, drove to Houston and made it just before kickoff and.

• 43:18Speaker 04

  Should've left at halftime.

• 43:19Speaker 03

  Should've left at the end of the third quarter when it was 28 to 3.

• 43:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, in the third quarter, that's right.

• 43:26Speaker 03

  So then the game ends and I had to drive back to Austin. Got there at like 3:00 in the morning. But I refreshed myself by stopping at Buc-E's between Houston and Dallas.

• 43:43Speaker 04

  Did you drown your sorrows in some Beaver Nuggets?

• 43:46Speaker 03

  I don't eat Beaver Nuggets.

• 43:47Speaker 04

  You don't?

• 43:48Speaker 03

  No, but I got, I got something to eat, finally. After not eating in the stadium, got something to drink. Got into Austin really late at night, then had to get up early the next morning to fly back east. And every single person on the plane was an Atlanta Falcons fan.

• 44:12Speaker 04

  Oof. Yeah.

• 44:13Speaker 03

  And it was like we had all been to a funeral. And I mean, it was, you know what it was like? It was like flight attendants talk about their least favorite route is flying people to Las Vegas.

• 44:28Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 44:29Speaker 03

  And their most favorite route is flying people home from Vegas. Cause they're all basically passed out on the plane.

• 44:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, I bet.

• 44:36Speaker 03

  Coming from Vegas back to wherever they are. It was like a post-Vegas return home flight for all the fans.

• 44:45Speaker 04

  That's brutal.

• 44:47Speaker 03

  It was brutal. But I did, so I had to pay the $1,250 for the ticket. $1,250.

• 44:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:54Speaker 03

  I'd never paid.

• 44:55Speaker 04

  Your siblings have always enjoyed spending your money.

• 44:58Speaker 03

  So, I mean, before that, the most I'd ever paid for any sporting event in my life was a double digit price.

• 45:06Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 45:07Speaker 03

  I mean, that's, that's all I'd ever paid. But I used points for the flight, paid for the hotel and paid for the car rental. So it was the $1,250 and almost nothing else, plus my stop at Buc-E's. And then just before my flight back, I went to In-N-Out Burger in Austin.

• 45:27Speaker 04

  Oh, well, there's a win.

• 45:29Speaker 03

  And then everything was better.

• 45:30Speaker 04

  That's, there's a theme here. Food makes it better. Inexpensive food. Boy, I've never heard you also talk as negatively and with as much kind of visceral anger as you did about Bill Belichick over the years. You haven't talked about him in a while.

• 45:49Speaker 03

  You ask people that are University of North Carolina fans, how they feel about Belichick. But anyway, I digress.

• 45:57Speaker 04

  I digress. Sorry. Go ahead.

• 45:59Speaker 03

  So, I mean, for me, my pride has always been how little I pay for tickets to sporting events. And last season, my son, have I told the story about Grant wanting to go see The Swamp?

• 46:15Speaker 04

  Oh, you told me, not on the air. You haven't told on, on the podcast.

• 46:19Speaker 03

  Okay, so if you know anything about college football, it's a big deal to go to a game at the University of Florida Stadium in Gainesville. And my son calls me on Friday night and says, Dad, there are tickets to tomorrow's game between Texas and Florida. And we should go. I'm like, tomorrow? So I get up really early in the morning. I go pick him up at school, have to drive way out of the way, pick him up. And we drive down to Gainesville. So the first challenge, I drop him off at the sta, oh, just before we got to Gainesville, I waited till the game was about to start.

• 47:04Speaker 03

  We got tickets to the game for 20 bucks each. On, I think it was StubHub, I forget where we bought them. And I'll jump ahead for a second. So I'm sitting next to people who bought tickets like a year in advance and they paid $600 each.

• 47:23Speaker 04

  Ouch.

• 47:24Speaker 03

  I didn't have the heart to say what we paid. But we were at the very top of the end zone of the stadium. So then I dropped Grant off because I wasn't gonna pay for parking.

• 47:36Speaker 04

  Sure, of course not.

• 47:37Speaker 03

  So he, he sends me my ticket. He goes on in. I missed the whole first quarter, but I found parking for free.

• 47:44Speaker 04

  But you got your 20,000 steps in for that walk.

• 47:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I found a space. We go on street parking about a mile and a quarter from the stadium. Took me a while to find it. Walk back to the stadium, go inside, and it was a great experience being in that stadium. It's absolutely completely a dump. But the environment in the stadium is great.

• 48:10Speaker 04

  Like electric.

• 48:11Speaker 03

  It is. And for an NFL fan, there are a few NFL cities that are like that for games, but most NFL cities, the stadiums have such a corporate vibe. This was like true fans. It was quite a great experience.

• 48:29Speaker 04

  That's awesome. And you got to do it with your son, which is the most important part.

• 48:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I got the driving. I mean, I was in the car forever. But we got to do that together.

• 48:42Speaker 04

  That's great.

• 48:43Speaker 03

  And who else has gotten to go free parking, 20 buck tickets?

• 48:49Speaker 04

  Only you. They cracked the mold.

• 48:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, but when Grant and I went to see your beloved Boston College in the Pinstripe Bowl in Yankee Stadium, two Pinstripe Bowls ago, I think we got in there for 10 bucks.

• 49:07Speaker 04

  Wow. Not bad.

• 49:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, and we saw your school with the fans. They were all very nicely dressed and Boston College would do something nice in the game and they go.

• 49:21Speaker 04

  That is just not fair.

• 49:23Speaker 03

  Nebraska fans who beat the daylights out of you in that game. The Nebraska fans are like, they're into it and they're screaming and they're yelling. And every time they didn't like what the refs did, they used language, you could have no children around. I mean.

• 49:37Speaker 04

  Well, no wonder.

• 49:38Speaker 03

  They were real football fans.

• 49:40Speaker 04

  The B C fans are real fans, maybe because they were getting killed. It was a little.

• 49:44Speaker 03

  I don't know. It was, it was pretty, pretty amazingly disappointing.

• 49:48Speaker 04

  Well, you need to go to a game in Chestnut Hill and you'll change your tune.

• 49:52Speaker 03

  Yeah. You know I don't do cold weather, right?

• 49:55Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, I've said this before on here. I challenged you. It's warm in the beginning of the season.

• 49:59Speaker 03

  You have a college that you went to, your daughter went to, that is one of the toughest in America to get into, harder to get into than a lot of Ivy Leagues.

• 50:08Speaker 04

  I wouldn't say that.

• 50:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, it is. You, the acceptance rate, yeah. But the problem is their IQ isn't smart enough to know they should play indoors.

• 50:19Speaker 04

  You gotta be tough, Mark. Toughen up, toughen up.

• 50:22Speaker 03

  I am not a tough nut. I do not do cold weather. You know, the only time cold weather has a purpose.

• 50:30Speaker 04

  Skiing.

• 50:30Speaker 03

  That's right. No other. Do you think anybody is watching or listening right now?

• 50:35Speaker 04

  I don't know. Give us a, tell us how long you watch for on YouTube. Give us a little comment. I'd love to see that. I made it to the end. I did it.

• 50:45Speaker 03

  I punished myself.

• 50:47Speaker 04

  Some people listen while they're walking.

• 50:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:49Speaker 04

  So maybe they got extra steps in.

• 50:51Speaker 03

  That's right. They got like an extra 20 minutes of walking or running in. Yeah. Well, anyway, enough of all this. I hope the rest of your Monday is great and we will be at your service Wednesday.

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