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So I've been watching Cobra Kai again. Bear with me. Nobody on that show ever actually fixes a single problem. They opened a dojo, then they opened another dojo to fight the first dojo, then they reopened the original one with a different sensei. The LA dojo economy has a higher reproduction rate than rabbits. Sixty episodes in, and every problem they fix creates two more. At some point you have to admit, it's not really a show, it's a documentary about American policy. Okay. So the British colonial India had a real snake problem. So they decided to pay people to bring in dead ones. It worked, the numbers looked good, they closed the file, everyone moved on. Or did they? Well, people had started breeding cobras to collect the bounty. The government caught on and they canceled the program. And now the breeders who had invested in cobra infrastructure and had really become too big to fail did the only logical thing. They dumped the inventory in the back alley behind the building. There's the problem. Nobody went back to check, including, it turns out, the people who tell this story. I've heard this story for a long time. Fun thing I learned this week. That whole story? Mostly nonsense. Some Snake Society in Bombay actually looked into it back in 1887 and basically said, yeah, no, this isn't really happening. The dramatic alley reveal everyone tells, some newspaper guy printed it in 1873 with the words, it was alleged. The phrase Cobra effect itself didn't even exist until 2001. Some German economists made it up based on a story nobody had bothered to check, which means the Cobra effect itself may literally be a Cobra effect. A fake story about incentives that bred an entire incentive story industry, we bred academic cobras, which is, you know, actually the whole show. Let's take the ACA. Still in effect, real law. One of the things it does is tell insurance companies they gotta spend 80 cents of every premium dollar on actual medical care. It's a hard cap. Numbers looked good, they closed the file. Or did they? Because the insurers went and bought the hospitals and the doctor groups and the pharmacy chains. So now when United Health pays its own subsidiary optum for medical service, that payment technically counts as medical care under the rule, which technically it is $108 billion in internal transfers in 2022 alone, at the insurer paying itself. Fully compliant, auditor signed off, and everybody went home. Here's the thing nobody talks about. The cost control rule made cost control unprofitable because a bigger cost base means a bigger 80%, and the math doesn't know why it's being run. That's not cheating, that's just sweeping the leg. They bred cobras, allegedly. Okay, prior authorization. You've probably hit this one. Your doctor orders something, the insurance company says, hold on, we need to review this first, and the doctor on their end is supposed to take a look. Idea was fine. Stop unnecessary procedures, save some money, the numbers look good, they closed the file. Or did they? Because at Cigna, a licensed physician was spending 1.2 seconds per denial, and nobody on the Cigna side seemed to notice that's roughly about the same time it takes to blink. One doctor, 121,000 denials in two months. The doctor was technically licensed, the reviews were technically reviews, and the rule was technically followed. And when patients fought United Healthcare's Medicare Advantage denials in front of a federal judge, they won 90% of the time. United Health kept running the algorithm anyway, because they'd done the math. Almost nobody bothers fighting. They're not betting you're wrong, they're betting you're tired. You know how casinos remove the clocks? Same principle. Exhaustion is just part of the business model. Okay, Medicare. 1965. The government closes the coverage gap for seniors. Bipartisan, it was historic. They were proud of it. So they paid doctors per procedure, didn't attach any cost controls whatsoever, and then appeared surprised when spending doubled in five years. Which is, you know, exactly what happens when you pay people to do more of a thing. The cost explosion gave us managed care, which is just insurance companies getting between you and your doctor. Managed care needed prior authorization to function, and prior authorization gave us the algorithm running at 1.2 seconds. So the 1965 fix bred the managed care model that bred the prior authorization system, that bred the denial machine, you're hitting right now when your doctor tells you that you need an MRI. Every fix is the next cobra, and we don't actually know which one we're currently breeding, which would be more comforting if 60 years of paperwork didn't suggest this is exactly how it goes. So look, this is what the show does. Not me, the guy behind the desk, the whole thing. Healthcare, housing, food, debt, every episode picks one mechanism. The fix they told you they made, what actually happened when nobody went back to check, and what the research says would work. And I'll be the first to say, I'm not the Mona Lisa veto of the healthcare world. Healthcare sector PACs gave forty seven million dollars to Republicans, forty one million dollars to Democrats in the 2024 cycle. The Cobra doesn't register to vote, it just collects. Nobody is standing outside this system describing it clean. Everybody's in it, including me. My retirement plan literally improves when your claim gets denied. Housing is next, same predator, higher rent. My 401k holds UNH stock. Yours probably does too. The Cobra is in the index fund. We're going to read the receipts anyway. Subscribe. Bring a friend. We're gonna need some witnesses.