Month: December 2025

The Price is WHAT? (Ep. 38)

The Price is WHAT? (Ep. 38)

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Ralph Weber returns with Part 2 of the Healthcare History Series: The Price is WTP. This episode exposes how hospital pricing got so wildly inflated, starting with the 1929 Baylor teacher’s plan and exploding with the Medicare DRG system.

Ralph and Bill Tucker explain:

  • What the Chargemaster really is
  • Why PPO discounts are misleading
  • The administrative waste that’s costing $1 trillion+
  • Real-world data showing CT scans ranging from $635 to $19,800

💥 This is a must-listen for employers, brokers, and CFOs who want to stop feeding a system that’s rigged against them.

Contact Ralph:
📩 ralph@thebenefitwhisperer.com | 📞 (832) 924-3330
🌐 fixmybenefitsnow.com

Schedule a free consultation with Ralph today: bit.ly/48TGgrH

How Insurance Ate Healthcare: A Century of Healthcare Mistakes (Ep. 37)

How Insurance Ate Healthcare: A Century of Healthcare Mistakes (Ep. 37)

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In this first episode of a multi-part series, Ralph Weber breaks down how insurance swallowed American healthcare over the past 100 years. From pre-payment plans at Baylor Hospital to today’s PPO networks and charge master games, Ralph takes you through the legislation, incentives, and policy decisions that created today’s broken system.

Learn how hospitals got hooked on guaranteed payments, how WWII wage freezes helped launch employer insurance, and why Americans no longer know what healthcare actually costs.

00:00 Introduction to Healthcare and Insurance
03:12 The Evolution of Healthcare Financing
05:49 The Impact of World War II on Healthcare
10:35 The Rise of Employer-Sponsored Insurance
15:40 The Fragmentation of Healthcare Regulation
20:26 The Emergence of Managed Care
25:20 Conclusion and Future Discussions

🎧 Listen, learn, and share.

Schedule your FREE consultation with Ralph: bit.ly/48EPVCf

🔗 fixmybenefitsnow.com
📧 ralph@thebenefitwhisperer.com

What If Your Most Valuable Health Plan Asset Is the Data You’ve Never Seen? (Ep. 36)

What If Your Most Valuable Health Plan Asset Is the Data You’ve Never Seen? (Ep. 36)

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Welcome to The Benefit Whisperer, where we decode the nonsense in healthcare.

In this episode, Ralph Weber is joined by Chris Condeluci, one of the nation’s leading ERISA and healthcare transparency attorneys. Chris argues that pricing data and claims information aren’t just useful, they’re plan assets under ERISA. And if that’s true, carriers, TPAs, and PBMs may be fiduciaries… whether they like it or not.

This episode unpacks:

  • Why plan sponsors can’t meet fiduciary duty without full data access
  • How compensation disclosure rules are tightening around PBMs and TPAs
  • What’s coming in “Transparency 2.0” and routine audits
  • Why regulators may soon force carriers to open the books — or face liability

If you’re an employer, consultant, or HR leader tired of flying blind, this is the episode you can’t afford to skip.

Schedule a FREE CONSULTATION with Ralph: bit.ly/3Y5Gkhu

Learn more: https://fixmybenefitsnow.com
Contact Ralph: ralph@thebenefitwhisperer.com