The Last Line of Defense: Protecting the Independent Medicare Agent | Insurance 360 Ep. 28

In this episode of Insurance 360, Calvin Bagley joins Bob and Rob for a candid conversation on the growing pressure agents face from CMS regulations, shifting carrier strategies, and public misconceptions about our industry. From commission shakeups and non-commissionable plans to advocacy efforts on Capitol Hill, this is a must-watch for any agent gearing up for AEP 2026. Calvin shares how a walk into CMS led to real change — and why now, more than ever, independent brokers must be ready to defend their role.

The system is shifting. The stakes are rising. Agents, it’s time to hold the line.

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Transcript

Insurance 360: Episode 28
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All right. Good afternoon everybody. Bob here with my friend Rob.

What's up man?

Another beautiful day.

One of these days. I'm gonna slide in, you know.

Can everyone see our mugs? Mugs? Limited offer? Let us know. Rob will hook you up with them.

Yeah, I got you guys.

Right. It's June. What's happening and fun in your world?

Well, one, it's 99 degrees right now, so that's probably not fun. But, uh, as a short guy that's, uh, you know, stout, I sweat a little bit more, especially sweating because of the certification season.

It's got us all sweating. 

Just thinking about the fact that they're starting already certifications. 

2026. It is wild that I'm talking about that.

It's crazy, but , it's actually a perfect segue. We were able to wrap for a couple of minutes. I think a great person to talk a little bit about a lot of what's going on, especially the certifications and Medicare. Our good friend Calvin Bagley, is gonna take a couple minutes out of his day to join us here.

And Rob, I don't know if you know this, but. Calvin. I've known Calvin for, I don't know, Calvin. How long now? 10 years plus.

10-12 years?

Yeah, it's been a while, but we really appreciate taking a couple of minutes because it's Medicare season. Nothing going on. It's summertime. You know, we're all just kind of figuring it out, right?

That's right. Yeah. I'm excited to be here with Bob and Rob. I was thinking, man, I wish I had. A three letter, first name. I mean, only Cal, Bob, Rob, and Cal. But yeah.

We can figure it out. So Calvin, I mean, I'm just gonna go through at a high level.

So Calvin's agent, agency owner. Going through now, he's like industry advocate. I hate to put a label on you, but we can go through. I mean all in all, he is always been that entrepreneurial spirit, but I think throughout his growth, I mean, at this point, I think you've grown more into that person that's really a voice for the industry in general. A lot of speaking going on. He wrote a book, I don't know, in his spare time when he was visiting, what, Antarctica? You wrote a book out there. So where do you look at where you've been and where you are right now over the last 10, 12 years?

Yeah. You know, my story's a little complex, but everybody's story is complex. It includes a wild, crazy childhood that goes into, I just finished my memoir, which is releasing in August, which is actually not related at all to Medicare or to my entrepreneurship. It's just kind of my story.

But eventually somewhere in my midlife, I found my way into Medicare insurance. I was working as an executive for Bank of America and was overseeing branches and it was the financial crisis of 2007-2009 and I discovered Medicare insurance and started as one agent sitting at the kitchen table, looking at the family pictures, talking about, you know, what's best, for the insurance for this, this person retiring or already in retirement and then eventually grew that into an agency.

And over the past few years, just, almost two years now, I stepped outta the role of CEO of my own agency and promoted my right hand guy who's been with me for 10 years, Jeremy Wiser, took over the operations and that gave me the opportunity to really start to talk about advocacy and what needs to happen in the industry because I saw what was happening with the Final Rule and some of these other things and saw just so much negativity about the role of a Medicare insurance agent, a Medicare broker that did not jive and did not.

It was a complete contrast from what I saw was the reality of the good things that were being done by insurance brokers helping people with Medicare.

People look at us and say, oh, you're just out for commissions and you're trying to get paid as much as possible, and you're just doing things based on what pays, but the reality of what I see every day are brokers that are helping people to figure out how they can afford to feed their pet and fill their prescriptions, and what are they going to do when that bill comes in the mail from a doctor's office, and it says that they owe a hundred dollars and they don't have a hundred dollars. They can't afford milk right now. Who helps them? Everybody else represents themselves or their company. You've got representatives from doctor's offices, you've got representatives from hospitals, you've got representatives from the government.

Who represents the senior?

It's us, it's the independent insurance agent. And so I started to do a lot more advocacy and speaking out on that and, actually just found out 45 minutes ago that I was nominated and accepted the, to work on the National Medicare Advisory Group for NABIP. 

Beautiful. 

Nice.

You should have told us. We'll, we're gonna give you a handle on that, but we would've given you a drum roll. That's like breaking news, man. You gotta let that go. Come out big. That's fantastic.

I mean, listen, we've been a part of NABIP we go back to, NAHU, right?

I still say NAHU.

Yeah, I still catch myself a little bit. I'm like, "oh no, I mean NABIP," but they were the organization honestly, that throughout the years has really been that voice for the agents in the industry. You remember this, what was it, 10 years ago there was a push to cut commissions completely from Medicare Advantage and social media right now is a lot bigger in this kind of stuff, but then I don't even know if the agents realize it was going on at the time and really it was, NAHU at the time, NABIP that jumped in and really got with CMS and said, "Hey, you can't do this." The impact of that on the whole ecosystem, the impact of beneficiaries and quality of care and getting in the right plan would've been catastrophic and I think that's what we over the last couple of years have been battling, right? I mean, you've been seeing the final rules coming out and it's always like right in the middle of AEP, perfect time to do a little light reading from the government and it's like, all right, what did we get hit with this year? What are we up against?

You know, that that's really what started my involvement was going back to Washington DC and getting involved with NABIP, NAHU at the time, and going to the Capitol Conference, and there was these final rules were coming out and every year were progressively making it more and more difficult for independent insurance agents to work in Medicare.

Regulation favors large corporation. Regulation favors big call centers and it kills the little guy. And the little guy in this case is the Medicare insurance agent who is in community and of community who lives and works in the place where the seniors are and the people with Medicare are and sees them at the grocery store, knows them by name. They are their neighbors, right? These are the people that are being squashed by more and more regulation.

So, you know, when a rule comes out that says you have to record all your phone calls and keep them for 10 years, a big call center's like, "okay, we actually are good with that. We already do it. We have the money for it, we have the technology for it. Everyone sits in a cubicle and has a headset on. So we're set," but the independent insurance agent who meets with people at the grocery store and at Starbucks and at the kitchen table. It's very, very difficult for them to follow these rules and so when this was happening, I went to DC and I started to do some advocacy and I was new to it and I was nervous to be in DC and I went, and I met with, a few senators and I was talking to the senator that I, I'm from Las Vegas, Nevada. I was talking to the senator from Nevada and I said, "There's all this stuff happening at CMS" and she said to me, "well, have you talked to them?" And I thought, well, the idea ever came in my head that

i'm just one little guy, right? My agency's grown and we've had a lot of success, but in the full landscape of Medicare distribution, I'm a small guy and I said, " no, I haven't really thought about that" and she said, "well, if you have any trouble getting an appointment with them, you just let me know and i'll help you get in to speak to them," and that was the offer that she made to help me with this.

So I thought, I said, well, you know what? Lemme grab my phone. I'm just gonna look like where is CMS? And it just turns out that they're just right down the hill from, uh, where all the representatives are on Capitol Hill.

It's like, I don't know, five minute walk so I just walked down there. I walked down to CMS, super naive as I am, and I just opened the door and walked in and thought, well, you know what, I'll just go talk to them.

When you go see a senator. Their door is open because they're a representative of the public, unfortunately, and I think that this is a little upside down. Regulators, they are not elected by us and there's almost that feeling that they don't necessarily work for us so they don't, you can't just walk in and talk to a regulator. You can't walk in and talk to CMS, you, you greet it with a big glass wall and a security guard.

And he asked me, "well, do you have an appointment to see someone?" And I said, "well, no." but he was very nice. I said, "how _would_ I talk to somebody?"

And he said, "you gotta go on the website and you have to request a meeting." And so I did that. I was in DC I went to my hotel, I opened up the website for CMS and I found the place that he talked about, and I submitted a request to meet with Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, who was the administrator for CMS at the time, and I said, "Hey, I'm in DC. I'm only here for three or four days. I would love to meet with you and talk about this final rule." Well, I didn't get to meet with Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, but I did get to meet with a lot of really important regulators, including those who are overseeing the final rule and that has led to multiple other meetings and for me, a lot of confidence in advocating and saying anyone can speak out, anyone can have an impact. And you know, that's kind of been my story that's brought me to here. There's a lot involved in that story, but what brought me here was going to DC with NABIP, NAHU at the time, and taking the step to just walk down to CMS and say, yeah, I, I want to talk to somebody and now I'm going to have the opportunity to talk to a lot of people.

Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah. And you don't think about it that way, but. You can talk a little bit about that experience, but the way I think about, and you think about a large government agency overseeing Medicare, right? How much do they know about really what's going on at the local level? They're looking big picture.

They're like, "all right, well, we gotta save some money. We can chop a couple things here. Do away with commissions. We can have the carriers pay more," but they don't really get to see that point of view and I think over the last couple of years, I think there's been that big push to give them an idea of what does an agent do? How do they help an individual get from, "I'm in Medicare what plans should I have, what are even my options, right? Is Medicare supplement, you got advantage plans, you've got a whole variety of things to choose from. What, is there 43 some plans, Rob, in like every county? I think as of last year,

I mean there's gonna be far less this year, I think, but I do think you remember that show? What was it? Uh. Undercover boss. Yeah. I think we should do that with some of these government agencies, because you gotta admit some of the rules and regulations that they come with, it's almost like they're throwing a dart at a board and they're like, yes, no.

And like, all right, well we hit yes. Um, you, you get the concept right, the grand scheme of it, but I don't think that they understand the implementation of it as the trainer here. I can tell you the recording aspect that year that it was implemented was like the worst year of my life because you're teaching some of these people who are not familiar with electronics, you know, they're just now getting used to the internet and the electronic submissions, now I gotta teach 'em how to record a phone call. 

And the first question was always, "well, how do I do that?"

Yeah.

How do I record a phone call?

Well, and it also doesn't help that a lot of the regulations that like the FCC has come out with stopped phones from being able to record phone call conversations, Calvin, I don't know if you've been familiar, but like Android and Apple years back, you could just hit a record button and that was just like a staple thing and then they came out with a rule saying they couldn't have that and now it's kind of come back, where you can record calls with your phones. In fact, I think Android just released it. I'm gonna say like 2-3 months ago with their, newest release, I think 10.0, you can actually record phone calls again so I can finally get rid of my third party recording service that I've been spending $60 a month for but, I think the rules and regulations from a bunch of those different agencies just have crazy impacts everywhere you look.

They conflict with each other because the thing that has still never been addressed about the phone call thing is what about privacy? A lot of people, particularly seniors, they don't want their phone call recorded. So, you know, that's still never been addressed. And my experience in meeting with the regulators was like this.

I realized very quickly that they had very good intentions. They knew there was a problem and there was a problem. The part of the reason that complaints skyrocketed at Medicare is because independent insurance agents were telling their clients their, the people who trusted them to complain to Medicare about things like the Joe Namath commercial that was just practically fraud. You're taking the best benefit from Florida and you're broadcasting it in, Sioux Falls. It's not there. They don't have that benefit there and so the complaints were going up and they, the intention of the regulators was to do something about that. But a few things that I realized very quickly, one is, they had a picture of what we did in helping people choose plans, but they didn't have a realization of what we did afterwards.

And that's something I think that has been really important that we're trying to, explain over and over to regulators. Legislators, is what is the value of an independent broker, not just in choosing the right plan, but what about what happens after, like I shared earlier, that advocacy that only a broker can do for on behalf of a senior with Medicare that no one else can do.

If you're a ship counselor, there isn't, there isn't oversight, there isn't anyone for that person to come back to. If you're a representative from an insurance plan advising that person, your primary number one is the insurance company that's paying your salary, right? It's not that person. There's only one representative for seniors, and that's independent brokers.

So painting that picture and helping them to see that and see the difference between who we are. And who a big call center is and who a lead generator is and who a, an agent that works for an insurance company is, that has been the continual challenge, and we are making some headway there.

But that has been a continual challenge with, without a doubt. 

A lot of moving parts there for sure. And then let's throw on top of it that every four years there's gonna be this big election where the people in charge are gonna change and they're gonna think differently, and they're gonna have different goals on how things are to be run.

So let's jump right into our good friend, Dr. Oz. I mean, it hasn't been long, but I think we're starting to see some stuff, right? We've seen the old videos where it seemed like he was pro the Medicare Advantage. I think we've all seen some of the YouTube stuff from when he was not in the public life, but now that he's in this circle what's your take on to what we've seen so far? I know it's only been a little bit, there should be, you know, some perspective that he's gonna bring to the table. 

My take right now is that the actions that we're seeing come outta CMS under Dr. Oz don't seem to match what we expected from his background and his advocacy on behalf of Medicare Advantage in some ways and in other ways they do. It's really complicated. There's so much pressure in DC right now to cut costs and to lower spending and to reduce waste and fraud and abuse and what have you and so that's been this continual thing. It's interesting with Dr. Oz, we've seen that Medicare Advantage plans are gonna be funded better in 2026. So that's a positive. At the same time, Medicare Advantage plans are going to have more oversight than ever in the history of Medicare Advantage.

There's going to be so much oversight on all their billing practices and everything like that. So yeah, it's very interesting. And then when it comes to insurance agents we know that Dr. Oz received payments for advocating for Medicare Advantage and was very pro Medicare Advantage on his show, but some of his statements publicly have said that the abuse and fraud and waste that he's seen at CMS have to do with insurance agents, flipping people into plans to make commissions, and that's such an oversimplification of what it takes for an independent agent to find the right plan for somebody. To keep them in the right plan. Last AEP, we had to rewrite a giant section i'm literally writing thousands, thousands, and thousands of our clients onto new plans because the plans degraded benefits and changed so much. You could look at that and say, "oh, they're just flipping things." No, our whole responsibility is to represent the senior and find what's best for them so that has concerned me. I would say it's kind of this mixed bag right now, what I'm seeing with Dr. Oz on one side, he is, they're funding Medicare Advantage more, but on the other side, some of the actions are concerning me and some of the rhetoric around insurance agents is concerning me. 

That's a great point you just brought up. I mean, last year was kind of crazy with the plan changes, and quite honestly, I'm afraid it could happen again this year.

I, I feel like there's still enough. Noise going on that, and we're seeing it already with the PPOs midstream. They're pulling up from enrollment platforms, they're making plans non-commissionable. This is mid-year stuff. So what are the plans gonna look like come AEP? Are we all in the agents? When I say all, are we all gonna be still in that mode of "I gotta find out what the right plan is and spend most of my time really getting my clients in that right plan," and an agent and an agency, you know this, I mean, we're looking to grow our business. We'd like everybody to be like, stay in the plan you're in. That's still the best plan for you. Any questions, let me know. And that's just not been the way it was last year and we might be in the same boat this upcoming year. The way, the way it's looking.

Well, I mean with the PPOs, it's just like the stock market, right? Since I started, I've been here over 10 years now. It's kind of crazy to think about, but when I first started the PPO thing was starting to go up, right? And it goes up and then up and up and up and now everyone's got tons of PPOs they're just ripe with great benefits. $4,000 in dental and all this stuff 'cause in the past, it was HMOs more robust, less network, maneuverability, whereas the PPOs give you that network maneuverability, but they might not have better benefits.

It got to a point where PPOs were having better benefits than the HMOs. So I think that we're maybe at a correction, I think with the PPOs because you can only go up so much before you have to come back to reality. That's maybe my personal opinion, but I think from, just from seeing all this stuff, I mean, it, it was bound to happen at some point, and I think it was just kind of a perfect storm, you know?

What are you thinking, Calvin? Are we gonna have a big shakeup again this year. What are the agents saying out there in the field?

I think we're gonna have a big shakeup. You know, one of my favorite people to follow on LinkedIn is Jared Strock, a great actuary. I'm sure a lot of you who watched this also followed Jared yesterday. He posted something about the profitability and the margins of Medicare Advantage plans. 2025 is the first time in 14 years that Medicare Advantage plans are losing money. They've always at least had a positive margin so we're seeing all these things happen with carriers. It's frustrating. I don't feel like a carrier should have the ability to change their plan to non-commissionable mid-year if they also can't change their benefits.

They submitted that plan to CMS with commissions as part of the plan and so to remove that midway through the year seems like that should not be permitted. But I know why they're doing it. They're losing money that it's, it was such a challenging year coming into 2025. So many changes. The Inflation Reduction Act, CMS was incredibly active, 2024 was probably the most active year we've ever seen for regulation in Medicare Advantage. And so carriers right up to the, right, up to the 11th hour didn't even have their plans together. CMS kept giving 'em more time, kept giving 'em more adjustments, and so they didn't even have their plans until the very last minute because they couldn't figure out how to handle all the risks and what the risk would be and we're seeing them in some cases, I won't say losing their shirt, but definitely losing money and that is not sustainable.

They can't lose money.

So I don't like what's happened. I don't see it as an indication that carriers don't wanna partner with us. I don't see it as an indication that carriers don't see the value that we provide. I think our carrier partners are still our partners and that they're facing a lot of pressure right now, but the result of that will be next year I think there's gonna be a lot of changes again, and now Medicare's going to be funded a little better, which is good that should help them to offset their losses, but I think it's going, there's still gonna be a lot of shakeups.

And particularly it seems to be in the PPO space, I think we'll see a lot of changes to PPO, which means there'll be a lot of people that need help. For an independent insurance agent, that means opportunity for our clients, it means more disruption.

So if I had a crystal ball and I was looking forward to AEP at the end of this year, I would say it's gonna be very busy and there's gonna be a big shakeup and get yourself ready 'cause your clients are gonna need you. 

Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned the inflation reduction Act. That is a big impact just in itself. So, we talk about how that impacts Part D, but part D is part of the advantage plans in general. I mean, the government real quickly saw that there was gonna be some problems back in August and when they rolled out the, the stabilization program, we'll call it and that's supposed to be what in effect for three years where.

All of a sudden they're getting bids from the carriers and it's like, all right, instead of a $30 premium, it's $120. And they said, whoa, election year. Whoa, ease up there so we did have that come in and help out a little bit, but, you're right, there's a lot of pressure on the carriers right now and they need to be profitable, that's just, they're in business. At the end of the day, they gotta provide a good plan and make sure that clients are getting the right care, but they've also gotta be profitable to be able to survive at the end of the day but we did get some good news it looks like hot off the press right around, what, four o'clock yesterday. I know you, you saw the information as well, so commissions. So historically we've always seen a little bit of a bump this year, I think we were all sort of like, well. We'll see, but it looks like it's out there again.

I mean, how do you read into the fact that commissions are gonna go up again a little bit? Which is great. It's a big positive.

It's, it's a very positive message. I think, again, it highlights that the value that we provide and the work that we do is not lost. On regulators and on our carrier partners and others and so that was a very reaffirming and reassuring message. Part of the reason that it went up so much is because of the increase in funding to Medicare Advantage plans and so if you look historically when Medicare Advantage plans have an increase in funding, then typically insurance agents who represent Medicare plans will have an increase. You know, CMS will increase what the mid the maximum commission is for Medicare Advantage and prescription drug plans. So those usually go hand in hand. Uh, this increase, if you look over the history is, might be the largest one that we have seen and that really surprised me.

Same here. We were, we were talking about it. We're like, all well, is this right?

I mean, you're accustomed to what? A 3% increase when you're talking 10 to 15, you start to look, you're like, wow. This is, obviously, you're not gonna see that in the PDP world and you know, I half-expected those to be the only thing that you see go down, but, it was great. It's positive.

Then Dr. Oz just turned 65, and so for a 65th birthday, I released a list of 65 things that Dr. Oz could do to improve the outcomes for people with Medicare.

I love that. You wanna give us, you wanna give us the top five?

Every one of them starts with strengthening the role expanding the role of a licensed insurance agent or broker and that lists why that's important. There's 65 reasons why that's important, how that will in increase the outcomes. And so seeing the increase in commissions, I feel like that's a step towards.

Stabilizing and increasing the role of a insurance broker or licensed insurance agent to help increase the outcomes for our seniors. 

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Now, I'm sure Dr. Oz is probably on the government plan, but did we. Does anybody notice he have an agent?

Do we need to, give him a call, see if he needs some help. Somebody sent him a help navigating, he's probably looking on medicare.gov trying to figure it out himself probably realizing that's pretty daunting. 

You know, he released a video on X and on YouTube on his 65th birthday and the video's, I have to tell you, if you, if I ran that up to Pinnacles compliance and, or AmeriLife or whoever.

I guarantee that it would've been rejected. That is not a compliant advertisement. 

Did he talk about benefits and premiums? Did he have any disclaimers? 

Yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of forbidden language in there about the best and experts and all kinds of stuff. 

Listen, thankfully they pulled back a little bit on what was in the final rule with the marketing, right? When that final rule came out for 2026, it was like everything, all of a sudden was gonna have to be filed with CMS, regardless of whether it had premiums or benefits on it and the first thing we said in the office was.

Who the heck in the, have enough people in the government to take all these requests. I mean, this is never gonna happen. 

Well, it's right in the same department where they're all listening to the recorded phone calls. So,

I guess, and Elon's, you know, he's firing people. Like half the people are gone now were there. I don't know who's taking all these requests so thankfully, that got mixed. Could you imagine if every ad for every single thing agents in your agency had to file just to try and communicate with their clients? It would be a nightmare. 

You know, when that came out, I said that this was the worst thing that they could have done and the worst, _*the worst*_ thing.

Because just to be able to post on social media to even say the words or to have a business card or anything that says, "I can help you with your Medicare" you'd have to have that approved by every carrier you represent and CMS 'cause you can't just go to CMS, every carrier has to approve it first. That's the way that it's written. So to get them to agree on anything has been so difficult already. So to say that there's no difference between communication and marketing, between education and marketing was going to be the worst rule that they had ever instituted and thankfully it didn't happen, but what Dr. Oz did in his video is he said, "Hey, everybody, do what I did. I'm turning 65. I called the experts at 1-800-MEDICARE." Well, here's the problem. When you call the experts at 1-800-MEDICARE, what did the experts tell you?

" We can't give you advice that doesn't sound like an expert."

"We can't give you advice on what to do with your Medicare."

We can only help you enroll in Medicare. Okay? So that's, that is not what I call speaking to an expert. And what they do is then they refer you to your state health insurance program. The American Medical Association, their journal, the J.A.M.A., did a whole project where they did some research and they, not research, but, they tested all the ships to say, "Hey, how effective are ship counselors in giving advice?" And that report that came out from the study, it is, I use the phrase 'damning.' It is so bad because , just to answer the question, "is this provider in the network?" They could only get the right answer. The Journal, journal of American, of the American Medical Association got the right answer. 24%, excuse me, 26% of the time. 26% of the time they got the right answer. 

Bob: That's scathing. Yeah, scathing. Right, so if we're encouraging people to go that way, and I, as an insurance broker have to tell people to call 1-800-MEDICARE or your local ship office, it's very painful because I know that they're going to receive inferior advice. Bob: Right. Versus a licensed professional, bonded and insured, someone who has standards, who has to maintain those standards and has all the marketing rules and everything like that. That's the professional, right.

Versus, you know, a volunteer who has gone through a few hours of training and is kind of let loose on the world and is now receiving calls directly from medicare.gov.

I think that's, I think that's a dangerous system. And so, you know, at first I was kind of excited because I saw the big, beautiful bill actually did not include fund additional funding for ship counselors and I thought, well, this is a, a step in the right direction to say, hey, let's use more of the real professionals, but unfortunately that has been changed and there is now a lot of funding in including an increase in funding for ships. So I'm not anti ship, I just think that there's, that there needs to be, an understanding about the difference, right?

That you have professionals who are held standards, who are actually in like E&O insured, et cetera, advising people full-time versus your neighbor who occasionally, went through a little bit of training and occasionally gives advice to people.

Anecdotally, what I have seen from ship locally. Is that usually a ship counselor will point people towards the plan that they have. If a ship counselor has a Medicare Advantage plan, then they'll, then people will come to them and they'll say, "Hey, you should do the same thing I did. It's working out great for me."

That's not professional high quality advice. So I was a little disconcerted to see, you know, that being pushed, but ultimately the next day this commission announcement came out I said, "well, maybe our value is still seen." 

Yeah. 

But you know what, the, what doesn't make sense to me is they already have something in place, right? So for ACA they have help on demand. Why not just implement that? And it's literally, it's created, it works. That's how, you know, some people that do ACA get leads. I'm involved in it, i'll get calls randomly. Why don't they do the same thing for Medicare? I'm sure everyone would love a free lead from the government and you'd still get like an actual insurance agent that knows what they're doing. I mean, but here I am talking crazy. Uh, but I mean, it's something that the government has that exists already. 

I think a lot of it's still, to your point, it's this, there's still a stigma on the insurance industry in general. We've certainly seen some of the complaints going up.

There's been a lot of that. Um, we've gotta continue to fight into our best to right the ship and it's always the way it's, you know. 99% of the ones that are doing things the right way get impacted by the 1% that aren't doing things the right way, but nonetheless we've gotta keep doing that and I know we'll keep working with the advocacy groups like NABIP. They're still doing a great job out there. I know Calvin, I've seen you speak at several of them to, to the insurance agents and still fighting the good fight. I think that's what we still gotta do. We've been at this for a long time the demographic's growing. The reality of it is, is that it's a lot of money, but what's the alternative? They're not gonna hire, you know, 20,000 people to try and manage this, it's the independent agent.

Yeah.

The model's tried and true and that's where we know the success is coming from. So, at the end of the day, if we're looking at our tea leaves, I think we're still in a positive light, right? With the Medicare industry, I think we still are gonna see a lot of growth over the next handful of years. I think short of something drastic happen, we're probably gonna see continued growth. You know, Calvin, do you see anything different, you know, for the future?

I see continued growth. I see the, the role of the Medicare broker is critical. Is receiving more recognition. There's still a long way to go. I see that there's going to continue to be uncertainty in the market and continue to have shakeups, with carriers and plans and things like that and that means that we are very needed.

So yes, I would say there continues to be growth on the horizon. There are some really positive things that I think are coming. One of, one of the biggest detractors of Medicare insurance agents has been Senator Wyden, and he was over the Senate Finance Committee. I've had the opportunity to meet with his healthcare advisor over healthcare policy, Eva DuGoff a couple of times, and the first time I sat down with her, you reminded me of this, Rob, 'cause you said, you know, we have, in ACA , they send people directly to insurance agents right off the government website because insurance agents are the professionals, right?

It makes a lot of sense.

So I was meeting with Senator Wyden's, healthcare advisor on, healthcare policy, and I said to Eva, "you know, it's really odd to me that we have these totally different rules between ACA and Medicare" that under ACA, insurance agents. There wa s a big hand slap that happened this in this past year, but previously they were used very effectively where under Medicare, they are like excused and, and avoided.

Why is it so different between the two? Why? Why don't we do both? Like why don't we use agents in Medicare the way we use them in ACA?

And I shared with her some of that thought, and she said, that's interesting because, there's some political stuff, you know; Democrats typically like ACA, don't like Medicare Advantage. Republicans usually like Medicare Advantage and don't like ACA. Why? Because of where it originated, right?

They're basically the same thing: federal dollars going into insurance companies to provide benefits. One side to seniors, one side to the public, but it's the government infusing capital into insurance companies one way or the other, but they should operate more similarly, is what I'm saying and so, just this past, just a few months ago, Senator Wyden released a new report about the 'marketing middleman,' which is the negative term that he coined, about us as insurance agents and his FMOs and everything, but what was interesting is that when you got to the end of his report, his conclusions, that there was a lot of stuff in there that was pretty negative, but you get to the end and you see the conclusions and you know what, he's really close to the right answer.

And that really got me excited, i'm like, he has gotten really close to the right answer and I think that, that our advocacy has helped with that because what he said in the end was, one of the issues is, is that insurance companies can choose whether or not they work with insurance agents and that is what's creating bias.

Because for a long time politicians felt like the bias was happening because of commissions, we're biased because of payment. No, actually, a lot of the bias happens because we're not allowed, we're restricted. A lot of insurance companies won't even permit us to represent their plans, and so he's basically says every insurance company should use insurance agents and every insurance company should pay insurance agents a reasonable fee.

And I said, wow, you know, if you wanna reduce bias and re doesn't that make sense? And that is so far from where he was just two years ago and that encourages me, so if you ask about the tea leaves and looking forward, I would say there are some really positive things that we can get excited about when detractors like Senator Wyden start to say things that make a lot of sense.

I like that. Yeah. Here, here we go.

I'll cheers to the government.

Yeah. Cheers. Cheers to the government for good news. Yeah, exactly. Well, listen, I love when I can end on common sense coming from all points there, so. Calvin, I mean, there's a lot of information, there's a lot going on.

Probably some more changes coming down the road. I have no doubt plans are gonna start coming out here in the next couple of months. We'll get a little preview of what we can expect from the carrier. So I'm sure we'll get some curve balls on that. But, really appreciate your insights and, and I hope maybe.

Some of that information comes out, maybe we can circle back and kind of dissect where we were right and where we were wrong on this and like hopefully, we'll, we'll look at these plans and we'll say, you know what, they're still pretty good and maybe we won't have this chaos this year.

We'll see. 

Well, you know what, though? That reminds me. I think we're gonna have something in September right? To maybe quell some of the crisis.

Oh, Calvin did you hear about this big event in September? Where all insurance agents are gonna be invited to Florida at the Kia Center to hear from all the experts and at that point there's gonna be a lot of updates.

It's the Pinnacle Championship event. I mean, perfect timing, at that point we should know everything, and of course, I mean, listen. Every agent should come and bring a friend.

Tickets are, the tickets are no cost, no cost to the tickets and I think it'll be a great time.

And I know we've talked about this event with you already, Calvin, but you know, it is perfect. Seamless. You'll hit AEP running. 

Yeah. And those are always fantastic events. 

Absolutely. So, you know, with that, thank you again for jumping on with us a couple of minutes man, I know you're probably going to run some other meetings somewhere or I don't know, you're flying out to some NABIP?

Are you going to Australia? What's next?

Whatever fun location is it is.

Actually guys, I am headed to Alaska on Saturday, taking my son fishing because travel is like everything for me.

Nice.

But it was so great being on here with you guys. I really enjoyed it.

Yeah. Thank you so much, man. Now have a great trip and then we'll talk soon. 

Thank you.