Larry Kleinman: Executive VP and Chief Human Resources Officer of Highmark Health Shares Commitment to Continue Partnership with Bender Consulting Services, Inc., Hiring People with Disabilities as an Integral Part of Workforce.

At Highmark Health, we believe what makes us unique makes us better. Our differences broaden our perspectives and foster a variety of skills to complement each other, creating a stronger and more vibrant workforce. It's this belief that earned us recognition as the Best Place to Work for the 10th year for individuals with disabilities in a survey by the American Association of People with Disabilities and Disability:IN. We'll continue to celebrate and benefit from the inclusion of all people. To find out more, visit highmarkhealth.org. Welcome to Disability Matters with your host Joyce Bender. All comments, views, and opinions expressed on the show are solely those of the host, guest, and callers. Now the host of Disability Matters, here's Joyce Bender.

Hi everyone, welcome to the show. So nice to have you with us. And I'm going to tell you right now, guess what? 150 countries. 150 listeners. Do you remember when I used to say 14? 150 countries. So I'm going to— there are several, or maybe there's one or two. So I'm going to just use one example. Tanzania. Tanzania. There is one listener. I say this on every show. Just remember, one person can make a difference. I'm so proud of you. You need to spread the news. Tell other people, English speaking, about this show. Help me change the world. And Singapore. Oh my goodness. What's going on there? After the United States, you are the largest listening country. So I don't know what you're doing, but thank you and keep spreading the news. And then of course, everyone in the United States, you know, and the Americas, you are just wonderful. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you. I know we have some listeners that are listening to almost, if not all, every show, and that means so much to me. Thank you so much. Yoshiko Dart, special shout out to you, my dear friend, and our sponsor for years, Highmark Health. What can I say? Greatest company, best company. And, you know, for other business leaders, for politicos, I say Highmark sets the high mark for other companies to follow, and we have calling in a guest, actually calling in from Park City. We have the one and only great Larry Kleinman, who is Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resource Officer, but I have to say, and my friend, I'm telling you right now to everyone listening that has a disability, you have no idea what this man has done to support Bender and support the employment of people with disabilities. I mean, he's in like the top. He has done so much, and I just think the world of him. He is one of my very favorite people. Larry Kleinman, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Joyce Bender. I appreciate it. Thanks for inviting me. I'm looking forward to talking with people. Sorry, we're having a little video problem, so I can't be on screen apparently, but happy to answer all your questions.

Well, they can still hear your wonderful voice, so you're calling in. That's how I look at it. So, Larry, I wanted you to tell everyone about what was your first job. Like when David Holmberg was on, I couldn't believe when he said selling jewelry. But what was your first job? And then what caused you to be interested in human resources?

Very different things, Joyce Bender. My first job was washing dishes in the cafeteria. So That lasted about 2 days, and, and, um, I learned that I better pay attention in school because that's not what I wanted to do for a living, um, or a career. Um, it was getting into HR was actually— I, I would say it wasn't really a goal at some point. It was— I had been doing— I'd, I'd done sales, I'd started my own company, sold that, and And then I was doing management consulting with a lot of large global companies like GE, Unilever, Becton Dickinson, et cetera. And after doing that for about 8 years, and my job was to figure out how to help companies change to perform better globally. And at the end of that last project, I was, it was a project for Becton Dickinson. The president of the company asked me if I'd be willing to join them and because my wife and I had just had our third child. I had been on the road for 8 years every week. Wow. So we decided— so we said yes. And on the first day, um, I'm sitting in the president's office and he said, glad you're here. Um, and he had the HR lead in the meeting and he said, you remember John? And I said, yeah, I remember John. How you doing, John? He goes, good, because you work for both of us. And I was Pretty surprised because that's not what we agreed to. So I had the very strange— my, my job was extraordinarily odd in that I spent half my day working on global supply chain reconfiguration, global sales and marketing changes, uh, things like that. And, um, and then I spent the rest of my half day on HR things like benefits and compensation for the corporate groups and I knew nothing about any of that. But he was, the president was a really good sales guy. He convinced me that this would be best for my career. I already knew a lot of things about how to help change companies, work with executives. And if I learned some of the basics of HR that, you know, it would be helpful to me. And so that's how I got into HR. It wasn't some conscious choice initially.

How about that? Wow, that was a very strange deal. One minute you're getting hired working for this guy, then you get hired working for two. So look what happened to you though. Look what happened and where you are today. You are EVP at Highmark. Now I am so ashamed to admit this. I am. But when I started my career, I mean, in executive search in the early '80s, and I would go to Highmark HR, you know what it seemed like? I mean, there were some people, you know, working in other areas, but it seemed like there were, maybe there were 40 to 50 people max. I remember thinking of HR, I'm thinking of those people and talent programs and benefits. Then I go speak at one of your meetings and, oh my goodness, I thought, yep, it's not like how I thought of it before. So, Larry, how large is your organization? Um, and maybe in addition to talent programs, you could tell our listeners about some of the other areas. So, like me, they don't have this smaller perception.

Well, I, I have a probably about 300 people in HR. We have another group of people, um, you know, we started up and ran an internal consulting group. That's probably another 50 people.

Sorry.

And, um, I also oversee facilities, security, so that's probably another 400 or 500, something like that. So it's a, it's an interesting portfolio or configuration of groups, but just HR by itself is about, about 300 people.

But when you add all those other people, it's like 1,000 people.

Yeah, it's probably a little bit south of that, but yeah.

Yeah. Wow. That's a big job.

It's fun, keeps me busy, Joyce Bender.

Well, I'm going to tell you, you are very highly thought of by the other leaders, CEOs, first pre— the new president, Karen Hanlon David, uh, really everyone at the top always speaks so highly of you that I don't know what I'd do without you. I'm going to be honest, you have been Wonderful to me and everyone else. I wanna say, here's Larry. You just heard how many people total, a little less than 1,000 he's over. And yet he gets on these calls with my team and, you know, 3 or 4 people in talent programs just to make sure we're moving forward. And I'm very I'm very excited to tell you, Larry, that with these last positions we're closing, we will be at the 35/35. And the only reason we weren't is, you know, like with the holidays and people interviewing and getting on board. But Larry is behind that from the beginning. It was David and Larry when we first started. With the Highmark 30/30. 30 hires to celebrate the 30th anniversary. And now David Orr is— who works for Larry— is leading the charge on the 36th. And oh my goodness, I think we'll pass it, Larry, because we have like people that will call us now from AHN and say, we need 10 people, or, you know, we need 8 people. It's Amazing. And AHN, Allegheny Health Network, is owned by Highmark. And so this took people with disabilities into the healthcare area that is so exciting. But I worked with Larry through COVID. Do you remember that, Larry?

I do.

And we still got those people hired. I mean, that was quite a time that you and I worked together through that, but you have, you have stayed by my side. You are truly a friend to all people with disabilities. And you worked at so many big places, Covenant Health, SAP, Providence Health and Services, and Campbell Soup. Do you see a big difference working at those places as far as the culture and the culture at Highmark?

There are some pretty distinct differences, Joyce Bender. You know, a number of those companies are publicly traded, large global companies. So that brings a whole different set of characteristics to it. I've done private equity work, which has a whole other set of distinct characteristics. But I think the thing that's unique about Highmark is We have a whole range of for-profit and not-for-profit businesses. But at the end of the day, what makes Highmark special is the culture that we have and the types of people that we have. Our mission is to help serve the communities that we operate in, and that's a very different mission than a publicly traded company. Whereas, you know, publicly traded companies' mission is quite clear. It's to help move money from consumers to shareholders. We do not have that obligation. So we have the ability and latitude to do things to help the communities in ways that publicly traded companies would never try. And so combining that with the kinds of things that we do in the communities, um, and as a large entity, a large employer, we have about just under 50,000 people around the world. Um, it gives us the ability— we have a lot more flexibility in how we make decisions long-term and short-term. And so it makes for a much more conducive environment to get things done.

Well, you know, I was talking to the CEO, David Holmberg, about this, and even he said, yeah, that's right, I have never seen a company where all the The top leaders, the EVPs, have been supportive of this partnership with Bender since you— Highmark is the company that got me started and stood behind me in 1995, 31 years ago, never stopped. I mean, you know, like when you work at other, you know, I see other corporations, maybe they have the chairman of the board or CEO has a big connection with programs that help people with intellectual disabilities. They're all over it. But when that person leaves, that sort of goes with that person. Highmark, this has stayed the whole time. I mean, to me, that is remarkable.

Yeah, I mean, Joyce Bender, you know what you do. Have been special to Highmark for a long time, as you said. And we take great pride in being a small part of helping sort of hire and work with people with disabilities. And it's a part of our DNA at this point. We've been doing it so long.

Yeah, it's wonderful. When I think of you, though, I do think of a servant leader. As I said, humble, caring, you know, always there to help and to help others. What would you attribute that to? You know, why do you think you are, for example, such an inclusive leader? Why do you think that is?

Well, I You can ask a lot of people, you might get different answers, Joyce Bender. But what I would tell you is, you know, I've been doing it a long time. I think what I've learned is the better you cooperate and partner with people, the better off everyone is. I learned fairly early on that there's a lot of people who have smarter, better ideas than you might. And so by listening, by engaging other people, working to solve problems together, you can become— you can accomplish much bigger things, but not only individually, but collectively. So it's always important to just engage with a lot of various folks, people who think differently than you, are different than you, and try to get the best answers to complex problems. So I think that's probably got a lot to do with it.

Yeah, I think that's wonderful. About you. And you know, you have done a lot of very special things there at Highmark. One is this HR 3.0 model. Would you mind sharing with our listeners what that is?

Um, it's a, it's, it's a little, uh, it's hard to explain frankly, but what I would say is when we started, I don't know, back in probably 2016 or '17, we started running an internal consulting group. And the internal consulting group was called Enterprise Effectiveness. And what they did was we hired a cadre of ex, you know, McKinsey, Accenture, Deloitte, Bain consultants. And their job was to work internally with across all the parts of Highmark and drive process improvements. And so we started off and we measured everything we did in financial and/or other terms. And we got off to a really good start in the first year and I think added about $57 million in, in P&L impact. And from that, we grew that group and have done probably at this point over 1,500 projects and probably over about $1.5 billion of bottom line impact. The reason I explain that is because the volumes became so high that it impacted how HR just delivers our services. So let's give you— let me give you a specific example. We go in and we work with a manager, a vice president, whoever it might be, and we start to diagnose how they could tear apart their processes, put them back together to be more efficient, more effective. Automate some of those processes. And so we did very well at that kind of thing. But what happened is that, that, that manager or vice president at the end of that project would look to his HR person or her HR person and say, holy cow, we need a whole lot of help because it just changed all the jobs. It changed all the compensation. It changed our structures. And so what we learned was the implications of the volume coming in from all these projects, hundreds of projects. The, the way HR was structured could not keep up. So we had to change the way we operated, and that became the 2.0 and then 3.0 model where we were able to support the company's ability to change for the last almost 10 years. So it, it's a little hard to explain, but it's— we're, we're organized very differently than most HR functions because of that work.

Well, it's amazing how you have to be strategically involved in so many issues and so many things. Uh, what kind of change was that for you when it included AHN?

Um, well, the types of work we were doing were not much different in AHN. AHN is a very different business model. Hospitals are highly regulated. You are literally dealing with life and death kind of situations. And so the kinds of work you do in a hospital system is very different than a technology company or an insurance company. And so, you know, we just had to make sure that what we were doing was more diligent, more thoughtful. But we've done a lot of work across all the parts of Highmark, including Allegheny Health Network. So it's been, it's been, it's been a lot of fun to see the progress.

Well, what I want to— I mean, I have an idea what you're going to say about this, but you personally, what, as an executive, what business value do you see in hiring people with disabilities?

Well, to me, Joyce, it's actually very simple. Um, first of all, it's just the right thing to do. So you start with that. People with disabilities— the whole concept of disabilities doesn't mean they can't do great work. It just means they have to do about things differently, and they may need accommodations and those kinds of things. But more importantly, what we've learned over the years of working with you and all the people we've either hired or partnered with is that you have a much more engaged set of employees, a much more loyal set of employees, and, and a highly productive set of employees. And so it's been mutually beneficial. It's helped us get better. It's helped give people, uh, more purpose in their life, more meaning in their life, having something to do each day with a job. Um, So it's rewarding work and it's really been helpful for everybody involved, I think.

Yes, and I know we have to get together before the end of this year and have a luncheon or breakfast where we invite a lot of the people that used to work for Bender that now work for Highmark that are the long-term employees, because I know people would not— I mean, you don't know how many people have been there over 20 years. You, and you know how expensive it is when someone leaves and you have to spend that money, uh, getting a new person on board. People with disabilities, see, if you have left, if you're left out, if you're always left out, and then someone gives you a chance. It isn't that you're a superhero. It's that, oh my God, I finally am included. I value this. This is why I always tell people, every day when you walk into work, you do not realize what a treasure that is— employment, I mean— when there are millions of people out there that are not employed. And the other thing is, People with disabilities, that's why they're very grateful and appreciative to have an opportunity. I'll give you an example. We've just recently placed some people at the distribution center, and a couple of them even had a slight intellectual disability, and very good-paying jobs with an opportunity to move up. So when they first brought them on board, they said, Okay, we're gonna have to figure— they used to have 5 people, I think, from a temp firm doing this work, and they said, we gotta figure out now what will— how we'll do this. In the meantime, they did the work of those 5 people with time left over. I mean, and they're there every single day early, and the management called me and said, oh my goodness, if we had all people like these people, it would be unbelievable. And that's why they keep hiring. More people because they couldn't believe, like one of my employees in another area at AHN, she didn't want to be late on the early shift. And so they got there so early, 5 in the morning, that they could not get into the building. But that's what I mean. When you hire a person with a disability, it's not charity. It's a business and a good business decision that you should make. Larry, I know you have to leave us in a little while, and then we're going to move on to Mathis on the mic. But I wanted to say, over the past years, your career at Highmark, what would you say you are the proudest of? What the accomplishments—

that's a tough question, Joyce, because there's, there's a number of things that I could rattle off. I mean, I'm just starting my 12th year, and it's been very rewarding. We've watched the company grow from, uh, 2014, uh, we were a $14 billion revenue company. We will finish the end of this year at just about $40 billion. So to see the company grow, uh, to that extent has been very rewarding. To see, um, the employment base grow from something like 10,000 or 12,000 to almost 50,000 is rewarding. To do the kinds of things like we're talking about today in the community at the same time is rewarding. To, to be very profitable. And we've been historically very profitable at the same time is rewarding because you have to be a profitable company to be able to invest in things that help the company get stronger and bigger, but also programs like this that make us better. So there's a whole range of things to feel proud about. But, you know, you could walk through the halls. You talked earlier about bringing together a luncheon or a breakfast or something with all the people from Bender who have been with the company a long time, because there's a lot, it's a large number. I don't know what it is off the top of my head. That would be a rewarding experience to just sit and do that and, and be able to talk to people about how they have had a career that they've enjoyed, the various jobs that they've been able to undertake, um, and how it's affected and helped their, their career and their life. Those are things, you know, we talk a lot about the financials and nobody remembers that and that's fine. They remember things like the stories that we're talking about.

Yeah, they remember the stories. We remember the stories. That is so true because only a year ago we had an employee that worked at another hospital. And they've been there 10 years getting a master's in cybersecurity, and they had a stroke. Well, he could not get his job back, which I don't know how that's possible legally, but he could not get his job back. So he was looking everywhere with that 10 years of experience, healthcare, and Next thing you know, he ends up— he couldn't find anything, so he ended up at Sam's working as a greeter. And then we meet him, we said, what, you have a degree, master's degree in cybersecurity? You've got to be kidding me. And so lo and behold, I didn't know this, but he also goes to my church. Well, he works now for Melissa Anderson, who I call like Miss CIA NSA. I mean, she's over all of it, all of the keeping you safe at Highmark. She hired him, and I'm going to tell you, when I say he is appreciative, every time I see him, he comes and finds me at church. And said, "I just want to tell you again how thankful I am. I am so appreciative. I love my job so much." Every time I see him. Then we have another employee that Highmark was going to call and extend an offer to, was a project manager, uh, a product manager, I'm sorry, and they were going to extend an offer to him and They called us and said, okay, we're going to call him at 3 o'clock. So we called and told him this. He said, well, then I'm going to go out and run errands and go food shopping and do all of this ahead of time. Well, when, you know, what do you think happens? Ima calls at 1 o'clock, but he's in his car in the parking lot because remember what I told you he was doing, and he got the job offer. And he called us. This is what he said. I looked up and I said, this is my last time coming to the food bank. Oh my God. When he told us that, like, my whole office was— it was like a Hallmark movie where everybody was in tears because look how that changed his life. Yeah, he was grocery shopping. At a food pantry. Yeah. And now he has this high salary working at Highmark, and that's what I mean about when you said about stories. There are, there are so many stories. Well, Laurie, before you leave today, and I just want to thank you again, and I want people with disabilities around the world to know he is the real deal. You know why? He does the most important thing. Without employment, you are never ever free. Can't buy a car, can't rent an apartment, can't live the American dream. And this man, Larry Kleinman, has never wavered. He has always stood behind me. So, Larry, what message do you have for our listeners?

Well, I'm not sure how to top that, Joyce Bender. I mean, you said it really well. Just, um, always aspire to do more, um, continue to reach to do the best you can, and don't ever feel that you can't get things done that anybody else can get done. Don't hold yourself back. So I appreciate Joyce asking me to join. Um, I'm happy to come back and entertain questions from anybody, uh, or even if people want to email me, I'm happy to do that as well. But it's always a pleasure to get the opportunity to talk with you and folks around the world. So I just appreciate it and thank you for the opportunity.

Oh, well, we're having you back so that we can see your handsome face.

We're having you back. There you go.

Yeah, well, listen, you have, uh, a remaining great day, and once again, thank you for everything.

All right, Joyce, thank you. Thanks, everybody.

All righty. Well, now it is time for Mathis on the Mic. Mathis on the Mic. Sorry, we had a change in the schedule here, Jennifer. I was afraid we'd lose you, but we have you. But guess what? We have more time than normal. So I can even ask you some questions. But this is Jennifer Mathis from Baselon, an international superstar in mental health. I mean, I'm so lucky. I'm so lucky I have her. Pretty soon she'll be on MS Now. Let's get the name right. MS Now. But anyway, Jennifer, so nice to see you. And what news do you have for our listeners today?

So what I wanna highlight today is something that happened last week, um, that was alarming. Um, on Tuesday night, uh, January 13th, um, mental health service providers and programs got all over the country got notices, um, that they were losing their SAMHSA grants. SAMHSA is the mental health and substance use federal agency. It's the Substance Use and Mental Health Services Administration. That's what SAMHSA stands for. And SAMHSA provides grants, many, many grants related to mental health services, substance use disorder services. Homelessness services related to mental health and substance use, all kinds of grants for children and adult services, etc. So lots and lots of folks got these notices that said that your SAMHSA grant's being terminated, rescinded in the middle of the grant for non-alignment with the administration's priorities, did not say why they were not in alignment with the administration's priorities. Um, it said that nothing can be done to bring your grant into compliance with the administration's priorities, and so we are hereby terminating it, and that's it. And SAMHSA did not announce this publicly. There was nothing on their website about it, at least that anybody could see, that sort of explained what was going on and who was impacted, what the scope of this was. The county behavioral health and developmental disabilities directors issued something saying we think this could be up to $2 billion worth of grants, um, and people were collecting information throughout the day on Wednesday trying to understand what was impacted. We knew that, for example, youth overdose programs, youth overdose prevention programs rather, were rescinded in some cases. The, sorry, the grants for those programs from SAMHSA were rescinded. Medication-assisted treatment in prescription drug and opioid addiction program. Those grants were rescinded. Medication-assisted treatment is the medications that people take for many substance use disorders that have been extremely effective. System of care grants in some cases were rescinded. System of care is children's mental health grants that SAMHSA gives for intensive Home and community-based services for kids with mental health disabilities, the Minority Fellowship Program, infant and early childhood mental health, pregnant and postpartum women treatment for substance use disabilities, mental health first aid, all of these things, treatment for individuals experiencing homelessness, all of those programs were ones where at least some providers got notices saying, um, the grant is terminated. And within 24 hours, because there was so much pushback, people were so upset. This came out of the blue. There was no explanation. These were funds that Congress had authorized. Congress had appropriated. Congress created these programs. So within 24 hours, or just about that, a little bit more than that, the terminations were canceled. Those termination notices were withdrawn. And it was, I think, in response to all of the advocacy that was done. And there was, over the course of the day when this information was coming out in dribs and drabs, a letter from 100 members of Congress on the House side, a bipartisan letter saying, you know, we object to this and this is improper and inappropriate. And so I think that this is another example of just advocacy mattering. You know, it mattered that people pushed back. From all over the country, from all types of different programs, from homelessness programs, from programs for postpartum depression, kids services programs, and programs affecting counties. Everybody pushed back and it made a difference. It was really striking that The suddenness with which this happened and then the sudden reversal.

You know what? That is— when you were telling this, I could barely breathe. I thought, oh my God, what are we going to do? All those people. Oh my goodness. It was shocking.

Yeah.

And then when you told me it was reversed, Oh, thank God. I was so happy that it was reversed. Oh my goodness. So how was it reversed? I mean, did people just start writing letters or what did they do?

Well, I think because of the short time frame, I think people wrote and called their members of Congress, and there was a lot of coordination and communication amongst different, you know, parts of the advocacy community because we were all trying to understand the scope of what was happening. And because there was no public announcement, people had to figure out what was happening in real time as people were getting these notices. And so there was just a lot of information sharing so we could all develop these sort of lists that showed the scope of what was happening. And I think that was really too much for so many members of Congress. And so, um, you know, it was unusual, I think, to mobilize a letter from— a bipartisan letter from— signed by 100 members of the House in a day. But that made a difference. And I know the Senate was working on a something as well, and it got reversed by the time that, um, that happened. So in any event, I think it was just a lot of very, very swift, um, mobilized advocacy.

That was to programs, grants. That's what it was to, right? That's what they were terminating.

Exactly. That again, well, nobody knows that. Well, I don't think people understand the, um, exactly how— the total was, but I think the speculation was it could be up to $2 billion.

Okay. Now, did you all hear that? Oh my. As I said, when Jennifer is telling this, I couldn't even breathe. I thought, how, how did we not see this everywhere? And then I get this ending that within one day, it was changed. That proves once and for all about advocacy matters. I mean, that is a big thing, and that is a fast— I know, Jennifer, you know that's fast. I mean, we have not seen that like that.

No, it was, it was extremely fast. I think the reason for it was it would have been so disruptive and so draconian to just end all of a sudden, to end all of these programs that people had relied on, um, for, you know, a significant period of time, and to end them right in the middle, um, and certainly, you know, it was a massive disruption of what Congress had done. And these are Congress's choices. They are not for the agency to make, to pick and choose which things that Congress did they, uh, you know, want to fund and which things they don't want to fund. It's Congress's choice, and Congress Congress appropriated those funds. So, but this would not be the first time that the current administration has taken it upon itself to make its own decisions about what money they think should go out that Congress has already appropriated. But here, I think just because of the dramatic nature of what was happening and the just really incredibly, incredibly disruptive, uh, uh, nature of what the impact would have been. That was what just mobilized the advocacy quickly.

Oh, may I ask, legally, I have a question. Okay, so could the president have vetoed that decision?

Um, no, I— well, I, I mean, I presume that— I presume that, um, the White House was in the loop, um, when the agency decided to do that. Um, that would normally be how these things work. Um, so I, I presume that the president, um, or the, the his staff were on board with what was happening. But all we know is that the agency sent out these notices one day, and then the agency sent out notices a day later saying essentially, never mind.

But thank you. Thank God the president did not you know, try to stop anything. This would have been horrifying.

Yeah, and it's just a lesson to, I think, be careful and to push back, um, to not assume that everything is a fait accompli, um, and to feel like there's nothing you can do. Um, you know, doesn't always work, but I think strong advocacy, you know, time after time, often can bring good results. And, you know, sometimes it's a longer game, sometimes it's a shorter game, but certainly people should never just take things for granted and assume that their voice doesn't matter. And now, of course, we have the budget bills that were released this morning for HHS and Department of Labor, Department of Ed, and HUD.. And I have not gone through all of that yet. There's a lot of pages. It's complicated. But from what I can see and from some of what is described in the summaries, it does seem like Congress has pushed back on what the president's proposed budgets for those agencies were and that a lot of the funding cuts, for example, for the Protection and Advocacy agencies, um, were rejected. So that's good.

Um, wow, thank goodness for that. Oh my goodness. Oh, thank goodness. Yeah, that is good. That's great. I was really worried about that. I could just see all those closing. That, that would have been— Protection and Advocacy folks, this is where people with disabilities go, and, and those agencies are predominantly attorneys there, and they help with justice issues. And, and one thing I love about them, they have the authority to go in anywhere they want without notice. I, I mean, like a prison or a skilled nursing or hospital. I, I just think that is —because Chris Griffin used to tell me these stories all the time. So thank goodness that they saved that.

Yeah, they have important access authority to talk to people and to go to places and see. So, I mean, you know, Congress still has to vote on those bills, but originally the committees had passed bills that were encouraging in this regard, and now the these new bills were released and they seem to also reject the, at least many of the proposed cuts. I have not gone through to figure out exactly.

You better have that figured out by next week when you come back on the show. Indeed. Because yeah, we'll be asking you. But Jennifer, thank you so much. Absolutely. So much. And end of every show is a quote, has to be in honor of the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who said, "True peace is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice." Oh, how powerful that is. So, uh, I look forward forward to talking to everyone next week with the CEO of Allegheny Health Network, Mark Sebko. What a great show that will be, and Jennifer will have all the answers to every question that we have next week. And in the words of Mary Brooker, when you go out tomorrow, remember, choose joy. Talk to you next week.

Voice America would like to thank you for tuning in. Please join us next Tuesday at 11 AM Pacific time and 2 PM Eastern time for another installment of Disability Matters right here on the Voice America Variety Channel. We are the leader in live internet talk radio. VoiceAmerica.com.