One Country Project's Hot Dish

Heidi Heitkamp [00:00:04]:
Welcome to the Hot Dish, Comfort food for middle America. I'm Heidi Heitkamp.

Joel Heitkamp [00:00:08]:
And I'm Joel Heitkamp. Later, we'll listen to Heidi's interview with Becca LaFond, who is working to help bring needed medical testing to people in their homes, which is so important to rural communities.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:00:20]:
Yeah, it's really an interesting project, and I hope people reach out after they hear it. But first, Joel, we have listener mail.

Joel Heitkamp [00:00:28]:
That's right. We've been hearing from a number of you, and we'll be getting to your questions in the next episode of the Hot Dish. Remember, send your emails to Podcast@OneCountryProject.org that's Podcast@OneCountryProject.org. We've got a lot. But today we want to focus on this question from Colin in South Dakota, who asked if you could give young people one bit of advice, just one bit, what would it be? Heidi, What would it be for you?

Heidi Heitkamp [00:00:56]:
Well, to be a little sarcastic. I wouldn't ask you and I for any advice.

Joel Heitkamp [00:01:03]:
Hey, only one of us qualifies for Medicare.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:01:07]:
That's one bit of advice that I would give them. No, I mean, honestly, what really troubles me so much is how many people are leaving rural America and how difficult it is to maintain population. And so I think what the bit of advice that I would give Colin is think about what you want to do in life and don't think about it in terms of employment opportunities. Think about life choices and think about whether you can do what you want to do from where you want to live. And I think that a lot of people think that they need to move, as we say, to the cities, meaning Minneapolis and St. Paul, or move to Denver, as is true for the western part of our state, North Dakota, right now. But it really is hollowing out the middle, and it's really hurting and causing a brain drain, I think, in the middle part of the country. It also is polarizing our politics.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:02:09]:
And so what I would say to Colin is you don't have to know exactly what it is that you want to do, but you have to trust yourself to make a decision and take a risk. Think about how you can build your own opportunity and not wait for somebody else to give you that paycheck.

Joel Heitkamp [00:02:28]:
Well, and I would say to Colin, don't give up. Don't give up, and don't give up in so many ways. I'm not just talking about national policy. I don't know his politics and I don't know his beliefs, and that doesn't Matter, because One Country is a place where anyone, everyone can come and have that conversation. Rural, urban, whatever. By One Country being a format where I get to talk to Colin. What I'm saying about don't give up is there's all kinds of changes that you can affect in your life that don't involve what might be happening on a national stage. Be on the park board, be on the school board, you know, run for county commission, run for township office.

Joel Heitkamp [00:03:11]:
Those are all things in a state like South Dakota that. That matter a lot. And so while you might be feeling that you don't matter, that nobody would listen to, you, just don't give up. You're talking to two people. The very first election I ever had, I was sitting in the Manor bar, and my buddy walks in and says, congratulations, you're now on the park board. I said, I didn't run for the damn park board. And he said, no, you did. It was a little manager, a town of 100 people.

Joel Heitkamp [00:03:38]:
He said, you got eight votes. Eight write-in votes. And you know what? Nobody else ran either. And it's your turn to mow. So I was on the mower the next week. So my. My point is just get involved. And, Heidi, I think our parents taught us that.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:03:55]:
You know, you've got a lot to contribute, don't feel like diminished in any way. You. You've got a lot to offer the country and your community. And I always say our mom taught us to be good to everybody, and our dad taught us to be good to the community. And I think that's the ethic that we grew up with. And you build from there and you'll live a happy life because, you know, everybody nowadays, because the social media implies that anybody can become famous. You know, it's so much better to be well liked and to be well respected, so.

Joel Heitkamp [00:04:33]:
And let's be honest, you didn't want to tick off our mom. You know, it was. That woman had a bite to her. She gave you a chance.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:04:41]:
Joel. Joel, come on. You were like. You were like the pet. You didn't have. Nearly total bs. Are you kidding?

Joel Heitkamp [00:04:51]:
I was the one she waited for when I came home at 2 in the morning, like I did something wrong. And I don't get that to this day. Thank you to our listeners for submitting their questions. We have more, and we'll try to get to them in future episodes. You can email your comments, comments and questions to podcastonecountryproject.org that's podcast@onecountry project.org Heidi, when you look at, you know, the holiday season. When you look at what rural America is going through, one of the things I wanted to ask you about here on One Country, because it is playing out on a national stage, and both of us agree that no one should be in this country illegally. But how do we get our arms around the fact that if you go to any business in any of these rural states that we're visiting with right now, they'd say, give me 10 more workers, give me 100 more workers. I mean, why are we so afraid of speeding up the process or demonizing immigration to the point where we're not getting what we truly need, which is good, hard workers?

Becca Lafond [00:06:02]:
Yeah.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:06:02]:
You know, the question that I always ask, Joel, is if you were going to deport every German and Irish immigrant who came during the famines and came in the late 1800s, what would this country look like? And so if you go back and you look and people would say, well, you know, they culturally fit more, let me tell you. There were signs in Boston, of all places, saying no Irish or dogs. Right. Can come into the establishment. And so there's always been the fear of the other, the fear of that immigrant. But at the end of the day, when we embrace bringing talented, hardworking people to our country, we do better. And, you know, it's going to be interesting because let's assume just for a minute that Donald Trump is successful. And 13 million, that's an estimate of the number of people who are here undocumented.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:06:54]:
They just disappeared. What do you think would happen to construction costs? What do you think would happen to food costs? I mean, Trump keeps talking about how he's going to lower food costs. But. But in California, guess what? The strawberries aren't going to get picked. The avocados aren't going to get picked. The, you know, lettuce isn't going to get picked. And what does he think is going to happen to the cost or the availability of good fruits and vegetables? And then he said, you recently said if he, he was going to drive down food prices by stopping food imports from Mexico. I mean, I guess I'll wait to find out, but none of that adds up to me.

Joel Heitkamp [00:07:34]:
Well, and recently I had United States Senator John Hoeven on my radio show, which, by the way, is called News and Views. You can Stream it at KFGO.com It runs from 8 to 11 Central. Anyway, I recently had Senator John Hoeven on my radio show. And of course, it's easy. And I agree with any conversation that involves illegal immigration is illegal, and it needs to be dealt with. That being said, I raised the point to him that, you know, if we're going to talk about legal immigration and the fact that we need people here for workers, then I think it's best if we do bring people in here legally, that we don't accuse them of eating cats and dogs. You know, you can't have it both ways. And to me, how we treat people.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:08:23]:
How did he respond to that?

Joel Heitkamp [00:08:24]:
He actually laughed because he definitely didn't want to go down the road of having to respond to it. Yeah, I'm not trying to speak for him, but, you know, John Hoeven as well as anybody, I want to treat people the way I want to be treated. And if I'm here getting up every day in the morning, legally on a work visa, and I'm going to work and work hard and try to be a member of a community and do better for my family, I don't want to get accused of what I got accused of in this campaign. I don't. And if we're going to really focus on workers in the rural communities that are listening to us right now, we need to get serious about this.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:09:02]:
Well, you aren't going to like, kind of my response, Joel, but the community of Springfield, Ohio, which is what we're talking about, that recruited these workers, didn't prepare the rest of the community very well. And so now, all of a sudden, 25% of the population are people who have moved in the last three, four years. And that created a lot of disruption, and it was exacerbated by the demonization of these folks by politics. But by the same token, you gotta bring people along, too. You can't just say, okay, here's your new neighbors and you're gonna pay more for your groceries. You're gonna pay more for everything, because they're gonna put stress on housing, they're gonn services, they're going to put stress on healthcare. And so people have been asking me, you know, that I live in Chicago about a third of my time, and I live in South Chicago. And I saw this so much with what happened when a lot of the migrants, people seeking asylum, were shipped up to Chicago.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:10:08]:
They were shipped all across the country. I have an opinion about that that's maybe not shared by a lot of our listeners, which is, you know, you expect people to become assimilated at the border. They should be assimilated throughout the entire country. And so, you know, these folks came up and guess what? They weren't living in the high rise downtown. They were living in the abandoned police stations and abandoned schools in South Chicago, competing for services with people who were very angry. And so when people say what happened, if you look at the votes in Chicago, you lost a lot of support. Guess what? It's because they felt like all of the impact of those, that migration, all of the impact of those workers were being borne by people who were struggling themselves.

Joel Heitkamp [00:10:56]:
Yeah. I don't disagree with some of that. But I will tell you this. It's easier to get to that when you're demonizing. It's easier to get to that mindset when you're demonizing. I want to ask you this, Heidi, because we're in a rural area. We understand a rural economy. I understand the price of a bushel of soybeans.

Joel Heitkamp [00:11:15]:
I understand the price of a bushel of corn. I understand beef prices and I understand oil prices, all of which affect my home state. The word tariff scares the hell out of me, Heidi. And it's getting thrown around as though it's candy for the holidays. I mean, how are these tariffs going to affect the rural economy?

Heidi Heitkamp [00:11:35]:
Joel, Joel. I guess former president, President elect Trump said that tariff is a better word than love.

Joel Heitkamp [00:11:45]:
Well, he sure would know about that because he's been in love, apparently, with a lot of people in his life.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:11:51]:
Yeah. But I mean, it tells you, I guess, every economist in the country and mainly a lot of conservative economists who, who for years have been very opposed to, you know, tariffs because they interrupt the flow of trade, they increase prices, they drive up inflation. I mean, that's just economics 101. He's completely trying to write the book on the impact of tariffs. Now, you know, I guess we're going to play a wait and see game, Joel, to see. But in my book, I'm more of a traditionalist. Tariffs are a sales tax on goods and services that are imported into this country. And if they're not imported into this country because the price goes too high, that means you're going to be buying products that are more expensive that are manufactured in this country.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:12:41]:
And so this idea that tariffs are paid for by the country that you're imposing tariffs on is. I mean, that's just wrong.

Joel Heitkamp [00:12:52]:
What do you say to those individuals that are out there saying he's playing chess and the other countries are playing checkers, and that really what he's doing is he's making them panic. In the end, he's never going to use these tariffs, but he'll get what he wants.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:13:07]:
I would say I was in the United States Senate when he imposed tariffs, when he imposed tariffs on steel. And I had manufacturers in my state calling me, saying we no longer are competitive because we can't get lower priced Canadian steel. And so what I would tell you is go back and take a look at what happened to the soybean market in China when he imposed tariffs. And the thing is, why don't people believe him when he says what he's going to do? Yeah, I don't get it. I mean, they're saying, oh, it's just a negotiating ploy. Negotiating for what? He negotiated the usmca, which is the United States, Canada, Mexico Trade Agreement. And now these tariffs that he's talking about would totally blow that agreement up.

Joel Heitkamp [00:13:57]:
Yeah, I don't doubt about that. And part of that is the people he surrounds himself with in the first Trump administration. I was there in New York when he brought you to Trump Tower and asked you to be part of his Cabinet. Near as I can tell, Hyde, I've known you all my life. You would have been a way better member of his cabinet than the people he's appointing now.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:14:18]:
I would have lasted.

Joel Heitkamp [00:14:19]:
I'm glad you said no. Don't get me wrong.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:14:23]:
I would have lasted. One .

Joel Heitkamp [00:14:27]:
But part of what we're talking about on the serious side is he surrounded himself with a band of people that are, are two things. Number one, they're all about loyalty. They're all about putting people next to him that'll do whatever he says. The other thing, Heidi, is they're vicious. I mean, these people that, that have his ear are vicious. And like when you said just a little bit ago, why don't we believe him when he says something? Why don't we believe Stephen Miller when, when he says something? Why don't we believe Steve Bannon when he says something? I mean, these individuals are the ones that have his ear.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:15:09]:
There's absolutely no doubt about it. And so we'll wait and see. Actually, on the Elon Musk, I wish it was somebody else taking a look at government efficiency, but good on them. I'm really curious to see what he comes up with. And so everybody who's judging that effort, I'm like, okay, let's wait and see. Let's see what the recommendations are.

Joel Heitkamp [00:15:31]:
Well, totally agree. And you're right, time's going to tell because I have no doubt that we have to take him at his word. We're going to find out how these tariffs affect many people that listen to, you know, the Hot Dish. So I get that. Now let's get to Heidi's important conversation about a new medical test that can help save lives.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:15:58]:
I have a great guest today, Becca LaFond. She is the US General Manager of Healthy.IO and is doing some things to make healthcare much more accessible in rural America. And so we're gonna have a conversation about how she got into that business and what she's been doing right here on the Hot Dish. But before we do that, I wanna read a little bit of your bio, Becca. She lives in rural Montana. Although, you know, for those of us who are truly rural, Helena is not really rural. That's kind of a big city.

Becca Lafond [00:16:32]:
That's fair.

Joel Heitkamp [00:16:32]:
Yeah.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:16:33]:
Yeah. One for you. When you're from a town of 90 people, you really have a different perspective on what's a small town. But you've had over two decades of experience in the healthcare industry, particularly implementing technology and optimizing operations. Healthy IO transforms the smartphone camera into a medical device to deliver healthcare at the speed of life. Their technology helps people find the right moments to manage their health by alerting them to test at their convenience. And this is so important because we know early detection is such a huge part of treating chronic disease, and managing and preventing chronic disease is such a huge part of healthcare delivery. And sometimes when you have to drive miles, as you do in rural parts of this country, you don't do the right things to with your preventative care.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:17:27]:
And so we're going to talk today about an in home test that can detect kidney disease at its early stages. And what you're doing today, deploy that into rural communities. So welcome, Becca.

Becca Lafond [00:17:40]:
Thanks for having me, Heidi.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:17:41]:
You bet. So tell me a little bit how you got involved in rural healthcare and how this has become your passion.

Becca Lafond [00:17:49]:
Yeah, I've worked in the healthcare industry for over two decades now, as you said, mostly on the technology side, particularly in the last few years. And I was looking for my next adventure, and I learned about what healthy is doing, and I was really inspired by the problem that we're trying to solve, both from a personal perspective, as you said, I live in Montana, and many parts of Montana are rural, but also from a personal perspective, because I have a grandmother who is impacted by kidney disease. And what healthy is trying to do is really impact. There are 37 million Americans who have chronic kidney disease. The tragic part of that is that 90% of them don't know they have it because they haven't been screened. And so they're walking around with chronic kidney disease without even knowing that they have it. And so this was really interesting to me because I thought, well, there's obviously a gap in care here. There's a gap in the screening measure.

Becca Lafond [00:18:40]:
And from a cost perspective, 1 in 5 Medicare dollars goes to treating chronic kidney disease, mainly with providing dialysis and kidney transplants for people who are in end stage. But what I found out when I joined this company is that there are five stages of kidney disease. And if you catch kidney disease at one of the earlier stages, there's actually treatments now that weren't around when my grandmother had kidney disease that can prevent the progression of the disease. So essentially, my grandmother was on dialysis for a decade, and I am grateful every day that we got 10 extra years with her because of that technology. It's an amazing technology. Dialysis is but three, four times a week, she would go to a dialysis center, sit there for two to three to four to five hours, and that's if everything went well. In many cases, things don't go well, particularly as you're getting older and the disease is progressing. And sometimes she had to be admitted.

Becca Lafond [00:19:36]:
It's not a great quality of life. And so when I found out that there's. There's something that could be done for people to preserve their quality of life, it sort of made sense. And it really ignited a passion in me for this disease that. That I didn't know was there.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:19:49]:
You know, it's interesting because when I was in the United States Senate, I was invited to go to a dialysis center. And I'll never forget the doctor telling me, these are little mini ICUs.

Becca Lafond [00:20:01]:
That's right.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:20:02]:
And the kind of care that needs to be taken, hygiene that needs to be observed in these highly technical kind of situations. If you could ever avoid doing that with your life, you should avoid doing it. And so tell me why it's so important to get early detection and what the early treatments can be. If somebody really experiences or knows after using your product that they have kidney disease, what does that look like?

Becca Lafond [00:20:32]:
In order to be diagnosed with chronic kidney disease, you actually need two different tests. You need a blood test, and you need a urine test. And many folks will get the. The. The blood test as part. They're just their annual workup when you go to see a doctor. But the urine test, for whatever reason, is not ordered hardly ever. And so you again, have.

Becca Lafond [00:20:50]:
You know, 90% of this, 37 million Americans who are out there walking around with kidney disease don't know they have it and could find out simply by taking a simple Urine test. And so what we, what we realized was there's this gap in access for people who are not getting this test ordered by their doctor and that, you know, a urine test can be taken in the privacy of your own home. So there are a lot of. And before we even get into the role part of it, which adds all kinds of complexities, as you know, to getting to the doctor, just your average American, going to the doctor and being ordered a test is a challenge. What's more important, though, is what I talked about. There are now some medications called SGLT2 inhibitors. A number of pharmaceutical companies make them. Again, they were, they weren't around decades ago when my grandmother went through this, but they are now.

Becca Lafond [00:21:33]:
And so if you are diagnosed at stages, you know, the early stages of 1, 2 and 3 of kidney disease before you're really getting advanced, you can get on these drugs and you can live a fairly normal life and prevent having to be in a dialysis center, you know, three, four times or end up getting a kidney transplant, which is a whole nother challenge. Now, if we talk about the challenges for people in rural areas, which I know, you know, you're, you're very interested in, as am I living in Helena. You know, I'll admit I grew up on the East Coast. I had no idea what the challenges were for people who live in rural America until I moved here and started realizing that I now have friends and family who live, you know, 90, 120, 180 miles from a, from their doctor's office, let alone a hospital. And it's an all day adventure to go into town and go to the doctor or maybe go to the grocery store. And for people who are working Americans, you have to think about childcare, you have to think about taking time off of work. It's not convenient. And most people just don't do it right.

Becca Lafond [00:22:29]:
They don't. They put it off because it's not convenient and it's challenging financially as well as just, you know, operational in your lives. So the fact that we can provide a test that shows up at your doorstep, you take it whenever it's convenient for you at night, on the weekends, in the morning, doesn't have to be 9 to 5, Monday through Friday. And then not only that, you don't even have to ship in the test to get the results. You receive the results through your smartphone and your results are immediately provided to you, and they're also immediately provided to your primary care physician. So we send them both directions so that you can make that connection back to care. So we really just try to take away the barriers that exist for people to get to the doctor and get screened for this disease.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:23:09]:
And the thing is, we can talk about how difficult it is to find the time to basically receive ongoing testing for early detection. Think of how difficult it would be if you live 30 miles from the nearest or 100 miles from the nearest dialysis center, what that would look like. And to me, this proximity and transportation is such a big part of the challenge of rural healthcare. And so when you. When you look in. Into the future, are you guys looking at additional tests? What's. What's the future of healthy IO?

Becca Lafond [00:23:45]:
Yeah, it's a great question. I the technology without getting too detailed and out over my own skis on it. But the technology involves AI and computer vision, and that's how the smartphone app essentially reads the test. There's a color board, so you take a urine test. You put the dipstick in your urine, put it on the color board, and your. And your cell phone, essentially the camera on your cell phone, which everyone has in their pocket, can read this test and give you the results. And that particular technology can definitely be applied in many ways. Dermatology is another area where you could consider having it.

Becca Lafond [00:24:13]:
We do have another product that's related to wound care so that patients, again, who have chronic wounds, another thing that's very difficult to get to a doctor on a regular basis to have monitored. These wounds don't heal because they're not getting the right treatment. Picture a patient at home being able to use their smartphone camera to show their doctor what their wound looks like, and then the doctor being able to triage from there. So I think there are a lot of applications for this technology. And, you know, what interested me is certainly closing the gap in care. But more importantly, having now lived in rural areas and having friends and family who just can't get to the doctor's office, like you explained, having this access to care. And I think, as you know, Heidi, the diseases that are typically comorbidities with chronic kidney disease, diabetes, you mentioned also high blood pressure, they're more prevalent in rural areas for all of the reasons that we know about. And because they're more prevalent, you have more of a chance that someone is walking around with chronic kidney disease and doesn't know about it.

Becca Lafond [00:25:11]:
So this seems like a good solution that can get to those patients who can't otherwise or aren't otherwise going to get the care that they need.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:25:18]:
So how affordable is this test?

Becca Lafond [00:25:22]:
I think what we're trying to show, and as you know, having worked in government for a long time, the complexities of healthcare and how it's provided in this country are challenging. The incentive structure is certainly structured around sick care. So let's just be honest and call it what it is. We are very good at sick care. If you get sick in this country, if you have a traumatic accident, we are very good. And I don't think you'd want to be anywhere else in the world, which.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:25:46]:
I want to make the point that this is the most expensive kind of care.

Becca Lafond [00:25:50]:
That's absolutely right.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:25:52]:
And so when people say, what are we going to do to save Medicare and Medicaid? I think we're going to provide more preventive and early detection of chronic disease. That's how we're going to save those programs.

Becca Lafond [00:26:04]:
Exactly. I mentioned that Medicare annually spends 136 billion with a B on treating chronic kidney disease. And again, it's mostly end stage. It's dialysis and it's kidney transplants. What if we could get someone on a much cheaper drug instead of having that outcome? For sure, their quality of life is better, but from a government perspective, which we're all ultimately paying for, the cost of care for that patient goes down significantly. And so what we are spending a lot of our time right now is working, working on this with a number of people because it's, it's as. Again, the incentive structures are challenging. I think we are getting better at looking at quality of care and thinking about preventative care, as you mentioned.

Becca Lafond [00:26:46]:
But we still have to get the payers in this country to pay attention to paying for preventative care versus just paying for sick care. The more common way that people get diagnosed with chronic kidney disease in this country is something called crashing into dialysis. So they have a medical episode, they get very ill, they show up in an emergency room and they're told, oh, you have chronic kidney disease, you didn't know about it. And guess what? For the rest of your life, you're now going to be on dialysis. We're going to start you on that here in the emergency room. And you're going to have to do it three times a week for the rest of your life, which is a tragic way to get into, you know, the change that is in your life. But it's also a very expensive way. It's about double the cost for someone who enters dialysis that way than if they ease into it because they've known they have chronic kidney disease for five to 10 years beforehand just to kind.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:27:33]:
Of calibrate this 70% of all healthcare cost, at least it was, you know, a couple years ago when I did this research, is basically expended to treat chronic conditions, many of which are preventable or could basically with early detection result in a much lower cost intervention. And so this is so important. This is just another mechanism for people to basically to understand where they are in their healthcare journey. And so I just think it's a great idea. I hope that you continue to expand on this, that we train more Americans to take this responsibility of testing and knowing where they are, that the unseen ticking time bombs that we have within our own body, it's going to be a whole brave new world in healthcare. And what's great about it is that for rural America, that does have a workforce shortage, where you can't always get in, where sometimes you may want to see your primary physician, takes two months to get in to see your primary physician. These kinds of accessibilities to testing can make all the difference.

Becca Lafond [00:28:48]:
I think it's a great point and you're absolutely right. We want to empower patients to take ownership of their own health, but we want to do it in a way that's convenient for them. And I think you made a good point on the healthcare provider shortage. It's as much of a gift that we can give someone to say your test is normal and you don't have to worry about this for at least another year because that, that means they don't have to go to the doctor and take up space where someone else who is sick and needs to go see a doctor. So I think it's important to understand that, you know, not only are you finding the people who do need to be seen and can get on these drugs that can help them, but we're also taking essentially out of the system patients who then can say, okay, I'm good, I'm good for at least a little while. And not only do I know that, but I can let my doctor know that as well.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:29:30]:
So tell people how they can access your product and you know where they can find you online.

Becca Lafond [00:29:37]:
Yeah, absolutely. We have a website, Healthy.IO, and I would encourage you to visit it. And that will, that will talk about our main product that we've been talking about today, which is Minute Full Kidney, as well as that wound product that I mentioned. But Minute Full Wound, it's really been great to talk with you today, Heidi. I have a huge passion not just for chronic kidney disease, but for the impact it can have on rural America. And I hope that More and more people are talking about this because I think sometimes we make decisions, as you know, on the coast of this country, and we're not always considering the people who sort of live in the middle of the country in a place that it doesn't look a lot like the kind of place that I grew up or the kind of place that a lot of. A lot of Americans live. And I think that's really important.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:30:16]:
Terrific. Thanks so much, Becca. Good luck with your product. And to all the people out there at the Hot Dish, we're going to continue to bring you stories of expanding accessibility to healthcare in rural America. Becca and Healthy.IO are doing so much necessary and good work. I hope you enjoyed hearing from them. Let us know what you think and ask questions or give suggestions.

Joel Heitkamp [00:30:46]:
The truth of the matter is it's the holiday season. I've raised over $23, 23 from your fellow siblings, your great nephews and nieces to make sure you don't sing any Christmas carols this year.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:31:00]:
Joel. I'm the only one they want to sing those Christmas carols, you know, that.

Joel Heitkamp [00:31:08]:
Clears out a house quicker than anybody. I know, but you don't.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:31:11]:
But I know everybody really wants to know. Joel, it's the end of the fall season. How did you make out in the pumpkin patch?

Joel Heitkamp [00:31:21]:
Oh, Heidi, Heidi, Heidi, Heidi. So here's what happened. Harvest fabulous. Nailed it. Thank God. Part of it actually drowned it out or I went to know what to do with all of them. So half of them went to my kids in. My daughter and her kids in Wahpeton.

Joel Heitkamp [00:31:39]:
They set up a pumpkin sedan. Okay? So they sold them for whatever, you know, six bucks, whatever. Anyway, they came in with, like, 900 bucks, right? That's 900 bucks these kids didn't have before. The other pumpkins went to Fargo to my other daughter, and they did a porch drop. They did it all through Facebook. So they drove around and you paid 40 bucks or whatever, and you got this pumpkin and that pumpkin, right? They raised over 1300, maybe $1400. So I sit down knowing that these kids are pooling their money together, are more money in their pocket than ever before, and I said, what do you think, guys? I did all the work, you did all the sales. Should we do it next year? Polling didn't go so well for me, Heidi.

Joel Heitkamp [00:32:22]:
Apparently these parents, you know, one being, you know, a nurse practitioner, the other being a lawyer, are spoiling these kids to the point where they don't even understand the value of a dollar. So I'm going to do it Anyway, and I'm going to just dump them on their front yard. Think about that.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:32:37]:
Remember when dad used to march us up and down the street selling bags of popcorn for a nickel?

Joel Heitkamp [00:32:43]:
Yeah. Poppies. Of course, that didn't go to us, you know, but. But think about that. I mean, the economic opportunity. They better not, you know, complain about, you know, how expensive college is, because what I just gave them with no input costs, and actually, I paid them per hour. They came out and worked, and none of the little crappers worked. Right.

Joel Heitkamp [00:33:06]:
What I just made sure they made was $333 for not a lot of work. Right. In my days. Right in my days that bought a shotgun. So, I mean, come on here. Height.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:33:18]:
Well, after Trump's tariffs, they might be able to buy half a bicycle.

Joel Heitkamp [00:33:24]:
It required shaking hands, you know, it required saying thank you, everything I wanted it to be, which they're very good at and they didn't mind at all. It was the time. You know, the Wapton kids play on traveling basketball teams. They're pretty good ballplayers. That Fargo kids, both. They all play hockey, and they're pretty good hockey players. So apparently that's more important than selling grandpa's pumpkins, which, again, I struggle with.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:33:52]:
Well, Joel, I'm glad you had a good growing season. I'm glad that your children learned a little bit about sales and marketing. And, you know, if people are curious, we'll talk about it again next year when you start your new crop.

Joel Heitkamp [00:34:08]:
I'm doing it. I don't care. There'll be tomatoes this year because sue didn't make any salsa. She didn't can any. And there'll be some what we call Indian corn, which, you know, there'll be colorful corn. There's not going to be any cucumbers. There's not going to be anything like that. But I'm doing it again, and if they don't like it, tough cookies.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:34:27]:
Okay, well, listen, coming into the holiday season, hug your family. Yeah. What happens in Washington and what happens in this country is important, but nothing is important as spending time in and with your family. Thanks for joining us today on the Hot Dish, which is brought to you by One Country Project, making sure the voices of the rest of us are heard in Washington. Learn more at OneCountryProject.org and thanks for supporting youth.

Joel Heitkamp [00:34:59]:
Me and elderly Heidi. We'll be back in two weeks with more hot dish comfort food for middle America. Happy holidays, everyone.