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Announcer

And now America's Healthcare Advocate, Cary Hall.

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Cary Hall

Hello, America. Welcome to America's Healthcare Advocate show broadcasting coast to coast across the USA. Here on the ABC Radio Network. You can find out more about us by going to the website AmericasHealthcareAdvocate.com. AmericasHealthcareAdvocate.com. If you have a question, if you have a comment or an email, feel free to send me an email.

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Cary Hall

I get a lot of them, but I answer each and every one of them, so I'm happy to do so. Once again. AmericasHealthcareAdvocate.com is the website. All the shows are posted up on YouTube and our 16 podcast platforms. So your favorite podcast platform, we're on it. I'm quite sure that if you are chronologically challenged and looking for Medicare or individual health insurance, you want to give the lovely Carolee Steele a call over at RPS Benefits by Design 877-385-2224.

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Cary Hall

Anywhere in the country, they're happy to help you. If you're an employer looking for group health insurance, employer sponsored health care, Maria Ahlers can help you anywhere in the country. She does a great job. Just helped a small group out of Columbia, Missouri that was struggling with their premiums, what they were paying, and she did a great job.

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Cary Hall

We got about a new policy. So once again 877-385-2224. All right. So I think I've been doing this radio show 18 or 19 years. What is it, Dave 18 or 19?

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Dave

19.

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Cary Hall

19 years? Okay. And this is the first time I've ever had a show like this. So in studio with me today Philip Sarnecki, very happy to have you here.

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Cary Hall

He is a gubernatorial candidate for the state of Kansas. Like I said, we've never done this before. I've known this man for quite a while. I'm happy to have him on here. He is the kind of man that we need in politics. I'm going to have to question why he's doing this in a minute. But having said that, I think you're going to learn about a guy today who really understands what this state needs and can make changes that are going to affect everybody in the state of Kansas.

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Cary Hall

So welcome to the show, Philip.

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Philip Sarnacki

Thank you Cary. Great to be here.

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Cary Hall

So first thing I have to ask is why you're if you're a reasonably sane man. Reasonably. Yeah. You’ve had very successful businesses. You've built from scratch. And now you're entering into this political arena at a time when it's a little hot.

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Philip Sarnacki

Yes, yes. Well, I will tell you that that is a great question. And I've spent, really a couple of years, pondering that, talking to people, praying about it. And where we've landed is, quite frankly, I'm tired of losing, as a Republican, I know not all of your audience out there are going to be, Republicans.

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Philip Sarnacki

But, you know, we have lost we being the Republicans, the gubernatorial seat, the last two elections in Kansas. And that's a state where Donald Trump won 58% of the vote. We have not elected a Democratic senator in almost a hundred years. And we have supermajorities in both houses. But somehow we keep losing the gubernatorial seat and it's really the CEO job.

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Philip Sarnacki

It's it's, you know, it's a different political job. I've talked to a number of governors about this, Glenn Youngkin in Virginia being one of them. And, you know, he mentioned to me, he said Philip, people have a tendency to throw all these political jobs in the same bucket. Senate, Congress, Governor. He said., but the reality is the governor's job is a totally different job that needs a totally different skill set, he said.

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Philip Sarnacki

It is a CEO job. It is the job of a business leader. And he said all those skills that you've developed and built and acquired over the last 30 years, like that fits perfectly in the gubernatorial seat and I think what's happened is these people that have run for the last two gubernatorial elections, they're wonderful people. They're very nice people.

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Philip Sarnacki

I've written some of them checks.

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Cary Hall

I'm sure you have,

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Philip Sarnacki

But they don't have the skill set to really lead from that place. And that's what I believe that we've been called to do and what we're bringing into this role.

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Cary Hall

You know, when you first told me as we were having lunch and I remember having a conversation, I was a little surprised, that I was like, you're really going to do this? You were like, yes, I really am. And we had that conversation about why this is a different way to do this. And I think the fact that you're calling yourself the CEO, which is essentially what you are, and you're looking at it from that model that speaks lives about where you think this should go.

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Philip Sarnacki

Yeah, absolutely. I think when again, when you look at it, you know, Senators and Congress people which are very important obviously, but they basically debate and they vote. It's called the legislative branch. Well, this is called the executive branch for a reason. And you're running multibillion dollar budgets. You're appointing leadership positions. You're building leadership teams, you're holding people accountable, or at least theoretically, that would be a.

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Cary Hall

concept in government, right.

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Cary Hall

You’re hoping you can do.

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Philip Sarnacki

That's right. You can hold people accountable. And, you know, those are the skills that I've applied to my businesses for the last 30 years. And I think if we bring those in to the government sector, very similar to what Donald Trump is doing on a national scale, that we can do a lot of that right here in Kansas.

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Philip Sarnacki

And by the way, there are a lot of governors around the country right now, who hadn’t ever run for office. Well, Glenn Youngkin, Youngkin, Kevin Stitt, Bill Lee in Tennessee, there was Doug Burgum. You've got Cohen in Nebraska. So there's a lot even the Democrats have a few. So yeah.

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Cary Hall

That's interesting, you’ve mentioned that Democrats have few because they do. And those typically that are not politicians that are Democrat governors seem to have a different tact than the ones that are purely politicians, which is exactly what you're pointing out here on the Republican side of the equation. Right? You're looking at people coming into politics that have a very different perspective about what should happen and how it should happen.

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Philip Sarnacki

Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I think we're not bound by, you know, the, the, the ways of the past. If you will. Not bound by kind of the political, what what's the expected thing to do in politics, really bringing in outside perspective and an outsider's lens to what we're doing. And I think that's what we can do to be bold and really shake some things up in a positive way.

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Cary Hall

Yeah, I agree with that. I think the other thing I would have to point is you're not carrying a lot of baggage. That's right. Exactly. You don't.

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Philip Sarnacki

I've never voted.

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Cary Hall

You have you vote in every election but you as well, right? Yeah. But you haven't been in politics and you're not pulling a sled behind you.

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Philip Sarnacki

Correct.

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Cary Hall

With a lot of political decisions. So this is a totally different model. That's the way you're approaching this.

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Philip Sarnacki

Yes. I have voted consistently. I have no voting record, in Congress or the Senate, or what have you. That's that's correct.

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Cary Hall

Yes. And that's that's to your benefit.

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Philip Sarnacki

And we're also not here's the other thing. When you're an outsider like President Trump, we're not beholden to the interests of, you know, a lot of the people that I'm running against, again, many of which I know and some I know well, some of them have done nothing but politics for 25 and 30 years.

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Cary Hall

That’s part of the problem.

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Philip Sarnacki

Some of them have been running for 20 years and haven't won anything, and I just got tired of writing checks to people who weren't winning and were were really caught up in the establishment, the political establishment. And I just felt we needed somebody from the outside. And originally I was looking at backing somebody like that. And the more and more I talked to people, they said, you're the person.

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Cary Hall

You need to be, the guy you.

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Philip Sarnacki

You need to be the guy to do it.

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Cary Hall

You're the man in the arena now. Well, when we come back for the break, I'm going give you a little bio on Philip and how he got where he is. You're going to find this interesting. In the third segment, I'm going to ask and do something very unusual. I'm going to ask him to tell a story that I saw him do in front of a group of young people about who he is and where he came from.

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Cary Hall

His name is Philip Sarnecki. He is running for governor. The website is philipsarnecki.org. philipsarnecki.org. We'll be right back after the break. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate broadcasting here on The HIA Radio Network. Coast to coast across the USA. Stay right there. We'll be back with more.

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Cary Hall

Welcome back. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate Show, broadcasting coast to coast across the USA here on The HIA Radio Network. Want to give a shout out to KNSS AM and FM 98.7 FM and 1330 AM, Wichita, Kansas. One of our great broadcast partners in Wichita. Happy to be on the air up there and have them as part of the America's Healthcare Advocate family.

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Cary Hall

Let me tell you a little bit about Philip Sarnecki. You know, this is a guy. He's not a trust baby. Nobody put a silver spoon in his mouth. He bootstrapped his way up. Started out well, we'll get him to tell a story here in the third segment. Let me tell you a little bit about this guy, because he's truly what I would call a self-made man.

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Cary Hall

Philip Sarnecki is a Kansas businessman, family, man, job creator who has built companies that today employ 1000 people across multiple industries. He founded and led RPS Financial Group Services. He also his leadership firm expanded to over 18 offices across the country, including 12 throughout Kansas with 100,000 Kansans underneath that group for Wealth Management, Life Insurance and other things at Northwestern Mutual.

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Cary Hall

Through that program offered. Included in some of his other businesses. He's the largest national franchise owner of Strickland Brothers Quick Lubes, establishing locations across Kansas: Derby, Pittsburg, Fort Scott, Independence. And he is part owner of 513 Films who have had actors like Mel Gibson in their films. I've actually seen some of those films and they do a pretty good job.

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Cary Hall

Those are family centered films that are a little different than some of the stuff you see rolling out of Hollywood, so to say that you have multiple interest would be an understatement, I think.

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Philip Sarnacki

Yeah, I'm kind of a business mutt.

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Cary Hall

Yeah, you.

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Philip Sarnacki

Are. Yeah, but I've spent I really spent, 30 plus years, you know, in the insurance and investment business, wealth management business. And, we were able to, you know, grow our firm across multiple states Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Missouri, Kansas. But just in Kansas, we had clients in all 50 states, but just in Kansas, we had, almost 100,000 clients.

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Philip Sarnacki

We actually paid out almost $135 million in dividends last year. Just to residents in Kansas.

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Cary Hall

And you had 10 billion under.

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Philip Sarnacki

And just in Kansas, we have about, we had about $10 billion of assets under management. Those companies were sold as of August 31st. So this is my second day of retirement, quote unquote. And,

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Cary Hall

He's going to retire like I do at 76. Okay. Not.

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Philip Sarnacki

Yeah. So we are, we're all in on this. I mean, we we really feel like, you know, you can't do this part time. We have a couple of our other businesses where we'll actually be selling as well. So it'll just leave us with a few. But I have great people running those, and I honestly, I don't spend a ton of time on them right now.

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Cary Hall

Yeah, because you'll be you'll be spending all your time doing this. That's right. So so talk a little bit about some of the things that, you know, we talked a little bit about this off air before you went on. One of the problems we have in the market in Kansas specifically is we don't allow association plans in here.

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Cary Hall

We're not doing anything creative. That's not just in insurance. By the way. We'll have that conversation later. But there's very little innovation. It's kind of like we're stuck in this rut. And this is why we we have to sell the ACA plans, Obamacare plans. Well that's great, but why don't you open the market up to allow other plans to come in that are not part of that ACA model?

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Cary Hall

And you mentioned some things are going on in places like Florida. How do you see your vision affecting the way we provide health insurance, health benefits to people in Kansas? Philip.

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Philip Sarnacki

Well, I think at a high level, we have two major issues. One, we don't have enough competition, as you just stated. We need to open it up to association plans. I mean, I see what you've done as an entrepreneur with Gig Care, which I think is fantastic, and we need more of that in Kansas because that will lower prices.

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Philip Sarnacki

For people that'll help distribute the products better get them out to western Kansas, for example. But being able to band together and provide for association plans, and make it make it easier for smaller businesses to buy health insurance and to get started. One of the things, as I've spent a couple of years really evaluating, you know, whether or not I was going to run, I talked to a lot of people, including some Kansas legislators, for example.

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Philip Sarnacki

And as a business owner who owns numerous businesses, I know the challenges and the red tape and the bureaucracy that's here in the state of Kansas to get businesses started. And we've got to do away with that. I was having a conversation with a state senator, and she looked at me and said, Philip, you don't even you don't even know how bad it is.

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Philip Sarnacki

She said, it's even worse. I went through this long list and she looked at me and said, it's even worse than what you think.

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Cary Hall

And people don't think that the oh, I'm in a Republican state, right? We've got Republican senators, Republican congressman, we've got a super majority. But the bureaucrats underneath all of this, right, are controlling it. You know, it's interesting because they are the they're not elected in these offices, but they exert so much control and pressure that I think it gets away from the politicians.

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Cary Hall

I think it gets away from the state senators, the governor, the. Yeah, it it's it's almost like it's impenetrable.

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Philip Sarnacki

Well, I had a friend of mine who said, you know, what's so attractive about you running as an outsider and somebody that's never been in politics is he said, it's the perspective that you bring. And his analogy was he said, these people that have been in politics all of these years, two and three decades have done nothing else.

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Philip Sarnacki

He said it's a little bit like a fish in water. He said, you have no concept what it's like to be outside of the water. If you've spent your entire life in the water and you know, maybe it sounds like a children's analogy, but the reality is, I think there's a lot of truth in that. And so I think people don't look at things in a creative way.

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Philip Sarnacki

They don't, they're just kind of caught up in, in all of that bureaucracy. Because the reality is, you know, there's a swamp in Washington DC, but there's a swamp in Topeka, too.

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Cary Hall

Yes, there is.

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Philip Sarnacki

There's a little mini swamp out there. And, but it's a swamp nonetheless, and we need to get out there. And I think without question, I'm the best person to get in there and shake that up.

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Cary Hall

Yeah, I think you definitely will be the best person to get in there and shake it up, because you're not a typical politician. So before we go to break a little bit about an example that plan that’s in Florida that you brought to my attention. Yeah. Talk about what they're doing in Florida.

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Philip Sarnacki

Yeah. So Florida's doing a section 804 import program is what they're doing, the importation program, SIP. And it's very unique. They're the only state in the country that's doing it right now. We're doing a lot of research on it, but it really looks like Florida, now, they're starting it at the at the public sector. So it's not going out private yet.

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Philip Sarnacki

So I think it's a little bit of a pilot program right now. But they're expecting to save about $183 million for the state through that program. And what they're going to be doing is importing drugs from Canada. And you know, whether sure, the drama is in the details. And, you know, we would need to put something together to obviously take a look at that.

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Philip Sarnacki

But that's the kind of innovation that Kansas needs to be leading on. And that's what I want to bring to the table as governor, as the CEO of the state, is to be leading the other states with that type of innovation.

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Cary Hall

So let me give you an example. Wegovey, the weight loss drug. If you can't get it as by virtue of the fact that you're a diabetic and you want to buy it, just because you want to lose weight, it's $1,100 a month. You know what it costs if it comes in from Canada, New Zealand or Australia, $88. $88 versus $1100.

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Cary Hall

So what's the commonsense alternative? You just heard it right. This is what I mean when I talk about thinking outside the box and having somebody run for this office, it's going to make a difference because they're not going to be stuck doing the same things that we've always done. When you ask the question, why do we do it that way?

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Cary Hall

Well, that's the way we've always done it. I think it's time to get rid of. It's the way we've always done it. Yeah. We'll be right back after the break. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate broadcasting here on The HIA Radio Network. Coast to coast across the USA. If you want to get involved, the website is philipsarnecki.org.

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Cary Hall

philipsarnecki.org. You can go up on the website, you can become a volunteer. You want to donate? I’m sure they’d be happy to have you do that. We'll be right back after the break. Stay tuned.

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Cary Hall

Welcome back. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocates Show, broadcasting coast to coast across USA. He is Philip Sarnecki, he is running for governor in the state of Kansas. And I asked him to come on this broadcast and talk about what his vision is. The website is philipsarnecki.org. philipsarnecki.org. If you want to get involved.

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Cary Hall

If you want somebody in the state of Kansas who's not a politician, if you want somebody in the state of Kansas who is a CEO and understands how to run a business and you want to see what that looks like. Take a look at what's happening in Virginia right now and what governor Youngkin has been able to accomplish.

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Cary Hall

And then ask yourself what that would look like in the state of Kansas. Years ago, I don't that was probably. Had to be at least six years or more. I attended one of your one of your training sessions as an observer. And, all these young people from college who were being recruited come to work at Northwestern Mutual.

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Cary Hall

And I’d watch you get up in front of them. And I'm thinking to myself, before you started, they're going to see this guy who is very wealthy, has, very successful businesses, runs his whole show here, also runs, you know, Northwestern Mutual in New Mexico and Arizona. And they're going to see a very successful businessman. And then you got up there and you told the story.

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Cary Hall

And I was thinking about that over the weekend before we came to the show. And I was, I would say, moved, okay. Because I grew up in a situation very similar to yours. My father was a coal miner, okay. Who then became a finish carpenter. Self-taught. Your father was a janitor. So, Philip, nobody put a silver spoon in your mouth.

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Cary Hall

Let's talk about your story and how you started your family and the whole nine yards.

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Philip Sarnacki

Yeah. I grew up in a in a small town, a little farming community, about a thousand people. You know, one of those places with, no stoplights and one gas station. One grocery store. You know, a lot more churches than grocery stores and gas stations. And it was just it was a great place to grow up. And, you know, we didn't farm, but a lot of my friends, either they did or their grandparents did.

00;19;31;21 - 00;19;51;14

Philip Sarnacki

And, I grew up, you know, I had to earn any money that I wanted to spend, and it was delivering newspapers. My brother and I would mow lawns. We walked, I walked beans, which is a horrid, horribly miserable job for a 13 or 14 year old. Most people don't even know what that is.

00;19;51;21 - 00;19;52;13

Cary Hall

What is walking beans?

00;19;52;20 - 00;20;13;15

Philip Sarnacki

Well, yeah, walking beans you get up at, you know, 6:00 in the morning. And keep in mind, you're 13, 14 years old. 15 years old. You have long sleeves, long pants in the summer. It's blazing hot. And you basically literally spend 7 or 8 hours walking up and down, bean rows, and you've got a hook and you're pulling out the button weeds, etc..

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Philip Sarnacki

Now they kill all of that with, you know, Roundup. Yeah, right. Herbicide, pesticides, etc.. The technology's a lot better than having a 14 year old do it, but, it will make you want to go to college, I can tell you that. But it also, you know, it's one of those things. I hated it at the time, but looking back, the values that that teaches around hard work and discipline, they're invaluable.

00;20;38;05 - 00;21;03;00

Philip Sarnacki

They became invaluable to me later in life. So my father, my mom and dad met very young and, got married and, you know, then had me, my dad prior to that had been in Vietnam. And, he went there. He had, I believe 20, 20 vision, if I'm not mistaken. And when he came back because of Agent Orange, you know, he was legally blind at night.

00;21;03;02 - 00;21;20;13

Philip Sarnacki

And so even though he was trained to be a paramedic, he could do that part time, but because he couldn't drive at night, he couldn't do it full time. And so, you know, he didn't have a lot of options for work. So he was a janitor, for, 35 years. And, but, you know, I saw both my parents.

00;21;20;13 - 00;21;46;06

Philip Sarnacki

My mom worked numerous jobs. She worked as a secretary, at the university. She, would wake up at, you know, four, 4:30 in the morning and go, go downtown. Now downtown was, you know, extremely small. Right? It was like Gary's Pizza, the bank, the bowling alley. And that was about it. And then the donut shop, and she'd go down and make donuts, and then she'd come home and help the kids get ready and get us off to school.

00;21;46;06 - 00;22;02;16

Philip Sarnacki

And then she'd go to her regular job. And then I'd oftentimes see my father as he worked all day long as a janitor. And then in the evening, he would come home and he would go off to work. You know, doing, work as a paramedic, as a part time paramedic. So, you know, I just watched my parents work really hard.

00;22;02;16 - 00;22;09;19

Philip Sarnacki

I mean, we didn't have a lot of money. You know, I grew up in about a 950 square foot home with five of us and one really, really small bathroom.

00;22;09;20 - 00;22;10;08

Cary Hall

That's small.

00;22;10;08 - 00;22;35;23

Philip Sarnacki

That small? Yeah, it's it is small. And, I didn't even realize how small it was at the time. We had a neighbor a couple doors down that had two bathrooms, and I thought they were loaded, you know, because they had two bathrooms, and, And you know, again, you look back and, I didn't love, not having some of the financial resources, that I saw other kids have, but I wouldn't change it for the world.

00;22;35;23 - 00;23;06;04

Philip Sarnacki

Looking back now, because my parents taught me, I think what's truly important. My father passed away last year, but they were married for 58 years. And I saw that dedication to each other. I saw incredibly hard work. Faith was always important in our family and just the importance of family as well. And, so, you know, looking back now, I couldn't be more thankful and appreciative for my parents and really, the whole environment in which I grew up, which was not a lot of money.

00;23;06;04 - 00;23;28;19

Philip Sarnacki

And I, you know, I have some stories, when we were, kids, we had a white station wagon, and it had a hole in the floorboard behind the driver's seat. So my brother and I called it the Flintstones car. This was before the days of that. Seatbelts were really, you know, really important. And, are really valued.

00;23;28;21 - 00;23;49;11

Philip Sarnacki

And my dad would put a, a wood board and a blanket over it, and but we would, you know, we'd love to, to pick that up and kind of look at the, the road flying by us underneath. And if you remember those little rubber balls, we would kind of like dropping those out of there and then racing to the back of the station wagon, watching them go bouncing down the road.

00;23;49;14 - 00;24;06;25

Philip Sarnacki

And then when I, when we got older, when I was in high school, we, we moved up to a yellow station wagon. Things were a little better by then, but it didn't go in reverse. So this was the car that I drove in high school, was a yellow station wagon that didn't go in reverse. And, you know, you got to be really careful how you park.

00;24;06;27 - 00;24;28;08

Philip Sarnacki

You have a car that doesn't go in reverse. But, you know, I remember I was really young. I remember, you know, maybe being seven years old. I'm kind of guessing, you know, walk out into the kitchen and, you know, my mom is sitting at the kitchen table and she's got, bills spread out all over the table, and she she's in tears because she doesn't know what bills to pay.

00;24;28;11 - 00;24;50;12

Philip Sarnacki

And, you know, I think why that's important is because I think that drives a lot of the way that I look at the working class people in the state of Kansas and what we would do to try to help. I mean, those memories are seared into my brain, and all of that is the lens with which I look through.

00;24;50;14 - 00;24;55;01

Philip Sarnacki

You know, if I were to become governor and to lead this state.

00;24;55;04 - 00;25;14;09

Cary Hall

And that's a very different approach. Okay. Your your story mirrors mine in a lot of ways. But, you know, like, I my we never owned a car even with a hole in the floor. Yeah. Right. But but but I get that. And your point about looking back on that and not regretting it, you know, I my father used to he'd get up in the morning, come in the room.

00;25;14;17 - 00;25;32;25

Cary Hall

Get up babe, you're going to hit a lick. And that meant we're going to go to work. And we’d be in it for 12 hours a day. That's the way he worked. So you learn the value of that and that carried over. You started out Northwestern Mutual at the bottom of the rung where you wind up by the time you wound up leaving Northwestern Mutual.

00;25;32;25 - 00;26;00;03

Philip Sarnacki

Well, you know, it's such a unique company because you're really running your own business. You're just kind of doing it under their umbrella. So as a 19 year old, I had a really good friend and they lived a very, very, very different lifestyle. Although their, their estate, their 86 acre estate was very close to our home in a it was only about two miles away, but it seemed worlds away of course, tennis court, basketball court at 10,000 square foot, home, a lake that we would waterski on.

00;26;00;03 - 00;26;21;13

Philip Sarnacki

And I got to spend time out there and, his my buddy's dad owned an agency office and, you know, was very successful, not just financially, but, also how he controlled his time as well. And the, the importance of family. And, you know, how he was able to coach his kids and and just be there and be present.

00;26;21;15 - 00;26;40;21

Philip Sarnacki

And so I got to watch that. But I started as a 19 year old, really was my first business where I was selling insurance. So I kind of grew up in sales. But I had a lot of success with it early on, and I needed the money. I had, you know, I, I played football for one year in college, but after that, I didn't even really play.

00;26;40;21 - 00;27;03;25

Philip Sarnacki

I practiced for one year. I redshirted and practiced for one year. But I would, you know, I needed money. I needed to pay for school, I needed spending money. And so as a 19 year old, I was out working really 40 plus hours a week in addition to going to school as well. And, then was able just to leverage that into eventually owning an agency office myself.

00;27;03;27 - 00;27;28;19

Cary Hall

So if you wonder how that story resonates, you should have seen the people after he did this, whenever he was briefing young people who were tempted to come to work at Northwestern Mutual. In other words, nobody handed him anything. Okay? What he has created, what he has done with the multiple businesses he’s owned and the success he’s had is the same vision he wants to bring to the state of Kansas.

00;27;28;21 - 00;27;50;13

Cary Hall

If you want more information, it's philipsarnecki.org. philipsarnecki.org. That's the website. Lots of information up there. You want to volunteer. You want to get behind this man. That's your opportunity to do it. Stay tuned. We'll be right back after the break. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate Broadcasting here on The HIA Radio Network. Coast to coast Cross, USA.

00;27;50;14 - 00;27;57;18

Cary Hall

Stay right there.

00;27;57;20 - 00;28;17;06

Cary Hall

Welcome back. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate show broadcasting coast to coast across the USA. My producers: Behind the camera Mr. Dave Thiessen, doing what he always does, recording all these shows and getting them up on our YouTube channel. Half a million views. Thanks to all of you out there in the listening audience and those 16 podcast channels.

00;28;17;10 - 00;28;36;28

Cary Hall

A lot of folks going up there and listening to these shows behind the microphones. Mr. Gardner Cowdrey here with Cumulus folks, we're very happy to be here in studio today and doing this show with Philip Sarnecki. He is a gubernatorial candidate for the state of Kansas. And we're happy that he took time to come in and talk to us about what his vision for the state of Kansas is.

00;28;37;01 - 00;28;40;05

Cary Hall

I heard a rumor you're producing a book. Writing a book?

00;28;40;08 - 00;28;56;00

Philip Sarnacki

Well, I'm. Yes. You know, I'm working with some people that are helping me write a book. Okay. Given the story that you just talked about, a little bit about my upbringing and some of the things we we've been able to do, I've had people for, years, kind of mentioned. Well, you should write a book. You should write a book.

00;28;56;02 - 00;28;59;08

Philip Sarnacki

And I always just. I'm like, when in the world would I have time?

00;28;59;10 - 00;29;01;23

Cary Hall

I heard that a couple of times, like, yeah, nevermind.

00;29;01;25 - 00;29;20;24

Philip Sarnacki

And but as we started exploring this and, and it came up or I threw it out, people, you know, would say, boy, that'd be a great way for people to hear your story and learn your story. So we went ahead and started it. And yeah, it should hopefully be wrapped up in the next couple of months, and we'll have a book out and we'll be able to take it out across the state of Kansas.

00;29;20;24 - 00;29;31;09

Philip Sarnacki

And they can, you know, in a deeper way, share, you know, learn a little bit more about my story. We share a lot of leadership lessons in there throughout my career. And I think just life lessons as well.

00;29;31;09 - 00;29;33;20

Cary Hall

When you get it ready to go, you have to come back on and we’ll talk about it.

00;29;33;20 - 00;29;34;00

Philip Sarnacki

I’d love to, that’s great.

00;29;34;03 - 00;29;50;15

Cary Hall

So what do you see as the you know, here we are in Johnson County, Kansas, number four, wealthiest county in the country. That shocks a lot of people when I say that because we're in flyover country. Okay. But that is fact, okay. And you're in the number three most livable city in the country.

00;29;50;15 - 00;30;10;08

Cary Hall

Voted number three this year after being number four, number five last couple years. But our taxes are pretty damn high. Philip, I mean what I pay in property taxes, we've got great school districts. But I mean those numbers are pretty high. How do you envision this whole tax question across the state of Kansas? And, and how do you see that impacting this election?

00;30;10;11 - 00;30;31;14

Philip Sarnacki

Well, there's a lot of, you know, there's 105 counties in Kansas, so there's a lot more counties than just Johnson County. Correct. And, you know, part of the problem that I think and one of the reasons I decided to run is I believe that Kansas has been mired in mediocrity for a long, long time. We have not been able to grow our population base to speak of.

00;30;31;16 - 00;30;50;10

Philip Sarnacki

We have the highest income tax rate of all of our border states. Plus, you can throw in Iowa and Arkansas, and those are really the states that we compete with. We also have the second highest corporate tax rate of all of those states as well. And then you mentioned property taxes, which in some areas are just completely out of control.

00;30;50;13 - 00;31;08;25

Philip Sarnacki

Now, a lot of that is obviously, the decisions and is administered locally at the city. And, and state, city and local level. But but I think there are some things that we can do from a state standpoint, as well, I think, you know, you can use it as a little bit of a bully pulpit as well.

00;31;08;28 - 00;31;31;02

Philip Sarnacki

And, to be able to, to get those down. I just think the whole concept of paying off your home after living in it for 25, 30 years or whatever it may be, and then your home is paid off, but you have to continue to pay taxes to the government. Is really it's like you really never own your home.

00;31;31;05 - 00;31;38;22

Philip Sarnacki

And so it's something we need to dig into. And and again, we need to be bold and taking action and seeing what we can make happen there.

00;31;38;24 - 00;31;58;15

Cary Hall

So a couple things that number one, you that resonates really well with those of us that are chronologically challenged because there there are a lot of seniors that this is a struggle for. Oh, so that that's definitely an issue. But let's talk about this. Why can't we attract young talent to Kansas? Why don't we attract, technology to Kansas?

00;31;58;15 - 00;32;12;09

Cary Hall

You you've got a skilled workforce. You've got a great it's a wonderful place to live, all these opportunities. But for some reason, we don't seem to be doing any of that. Yet I see there's other states doing that all the time.

00;32;12;11 - 00;32;29;07

Philip Sarnacki

Yeah. So I think there's a couple of things that are happening there. I mean, you mentioned Glenn Youngkin earlier, I'm connected with Glenn Youngkin on LinkedIn, and I see, I mean, a couple of times a week, he's talking about a new business that's coming to Virginia or a new business startup in Virginia. Company expands in Virginia.

00;32;29;09 - 00;32;56;02

Philip Sarnacki

He is doing a phenomenal job as the chief cheerleader of that state for business. And, you know, when you're attracting business, you're attracting jobs. We also and we talked about this earlier. We have to make it simpler, get rid of the red tape and the bureaucracy for new business startups. Because if you do that then you you don't have to go out and give these tax abatements to big companies to get them to come to Kansas.

00;32;56;05 - 00;33;14;10

Philip Sarnacki

You can get, you know, the Garmin’s of the world that start here. You can get the companies that get the get started here and grow here. And so by by eliminating a lot of that red tape and bureaucracy, making it easier for business startups, that's going to help with that as well. So it's kind of a cyclical thing, right?

00;33;14;10 - 00;33;36;08

Philip Sarnacki

Or not a cyclical thing, but it's kind of a, you know, chicken and chicken and egg because what happens is, you know, companies say, well, we need the talent. And then, you know, the, the, the students or the people that are graduating and they want to stay here and work here. Now, we do attract a lot of businesses or a lot of, students, but we also lose a lot of people.

00;33;36;08 - 00;33;57;12

Philip Sarnacki

Once they graduate as well. And so we have all kinds of ideas on how we can, get, get folks to stay here and help them build businesses here. You know, one of the things about this generation that's really interesting is they're pretty entrepreneurial. And I think if you if you take the obstacles out of the way, I think we can get a lot of business startups here in the state.

00;33;57;13 - 00;34;06;08

Cary Hall

And encourage them to do it and not try to make it more difficult for them to do it instead of having to jump to 15 hoops, maybe only three hoops. And you're.

00;34;06;08 - 00;34;22;09

Philip Sarnacki

There. Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's businesses are succeeding in spite of the state of Kansas right now. The state of Kansas is not helping, new businesses succeed. And that's what we need to do. Yeah.

00;34;22;11 - 00;34;41;25

Cary Hall

He's Philip Sarnecki. He's running for governor in the state of Kansas. The website is philipsarnecki.org. philipsarnecki.org. I think you can see why I think he's going to be a good fit for the state. I've never done this before. I don't do politics. You know that other than it applies to health issues like ACA and some of the other things.

00;34;42;02 - 00;35;05;09

Cary Hall

But in this particular case, I thought it was appropriate. I think this is somebody that thinks outside the box, and I think he's somebody can make an enormous difference in this state and move us down the path a lot further than we are today, and put aside some of the political nonsense that goes on. And let's focus on what it would be like to have an actual CEO as governor, somebody that looks at this as a business.

00;35;05;12 - 00;35;12;21

Cary Hall

You've got a model for that. He's sitting at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. This could be a model very similar to that. Thank you for coming on the show.

00;35;12;24 - 00;35;14;17

Philip Sarnacki

Thank you, Cary. Thanks so much for having me here,

00;35;15;25 - 00;35;22;26

Cary Hall

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I leave you with this thought from Albert Einstein, the one who follows the crowd usually get no further than the crowd.

00;35;22;28 - 00;35;48;07

Cary Hall

The one who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been. Remember, friends, it's a funny thing about life. If you refuse to accept anything but the very best. You most often get it. Thank you for listening to America's Healthcare Advocate broadcasting coast to coast across USA here on the HIA Radio network. Goodbye America.

00;35;48;09 - 00;35;54;29

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