good morning John is Friday somebody
recently asked me a good question what's
the best money you ever spent I like
this question and as you do I thought
about it maybe a little bit too much
first I thought about my guitar which
has brought me like endless hours of
enjoyment and self-improvement and I
thought about my car which 10 years in
no problems still kicking it got
rear-ended so hard once that their
airbags went off not a scratch on the
car Honda Civic is looking for a brand
ambassador you probably don't want me
because I don't care very much about
cars sometimes as he commercials for the
Honda Civic and I'm like that is deeply
not the relationship I have with my car
this is like Honda Civic Drive
superiority I'm like Honda Civic drive
to work I kept thinking about it and I
came up with an answer that is
absolutely the true answer I think
there's no doubt in my mind about it
prescription drugs so between graduating
from grad school and thus losing my
insurance and when Obamacare was enacted
was about a three year period and during
those three years I spent a little over
ten thousand dollars on prescription
drugs and those drugs helped me not be
in constant pain they helped my body
take in nutrition stop bleeding into
itself and those pills made it so that I
didn't have a lifelong decrease in my
physical ability the drug went from
around 250 to 400 hours while I was
taking it I'm still taking it I now if I
didn't have insurance it would cost
$1,700 a month and I would pay that
because when you're paying for the use
of your own body you will pay what you
can it's the best money I've ever spent
but yeah I'm not happy about it I am NOT
an economist but I listen to some and a
lot of them are convinced that we have
made a massive mistake as an example
since I graduated from high school the
cost of insulin has increased a thousand
percent as an economist in our society
right now I would thus say that the
value of insulin to the economy has
increased a thousand percent except that
of course it hasn't the value delivered
by the insulin is the same now as it was
20 years ago it's a healthier longer
life and that is so much value I am so
thankful for the medicine that I take
it's been a true it's been a tremendous
gift to me and to my family to the
people I love like life would be much
harder for them if it weren't for that
and like it's the best money I've ever
spent was that
value is created whether or not we turn
it into dollars the current system
doesn't accept that according to
prevailing economic theory if they
double the price of my medication and
that means that 25% of people who are
currently taking it can't afford it
anymore
they have created more value because
they're making more money they're not
obviously because there are fewer people
being served by the medication they are
creating less value and the argument
that we hear is often that like they
need the money in order to develop more
drugs well leaving aside the fact that
in the last 10 years prescription drug
companies have spent more money buying
back shares of their own stock to
inflate their stock price than they have
on research and development 75% of
revolutionary new drugs were funded by
the National Institutes of Health by
public money by our tax dollars that is
money well spent prescription drug
companies on the other hand have spent
an awful lot of their research and
development dollars figuring out how to
turn existing medications into very
similar but slightly different
medications so that they can extend
their patents because they I think
believe that creating more money is the
same as creating more value as long as
business leaders keep believing the lies
they were told in econ 101 we're gonna
be destroying value when we think we're
creating it and now John I'm going to
hold up this thousand dollar savings
bond that I got when I graduated from
college because I want a good thumbnail
for the video so people will watch it
John I'll see you on Tuesday if you want
to read or think more about what I've
been talking about in this video check
out Mariana Matsu kados the value of
everything it's a book or just any
podcast where she has been interviewed
or given the talk I like what she has to
say