For Matt’s last episode of The Weeds, Ezra Klein and Sarah Kliff return for a look at why health care and drug costs in the US keep rising, how subsidizing industries leads to higher consumer costs, and what both political parties can do about it. It gets real nerdy just as fast as the last time these three co-hosted. We also learn about the first print piece Matt ever published, and he shares some feelings about pseudo-Cyrillic.

Resources:

“How the US made affordable homes illegal” by Jerusalem Demsas (Vox Media; Aug 17, 2021)

“Building housing — lots of it — will lay the foundation for a new future” by Matt Yglesias (Vox Media; Sep 23, 2020)

“The true story of America’s sky-high prescription drug prices” by Sarah Kliff (Vox Media; May 10, 2018)

"The real reason American health care is so expensive" by Liz Scheltens, Mallory Brangan, and Ezra Klein (Vox Media; Dec 1, 2017)

White Paper: “Cost Disease Socialism: How Subsidizing Costs While Restricting Supply Drives America’s Fiscal Imbalance” by Steven Teles, Samuel Hammond, Daniel Takash (Niskanen Center; Sep 9, 2021)

Guest:

Ezra Klein (@ezraklein), Columnist, The New York Times

Sarah Kliff (@sarahkliff), Investigative Reporter, The New York Times

Host:

Matt Yglesias (@mattyglesias), Slowboring.com

Credits:

Ness Smith-Savedoff, Producer & Engineer

Erikk Geannikis, Producer, Talk Podcasts

Sofi LaLonde, Producer, The Weeds

Efim Shapiro, Engineer

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#114: Remember Who You Are