Episode 119

Insulin Prices, College Cancellation Fear, Stock Buybacks

Ravi, Rikki, and Joe start with a major announcement from drugmaker Eli Lilly on coming price caps for its insulin products before turning to the complex web of regulatory loopholes that defines American pharmaceuticals and health care altogether. Then we turn to a new survey from FIRE, detailing self-censoring among college professors and students when it comes to academic freedom and speech. Finally, we look at a trendy punching bag among progressives, asking whether stock buybacks are really the corporate cash grab they think.

SHOW NOTES

Insulin Prices [01:43]

How Much Does Insulin Cost? Here’s How 28 Brands and Generics Compare (GoodRx, 1/26/22)
Analysis: Eli Lilly is capping insulin copays at $35. Here are 5 questions answered (PBS/The Conversation, 3/5/23)
Eli Lilly to Cut Prices of Insulin Drugs by 70%, Cap Patient Costs at $35 (Wall Street Journal, 3/1/23)
How the New $35 Cap on Insulin Costs Will Work (Wall Street Journal, 1/11/23)
Why Insulin Is So Expensive and How California Aims to Produce Its Own | WSJ (YouTube/Wall Street Journal, 8/17/22)
Let’s not mistake Eli Lilly’s insulin cap for altruism (MSNBC, 3/2/23)
The Insulin Pricing Wars Are Just Getting Started (The New Republic, 3/3/23)
Joe Biden’s Insulin Fictions (WSJ Editorial Board, 3/2/23)
The Last Thing Insulin Markets Need Is More Government (National Review, 8/10/22)
The Foolishness of Prescription-Drug Price Controls (National Review, 11/27/21)
Are pharmacy benefit managers the good guys or bad guys of drug pricing? (STAT News, 8/27/18)
Insulin prices are skyrocketing, but just who is driving the rise in costs? Hint: it’s not the drug manufacturers (USC, 8/26/22)
In health care, America is the world’s indispensable nation (Washington Post, 11/29/22)
America is subsidizing Europe’s socialist medicine — with higher drug prices here (The Hill, 12/8/20)
The global burden of medical innovation (Brookings, 1/30/18)
Debunking The Pharmaceutical Research ‘Free Rider’ Myth: A response To Yu, Helms, And Bach (Health Affairs, 6/2/17)

College Cancellation Fear [24:13]

More than half of college professors bite their tongues over cancel culture fears (New York Post, 2/28)
The Academic Mind in 2022: What Faculty Think About Free Expression and Academic Freedom on Campus (FIRE, 2023)

Stock Buybacks [37:28]

Why investors like Warren Buffett are so fond of stock buybacks (Axios, 2/7/23)
Warren Buffett calls stock buyback critics ‘economic illiterate’ in Berkshire Hathaway annual letter (CNBC, 2/25/23)
Stop Demonizing Stock Buybacks (The Atlantic, 2/17/23)
Biden’s 1% stock buyback tax isn’t working. Will asking Congress to raise it do any good? (CNBC, 2/7/23)
Stock Buybacks and Dividends Become a $1.5 Trillion Political Target (New York Times, 8/13/22)
Stock Buybacks Race to Record $132 Billion Start as Companies Snub All Warnings (Bloomberg, 2/2/23)
3 myths underlying Biden’s proposed increase in tax on stock buybacks (The Hill, 2/28/23)
Biden and Schumer lead nonsensical progressive charge against stock buybacks (Washington Post, 3/3/23)
Stock Buybacks Aren’t Bad. They Aren’t Good, Either. (Wall Street Journal, 2/17/23)
Stock Buybacks Help No One in the Long Term | Opinion (NewsWeek, 3/1/23)
Are Stock Buybacks A Good Thing? Not Always (The Street, 2/28/23)
What Is A Stock Buyback? (Forbes, 2/7/23)
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. 2022 Annual Report (Berkshire Hathaway, 2/25/23)
Market underreaction to open market share repurchases (Journal of Financial Economics, 11/95)
Payout policy in the 21st century (Journal of Financial Economics, 9/05)
The Price Effect of Stock Repurchases: Evidence from Dual Class Firms (Management Science, 6/26/21)
Stock Buybacks: Is Excess Cash Being Spent Wisely? (J.P. Morgan, 8/15/19)

Voicemail [50:00]