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0:45

If you are a senator or

0:47

a member of congress and you have some, like,

0:49

great idea about a new piece of

0:51

legislation, at some point,

0:54

someone will have to say, okay,

0:57

this is how much your

0:59

amazing piece of legislation would

1:01

cost.

1:02

And back in the day, it used to be that

1:04

the White House gave you that cost estimate.

1:07

But in the nineteen seventies, There were

1:09

some members of Congress who started to say,

1:12

how do we know we could trust the White House

1:14

Office of Management and

1:16

Budget? This was when Richard

1:18

Nixon was in the White House. This

1:20

is pre watergate, but already, trust

1:23

was not exactly at an all time high between

1:25

the legislative and executive branches. Congress

1:27

wanted its own non partisan

1:30

agency independent of the White House

1:32

to tell them how much proposed

1:34

legislation would

1:35

cost. And since they were congress,

1:37

they could just pass a law to

1:40

create that. And so in the summer

1:42

of nineteen seventy four, they did.

1:44

They created the congressional budget

1:47

office, the CBO.

1:49

Today, nearly every bill that

1:51

passes a full committee

1:53

So any bill that has a chance of

1:55

getting voted on has to get priced

1:57

by the CBO. Congress generally

2:00

does not vote on a bill until

2:02

the CBO says this is how much it would

2:04

cost. And and it's easy to assume

2:06

the CBO is just a bunch of economists

2:09

and people who are really good at

2:10

math, who crunch numbers, and move things around

2:12

on spreadsheets all day. And it's

2:15

not not that. Yeah. But

2:17

in its finest moments, the

2:19

CBO is so much more than

2:21

that. It is an entire agency devoted

2:24

to predicting the future.

2:26

Its job at its core is

2:28

to imagine things that

2:30

don't even exist

2:32

yet. So they can tell us how

2:34

much it would cost if they

2:36

did exist.

2:37

Congressional budget office, you say? More

2:40

like crystal ball office.

2:43

Okay. Hello,

2:45

and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Sarah Gonzalez.

2:47

And I'm Kenny Malone. Today on the

2:50

show, we bring you the story of

2:52

the CBO as they attempted

2:54

to price one giant specific

2:57

piece of legislation. To understand,

2:59

like, just how incredibly tricky

3:01

and complicated this job can

3:04

be. It was a bill so complex.

3:06

It would take the CBO a year and

3:08

a half to come up with a cost estimate.

3:11

In that whole process, it really reveals

3:14

the the sometimes very weird

3:16

relationship. The has

3:18

with the very congress that created

3:21

the

3:21

CBO. This story involves a

3:23

doughnut hole. A death spiral.

3:26

And secret drugs from the future.

3:32

Okay. The does two main things.

3:35

When it does economic analysis or like a

3:37

pink tank. They said, all these things Congress

3:39

is interested in, like, what would happen

3:41

to the economy if we increase the

3:43

federal minimum wage. And they go like, well,

3:45

it will be good in these ways, it will be bad in

3:47

these ways. Boom. And then two, the CBO

3:49

estimates the cost of nearly

3:52

every bill that gets a full floor

3:54

vote.

3:55

Now most of those bills

3:57

that the CPO is pricing are not exactly

3:59

earth shattering pieces of legislation. Most

4:02

of the time, the CBO is

4:04

grinding away, running the prices

4:07

of pretty simple

4:08

stuff. Like, you're renaming a post

4:10

office, there is no federal cost. If

4:12

you're renaming a post office? Yeah.

4:14

It's a de minimis cost. It does not cost

4:16

much to rename post office. Doug Holtaicin

4:18

used to be the director of the CBL they had.

4:21

And apparently, Congress renamed

4:24

post offices a lot. When Doug

4:26

was there, almost twenty percent of

4:28

enacted legislation was post

4:30

office

4:30

renaming. You know, the Gerald Putnam

4:33

post office and

4:34

things like that. It must be in really small

4:36

letters on the building because I've never noticed

4:39

it. Okay. Okay.

4:41

It's like a little plaque. And yet

4:43

basically every time that some member wants

4:45

to rename a post office with this little

4:47

plaque, the CBOhhhh has to weigh and they

4:49

say, Okay. It will cost

4:52

this much.

4:53

Boring. It can be very boring. Yeah.

4:55

It can be very boring. You do not to become

4:57

the director of the CBO. Because you

5:00

love pricing post office plaques. No.

5:02

You take this job because maybe

5:04

two or three times a year, Doug

5:06

says, the CBO will get to

5:08

do something really hard, complicated

5:11

something very fun, where

5:13

you have put a price tag on something that

5:16

has never been priced before.

5:18

Doug says, this is where the CBO

5:21

shines. That's when I think it's at its best.

5:24

You've been asked to answer What

5:26

is the cost of doing this thing that has never before

5:28

been done and does not exist in

5:29

nature, but you can go into your fantasy land

5:31

and figure it out.

5:32

This is the best place to be at the CBO.

5:35

In fantasy land.

5:37

Yes. Absolutely. Yes.

5:40

It is so much better than real life land.

5:42

Way better. Now

5:45

Doug's favorite example of this

5:47

special twice in year fantasy land

5:49

project. It landed in his

5:51

lap a couple of decades ago. It's the

5:53

early two thousands. Senior citizens

5:55

are spending an unbelievable amount

5:58

of money on prescription drugs.

6:00

Like, yes, they had Medicare,

6:02

but at this time, Medicare did

6:05

not cover prescription

6:07

drugs. Not not really at least. Medicare

6:09

at this time only covered hospitals

6:11

days and certain doctors visits.

6:14

And like, yes, if you were given drugs

6:16

while you were hospitalized, it covered that.

6:18

But If you needed some heart medicine

6:20

once you were out of the hospital in the real

6:23

world, no, no drug coverage. Which

6:25

you might assume would leave senior citizens

6:27

looking for drug coverage from private

6:29

insurance companies. And and there was a little

6:32

of that, but there was no real robust

6:34

market of private companies offering

6:37

prescription drug

6:37

coverage, not for seniors, because it

6:40

is a remarkably risky insurance

6:42

to offer. So you

6:43

just always paid out of pocket for your

6:45

drugs.

6:46

Out of pocket. Yes. It's for seniors here.

6:48

Seniors. For seniors. Yeah. And so,

6:50

In two thousand three, Republicans in

6:52

Congress and president George W.

6:54

Bush who was running for reelection proposed

6:58

throwing a bunch of money at

7:00

this

7:00

problem. They're thinking if the government

7:02

subsidizes prescription drug insurance,

7:05

maybe maybe that will make private

7:07

insurance companies say, okay,

7:10

yeah, maybe now senior drug insurance

7:12

is a good business to be in because you know, will

7:15

sell insurance to seniors. The government

7:17

will help pay for it, so we make

7:19

money. Yeah, and to be clear, the intent was

7:21

not for Medicare or the government to

7:23

fully cover drugs. The goal was

7:26

to subsidize drug insurance enough

7:28

to encourage a private sector to pop

7:30

up and finally offer

7:32

these drug plans. And Republicans

7:34

were like, hey, this new untested

7:37

giant policy Four hundred

7:39

billion dollars. That seems like a good number

7:41

for us to spend on this four hundred

7:44

billion dollars.

7:45

B's billion. Billing. Billing.

7:46

Yeah. Billing. Yes. Doug

7:48

says a big number like this. Looks looks pretty

7:50

good to the president's campaign people.

7:52

Oh, like they wanted to be able to say, look how

7:54

much He is devoting us to

7:56

be honest with you. Yes. Billions means

7:58

love. Billions means love.

8:01

A

8:01

billions means love. That's that's

8:04

how that works. Okay.

8:07

The four hundred billion dollars, to be clear,

8:09

would actually also go to improve a

8:11

few other things in the Medicare system, but but

8:13

the overwhelming majority of that money

8:16

was to try and create prescription

8:18

drug coverage.

8:19

This is where the CBO comes in.

8:21

The CBO's job here is to kinda

8:24

tether congress to reality a

8:26

little bit. CBO economists are the ones

8:28

who say, we'll tell you if

8:31

four hundred billion dollars will actually

8:33

achieve the thing you want to achieve.

8:36

This is what Doug loves.

8:38

Because now, to figure all this out,

8:41

The CBO is gonna have to

8:43

construct

8:44

this prescription drug

8:46

insurance fantasy land. Yeah.

8:48

A little imaginary world with

8:50

imaginary seniors, imaginary drug

8:53

insurers, imaginary drug companies where

8:55

the CBO can kinda like move all the little

8:58

pieces around and see how everyone

9:00

would behave in this fake future

9:02

world. Yeah. I I like to imagine it is one of

9:04

those miniature toy villages. Remember, mister

9:07

Rogers neighborhood of make

9:08

believe. You got your little your little miniature

9:10

senior citizens are in there moving around.

9:13

Your little your little mini drug

9:15

stores, the town square

9:16

Yeah. -- like ice cream part no. Nothing

9:18

like it's it's in computers. But

9:21

but the CBO does half to

9:23

build all of this from scratch. And

9:25

so one of the first things the CBO

9:27

is gonna need to model and predict is

9:30

How will senior citizens behave

9:33

in this fantasy land where the government

9:35

is subsidizing drug insurance?

9:37

I know you're having to look at, like, how many seniors

9:39

are there? How many have prescription drugs? How much do

9:41

they cost? What else is going into

9:44

this like we're creating a

9:45

world. That doesn't exist. We

9:47

we we need to know some things

9:49

about seniors and their habits in buying insurance.

9:51

How sensitive are they to premiums? If premiums go

9:54

up and down, how many people are gonna drop out

9:56

because it's too expensive?

9:57

Yeah, unlike some parts of Medicare,

9:59

seniors would have to sign up.

10:01

And pay some money for this

10:03

kind of insurance. And the CBO has to

10:05

predict, you know, will seniors

10:07

actually do this? Will they sign

10:09

up? Yep. So the the CBO pulls

10:12

some of the government's Medicare data

10:14

about seniors and their drug

10:16

buying behavior. Which then lets the CBO

10:18

kind of, like, you know, populate this fictional

10:21

world with these different imaginary

10:23

characters. Yeah. Like, they actually

10:25

have, you know, statistical senior

10:28

Susie over here, and they're like, okay, we know

10:30

how much Susie spends on

10:32

drugs a lot. And if the government

10:34

starts paying a big chunk of Susie's

10:37

drug costs, she will probably

10:39

spend even more. And then they have, like, statistical

10:41

senior, Ben over there who

10:44

they know spends nothing on drugs. But

10:46

if the government starts throwing money

10:48

at him, they're like Ben will probably

10:51

be

10:51

like, oh, okay. Maybe I will

10:53

get this heart medicine I've been needing

10:55

Ben. Yeah. And and then how do Ben and

10:57

Susie act when The subsidy is

10:59

more or less. You know, Doug's playing around

11:02

with the dials in this new

11:03

world. But the senior

11:05

citizens, they they are only part of this

11:07

fantasy land. Then you have to profile the insurers

11:10

and figure out what are they going to do. How do

11:12

they make the insurers that don't exist yet?

11:14

That don't exist That's

11:15

cool. When they come in, but when they come in, this

11:17

is what they're gonna be. You know? How do they make money?

11:19

What do they like to do in the way of pricing? You

11:22

know, there there are all sorts of games, insurers,

11:24

like to play because they make the most

11:27

money if they can get people to buy their insurance

11:29

who then don't need

11:30

drugs. That's ideal. Yeah.

11:32

Insurers want as many people as

11:35

possible to sign up. And

11:37

the insurers were kind

11:39

of the big question mark. About

11:41

whether this fantasy land would work

11:43

or

11:44

not. Because remember, in the real world,

11:46

insurance companies were basically not

11:48

willing to offer prescription drug insurance

11:51

to seniors at time because they

11:53

were scared of one really

11:55

big thing that too many

11:57

seniors who are sick would sign

12:00

up and then not enough healthy

12:02

seniors would sign

12:03

up. Yeah, that would not be a

12:05

sustainable market. You do not want

12:07

just sick people who need prescription

12:09

drugs signing up. That leads to what is

12:11

called an insurance death spiral.

12:14

Only the sick people sign up, so their premiums

12:16

are too high and they eventually just drop out.

12:18

And the whole thing implodes on itself. It's

12:20

a death spiral. What you want is seniors

12:23

who don't need drugs to sign up

12:25

because it is just like such a good deal that

12:27

they sign up just in case they might

12:29

need drugs later

12:30

on. So the CPO is like, okay, what will

12:32

cause that to happen?

12:34

That is what the CBO has to test

12:36

in their fantasy land. And and really that boils

12:38

down to how much does the government

12:41

have to subsidize insurance

12:43

in order to convince enough healthy

12:45

seniors to sign up, which

12:47

would then convince insurance companies

12:50

that a death spiral will not

12:52

happen. But they can't feel really,

12:54

really confident about what

12:56

that number is, what the subsidy is,

12:59

Without first figuring out how these

13:01

other characters in drug fantasyland

13:03

are going to

13:04

act, the drug companies. What are these

13:06

drug companies can be making? Where they gonna

13:08

be selling? There's now all

13:10

these new customers the potential out there. What are they

13:12

gonna do? And and this this is where the CBO

13:14

really gets to be. The crystal ball

13:16

office because to build this

13:18

fantasy land Doug and his colleagues have to

13:20

predict the price of prescription

13:23

drugs, not just over the next year or two,

13:25

but ten years from now.

13:27

Yeah. The CVS cost estimates are generally for

13:29

like ten years out. And this is

13:31

kind of impossible to do. Right?

13:33

Because, like, They don't even know what drugs

13:35

will exist in ten years, what scientific

13:37

breakthroughs would

13:38

happen. So, like, how do you price

13:41

imaginary drugs.

13:42

We signed non disclosure agreements with the major

13:45

pharmaceutical companies and and

13:47

asked them --

13:48

No. --

13:48

what they were developing.

13:50

And they tell you? They show us everything.

13:53

What what motivation do they have that that the

13:55

government's gonna start subsidizing the things

13:57

that they make? Looks they're about to throw four hundred

13:59

billion dollars on the table. Right? You know, they

14:01

wanted this to happen. I have a promise you

14:03

about that.

14:04

Right. Right. Right. The CBO

14:06

gets all the goods from the big drug makers.

14:08

Like, okay, we're gonna have this new heart

14:10

medicine. In five years, we've got a patent

14:12

on this other one, and the CBO just promised

14:14

them that no one else would see these

14:16

documents promise. We have safes

14:19

and we had secured networks that were air gapped

14:21

and no one could get in. And, you know, to to

14:23

a lot security precautions,

14:24

And at some point, some members of

14:26

Congress were like, wait, can you, like, can

14:29

you share this future drug info

14:31

with

14:31

us? And and technically, Doug says,

14:33

Congress is the CBO's boss.

14:35

They could have just taken the drug data from

14:37

him. Like, I really couldn't have stopped them.

14:39

So my only defense was if

14:42

you ever asked me to disclose

14:44

this stuff, I promised not to disclose, CBO

14:46

will never get any data from anybody ever

14:48

again. And you will get terrible

14:50

cost estimates and and not know what's going

14:52

on to your

14:53

legislation. And they understood that. We never

14:55

had any trouble. All the secrets were

14:57

safe. And after a year and a half of

14:59

playing out every scenario they can think

15:01

of, they've moved all little pieces

15:03

around the Fantasy Land Village of Zillion

15:06

times and they arrive at an answer.

15:09

Yes, Congress. This can

15:11

work, the way that you want it to work.

15:13

We have enough money to incentivize enough

15:15

seniors to sign up that

15:17

private insurers would be willing

15:19

to enter the market.

15:21

And the good news is according to the

15:23

CBO's calculations, it won't even take four

15:25

hundred billion dollars to do

15:27

this. It would only cost taxpayers

15:29

three hundred and forty billion.

15:32

Doug's done. He's

15:34

feeling pretty good. And

15:36

that's when the phone rings.

15:39

It's a member of Congress and he does

15:41

not like Doug's number.

15:43

That's after the break.

15:49

So the CBOhhhh has arrived at a

15:51

cost estimate they feel good about.

15:53

This new Medicare drug insurance

15:56

plus some other little tweaks to Medicare will

15:58

cost three hundred and forty billion

16:00

dollars. That's what Doug says.

16:02

Now it could go to a vote. Now

16:04

Congress can decide if they want this to become

16:06

a law.

16:07

That's when Doug gets the call. The weekend

16:09

before the final vote, Lazyme's

16:11

chairman Bill Thomas, who was the lead on

16:13

this, called me at my home and he

16:15

goes, we got a problem. So what

16:17

do you mean? He goes, the last iteration only

16:19

costs three hundred and forty billion

16:20

dollars. That's too little. My guys are gonna be upset. We gotta

16:22

spend more.

16:23

Oh, because they were like, we want we want

16:25

the four hundred billion. Billions

16:27

is love. Billions is love. We were

16:29

fifty five billion short on love.

16:32

We so he actually said, like, this is

16:34

this is too, like, we need to spend cheap.

16:36

He's like he's like how can we spend another forty

16:38

five, fifty billion dollars? Do

16:41

you remember this? Well,

16:44

yes.

16:47

This is the congressman who called Doug. This

16:49

is Bill. Hey. I'm Bill Thomas. Alright.

16:51

Take real time. Bill says, yeah,

16:53

he told Doug to go back to the report and

16:55

get the math closer to four

16:57

hundred billion dollars. But because

17:00

we didn't do enough.

17:01

Billing less money means

17:03

less help for seniors, not good. And the

17:05

White House and Congress have said they'd be

17:07

willing to devote four hundred billion dollars

17:09

to this. So Bill Thomas wanted

17:12

to spend four hundred billion

17:13

dollars. He actually thought that he wouldn't have

17:15

the votes if he didn't spend everything he could.

17:18

Why would I spend all that time

17:20

and energy to create something

17:22

that wouldn't pass?

17:24

And Bill and Doug and some

17:27

other ex CBO or as we spoke

17:29

to said, there's nothing like super shady

17:31

about

17:31

this. Right? Congress had four hundred billion

17:34

dollars to spend, so they wanted to spend

17:36

that amount.

17:36

And so the CBO is like, alright. Well, if this

17:38

program is already gonna work at three

17:40

forty, it'll still work at four hundred, it

17:43

can just pay for more stuff for seniors.

17:45

And it wasn't even that hard to figure out how to spend more

17:47

Doug says. At this

17:48

point, we know every lever

17:50

in the program does it raise your lower costs

17:53

and by how much. And so this I

17:55

I literally don't know what they changed, but the staff

17:57

was like, we got

17:57

this. They're

17:58

tweaking those knobs, like, a little more here,

18:00

little more there. Okay. What,

18:02

you know, if we do this business. Oh, that's

18:04

four hundred ten billions. Okay. How about Internet?

18:06

No.

18:06

That's three ninety five. Keep

18:08

keep it down. Five. Done. Doug honestly

18:10

doesn't remember exactly how they got.

18:12

To three hundred and ninety five billion. But

18:14

he says they probably just increased the subsidy

18:16

a little

18:16

bit. Here's what the subsidy ended up being.

18:19

The government basically said, alright,

18:21

insurance companies, whatever

18:23

you think your costs are gonna

18:25

be to offer this, your your administrative

18:28

costs, how much you'll spend on drugs,

18:30

some profit for yourself, whatever

18:33

your costs are, we're gonna pay

18:35

seventy five percent of it. And then

18:37

seniors will pay the remaining twenty five

18:39

percent. There was a formal process, but

18:41

it was basically that. So that is like a

18:43

huge amount of guaranteed money

18:46

from the

18:46

government. Of course, insurers were gonna enter

18:48

this market. And all the CBO

18:51

had to do to get this to cost three

18:53

ninety five billion dollars

18:54

was. Tweak those knobs,

18:56

like, just a little bit. For people who might

18:58

hear that and think, like, how can we trust

19:01

anything? What what would

19:03

you say to to those people?

19:05

We I mean, in in both cases,

19:07

we gave him an accurate estimate. We gave him an

19:09

accurate estimate with low subsidies and with

19:11

higher subsidies. One was three

19:13

forty, one was three ninety five. They

19:15

get to decide how big they want the subsidies to be.

19:17

That's their call. And now here's the thing.

19:20

You know, yes, that's that's

19:23

either weird or highly political whatever

19:25

you want to think of But it also has nothing to do

19:27

with science because we had

19:29

no idea if it was really gonna be three hundred ninety

19:32

five billion. Super uncertain as I pointed

19:34

out this imaginary lens. This product did not

19:36

exist in nature. Right? So so

19:38

we're tweaking down to the decimal

19:40

point something that doesn't

19:41

exist. As if we really know what's

19:43

gonna happen. Now, some people

19:46

might argue, the best version of

19:48

this whole process we've walked through would

19:50

be that Congress comes up

19:52

with a policy idea, then CBO

19:55

estimates cost, and then Congress

19:57

writes a check for that

19:58

amount. And sometimes it happens like that.

20:00

But a lot of the time it happens like how

20:02

it happened with this prescription drug thing. Congress

20:05

had an idea. They said this is how much

20:07

we want to spend on this. And then they handed

20:09

it to the CBO to figure out the

20:11

math. And then the CBO has to go, like, back and forth,

20:13

back and forth with Congress. Yeah. And the the reality

20:15

is that when you do it this way,

20:18

you end up sometimes with the policy that

20:20

technically works, but it is maybe

20:22

a little funky, which is how

20:24

the senior prescription

20:26

policy wound up with a very

20:28

strange hole in the drug coverage.

20:30

Yeah. To make this policy work for anything

20:33

close to four hundred billion dollars, this

20:35

is what the policy had to be. Yes,

20:37

seniors get this, honestly, pretty

20:39

great deal on insurance, but

20:41

only for the first two thousand two hundred

20:44

and fifty dollars worth of drugs each

20:46

year, then they fall in

20:48

a hole and start paying the full cost

20:50

of drugs until they rack up so much

20:52

in out of pocket cost that they get to crawl

20:55

out of the hole for insurance to

20:57

once again kick

20:58

in. So so

20:59

there

20:59

was a hole in the coverage. You

21:00

had to leave that doughnut hole because you didn't have enough

21:02

money to fill it. That's because we only have four hundred

21:04

billion dollars

21:05

to work with.

21:05

Wait. Is the doughnut hole? Are those real

21:07

terms?

21:08

The the doughnut hole is what we call it. Yes.

21:11

Called it the donut hole because that's the insurance policy

21:13

looked like donut had a big hole in the middle. And

21:16

that's a weird insurance policy. But That

21:19

is the insurance policy that four hundred

21:21

billion dollars could build. Or at least

21:23

that was the CPO's best guess in two thousand

21:25

three. Now, it could get

21:28

voted on. Let me begin by saying that

21:30

That is Bill Thomas. Happy,

21:33

of course, to present the full four hundred

21:35

billion ish dollar version

21:37

of this plan to the world.

21:39

Seniors and taxpayers have been waiting

21:41

a long time for this day.

21:43

The prescription drug bill pass house

21:45

on the Senate in two thousand three, and George W.

21:47

Bush signs the very nearly

21:49

four hundred billion dollar Medicare Modernization

21:52

Act into law.

21:53

Now, just a couple miles away.

21:56

The White House Office of Management and

21:58

Budget was actually running their own numbers

22:00

on this thing and they thought that

22:02

this whole plan would cost way more

22:05

than what the CBO estimated. The White

22:07

House was saying it would cost five

22:09

hundred and thirty four billion

22:12

dollars. And today, we know what the real

22:14

number was, the answer to what actually

22:17

happened when this program lived in

22:19

the real world. It turned out

22:21

both the OMB and the Cboe's

22:23

estimates were pretty off.

22:26

Subsidizing insurance for seniors was

22:28

actually way cheaper than

22:30

anyone had

22:31

predicted.

22:31

It came in about twenty five percent below

22:34

what we thought. It's a hundred billion dollars.

22:36

A

22:36

hundred billion? It's a hundred billion

22:37

dollars. Yeah. It's lot cheaper. And it's and it was because

22:40

generics became more plentiful and cheaper

22:42

than we anticipated by and large.

22:44

Yes. Generic drugs.

22:47

Of course, that was a huge part of this.

22:49

You know, the CBO had tried to factor

22:51

in the effect of people switching

22:54

from brand name drugs to generic drugs,

22:56

which brings prices down, but they simply

22:59

hadn't predicted how popular

23:01

generic drugs would

23:02

become.

23:02

Does it often work this way that that

23:05

you guys the math is like a little

23:07

I mean, I imagine the math is always off because

23:09

how do you get

23:10

It is always off.

23:11

It is always off? No one can tell the future. So

23:13

yes, it's always off. It it comes

23:15

with the turf. You you can't forecast

23:17

the future. Everything about the future is different. The

23:19

economy is different. The congress is different. They

23:21

change the laws on you.

23:22

And, you know, so it never works

23:24

out the way you thought. So you just have to give it

23:26

your best effort and then move on.

23:36

Before we go, a quick reminder that

23:38

we wanna hear from you about what we

23:40

are doing well at Planet Money, what

23:42

we could improve. We've got a short

23:44

anonymous survey at n dot

23:47

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23:49

It takes less than ten minutes and it'd be

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really big help to us if you build it out.

23:53

That is en dot

23:56

PRPM survey. Thanks.

24:04

Today show was produced by Willa Rubin and

24:06

Dave Blanchard with engineering help from Josh

24:08

Newell. It was edited by Keith Rohmer

24:10

and fact checked by Sierra Waters. Just

24:13

Zhang is planet money's acting executive

24:15

producer. We wanna give a super

24:17

special thank you to Phil Ellis.

24:19

For helping us understand this

24:20

very, very complicated health policy and

24:22

thanks also to Wendy Elberg. I'm Sarah

24:25

Montales. And I'm Kenny Malone.

24:27

This is NPR. Thanks for listening.

24:36

A special thanks to our funder, the Alfred

24:38

Peace Loan Foundation, for helping to support

24:41

this podcast. This message comes

24:43

from Jackson.seek clarity in retirement

24:45

planning at jackson dot com. Jackson

24:48

is short for Jackson Financial Inc.

24:50

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