Three seemingly random thoughts #87
Quicksand drags you down slowly. So why isn’t it called slow sand?
College football viewership is off
Wade and I are apparently not the only ones turned off by today’s college football, although one of my readers, Jolly Old, remains all in. According to Nielsen, viewership through the first four weeks of the season is down 11 percent from the same stretch last year. That slide came even though the sport served up a historic Saturday on September 26: six games between ranked teams, the most conference matchups between ranked teams on a single day in AP poll history. The public’s reaction was a big yawn. Even the season’s marquee game disappointed. Despite all the hype, this year’s Ohio State–Texas game drew 14 million viewers, down from 16.6 million when the two teams met last year.
Who could blame the fans? The players are forever changing. Ole Miss alone brought in 75 transfers this offseason. That would have been turnoff especially if Trinidad Chambliss and Kewan Lacy had answered Lane Kiffin’s siren calls and gone to LSU.
Defenders of college football have their excuses. This year’s Ohio State–Texas game kicked off at 7:49 p.m. instead of noon, weather pushed LSU–Clemson to a 9:40 p.m. start, and because more games are on TV, total viewing time is actually up slightly. Fair enough. But for me the explanation is clear: conference realignment, NIL, and the transfer portal are eroding the appeal of the sport.
GLP-1s and free markets
Wegovy’s cash price has dropped about 75 percent since 2021. With 11 percent of American adults now saying they take a GLP-1 drug for weight loss, you would think the price should have gone up, not down, because of all that demand. Right? Well, that ignores the beauty of free markets: competition.
When Wegovy came on the market in 2021, it was priced at $1,349 a month. At that price, employer health plans balked, and government insurance programs were barred from covering weight-loss drugs except in limited cases. Then a competitor emerged. Eli Lilly’s Zepbound launched at a list price of $1,060, and Lilly offered it to cash-paying patients (no insurance) for $550 a month through its LillyDirect pharmacy. https://www.lilly.com/lillydirect Novo Nordisk, Wegovy’s maker, answered with its own cash-pay program, NovoCare, at $499 a month for the lowest dose. Novo was then compelled to cut Wegovy’s cash price to $349 a month, with a $199 introductory offer. Lilly countered by dropping Zepbound’s typical maintenance dose to $299, and the new Wegovy pill now sells for $299 a month to self-paying patients. BTW, the official list price of Wegovy is still $1,349, although Novo has announced it will cut it to $675 in January 2027.
All of this is laid out in The Daily Economy, which I have drawn on liberally. https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/glp-1-weight-loss-drugs-keep-getting-cheaper-thank-competition/
To be fair, the government hasn’t been entirely on the sidelines. The White House struck a pricing deal with both companies last November, and this July Medicare began offering these drugs to eligible patients for a $50 copay. But the cash-price war was well underway before Washington got involved. The point is that when private insurers won’t cover a drug because of its cost and patients pay for it directly, competition drives prices down.
Isn’t this a lesson worth heeding? Isn’t it a glimpse into why health care costs are so high? Instead of patients paying directly, bills go through third parties. This is why I believe Medicare for All would mean higher costs, less coverage, and worse outcomes.
It is now fashionable for politicians of all stripes to attack Big Pharma. This episode shows they should be promoting market solutions instead. But there is no political gain in that – and politicians are politicians.
America.gov
On September 29, the president rolled out America.gov, a government AI chatbot that the White House says will make it easier for Americans to deal with the federal government. For now, it answers questions using information from official government websites. Once fully operational, it is supposed to handle tasks like renewing passports and enrolling in Medicare. https://america.gov It is actually a rather cool site, greeting you with “Hello, America. Whatever you need from government, start here.”
In its first days, people who asked America.gov questions got answers that contradicted some of the president’s claims. For example, Trump has said America experienced its worst inflation ever under Biden. America.gov said, “No. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Consumer Price Index data do not show that January 20, 2021–January 20, 2025 was the worst inflation ever in US history.” It also said there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. And it contradicted the president’s claim that exporting countries pay tariffs, saying, “A tariff is a tax on imported goods. That extra cost is paid first by the U.S. importer.”
Those answers didn’t last long. Within a day, reporters noticed the chatbot had stopped answering many of those questions. When I asked it, “Are imports a threat to national security?” it responded, “America does not offer political opinions or commentary on whether imports threaten national security.”
I am not really interested in catching the president in a lie when it is apparent that he doesn’t care whether he has lied or misspoken thousands of times. So I will use America.gov for what it was built for: dealing with issues that would otherwise mean waiting hours on the phone or weeks for an answer from the federal government. Bon appétit!
