{"podcast":{"title":"Thoughts on the Market","slug":"thoughts-on-the-market-980853","podcast_index_feed_id":980853,"rss_url":"https://rss.art19.com/thoughts-on-the-market","website_url":"https://art19.com/shows/thoughts-on-the-market","image_url":"https://content.production.cdn.art19.com/images/68/53/52/d0/685352d0-9248-46b0-99bc-96589e58c7da/17e395c4e66b1b71c451c38d72389ffaebc7784e20e8c3bea964dc0287434ef3475e93f6527b48a642d0d7a6a23943dcdef6c0b861481aed9ef54002b9f78b4d.jpeg","author":"Morgan Stanley","episode_count":1675,"summary":"Short, thoughtful and regular takes on recent events in the markets from a variety of perspectives and voices within Morgan Stanley.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-25T20:17:54.934994+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/thoughts-on-the-market-980853"},"episode":{"title":"Why Your Medical Bill Is So High","slug":"why-your-medical-bill-is-so-high","published_at":"2026-07-17T21:30:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/thoughts-on-the-market-980853/why-your-medical-bill-is-so-high","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/thoughts-on-the-market-980853","url":"https://pdst.fm/e/pscrb.fm/rss/p/rss.art19.com/episodes/60833cf5-c006-4777-adec-3b473ed95f0b.mp3?rss_browser=BAhJIg90cmFuc2NyaWJyBjoGRVQ%3D--952c5701c84ad333c69d5faa668f8177091704f0","audio_url":"https://pdst.fm/e/pscrb.fm/rss/p/rss.art19.com/episodes/60833cf5-c006-4777-adec-3b473ed95f0b.mp3?rss_browser=BAhJIg90cmFuc2NyaWJyBjoGRVQ%3D--952c5701c84ad333c69d5faa668f8177091704f0","summary":"Our analysts Andrew Sheets and Mark Schmidt unpack why U.S. healthcare feels so expensive and the potential impacts of rising hospital costs. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Global Head of Fixed Income Research at Morgan Stanley.  Mark Schmidt: And I'm Mark Schmidt, Head of Municipal Strategy at Morgan Stanley.  Andrew Sheets: And today on the program, a discussion into one of the biggest mysteries in one of the biggest sectors of the economy. We're talking about healthcare costs.  It's Friday, July 17th at 2pm in London.  Mark Schmidt: At 9am in New York.  Andrew Sheets: So, we're talking today about healthcare, which represents roughly a fifth of the U.S. economy, the bulk of job creation over the last several years, and in my view, honestly, one of the biggest inflation paradoxes that we see in the market.  On the one hand, the high cost of healthcare is taken as a given, and it's something that many Americans still struggle with financially. But if you look at the official inflation data in the U.S., healthcare costs have been lower than normal, and that's been true now for a number of years.  So, what's going on? How do we tie this together? And Mark, you just wrote a report that tries to do exactly that. So, what did you hope to accomplish with this report?  Mark Schmidt: You're absolutely right. It's hard to underline enough just how large healthcare is to the U.S. economy overall. Americans spend nearly $6 trillion on healthcare. That's more than the GDP of the entire country of Germany. And if we think about prices, Americans pay more.  A knee replacement, for example, costs $25,000 in the United States. That same pro…","meta_description":"Our analysts Andrew Sheets and Mark Schmidt unpack why U.S. healthcare feels so expensive and the potential impacts of rising hospital costs. Read more in…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":738,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/thoughts-on-the-market-980853/episodes/why-your-medical-bill-is-so-high/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/thoughts-on-the-market-980853/why-your-medical-bill-is-so-high.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}