What Next | What Would You Pay to Stay Alive?

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Slate Podcasts

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.6 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A Revlimid pill costs about 25 cents to make, and about a thousand dollars to buy—but it’s keeping him alive, so what choice does he have? Guest: David Armstrong, investigates healthcare at ProPublica, author of “The Price of Remission.” Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, Isabel Angell, and Rob Gunther. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I want you to think about the most expensive item in your home.
0:10.1	The thing that a burglar would be able to make off with and turn into cash right away.
0:16.7	Maybe it's jewelry, your car?
0:19.9	I asked ProPublicas David Armstrong to ponder this question.
0:23.8	There's not anything terribly valuable in my home that I can think of, a computer.
0:29.1	Except for maybe your pill bottle.
0:30.9	Well, very good.
0:32.9	You're right.
0:33.8	That would be the most valuable thing in my home, by far.
0:39.1	David takes this drug called Revlimid.
0:44.2	It keeps him alive. It's also really expensive.
0:49.9	You know, thieves often do look for pill bottles, but the value of my Revlimid, I think, would even far exceed the street value of Oxycontin these days.
1:02.8	How much does it cost for one pill?
1:05.0	So one pill today of Revlimid would be over $900, close to $1,000.
1:14.0	Whoa. How many do you have on you at any one time?
1:18.3	At any one time, I could have as many as 21. The cycle is taking the pill 21 out of 28 days.
1:25.8	So at the beginning of the cycle, I would have 21 pills.
1:31.1	Revlimid is a cancer drug.
1:33.3	David has multiple myeloma.
1:35.4	Often how people find out they have multiple myeloma is they start suffering
1:40.1	bone breaks or problems with their spine.
1:43.4	And for me, it was a pain in my side that became
	...

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