In this episode, Vic and Marcus break down the government’s temporary reopening, SNAP funding, and upcoming appropriations battles, then cover Fed uncertainty around rate cuts and a market selloff driven by shifting AI sentiment. They discuss massive layoffs at Verizon, medical-AI funding rounds, mental-health care innovation, and specialty-pharmacy expansion. The hosts analyze the FDA’s rollback of HRT warnings, UnitedHealth’s decision to stop covering most remote patient monitoring, and Cigna’s mental-health initiatives. They review provider and pharma earnings, including Pfizer’s acquisition of Metsera, AstraZeneca’s oncology growth, Moderna’s losses, and emerging cholesterol-lowering drugs. They dive deep into Lily’s evolving identity as a tech-driven pharma leader, advances in lab-grown organs, major crypto and stablecoin developments, China’s acceleration in robotics and AI despite chip restrictions, and the growing divide between AI power users and the rest of the workforce.

Links

2:28 - Government Reopens as Trump Signs Bill to End Nation’s Longest Shutdown NYT

7:40 - The Fed Is Increasingly Torn Over a December Rate Cut WSJ

8:33 - Stock Market Today: Nasdaq, Tech Shares Lead Broad Losses WSJ

14:55 - Verizon to Cut About 15,000 Jobs WSJ

16:13 - Evidium: $22 Million Series A Raised To Scale Computational Medical Knowledge Pulse 2.0

17:21 - Amae Health Raises $25M to Improve Care for Severe Mental Illness MedCity

18:24 - House Rx Raises $55M to Scale In-Clinic Specialty Pharmacy Model HIT

19:15 - FDA rolls back warning labels on HRT products for menopause, citing misinformation Fierce Healthcare

21:11 - UnitedHealth to stop covering most remote patient monitoring Modern Healthcare

27:50 -Cigna Launches Mental Health Collaboration with Headspace MedCity

28:18 - Cigna teaming with Magic Johnson on music initiative Healthcare Finanice

29:30 - Kaiser Permanente notches 0.7% operating margin, $2.6B net income in Q3 2025 Fierce Healthcare

29:47 -

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