00:22:34 · Daisy Wolf, Justin Mares
[00:22:34] S2: Awesome. Obviously, like, you've been able to devote, you know, your life to this. And then your, you know, every kind of... You're a serial entrepreneur, every company you've built is empowering people to live healthier lives. [00:22:48] S1: Yep. [00:22:48] S2: Do you wanna tell us a little bit more about Truemed and how it's helping with that?
00:22:53 · Justin Mares
[00:22:53] S1: For sure. Yeah. I mean, so one of the things that I think is just so broken about the American health care system today is if you look, where does spend go? 90% of health care spend goes towards treating, treating or managing chronic condition. Yet less than 3% goes towards anything resembling prevention or anything resembling lifestyle intervention. And so I think that we can argue about like what is the right amount that society should be spending on prevention. I think we can all say like 3% is not the right amount. Like, that's not like the perfect amount of prevention. And you see it in the health care outcomes. They're all bad. One of the reasons that, you know, that I believe that Americans are so sick today is because we have this very strange system where someone who is at risk of type two diabetes or obese or something like that can get sicker and sicker and sicker. And basically no one in the existing health care system is incentivized and will or will spend a single dollar helping prevent that person from getting type two diabetes. And yet the minute that they get type two diabetes, the system activates and they'll spend an average of $3,000,000 managing that person's type two diabetes for the duration of their lifetime. That is like totally crazy. And so the one area of the entire health care system where an individual has choice and they're actually incentivized to spend their own money basically on things that can treat, reverse, or prevent disease is HSA and FSA accounts. Like tax free accounts, it's your money. You can spend it how you want. And if you go through a company like Truemed, the IRS has explicitly said that things like exercise, things like food interventions, things like sleep interventions or supplements can all count for tax free HSAFSA spending if accompanied by a doctor's note. And so what we've done is we've built a platform that helps facilitate access for people that are qualified to spend their HSA and FSA dollars on things like exercise, supplements, food, healthy food, sleep aids, and the like. And our goal is basically to incentivize and make it slightly more affordable and slightly lower friction for someone like you or me to invest in preventing obesity, preventing or treating, you know, heart disease, preventing or treating, the myriad of chronic conditions that are just decimating American health.
00:25:02 · Justin Mares, Erik Torenberg
And so I I think that, like, affordability is a key component of the health care crisis, and I think that if every American maxed out their HSA account and and, you know, all... Everyone that qualified was able to spend these dollars on effective lifestyle intervention, I think it would change the trajectory of American health care. [00:25:30] S0: Subscribe, leave us a rating or a review, and share it with your friends and family. For more episodes, go to YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. Follow us on x at a sixteen z, and subscribe to our Substack at a16z.substack.com. Thanks again for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode. As a reminder, the content here is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal business, tax, or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a sixteen z fund. Please note that a sixteen z and its affiliates may also maintain investments in the companies discussed in this podcast. For more details, including a link to our investments, please see a16z.com/disclosures.