\n<\/p>\n
This is an audio transcript of the <\/em>FT Weekend podcast<\/em><\/a> episode: <\/em>\u2018Surviving US healthcare. Plus: Prince Harry\u2019s \u201cSpare\u201d\u2019<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n[MUSIC PLAYING]\n Lilah Raptopoulos When did you start to ask yourself that question? Like, what does my life cost?<\/p>\n Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Lilah Raptopoulos Claire, thank you so much for coming on the show.<\/p>\n Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos OK, so, Claire, you petitioned your hospital to give you all the billing records, and then you found out that over your entire treatment, your hospital, which is Northwestern in Chicago, billed your insurance company more than $400,000. But the insurance company paid less than half of that. And I think that this is the part that\u2019s gonna be most confusing to people: why are there two numbers? Like, shouldn\u2019t those numbers be the same? Isn\u2019t that how paying for stuff works?<\/p>\n Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos OK. Let me just repeat that, because it\u2019s kind of the crux of the story. In the US, the amount you pay a doctor to treat you has nothing to do with the amount the treatment costs the hospital. Actually, we just don\u2019t know how much that is. Hospitals don\u2019t have to tell us. Instead, the hospitals charge these, quote unquote, \u201cchargemaster\u201d prices, which are some amount of money pulled basically from thin air, but based on the assumption that they\u2019re going to get bargained down. It\u2019s like you go on vacation and you\u2019re haggling for a rug in a market where you have no idea how much that rug is actually worth. Like, say, it\u2019s a $50 rug, but the guy\u2019s asking you for $5,000.<\/p>\n You know, your biggest procedure was your lumpectomy, which you found cost the insurance company about $30,000. Is that right?<\/p>\n Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos The other question is: who takes on that extra cost? And the answer to that is anyone who\u2019s paying for healthcare, people who don\u2019t have insurance, people who do have insurance, and also our employers who are often paying for a lot of our monthly insurance fees. Claire says they\u2019re taking on a big chunk of that cost.<\/p>\n Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos What about for people who don\u2019t have health insurance? You know, like, within, you know, if you look at the $141 for the pregnancy test \u2014 at the drugstore that costs ten bucks \u2014 are people who don\u2019t have insurance paying the $141\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009<\/p>\n Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Claire Bushey Lilah Raptopoulos Recently, I surprised myself by pitching a segment to my team based off of something I don\u2019t even really know why I\u2019m still interested in. It\u2019s a topic that\u2019s been excessively covered, borderline too much, but we all still keep wanting more.<\/p>\n Henry Mance Lilah Raptopoulos Henry Mance Lilah Raptopoulos Henry Mance Lilah Raptopoulos Harry and Meghan did an interview with Oprah last year. Meghan launched this Spotify podcast a few months ago. There is six, a six-hour Netflix kind of mini-series about their life. I have come prepared. I have consumed basically all of this content.<\/p>\n Henry Mance Lilah Raptopoulos Henry Mance Lilah Raptopoulos Henry Mance Lilah Raptopoulos Henry Mance Lilah Raptopoulos Henry Mance Lilah Raptopoulos Henry Mance Lilah Raptopoulos Henry Mance Lilah Raptopoulos Henry Mance Lilah Raptopoulos Henry Mance Lilah Raptopoulos Henry Mance Lilah Raptopoulos Henry Mance Lilah Raptopoulos Henry Mance Lilah Raptopoulos Henry Mance Lilah Raptopoulos Henry Mance Lilah Raptopoulos Henry Mance Lilah Raptopoulos Henry Mance Lilah Raptopoulos Henry Mance Lilah Raptopoulos Henry Mance Lilah Raptopoulos Henry Mance Lilah Raptopoulos Henry Mance Lilah Raptopoulos
<\/strong>Around a year ago, our Chicago correspondent, Claire Bushey, found out that she had breast cancer. Claire has always been very healthy, so the diagnosis was pretty shocking to her. The breast cancer had spread to her lymph nodes, which meant she had to have surgery and then eight rounds of chemotherapy and then radiation. It was really bad. There was only one upside to this whole thing \u2014 assuming these things even can have an upside \u2014 and that was that Claire had really good insurance through the FT. So the treatment was at least manageable financially. She didn\u2019t really have to keep tabs on what her doctors were charging or what her insurance was paying out. She knew she was covered. But then as the weeks of treatment stretched on, she thought to herself, \u201cActually, I would really like to know how much all of this is costing\u201d.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Well (sigh), gosh. At the beginning, at the very beginning, right after diagnosis, I thought I was gonna read books about cancer. (Laughter)<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Yeah I know. (Laughter) But I got a copy of The Undying<\/em> by the poet Anne Boyer \u2014 she was 41 when she too was diagnosed with breast cancer and she ended up writing this sort of meditation that, like, won the Pulitzer Prize. And I had, like, read some reviews of it, and the line had been mentioned \u201cHow many books, to pay back the world for my still existing, would I have to write?\u201d And that just, like, stayed with me even though I could not read the rest of her book. I still have not been able to finish her book.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Claire\u2019s a really beautiful writer too, and she recently wrote a piece that tried to answer that question: \u201cHow much is my life worth?\u201d She went back through all of her bills and looked at those numbers that she\u2019d been avoiding, like the hospital charges and the insurance payouts. And what she found is that none of it matched up. The hospitals billed at one rate, her insurance company paid something else, and somehow it was all normal practice. Claire was also thinking a lot about how, just ten years ago, she didn\u2019t have insurance at all. What would have happened if she got diagnosed then?<\/p>\n
<\/strong>This was not a financially devastating event for me, and I am so aware it is because of luck. This had happened to me ten years ago, I\u2019d be wiped out. My family would have been bankrupt, so you know, \u2018cause, like, I would have paid everything I had and then they would have paid everything they had. And, like, that just would have been it.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n[MUSIC PLAYING]\n
<\/strong>Today, I talk to Claire about what her own cancer treatment taught her about the US healthcare system, that no one actually knows the real cost for any procedure. And that fact is driving healthcare prices up for all of us. Then we speak with my colleague, Henry Mance. He\u2019s here to help explain what exactly it is about Prince Harry\u2019s new memoir that keeps us still interested in the royal story. This is FT Weekend. I\u2019m Lilah Raptopoulos.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Thank you very much for having me.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>So you recently wrote this extremely moving personal piece about your experience with insurance in the US while you had breast cancer. And just so our listeners aren\u2019t worried about you as we talk, I\u2019m very happy to confirm that you are free of cancer.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Yes. Thank you. It was much easier to write the column with experiences, like, behind me. (Laughter)<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Right. Right. So a little over a year ago, you were diagnosed with breast cancer. Can you tell us that story, how you found out?<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Yeah. So I was due to get a mammogram. You know, I was 41 and I had not gotten one at 40 because we were in the midst of a global pandemic. And a lot of things kind of slid off. And I had a lump and I was worried about it. But I went to a gynaecologist. She was like, \u201cIt\u2019s fine, no worries\u201d. So I sort of sailed into that first mammogram\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009like\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009not worried at all. And I, you know, I was told by the tech, I\u2019m like, \u201coh, like this will probably take a little bit longer than normal because it\u2019s your first one\u201d. I\u2019m like, \u201coh, thanks for letting me know. Would have been worried otherwise\u201d.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>The mammogram did take a long time. And then the doctor asked for a sonogram and then a biopsy, which would have to be done on another day.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>But I\u2019m still trying to be like really calm, cool and collected. And I was like, \u201cWell, yeah, but like, lots of women get biopsies, don\u2019t they?\u201d And that\u2019s when she said \u201cYes, and there are a lot of women I would tell not to worry. But you\u2019re not one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Ohhh\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009<\/p>\n
<\/strong>And that\u2019s like, like, like I couldn\u2019t hear anything after that.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Claire actually had a few biopsies after that. They showed that the breast cancer was in two spots. So she had a lumpectomy, the surgery to remove those lumps. And then a lymph node biopsy at the same time \u2014 that showed that the cancer had spread to her lymphatic system.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>No one was expecting it to, but it had. And yeah, it was, it was one of those things, like, I walked in to talk to the surgeon and I had, like, all my questions about, like, healing after surgery. And she said, \u201cit\u2019s in the lymph nodes. You\u2019re gonna need to do chemo. You\u2019re gonna lose your hair\u201d. And I was just sort of looking at my questions and I was like, \u201cwell, aside from that, Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Right. Right.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>So, yeah, so I started chemo about a month after that, and I did eight rounds of a really typical regimen for breast cancer. And then you get a month off to recover. And then I started six weeks of radiation.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Oh, I\u2019m so glad you\u2019re OK.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>(Laughter) Thank you.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>I\u2019m sorry, I get, like, upset and emotional when I talk about it. Like it\u2019s\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009<\/p>\n
<\/strong>I\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009Yeah.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>It was brutal.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Yeah. At what point did you start thinking in terms of, like, will this be something I can afford?<\/p>\n
<\/strong>I never worried too much about the cost because I was fully insured, because I had a full-time job at the Financial Times. I was very conscious of the fact that ten years earlier, I had been uninsured.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>The chemotherapy Claire went through broke down her veins. The radiation made her turn photosensitive so she couldn\u2019t stand to be outside for more than 20 minutes. It was also all really expensive. All in all, her hospital billed her insurance company more than $400,000.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Ha ha ha ha. Not, not in the upside down world of the US healthcare system. So there\u2019s a couple different pricing structures and they have nothing to do with each other. You have what the healthcare providers charge \u2014 in this case, the hospital. These are called the \u201cchargemaster\u201d prices. No one knows what they have to do with anything.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>(Laughter) Really.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>They do have to be disclosed now, thanks to federal law.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Then you have the negotiated prices, what major insurers negotiate with healthcare providers to actually pay.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Right.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>And that money is what actually changes hands in the case of insured people. And so that would be like, the actual price paid. And the thing, though, that, like nobody actually knows, is how much it actually cost Northwestern to treat me for cancer.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Right. Right.<\/p>\n[MUSIC PLAYING]\n
<\/strong>Yes. My procedure, everything I had done that day. You know, Cigna, my insurance company, ended up paying about 30,000 to Northwestern.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>OK, so what does that include?<\/p>\n
<\/strong>So Northwestern sends a bill to the insurer Cigna, and it has charges for like, every single thing that happened that day in surgery, all the charges for the facility itself and then also all the charges by the individual doctors. Like, the facility charges included things like, like a pregnancy test, OK, for which they charged $141\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009excuse me\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009(laughter) for which they billed $141.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Right.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Walgreens was around the corner, like\u2009.\u2009.\u2009. <\/p>\n
<\/strong>Where you could buy a pregnancy test for about ten bucks.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Yes!<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>But Cigna does not pay that. They have negotiated a contract with Northwestern to pay a much smaller amount.<\/p>\n[MUSIC PLAYING]\n
<\/strong>I\u2019m just gonna repeat that. Her hospital charged her insurance company more than $140 for a pregnancy test, which is more than ten times what a pregnancy test actually costs. And that\u2019s how it works for everything \u2014 getting your blood drawn, surgery, drugs that you have to take over time for chronic health problems. The fact that there\u2019s no transparency means we\u2019re feeding a system that\u2019s just getting more and more bloated. Because when an insurance company haggles down a pregnancy test from $140 to $25, that sounds like a good deal. It\u2019s a big difference, but it\u2019s still double what a pregnancy test should cost. That\u2019s a bad deal. And if that\u2019s happening across the board? Not great.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>And one of the most interesting things in doing the reporting for this column is that I talked with an organisation called Healthcare Bluebook that studies these negotiated prices between insurance companies and healthcare providers.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>In a representative US sample of 50 claims paid out by private insurers around the US, a lumpectomy could cost anywhere between $5,400 and nearly $40,000.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Wow.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Right. And so if you can do this for $5,400, you have to wonder then: what is all the extra money for?<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Yeah. Yeah.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>As the expert I spoke with said, every time I pay 30,000 for something that\u2019s worth 10,000, that\u2019s 20,000 I don\u2019t have to hire another employee, to pay people higher salaries or to use in other investments. Because, you know, it\u2019s not gonna, it\u2019s not going to disappear, like, Cigna is going to raise premiums.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>One last thing. Not all insurance companies are good at negotiating. The smaller ones, which are often cheaper, have less bargaining power. So when they\u2019re haggling with the hospital, the hospital might not accept their lower bid. And if they don\u2019t, you personally could be stuck with the bill. You could go in for treatment and come out to find that you owe the difference, which means that tens of millions of people every year file for bankruptcy over hospital bills in America \u2014 even if they have insurance.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Yes.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009for a pregnancy test?<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Yes.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Yes. That to me is the most infuriating part. But I spoke with an expert on healthcare pricing at Johns Hopkins University, and she said, you know, those prices that are charged by the healthcare providers, the chargemaster prices\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009that supposedly have nothing to do with anything and that hospitals like to pretend that nobody pays, that\u2019s not true. They are\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Right.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009paid by somebody. And they are paid most often by the uninsured.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Mm-hmm. You know, this question feels futile, but what can be done? We\u2019re all stuck in this sort of, like, weird tug of war. This, like, terrible game. I think you said that medical issues are the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the US.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Yes.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>And is there anything anyone can do about it? You know, our employers, the hospitals, the government, like, how do you break it?<\/p>\n
<\/strong>I think it would be better if we had a system where the government paid for healthcare. I think that would be an improvement and I think it would be fairer.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>I also think that employers should do everything they can to find out what healthcare services actually cost. So that\u2019s, that\u2019s a check on the system. And finally, I would encourage everyone to be a pain in the ass and to get their detailed medical bills because\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009It doesn\u2019t change anything, but it gums up the system a little bit and I, being the vengeful, spiteful person that I am, took a certain amount of satisfaction in that.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>(Laughter) Claire, thank you so much for your openness, for your clarity of thought. And we\u2019re all very glad you\u2019re healthy. Thanks for being on the show.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Thank you for having me. And yeah, I\u2019m glad that I\u2019m healthy, too.<\/p>\n[MUSIC PLAYING]\n
<\/strong>I have put links to Claire\u2019s wonderful piece in the show notes. She also recommends that anyone who doesn\u2019t have health insurance reads a book called Never Pay the First Bill<\/em>. I\u2019ve put that in there, too.<\/p>\n[MUSIC PLAYING]\n
<\/strong>This is what the royal family is these days, right? It\u2019s entertainment\u2009.\u2009.\u2009. <\/p>\n
<\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>It\u2019s the glue. It\u2019s the, you know, a global franchise that people, you know, know enough about that developments are interesting, right? You know, my colleagues or my neighbours or my friends, you know, they probably haven\u2019t seen the same TV series as me or that have a different point in there\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Mmm.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>But, you know, and knows enough to have an opinion.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>That\u2019s Henry Mance, the FT\u2019s chief features writer. We\u2019re talking, of course, about the British royal family, specifically the two who stepped down from their duties, Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle. Henry just reviewed Prince Harry\u2019s new memoir. It\u2019s called Spare<\/em> and Spare<\/em> is the latest drop in a landslide of recent content from these two that\u2019s meant to tell their side of the story. I invited Henry on to help me understand why this is still such a point of fascination culturally.<\/p>\n[MUSIC PLAYING]\n
<\/strong>Oh, wow! Good for you. (Laughter)<\/p>\n
<\/strong>I even read way more of the book than I meant to, I was totally hooked. Harry\u2019s memoir came out last week. People have been anticipating it. Can you explain, like the CliffsNotes version of why this is a big deal?<\/p>\n
<\/strong>I think this is a really, a revelatory royal book. And a lot of people have such mixed feelings about someone in the royal family coming forward and being so open. That, I think we sometimes avoid just saying openly that this is incredible. You know, people who have watched The Crown<\/em>, people who have read newspaper stories, people\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Right.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009who have seen interviews with people who call themselves royal commentators or royal experts. Like all of that pales in comparison to the amount of detail and insight that we get from these 400 pages.<\/p>\n[MUSIC PLAYING]\n
<\/strong>Here are a few things you\u2019ll learn from Spare<\/em>. Harry and his brother William have not been close for decades. Harry was barely hugged as a child after his mother, Diana, died. And often he was really desperate for it. Harry lost his virginity behind a pub in a field. Harry\u2019s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, made a mean salad dressing. His father, Prince Charles, loves to smell things and wears too much cologne. Harry hates wearing kilts because of the breeze that goes up your arse. And despite apparent rumours, he is indeed circumcised. It\u2019s a lot. It\u2019s just a lot. It feels almost like the book exists partially to refute every rumour that has ever come out about him and set the record straight.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>I think there are revelations in there which could have stayed private. I felt particularly uncomfortable when he was describing not just his feelings about Diana, for example, but describing his brother\u2019s feelings .<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Right.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009about Diana. And I sort of thought, well, that\u2019s not really your story to share\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Even if you\u2019ve now have a very bad relationship and feel betrayed by your brother.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Big question: but where do you think our insatiable interest in this family comes from? And I\u2019m curious specifically about the difference between, like, the British perception and the British interest in this, and the American perception.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>I\u2019m the, I guess I\u2019m the type of British person who isn\u2019t much interested in the royal family on a\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009day-to-day basis. I want, you know, I wanna make clear that I do not go around wondering what Kate is wearing or (laughter) you know, who Charles is giving a medal to today. And they are really in the background of my life. And newspapers like the Financial Times do not cover the monarchy very much.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Right.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>And this has been a sort of exceptional couple of years. And I think really the arrival of Meghan Markle transformed the royal story into a, into a real story about social change, about diversity, about modernity. And it came, obviously, we have #MeToo and, you know, Black Lives Matter, which both seem to raise the issues of feminism and race that she was, she was interested in and became a global story because she was American.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>So I think that\u2019s yeah, we really are in a sort of boom time for royalty. It\u2019s not always like this.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>I\u2019d like to understand what being pro- and anti-Meghan and Harry means in Britain, because it feels like here we feel that they\u2019re underdogs who are fighting the system. So they\u2019re sympathetic characters and the system itself is kind of ridiculous. It\u2019s got crowns and pomp and also it\u2019s, you know, represents colonialism. But in Britain, the system is, in actual fact. I guess the question is, what is the kind of consensus on Harry and Meghan and what does it mean to be for them or against them?<\/p>\n
<\/strong>The funny thing is that Harry was once the, you know, the more popular son of Charles and Diana, and he was particularly popular amongst the tabloid press\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009who saw him as kind of, as one of them, as like a cheeky chap, a naughty boy.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>And he makes clear in the book that he didn\u2019t, he was never actually that happy with that label. But, you know, he was the guy flushing people\u2019s heads down the toilet at school.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Right. (Laughter)<\/p>\n
<\/strong>You know, this is all sort of a bit more interesting than the very\u2009s-\u2009<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Smoking a little pot once in a while. Yeah.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Yeah. And you know, that really changed after his marriage to Meghan. And I think if you look at his, the percentage of the population who has a positive opinion of him, it\u2019s gone from sort of 80 per cent in 2018 down to 26 per cent\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Wow.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009now. So, you know, really a huge fall. And, you know, he went to Canada and then California just at the start of\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Covid.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Covid. And we\u2019ve got a cost of living crisis. So it\u2019s not the ideal time, I think, to be telling a hard luck story when you\u2019ve got a, you know, a chicken, a chicken house, which is the size of many bed sets in London. At the same time, there are obviously people and particularly people of colour in Britain who felt represented when Meghan married into the royal family, who thought that the royal family would never change, would never be biracial, multiracial. And it became that. It gave them a feeling of ownership of this institution.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>You know, the people I talk to, it\u2019s no longer a case of being really pro-Harry. It\u2019s a case of saying, \u201cI\u2019ll kind of leave him alone\u201d or, you know, you know\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>\u201cEveryone makes mistakes\u201d.<\/p>\n[MUSIC PLAYING]\n
<\/strong>Here\u2019s what I thought after reading Harry\u2019s book. The form is what makes it so important. A first-person narrative is the opposite of what we ever get with the royal family. Usually we get ritual, distance, mythology, the family as an institution. I mean, they\u2019re technically not even really supposed to be mere humans. If you\u2019re Anglican, the royal family is channelling the will of God. But this book is Prince Harry saying, \u201cActually, hi, I am a human. And here is everything that\u2019s ever happened to me\u201d. So as you start reading, you\u2019re thinking, \u201cOh my God, this is amazing. This is scratching every itch I\u2019ve ever wanted\u201d. But then suddenly, it hits some points where you start to think, \u201cactually, maybe I wouldn\u2019t mind a little bit of a filter\u201d, just some sort of proof that this man has thought carefully about what to let out and what to keep in. You start to sort of worry about him.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>I agree.<\/p>\n