A look at just one slice of the medical monopolist pie - PBMs
snip:
"Over the past 30 years, PBMs have evolved from paper-pushers to significant controllers of the drug pricing system, a black box understood by almost no one. Lack of transparency, unjustifiable fees, and massive market consolidations have made PBMs among the most profitable corporations youve never heard about.
Americans pay the highest health-care prices in the world, including the highest for drugs, medical devices, and other health-care services and products. Our fragmented system produces many opportunities for excessive charges. But one lesser-known reason for those high prices is the stranglehold that a few giant intermediaries have secured over distribution. The antitrust laws are supposed to provide protection against just this kind of concentrated economic power. But in one area after another in todays economy, federal antitrust authorities and the courts have failed to intervene. In this case, PBMs are sucking money out of the health-care systemand our walletswith hardly any public awareness of what they are doing."PBMs have been party to the opioid addiction crisis:
"An investigation by Stat News found that Purdue Pharma, makers of OxyContin, paid off PBMs to keep prescriptions flowing for their product, over the howls of a state employee health plan in West Virginia. In exchange for rebates, PBMs kept OxyContin on their formulary with low co-pays, and without requiring prior authorization from the health plan to dispense the drug. Over-prescribing of OxyContin laid the groundwork for a crisis that killed more than 20,000 Americans in 2015.
They were making a profit on peoples addiction, which is fricking criminal, says consultant Susan Hayes. Rubbing their hands with glee that people are becoming addicted to opioids. I cant believe it."http://prospect.org/article/hidden-monop....
RSS available