Posted on 08/26/2019 11:17:45 AM PDT by The Houston Courant
“Middlemen" are causing a crisis in health care that's hitting everyday Americans in the wallet and preventing them from getting the care they need. They have contributed to soaring health care costs and medicine shortages.
On May 11th of this year, the President held a press conference and stated "We’re very much eliminating the middlemen. The middlemen became very, very rich. Whoever those middlemen were — and a lot of people never even figured it out — they’re rich. They won’t be so rich anymore."
https://www.houstoncourant.com/houston-voices/2019/7/28/middlemen-in-healthcare-creating-high-costs
(Excerpt) Read more at houstoncourant.com ...
Now they need to do that to public eduKation:-)
How is it that you think your blog qualifies as news?
What caused you to excerpt your own material?
What’s wrong with you?
Great video that, IMHO, spells it all out. Go to the 3min mark to hear what one of the doctors has to say.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uPdkhMVdMQ
Since, I pay the government, and the government pays the provider, the government is a middleman.
You have a big old blob that pops up and blocks your blog from being read. Here, let’s post it here where it can be read and enjoyed by all, as you clearly meant.
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“Middlemen” are causing a crisis in health care that’s hitting everyday Americans in the wallet and preventing them from getting the care they need. They have contributed to soaring health care costs and medicine shortages.
On May 11th of this year, the President held a press conference and stated “We’re very much eliminating the middlemen. The middlemen became very, very rich. Whoever those middlemen were — and a lot of people never even figured it out — they’re rich. They won’t be so rich anymore.”
Who are these “middlemen”?
Decades ago, Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs) and Pharmacy Benefits Managers (PBMs) were introduced to streamline purchasing of drugs and medical supplies for hospitals and insurance companies, but the 1987 Medicare Anti-Kickback Safe Harbor statute exempted these middlemen from penalties for taking kickbacks (they prefer to call them rebates) from suppliers, but the patient never saw the benefit. They have a Get Out of Jail Free card for their business practices that are commonly referred to as racketeering in other industries and they have used it well.
A consortium of Physician led advocacy groups have been working tirelessly on behalf of the patients that rely on their drugs but simply can’t afford them because of the ever-increasing costs of drugs in our country. Their relentless efforts to work with legislators in a bi-partisan fashion seems to have made an impact. According to Chief Executive Officer of Pfizer, Inc. in July of 2018, “Drugmakers will likely get rid of secret discounts to middlemen that have become a focus of the U.S. drug-cost debate. We’re going to go to a marketplace where we don’t have rebates.” Kenneth Frazier, CEO of Merck, has also publicly stated, “I don’t understand where we live in a world where 50% of the value goes to the supply chain,”
Although these statements from Pfizer and Merck are positive, and if they are successful in removing the middlemen without the repeal of the safe harbor, there is nothing that says these practices will not re-emerge over time in different ways. Furthermore, Pfizer’s leadership does not speak for the numerous manufacturers of medical supply and medications. In fact, the lobby efforts of the middlemen have escalated considerably year after year and significantly in the recent year in an effort to protect the Safe Harbor Provision in the Anti-Kickback Legislation.
Repeal of the Safe Harbor Provision would reduce costs of drugs and healthcare supplies by an estimated 30% and may save Medicare and Medicaid anywhere from $50 to $75 Billion annually. Healthcare costs is the primary issue in our country and it is a personal one, not a partisan one.
A bipartisan effort to support physicians and patients could be realized so that medications and supplies can be made affordable. We as a community must reach out to our Representatives to support the repeal of the Safe Harbor statute.
Propaganda to support Medicare for all - why if we just had single payer the government would control all the costs and eliminate the middleman!
There are many industries where the product maker offers rebates to “middle men”, for example car dealers. In very competitive markets manufacturers need to seek out middlemen, distributors, re-distributors, jobbers etc to find outlets for their goods.
I wouldn’t call it a kickback per se. But in some cases it could be.
The pharmaceutical business is probably a lot more highly evolved than other industries. And yet there are still middlemen companies like McKesson and Cardinal Health that purchase pharmaceutical products from the drug makers and distributes them to various pharmacies and pharmacy chains.
Government dicking with health care is the biggest contributor to high costs.
Insurers are the midflemen and there is no prez on the planet that can get them out of our pickets.
Medicare is “administered “ by an insurance company for goodness sakes.
Every industry that is insured is expensive.
My husband went to the doc without insurance and paid a small amount compared to what would have been billed.
I was shocked at the real cost.
Dad: (Having a heart attack) “Son, did you call the ambulance.”
Son: “No, Dad, I called the undertaker, I done what you always told me to do, I cut out the middleman.”
Dad: “That’s my boy!” (falls over dead)
-Benny Hill
The question is: "Do these middlemen/middlewomen provide a needed service in the distribution of the product?"
If you think of the medical profession as a VERY HIGH CLASS UNION - WITH MAJOR MUSCLE IN WASHINGTON - you’ll know why it costs so much...
Laws restricting competition are subtle but do the job of making our health care care systems more like rent control in New York ...
If you think of the medical profession as a VERY HIGH CLASS UNION - WITH MAJOR MUSCLE IN WASHINGTON - you’ll know why it costs so much...
Laws restricting competition are subtle but do the job of making our health care care systems more like rent control in New York ... and I won’t even go into toxic tax incentives....
There was a recent case of an orthopedic doing a knee operation on a patient with US employer based insurance out of the county in Cancun.
Everyone made and saved money. The insurance company saved, patient paid less and doctor got a higher fee.
Government regulation is the biggest driver of costs, much more than malpractice.
In 2009 I paid about $6,000 for good health insurance for three of us. In 2018 I paid over $22,000. In that period I paid $123,843.48 in premiums and $8,617.90 for out of pocket health care costs including minor dental work. We are healthy people. Those are the facts.
Yeah, medical costs are out of control. Especially if you are slef-employed or not employed and paying for it all yourself and are not an illegal or indigent.
The medical system in this country is completely EFFED UP!
In most cases the Feds pays the state Medicaid which pays the CMO. The CMO pays the billing agent, who pays the doctor ... or hospital and the hospital pays the doctor... or the CMO pays the PBM who pays....
In most cases the Feds pays the state Medicaid which pays the CMO. The CMO pays the billing agent, who pays the doctor ... or hospital and the hospital pays the doctor... or the CMO pays the PBM who pays....
In the future, please post your content in our bloggers forum. Thanks.
Middlemen = Government
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