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 “Were 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 theyre rich. They wont 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 cant 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. Were going to go to a marketplace where we dont 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, Pfizers 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.
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 the future, please post your content in our bloggers forum. Thanks.
Middlemen = Government
I think it is misleading to say they are causing the high costs. Prices are determined by supply and demand. The middle man has simply inserted himself to get a piece of that. If you pushed him out, supply would not increase. Demand would not fall. The only result would be that the middlemans cut would go to someone else.
One of the rich middlemen is the medical supply companies that milk insurance far and above the cost of the equipment they are supplying.
Years ago I had to start using a CPAP. This small device cost around $2500, $2000 of which was paid by my insurance company. I can buy the same device today on Amazon for $4-500 which is what I paid for the one I have - the medical supply house got the extra 2 grand from my insurance. Thus it’s actually worth $4-500.
Similarly I can buy filters, masks, headgear etc. on Amazon for what they’re worth - if I went through insurance I’d pay a lot more (due to a deductible plus the inflated prices).