It’s Time to Break Up Big Medicine
Posted by arnott
It’s Time to Break Up Big Medicine
Posted by arnott
4 Comments
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The saga of the UnitedHealth Care CEO assassination has, as could be expected, now turned into a discussion of our health care system. Elizabeth Warren, for instance, is making the obvious point that people hate the health care system.
Then, productively, she proposed, along with Republican Senator Josh Hawley, legislation to split apart some of these monster companies from their pharmacy subsidiaries, thus reducing conflicts of interest in health care. While this legislation was in the works long before the killing, it didn’t stop Wall Street investors from saying that any discussion of health care reform was a de facto endorsement of murder.
Detailed summary of article by Matt Stoller:
The article discusses the complex problems within the United States healthcare system, focusing on the misconceptions about healthcare costs and the ineffective reforms implemented over the past decades.
**Key Points**:
– Senators Elizabeth Warren and Josh Hawley have proposed legislation to break up large healthcare companies like UnitedHealth Group, highlighting growing dissatisfaction with the current healthcare system.
– Economists and health policy experts have long argued that healthcare costs are driven by “over-consumption” and “moral hazard,” believing that patients and doctors overuse medical services.
– The Obama-era healthcare reforms (Affordable Care Act) attempted to control costs through “value-based care,” which aimed to change how doctors and insurers are incentivized.
**Major Findings**:
– Contrary to popular belief, the problem with US healthcare is not over-consumption, but **high prices and monopoly power**.
– A pivotal study titled “It’s the Prices, Stupid” revealed that the US spends twice as much on healthcare as peer countries while having fewer doctors, hospital beds, and shorter hospital stays.
– Administrative costs are enormous, with 34% of healthcare expenditures spent on administration in 2020, compared to just 11% in Canada.
**Systemic Issues**:
– 80% of doctors are now employed by corporate entities like UnitedHealth Group.
– Reforms like “value-based care” have essentially transferred insurance functions to physicians, creating more friction between patients and medical care.
– The original reforms failed to make healthcare more affordable or accessible.
The article ultimately argues that the healthcare system’s problems stem from monopolistic practices and misguided policy approaches that prioritize cost-cutting over patient care.
We need to be breaking up monopolies; *all of them*. Big tech, healthcare ‘systems’, banks, pharmaceutical and pharmacies, grocery chains, etc.
I agree but if you think this way then why do you and other people still trust the meat and dairy lobby pushing foods that make us sick needing big pharma?
They’re all the big powerful lobby’s working together and conspiring to keep us sick.
If people switch to a plant based diet it would relieve food for livestock which could curb some hunger and act as a preventative measure to not get sick,
But people happily eat meat and dairy and end up w big pharma?
So my question is why aren’t you vegan yet ?