The Middlemen of Healthcare Pharma Especially

I copied the two paragraphs below (actually I took one and split it) from Matt Stoller’s Big News Letter. Matt is talking about the same issues I have been talking about for years. The Pharmaceutical Industry and their rip off pricing. It is a good read if you wonder over there. The YouTube is also from his site. I can not lay claim to posting such before. Doctor Glaucomflecken makes a valid point.

United Healthcare Group is one of the top PBMs. It also employs 10% of the doctors in America, is America’s biggest health insurer, runs Optum Bank through which bailout funds during Covid flowed to hospitals, and even owns Change Health. Change Health is the large payment network for hospitals and pharmacies.

More importantly, the big PBMs, while they contract with independent pharmacies, also own their own retail and mail-order pharmacies, thus setting the reimbursement rates for themselves and their competitors. (UHG is a frequent target of medical comedian Dr Glaucomflecken.)

The YouTube and the wording above it were found at Matt Stollers News Letter “Big.” He also has a commentary up on PBMs called “Inside the Mafia of Pharma Pricing.”

I also have a much longer commentary going up in a repost of 46brooklin’s Money from Sick People Part IV. Dale Coberly will be pleased to see I posted it. Lets see if he will get through it. I rewrote parts of it to make it clearer.