It is a given, Trump’s new executive order  is calling for “market-based” pricing or whatever the market will bear pricing to replace Medicare set pricing. Trump sees a conflict between Medicare and the market. Well he is right; but, his solution ll only aggravate the problem of costs.  It will drive up costs for everyone in Medicare, destroy traditional Medicare as healthcare for the elderly, steer more people into costly commercial healthcare, reduce Medicare funds at a faster pace, and allow the already profitable healthcare industry to increase profits well beyond what it is today.

But, but are Medicare Advantage Plans ripping people and Medicare off? “Yes they are” a for-profit industry is profiteering by taking advantage of a system of healthcare for which they wanted to be a part. As Trump signed the EO, it is stunning to watch a bunch of seniors up on the stage clapping as el jefe was showing off his executive order allowing commercial healthcare to further pickpocket them, exploit healthcare, and destroy Medicare. All smiles there . . .

Medicare Advantage programs are managed differently than Fee for Service traditional Medicare. Besides providing a series of services not found in regular Medicare, the MA plans instituted a different form of physician/hospital payment called Capitation. Capitation Payments are theoretically used by managed care organizations to control health care costs. The VA is a good example of this type of managing costs. A capitation payment model  controls the use of health care resources by putting the physician at a financial risk if too many services are provided to patients or if quality decreases as witnessed by return patients for the same disorder or illness. To ensure patients do not receive suboptimal care through under-utilization of health care services, MAOs measure the rates of resource utilization in physician practices. These utilization reports are then made available to CMS to measure health care quality, utilization, costs, etc.. They are also linked to financial rewards such as withheld fees and bonuses.

Past the leap, I explain how the capitation model can be gamed by Advantage plans.

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“Trump’s Executive Order is Backdoor Privatization of Medicare,” Social Security Works, Nancy Altman, October 3, 2019

Thursday and I had to search around for someone who is an expert on Medicare Advantage Plans and Original Medicare. Nancy is one of those experts. Friday and Andrew Sprung has his commentary Trump’s Bid To Destroy Medicare up on xpostfactoid blog.

Commercial Healthcare Insurance has been become more and more expensive over the years with copays increasing, deductibles increasing, and premiums going up. Todays commercial healthcare insurance costs a single person ~$7200 and a family ~$20,000 with the single person paying 18% of the premium and a family paying 31% of the premium. Approximately 36 million people make less than $25,000 annually (retail workers, personal care attendants, warehouse workers and others as well). In a crude calculation, xpostfactoid: “The past ten years of healthcare cost increase relative to wage increase might cost a full-time average wage earner with family coverage $3,000-$4,000 this year in added costs and decreased wages, or, say, 6-8% of income.”

Today’s Employer sponsored Healthcare Insurance is unsustainable. The same holds true for Medicare Advantage plans due to the Commercial healthcare Insurance offering it as well. There are few controls which can be applied on the commercial side of the healthcare industry which is why there is a big push for true single payer healthcare of which Medicare and Medicaid are. If you wish more detail on how commercial healthcare insurance has exploded in cost, my earlier post Health Benefits for 2019: Premiums Inch Higher, Employers Respond To Federal Policy offers more detail pictorially and in verbiage.

As I have written other times, Medicare and Medicaid have been instrumental in reducing excessive U.S. healthcare costs. Medicare and Medicaid set the prices paid to providers with provider input and commercial healthcare insurance uses those prices to set their payouts. Medicare hospital rates are an approximate half of those paid on average by commercial healthcare insurance. Rates paid to physicians average about 78% of commercial insurance rates. In high-demand specialties and in regions with fewer providers; commercial healthcare insurers often pay four, five and six times Medicare rates. If you remember from Kocher and Berwick’s article, they proposed setting commercial Healthcare (while it still exited in the interim) payouts at 120% of Medicare rates.

This action by Trump and Republicans is a huge giveaway to the commercial healthcare insurance sector and the healthcare industry. Right now Medicare Advantage uses Medicare rates. If they can beat Medicare Rates, they keep the difference. If they can not meet the rates, the consumer pays the difference. What Trump has done is reverse the format. Medicare Advantage Negotiated Rates will be used to set Medicare Fee For Service rates to providers.

Past the leap is the President of Social “Security Works” Nancy Altman’s statement on Trump’s Executive Order talking about Trump’s lies.

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The argument has been, if people like their private and company sponsored insurance plans they can keep them; but can they afford to do so?

In a recent LA Times and KFF survey, 40 percent of respondents said they had difficulty affording health insurance or health care or had problems paying medical bills. An approximate one-half of respondents said they or a family member skipped or postponed getting health care or prescriptions in the past twelve months due to cost concerns. Those with higher deductibles were more likely to report problems with affordability and were likely to say their insurance worsened over the past five years as compared to people with lower deductibles. Over the last decade, deductibles have increased 162% (see chart below).

The annual Kaiser Family Foundation Employer Health Benefits Survey: In 2019 the average annual premium for single coverage rose 4 percent to $7,188, and the average annual premium for family coverage rose 5 percent to $20,576. On average, covered employees contributed 18 percent of the cost for single coverage and 30 percent of the cost for family coverage with variation across firms. Of the 9,000 firms the survey was sent to, 4,395 firms answered this question of whether they offer healthcare insurance for a response rate of 58 percent.

Fifty-seven percent of firms offered health benefits to at least some of their workers. Smaller firm employees faced a higher risk of affordability especially during recessions. Fifteen percent of all covered workers including the 35 percent of covered workers in small firms are in plans with a worker contribution of more than half of the premium for family coverage (2019). In firms with a high percentage of low-wage workers, the average worker’s share for family coverage was 41%. This is many ways to say the same thing, the cost of healthcare is increasing and private company plans may no longer have a lessening capability to pay for healthcare.

Employer-sponsored health insurance is the largest source of coverage in the United States, covering about 153 million nonelderly people. I am sure many people would like to keep the private healthcare insurance and pay less for premiums than what they are.

Premium and Deductible Increase Charts and key thoughts after the leap

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The House Democrats just released their drug pricing plan (summary) on the 19th. I read through it rather quickly and I found it to be interesting and having targets which could work. Rather than jump right into this, let’s talk about purchasing a bit and then what I believe would be better.

In a purchasing negotiation there are two typical ways used to negotiate a price to your company. The first strategy is to tell a supplier you have done a market study, another supplier can offer a better price, and  all things are equal between him and the other supplier. The supplier has a choice of beating the new price or offering something else of value to the customer which will negate the difference and can not be acquired from the other supplier (whip-sawing a supplier is unethical and many do it).

The second strategy requires more work and requires you to understand the cost of materials, the process and its cost, and the overhead involved. It does establish a base in which a buyer can use to negotiate with “all” suppliers. With the former strategy, you are guessing whether you have a good price because you do not know the cost of manufacture. Purchasing has to be a bit more than just a clerk.

The House plan intends to negotiate on pricing using other countries (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom) pricing to measure against for the same drug. The legislation establishes an upper limit for the price as no more than 1.2 times of the volume-weighted average of the price of the six countries reached in their negotiation. Australia, Japan, and United Kingdom use a cost-based method of pricing a drug.

Here is a brief explanation of the House plan:

Year 1 and each successive year, the Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary would identify up to 250 brand name drugs appearing to lack pricing competition and having the greatest cost to Medicare and the US healthcare system. The data would be collected from Medicare, Medicaid, and healthcare insurance to determine aggregate cost based upon price and volume of sales.

The total of 250 items picked with:

• the top 125 drugs in Medicare Part B responsible for a full 96% of Part B spending,
• and 125 drugs responsible for 45 percent of the spending in Part D.

As show in the chart. “More” to be read after the leap.

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Eighty year old retired salesman John Garver the morning of March 28, 1979 remembers the acrid odor permeating Harrisburg as he walked out of a restaurant in Pennsylvania’s capital city.

“We had this smell in the air, wondering what it was. Well it didn’t take us long to find out … that the accident started.”

Fourteen miles away, the “accident” was unfolding in Unit 2 at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant, triggering panic, confusion, and within days an evacuation order.

The partial meltdown sparked national protests, prompted increased safety standards for the nuclear power industry, and largely stymied the industry’s momentum for decades until recent alarm over climate change has made some begin to embrace expanding carbon-free nuclear power.

Today, the remaining reactor (Unit 1) will generate its last kilowatt of energy and close. Three Mile Island was not a victim of the anti-nuclear movement; but rather, it lost out to simple economics. Even though the plant is licensed to operate until 2034, Exelon Generation is ceasing operations after the state of Pennsylvania earlier this year refused to throw the company a financial lifeline to keep it open.

The plant’s four cooling towers will remain a part of the landscape for now as foreboding concrete tombstones seemingly out of place in the bucolic Susquehanna Valley of central Pennsylvania and a reminder of what happened March 28, 1979.

Taking a Second Look

Senator Cory Booker; “Right now, nuclear is more than 50% of our non-carbon causing energy. People who think we can get there without nuclear being part of the blend just aren’t looking at the facts.”

Economic factors such as cheap natural gas and increasingly affordable renewable sources are slowly driving nuclear power out of business. Additionally, diminished demand has also hurt profitability in addition to rising operational costs. The closure of the Three Mile Island facility will leave 97 commercial reactors at 59 plants, scattered across 30 states, remaining in operation.

According to U.S. Energy Information Administration, the Watts Bar Unit 2 in Tennessee was the last nuclear power plant to come on line in 2010. Two more reactors are under construction in Georgia (Nuclear Regulatory Commission [NRC]). No more are planned as of yet.

Pro-industry group, World Nuclear Association: “Public confidence in nuclear energy in the US declined following the Three Mile Island accident. It was a major cause of the decline in nuclear construction through the 1980s and 1990s.”

Harrisburg resident and Chair of the Three Mile Island Alert organization Eric Epstein: “If there is a good thing that happened because of TMI, it had ignited a fierce debate on the viability of nuclear power being safe, reliable, economical, etc.”

It still remains to be seen if more reactors will be built to supplement US energy needs.

“Three Mile Island closes: meltdown changed nuclear energy in America,” USA Today, Ledyard King, September 20, 2019

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About the time I finished up my post on Biden, I get this article from Dan discussing how Biden is kissing the butts of drug companies to more-than-likely get campaign donations. Everyone else has been concentrating on individual (you know people of lesser means) donations and many candidates have refused to take corporate donations. Biden is not ashamed to take money from corporations. Gee, whata surprise!

Candidate Joe Biden: “By the way, great drug companies out there — except a couple of opioid outfits,” the former vice president told donors at the Dallas home of David Genecov, a craniofacial surgeon.

Biden’s comment came during a discussion of medical research and the cancer “moonshot” initiative he launched during the Obama administration following the death of his son, Beau Biden, in 2015. That effort included his push for companies to collaborate more on research.

While praising the research of pharmaceutical companies, Biden also complained, complained about the high drug prices being experienced by people. Such issues had not stopped him before in supporting Republican candidates for Congress in the last election.

In 2018, Joe Biden came to Michigan’s 6th Congressional District to give a speech to the Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan and pivoted to the topic of Republican Fred Upton at the expense of the Democrat candidate Matt Longjohn. Matt came the closest to beating Upton and Biden gave Fred the boost he needed. Upton had won the district by 20% in previous elections and won it this time by less than 5%.

Biden was paid $200,000 to give a speech to a Republican business crowd supported by Fred Upton in Benton Harbor, Michigan during which he praised GOP Congressman Fred Upton even as Democrats were close to winning Upton’s seat in the gerrymandered Michigan 6th District during the midterms.

It was said Biden came to the 6th District to campaign for Fred Upton because Fred helped to push the 21st Century Cures Act through Congress in support of Biden’s moonshot plan. There is no confirmation of this. The Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan is heavily sponsored by Republican interests and also in one form or another by the Uptons. You would think with Repubs owning the House and the Senate back then, there would be a few issues of making this happen?

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Joe knows the answer to this question and he is baiting the other candidates. Joe has a history of supporting big business interests as witnessed by his aggressive support of the banking industry with bankruptcy laws favoring banking against the needs of citizens and with a special intended harshness when it comes to student loans. Joe has sponsored or cosponsored every bankruptcy bill since 1997. With his question and his healthcare bill, I believe Joe  is courting the healthcare industry and the healthcare insurance industry’s support. Other candidates need to call Joe out on this.

Before moving to Medicare4All or a form of it, we need to attack the costs of healthcare which are rising at a clip greater than inflation.

Much of the payment for improved healthcare will come from negotiating with pharmaceutical companies, reducing the increasing cost of hospital inpatient and outpatient care, rolling back unnecessary pricing increases, reducing costs to 120% of Medicare costs today, etc. There are enough cost targets to attack which should provide a wealth of lower costs and funding for expansion. Healthcare Cost Drivers Pharma, Doctors, and Hospitals

Kocher and Berwick gave an outstanding recital of how we will get from Medicare and Commercial Insurance to just Single Payer Medicare4All. “While Considering Medicare For All: Policies For Making Health Care In The United States Better.” It is unlikely, Congress will move on Medicare4All in the beginning. It will take time. Today’s Medicare is not free from issues.

As the Director of Medicare and Medicaid and upon departing the position, Donald Berwick made this observation of today’s Medicare:

“20 to 30 percent of health spending is ‘waste’ that yields no benefit to patients, and that some of the needless spending is a result of onerous, archaic regulations enforced by Medicare and Medicaid.

He listed five reasons for what he described as the ‘extremely high level of waste.’ They are overtreatment of patients, the failure to coordinate care, the administrative complexity of the health care system, burdensome rules and fraud.

Much is done that does not help patients at all and many physicians know it.”

Within the PPACA, the issues with ACOs must be fixed. The initial PPACA ACO strategy has given hospitals the ability to exploit the market through consolidation, eliminating or minimizing competition in regions, leading to increased pricing, and enabling the employment of specialist doctors, making them “must haves” in insurance networks. As planned, the ACOs should have generated administrative cost synergy and quality benefits instead of enabling ACOs to consolidate and control prices.

Single payer does not use ACOs. In single payer, the government will pay hospitals, healthcare professionals, pharmaceutical and healthcare supply companies. The government will also set the budgets for hospitals and healthcare. Single Payer in Vermont was going to fail and failed due to cost because it used 3 ACOs to manage its plan. Bernie Sanders is also using ACOs in his plan. “Why the Bernie Sanders Bill Is Not Single Payer” The only fear I have of this type of arrangement is the influence of the healthcare industry on those determining pricing and accepting costs. The healthcare industry is attempting to establish a methodology using value brought to the patient clinically and in quality of life with resulting benefits to the health-care system and society also. It is an argument on the issue of the morality of higher prices. Single Payer will have to contend with this as much of the pricing argument is not justified.

The plan should be to gradually move from insurance administered healthcare (what Kocher and Berwick propose) to a single payer system similar to what Sanders proposes but minus ACOs. As I explained, there are enough cost targets to pay for much of the implementation to be derived from reducing costs in the present healthcare system.

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Ms. Seema Verma is the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. She is the over seer of Trump’s attempts to repeal the ACA. She is smiling now as there has been a reduction in the numbers of people enrolled in public healthcare such as Medicaid and CHIPS. Why did this occur? States having work requirements for Medicaid, adding more red tape to the application process, cutbacks in in outreach and enrollment funds by the Administration, and instill fear, a chilling purposeful effect, to cause immigrant and mixed-status families to not enroll and even withdraw their children from Medicaid/CHIP. The fear of being deported or given a lower status because you are dependent upon Medicaid and other government programs does much to keep them away and in hiding.

Georgetown University Health Policy Institute, Center for Children and Families sorts through the data provided by the Census Bureau in one of its Current Population Surveys. The Bureau actually released a mini-special report focusing on children, “Uninsured Rate for Children Increases To 5.5% in 2018.” The percentage represents a loss of  ~425,000 insured by these programs or 0.6 percentage points decrease from the previous year. A job well done by Administrator Verma.

Joan Alker: What do we know about the kids who have higher uninsured rates?

• Hispanic children saw a large jump of 1 percentage point from 7.7% to 8.7%. White children were the other racial category to see a statistically significant increase, clear evidence of impact of the Administration’s ongoing campaign of hostility and intimidation directed at immigrant families and the recent issuance of the public charge rule will only make this worse. Many of the children are born in America citizens who have immigrant parents.
• Young children (age 0-5) saw a large increase as well with their uninsured rate jumping from 4.5% to 5.3%. Without healthcare, a young child’s health care needs are less likely to be met and this is especially troubling when they are in this critical time period when a child’s brain develops rapidly and is building a foundation for future educational and economic success.  Regular visits to a pediatrician for checkups helps children in being healthy and disease and disorders are caught early on in the development.
• Children in the South are the worst off regionally and saw the highest increases in uninsured jumping from 6.5% as a region to 7.7%. As can be expected, southern states such as Texas, Florida, and Georgia have some of the highest rates of uninsured children in the country already.

More data on the impact of the new polices will be available month end when more American Community Survey looks at the state specific changes for children.

Three main Causes for the increased uninsured:

•  As I mentioned earlier, mixed families with parents being legal or illegal immigrants and the children citizens. People are afraid of being deported or having their children snatched from them. No prior modern administration has ever separated children from their parents unless their was an overwhelming need to do so such as healthcare.
•  The administration and Congress’s cuts in outreach and enrollment funding to undermine ACA, one of Barack Obama’s achievements and Trump’s failure to repeal.  Outreach grants for CHIP were delayed significantly by the purposeful congressional funding CHIP till the end of 2017. CHIP was not accepting new enrollments due to a lack of funding and some states cut back. People missed the deadlines as a result. Another purposeful ploy.
•  Besides ignoring the problems on the increased uninsured rates for children, Seema Verma and CMS are supporting state efforts to tighten up eligibility in CHIP and put in place  stricter verification procedures causing eligible children to lose coverage.

More to Come on What Can be Done.

“Why are There More Uninsured Kids and What Can We Do About It?,” Center for Children and Families, Joan Alker, September 12, 2019.

“Children’s Public Health Insurance Coverage Lower Than in 2017,” US Census Bureau, Edward R. Berchick and Laryssa Mykyta, September 10, 2019.

Bill H – run75441

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“Cigna gets major boost from Express Scripts in Q2,” Robert King, FierceHealthcare, August 1, 2019

And some claim PBMs do not matter in the cost of healthcare? Cigna healthcare insurance generated ~ $38 billion in revenue the second quarter 2019 and a major increase due mostly to a merger with pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) Express Scripts.

According to company financial results released Thursday, Cigna’s pharmacy services business generated $23.5 billion in revenue in the second quarter which represents a massive increase compared to the $1.1 billion generated in the second quarter of 2018. The company reported $1.41 billion in net income.

The major reason for the spike is the gain from the membership and resources achieved from the deal for Express Scripts. Cigna completed the $67 billion merger with the PBM giant late last year.

“More Plant-Based Protein in Diet May Add Years,” Nicole Lou, MedPageToday, August 27, 2019

“Significant reductions were found (specifically) in mortalities related to cardiovascular disease. Norie Sawada, MD, PhD, of Japan’s National Cancer Center in Tokyo reported and colleagues reported a positive result in a prospective cohort study of plant protein being substituted for meat protein. It was reported in recent JAMA Internal Medicine study, “Association of Animal and Plant Protein Intake With All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality.”

The JAMA study (Association of Animal and Plant Protein Intake With All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality) suggests diets with higher plant-based protein intake may contribute to long-term health and longevity. In this cohort study; 70,696 Japanese adults were followed up on for a mean period of 18 years. The outcome associated a higher intake of plant protein resulted in lower total mortality. Moreover, the substitution of plant protein for animal protein, mainly for red or processed meat protein, was associated with lower risk of total, cancer-related, and cardiovascular disease–related mortality.

Furthermore, switching out 3% of daily calories from red meat to plant protein — approximately 260 g of a soy-based food for the average person eating 2,000 calories per day — was linked in statistical models (not through analysis of individuals who actually changed their diets) to reductions in mortality risk.

It is no secret retail drives the meat processing market where large manufacturers and meat packers are big enough to control the market and can drive the pricing down or up per each of cattle. Smaller cattle producers can be driven out of the market as they do not have the massive volume ability to lower their costs of production past a certain point. The criticisms of the plant based protein study I have read are similar to the criticism I have read limiting opioid prescriptions in which they advocate do not limit opioid at all. We could all do with less red meat in our diets which still remains a reality.

The $6 Million Drug Claim, Katie Thomas and Reed Abelson, NYT, August 25, 2019

The link should take you to a different site other than the NYT where you can read the article.

Alexion Pharmaceuticals manufactures Strensiq a drug used to treat a rare bone disease perinatal/infantile and juvenile – onset hypophosphatasia. Adult Dawn Patterson also suffers from the same disease, the excruciating pain from it, which leaves her struggling to work or care for her family. It is a rare disease found more often in children and even rarer in adults.

Dawns husband’s union covers the cost of the drug. The union is suffering sticker shock from the mounting bills for treatments of her and her two of her children who also have the disease. In 2018, the union faced a potential $6 million bill for the Patterson household with an estimated a lifetime cost of $60 million to treat the family over 10 years.

The cost of Strensig as well as other drugs is coming under increased scrutiny and debate over whether any drug should cost $millions of dollars after cost of R&D and start up are recovered. Americans are being priced out of lifesaving treatments as drug companies maximize their profits well beyond start up costs. It has been found, the investment of $1 invested in R&D has provided $14.50 in revenue for cancer drugs (World Health Organization).

As I reported in “Cigna gets major boost from Express Scripts in Q2” (above), Pharmacy Benefit Managers are taking a hefty cut in the process in representing insurance companies with manufacturers. In an earlier post “Can you Patent the Sun,” I had talked more on the topic of costs and company reasoning to set higher prices. Manufacturers are pricing new and older drugs higher and establishing a pseudo morality to maximize their profits.

The US is more vulnerable than is European countries only because Europe sets pricing rather than allow the market to do so.

Opioid Maker Turned Blind Eye to Diversion, Kristina Fiore, MedPage Today, August 28, 2019

In newly unsealed documents, Mallinckrodt employees were worried the existing programs to prevent opioid diversion were not working. One former employee testified about Mallinckrodt not having a computerized system from 2008 to 2009 for tracking unusual orders. Employees had to use their judgment to identify suspicious sales. U.S. Drug Enforcement Agents met with Mallinckrodt PLC and informed the company the agency viewed it “as the kingpin within the prescription drug cartel.”

Superior Court for the State of Alaska Third Judicial District in Anchorage, State of Alaska, Plaintiff vs. Mallinckrodt PLC, Mallinckrodt LLC, and SPECGX LLC.

“In reality, however Mallinckrodt shipped opioids into Alaska without an adequate system in place to prevent diversion of its opioids and to investigate, report, and refuse to fill orders that it knew or should have known were suspicious, breaching both its common law duties and its statutory duties under Alaska law. Despite its legal and ethical duty to report “suspicious orders” of its drugs, and, upon information and belief, ample red flags of potential diversion, Mallinckrodt has never once reported a single prescriber to state law enforcement or the Alaska State Medical Board. Instead, Mallinckrodt incentivized distributors to flood the State with opioids beyond even what the expanded market for chronic pain market could bear.”

Mallinckrodt Was Required to and Failed to Maintain Effective Controls Against Diversion and to Report Suspicious Prescribers. , Page 35, B

There are multiple state lawsuits being filed federal courts nationwide claiming pharmaceutical companies misled people as to the safety of opioid usage.

Opioid settlement would divide money based on local impact, Geoff Mulvihill and Andrew Welsh-Huggins, AP, August 30, 2019

Purdue the maker of OxyContin is negotiating a multi-billion-dollar settlement to resolve a crush of lawsuits over the nation’s opioid crisis. The settlement contains formulas for dividing up the money amongst state and local governments across the country.

The formulas would take into account several factors; opioid distribution in a given jurisdiction, the number of people who misuse opioids, and the number of overdose deaths.

Spelling out the way the settlement is to be split is meant to prevent squabbles over the money avoiding the mistakes experienced with the hundreds of billions of dollars received under the nationwide settlement with Big Tobacco during the 1990s.

September 8; States Attorneys and Purdue have reached an impasse and it is expected Purdue will now file for bankruptcy. It is not clear what the breakdown is over. One of the four states attorneys negotiating with Purdue, Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro said Saturday he intends to sue the Sackler family as other states have.

“I think they are a group of sanctimonious billionaires who lied and cheated so they could make a handsome profit. I truly believe that they have blood on their hands.”

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Just revealed:

The opioid/OxyContin maker Purdue and members of the billionaire Sackler family owning the company have offered to settle thousands of lawsuits against the company for $10 to $12 billion. according to people briefed on the offer. More than 2,000 states, cities, and counties across America are pursuing the OxyContin maker over the large bills for cleaning up the opioid crisis — and are deciding whether to accept the offer by Friday. The Financial Times is reporting on this offer from the Sacklers and Purdue.

On August 26, Purdue paid $270 million to Oklahoma and Teva Pharmaceuticals paid $75 million also to Oklahoma.

From the Financial Times: “Purdue said it believes a ‘constructive global resolution is the best way forward’ and is working with state attorneys-general and other plaintiffs to achieve it. While Purdue Pharma is prepared to defend itself vigorously in the opioid litigation, the company has made clear that it sees little good coming from years of wasteful litigation and appeals”.

For all the harm done to this nation due to purposeful deceit and lies on the use of opioids claiming it was not addictive, someone needs to go to prison from the Sackler family.

Purdue Exposed

Medpage Today, Kristina Fiore, August 28,2019

I suspect with the new information being available, Purdue finally threw in the towel and offered a settlement. I also suspect this will impact other companies decisions to appeal as J & J is doing.

STAT News Wins Legal Fight Over Purdue Documents

A trove of documents detailing Purdue Pharma’s role in the opioid epidemic will be made public, STAT News reported, as the Kentucky Supreme Court denied the company’s request to review lower courts’ decisions to release them.

STAT waged a 3.5-year legal battle to make those records public. While some remain under seal, the outlet posted a sought-after video deposition of Richard Sackler. It had obtained a transcript of that deposition in February, which gained further attention when comedian John Oliver hired famous actors including Bryan Cranston and Michael Keaton to re-enact it.

The documents promise new information on how Purdue promoted its oxycodone product OxyContin and what, exactly, its executives knew about its risk of addiction. Among those documents are depositions of other Purdue executives; physician testimony; emails and memos about marketing strategies; internal reports on clinical trials; and communications about earlier legal cases.

All of the documents were part of Kentucky’s lawsuit against Purdue over its alleged illegal marketing of OxyContin. That suit was settled in 2015, with Purdue shelling out $24 million.

Purdue may soon be paying a far higher bill, with media including NBC News reporting that the company has pitched a $10 to $12-billion settlement in the consolidated cases set to go to trial before a federal judge in Ohio in October.

This does not bode well for Purdue, its settlement, or threat of years of litigation. The smoking gun was always there and pieces of it can be found in previous posts of mine. Relating the US Senate Joint Committee numbers to when Oxycontin was introduced after 1995 and the incremental increase in deaths from opioids, the use of a part of the Porter and Jink letter to the NEJM which said opioids were not addictive “minus the part where it said when used in a hospital setting,” the abuse of the Porter and Jink letter in the number of citations, the millions spent in lobbying state legislatures to block new laws, etc.

John Oliver uses Keaton and Cranston to portray Richard Sackler in this 20 minute Clip. It is worth watching. “the launch (Oxycontin) would be followed by a blizzard of prescriptions that will bury the competition. The blizzard will be so deep, dense, and white,.”

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