Dear John,
Today we find ourselves in a maddening healthcare mess, where patients with chronic conditions like asthma, heart disease, or diabetes are suddenly finding the costs of medications they have relied upon for years have shot out of reach.
Why? Because insurance conglomerate executives, whose MBAs included no medical training, manipulate formularies, constantly changing which medications are covered and at what cost – sometimes with fatal consequences.
While corporate greed has shuttered thousands of independent medical practices and local pharmacies, over a third of the population are living in healthcare deserts without adequate availability. Meanwhile, soaring premiums crush employers and unions as healthcare costs suppress wages and strain workers' livelihoods.
And the fact remains: The vast majority of Americans live under the looming threat that a single illness could spell physical and financial catastrophe.
For years, we’ve been told that privatization and corporate consolidation would deliver better care at lower costs. That’s bunk! Instead, it created vertically integrated monopolies – hospital networks and private equity firms wielding immense power to exploit patients, with patients and employers footing the bill.
Big Medicine has become too powerful – and its making us sicker. It’s time to demand structural change. We must break up Big Medicine before it breaks us.
It may come as no surprise that the healthcare conglomerates have rigged the system for their own benefit. They see no barriers against funneling patients into their own services, while quality of care diminishes and costs skyrocket. Healthcare spending has crept up to 20% of GDP, but patient outcomes continue to deteriorate.
The problem with these mega-corporations is not just that they are too big, it’s also how they have grown as vertical monopolies, putting profits before patients at each level. Consider how UnitedHealth Group has metastasized into an industry-dominating behemoth. They are:
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The largest commercial insurer
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The largest enroller of Medicare Advantage beneficiaries
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The largest employer of physicians
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The largest processor of medical and pharmacy claims
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The second-largest provider of health savings accounts
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The third-largest Pharmacy Benefit Manager
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The fourth-largest mail order and specialty pharmacy operator
This unprecedented level of vertical integration consolidates power at every stage of care, so the company gets multiple bites at the apple for every benefit a patient receives. The guardrails separating healthcare from the banking industry are rapidly eroding.
Ironically, one place we’ve seen the consequences of unchecked corporate control before is in the banking industry. A massive consolidation of financial institutions was a major factor leading to the Great Depression, prompting the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act to separate commercial and investment banking and establish the FDIC.
It’s time for a healthcare equivalent: a modern Glass-Steagall-style healthcare reform to dismantle these dangerous monopolies, curb corporate greed, and rebuild a healthcare system that centers on patients, not profits.
Join the movement. Demand a healthcare system that puts people over profits now!
Thank you for standing up for improving healthcare access and outcomes.
Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action
