If you want to volunteer in a technical capacity or any other, the doctors are on the move. Sign the Pledge – Ten Ten Ten They need all the help they can get now that they are starting to organize. People said they never would or could never organize, but they are doing it. They have just started their own lobbying organizations and volunteer groups. I am so relieved that the diabetics and the pharmacists are going to receive some backup. Frankly, we need all the help we can get. Sign the Pledge – Ten Ten Ten
3 Likes
Interesting idea @mohe0001 and certainly a project that most of us would like to see happen in our lifetime. This would require a complete overhaul of our medical system from providers to payers to insurers to patients and expectations. The “is there a pill for that” mentality would need to be addressed somewhere and the for-profit PBMs and all the other middlemen vampires that leach off the medical system. Ten/Ten/Ten is a lofty goal to address not only a medical architecture but also patient behavior.
2 Likes
With an administration that’s attempting to dismandle affordable healthcare, shut down the department of education, attack colleges and universities, deny science, deny vaccination, end all entitlements, dismantle and destroy social security and medicaid, and remove consumer protections for tax benefits, preexisting conditions, coverage, and medical data collection and dissemination, the chances of the government placing a high focus on healthcare are zippo, nada, zilch, nothing. Doctors pushing high national spending on healthcare are self-serving.
Think about it.
I think we focus on PBM reform over the next couple months. We have convinced a lot of docs to help with that. They just sent some heavy hitters to DC on the 11th. Here’s where you can see a lot of overlap in policy goals between patients and providers. https://free2care.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/report.pdf The Government has picked up a lot of the doctors market fixing concerns, but they won’t move on that stuff until after our stuff is handled. We got there first. It takes a long time to move this crap thru the meat grinder of government.
We own Trump and Vance on PBM reform. Don’t look to Congress. Look to the regulatory agencies and the Executive branch to make progress on that mess. I’m waiting on this: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/09/ftc-sues-prescription-drug-middlemen-artificially-inflating-insulin-drug-prices That’s where we see movement. Give it until the end of January. What we see there, is them reaching up above the heads of domestic policy to handle some of the difficulties that cascade down from international markets and the large multinational companies. We have no ability to do that - only the feds can do that. They say that they could never have gotten Eli Lilly and the others to the table without tariffs as leverage. I’m pleased that they got Lilly. That took some time and strategy. They need to hit those GLP-1s because GLP-1s are the new insulin where we see a bunch of price gouging. Trump announces deals with Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk to slash weight loss drug prices, offer some Medicare coverage Progress is being made. It’s tough because they are striking at the drug companies and the PBMs simultaneously. That wasn’t ever really the plan. Everybody thought we would hit PBMs and then hit pharma.
I think they removed around 200 illegal patents from FDA. But there are a lot of those. Teva Removes Over 200 Improper Patent Listings Under Pressure from FTC | Federal Trade Commission They just need to keep plugging away at them. Super time consuming and there are not enough staff.
They are addressing a lot of fraud, but they don’t have the resources to get it all. There’s too much. DOJ will try, but they almost never succeed in any meaningful way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EtlAsRej80
We really do see a lot of meaningful progress at the level of state governments. That was unexpected to me because the ‘betics never had much luck there. Texas is doing a fantastic job. For instance, their AG went after insurers for trying to blackmail patients, providers, and members of the state legislature.
A doc in Texas took a swing at UHG. The retaliation was really bad, but she gained some financial support that might help her survive. Her practice is under water now, but she might eventually be able to make a move. UHG snapped its fingers and kicked her out of network so that her patients couldn’t use insurance at her clinic. That cost her 5 Million overnight. She couldn’t pay her staff. Fundraiser by Elisabeth Potter : Stand with a Surgeon Facing Retaliation UHG really hits the doctors hard if they step out of line. The doctors are a lot more afraid to move than patients are. The insurers have a lot of financial leverage over them and they retaliate. That’s one reason why doc don’t move. But that is changing. Docs are furious. The doctors finally got AMA to lobby on our side for PBM reform. That was a big deal.
I didn’t understand, until this year, how much retaliation (or the threat of retaliation) was impacting doctors. I just thought they were dumb or nerdy or negligent or too greedy to advocate for themselves or for us. I called them nerds online and told them to grow a pair. I would tease them relentlessly by posting videos like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBShN8qT4lk But I understand better now how the system works and they have grown a pair, so I promote their efforts wherever I can. I’ve been working on them for a year straight. There has been huge progress. They are in uprising.
The pharmacists are already well organized and we don’t need to worry about them. Pharmacists Really Are Fighting Back - by Kristen Hutchison The pharmacists are a bunch of bad asses. They take care of themselves…and patients, at a legislative level. They are doing great PR. If we can get the doctors up to that level, we are made in the shade. I accidentally provoked a bunch of retaliation against the pharmacists from UHG by trolling UHG online. https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/new-york-times-investigation-reveals-unitedhealth-groups-attempts-escape-scrutiny But the pharmacists were super cool about it. They told me that it wasn’t my fault that UHG was a bunch of jerks. They can hold their own. They are more like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLZ5AVHfnCs Because so many of them are still self employed, they have a lot more leverage & autonomy than doctors. They own their own businesses. They are more entrepreneurial. They are tough cats.