Vizient is a little-known company that consolidated control over hospital purchasing and helped induce shortages. Is CNN tolerating chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta being on Vizient's payroll?
Matt … just observing that given your expression of concern over experts being co-opted for corporate sector gain is it no wonder that trust in technical experts is plummeting. As you know a huge problem in scientific research is the sources of funding of that research. Corporate sources, or even worse dark money funders with unknown corporate backing give that funding with expectations that they will get the results they want. And total research funding is THE measure of success for researchers in higher education … which leads to associated promotion, tenure, salary and prestige, not to mention new positions with bigger labs, more graduate students, etc at a larger institution. So, my GP ( at a MAJOR U.S. health care system) still pushes colonoscopies, blood pressure medications ( high normal readings) and cholesterol medications ( also high normal). GP is young which means either that’s being taught or the hospital system pushes it.
Too much corruption to accept the advice of experts.
This on Gupta and Gottlieb, is wonderful, intelligent, brave, fair journalism. I'm so glad your voice is creating repercussions and causing legislative action and change. :)
That's what has been great about the Trump/COVID era is we are finally hearing about obscure and otherwise secret apparatus like 'GPO' that essentially rule our meager lives.
But again a simpler (and probably more efficient) solution than trying to break all these groups up, or to determine the optimal number of competitors, is to just impose profit caps on them.
A piece written in 2013 shows that this problem is of long standing: "Washington health policy analyst Ramsey Baghdadi predicts a $30B ten-year net gain for the pharmaceutical industry. “Pharma came out of this better than anyone else – I don’t see how they could have done much better,” he said. Industry won hefty concessions with Obamacare, as evidenced by bullish price action in healthcare and insurance equities the day the Supreme Court upheld the bill.
Industry concessions include: brand-name patents to be enforced for 12 years with gradually rising federal drug subsidies. Lobbyists prevented the importation of foreign-manufactured medicine, restricted marketing of generics by competitors and barred Medicare from being able to negotiate drug prices. Pharmaceutical interests spent an estimated $188M lobbying in 2009, with an army of 1,105 lobbyists, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In what may come as a shock to lesser-of-two evils dupes, the Democrats long ago gave up any pretense of opposing corporate power and accepted 56% of total bribes – more than the Republicans. [43] [44]
The methods of for-profit health management organizations are also problematic. For example, take the infamous 1971 tape-recorded conversation between the always-abominable Richard Nixon and aid John D. Ehrlichman (of Watergate notoriety) that led to the HMO Act of 1973:
Ehrlichman: “Edgar Kaiser is running his Permanente deal for profit. And the reason that he can … the reason he can do it … I had Edgar Kaiser come in … talk to me about this and I went into it in some depth. All the incentives are toward less medical care, because the less care they give them, the more money they make.”
President Nixon: “Fine.”
Ehrlichman: “… and the incentives run the right way.”
Whoah, Matt - be careful, you may have lawyers at your door .... or maybe some hit pieces on you on CNN...
That being said - thank you so much for this post! Sunlight is the best disinfectant - and a lot is needed to clean out the Aegean stables that house the MIC (Medical Industrial Complex)
With all the rhetoric coming out of our fearless leaders about coming to the rescue - their noticeable failure to investigate and lay bare the real causes of the problem - "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" - speaks volumes ....
Dominant middlemen. Look for them in every sector of our economy as a sign that a monopoly business is in charge, that folks are getting ripped off, and that product quality is poor.
The media oligopoly controls a bottleneck on truth. It must be profitable for owners and partners to induce shortages but when it comes to BS there’s no supply chain problem. A free market would bring us more information not less but that went away like it did in every sector that was deregulated and mergered. Thanks to Matt and Substack for delivering real information.
"The University of Utah, for instance, wanted to switch to Bracco products, but they were told that “any attempt to purchase off contract would cause the hospital to forget up to $80,000 per year in discounts on other products throughout the hospital.””
Down the corruption rabbit hole we go. Thanks for your thorough and extremely valuable research and writing. I hope everyone who watches CNN reads this post. Becoming aware of how deeply ingrained corruption is, is the first step towards writing a different story...
NATO in Ukraine was Russia’s RED LINE – independence of Taiwan is China’s RED LINE.
US War party (i.e., deep state made of DNC and GOP) wants to cross both RED lines – Pompeo wants imminent war with China as the GOP presidential candidate.
Transcript of Pompeo Speech on Ukraine and a Global Alliance for Freedom
Immensely corrupt Ukraine was for many years a bottomless gold mine for US 1% elite. That is why it provoked Russia’s limited military operation whose objective was to MINIMIZE civilian deaths and infrastructure destruction.
Matt … just observing that given your expression of concern over experts being co-opted for corporate sector gain is it no wonder that trust in technical experts is plummeting. As you know a huge problem in scientific research is the sources of funding of that research. Corporate sources, or even worse dark money funders with unknown corporate backing give that funding with expectations that they will get the results they want. And total research funding is THE measure of success for researchers in higher education … which leads to associated promotion, tenure, salary and prestige, not to mention new positions with bigger labs, more graduate students, etc at a larger institution. So, my GP ( at a MAJOR U.S. health care system) still pushes colonoscopies, blood pressure medications ( high normal readings) and cholesterol medications ( also high normal). GP is young which means either that’s being taught or the hospital system pushes it.
Too much corruption to accept the advice of experts.
Amazing work, thanks for what you're doing.
Thank you Matt for being informed and sharing.
This on Gupta and Gottlieb, is wonderful, intelligent, brave, fair journalism. I'm so glad your voice is creating repercussions and causing legislative action and change. :)
Fantastic article
That's what has been great about the Trump/COVID era is we are finally hearing about obscure and otherwise secret apparatus like 'GPO' that essentially rule our meager lives.
But again a simpler (and probably more efficient) solution than trying to break all these groups up, or to determine the optimal number of competitors, is to just impose profit caps on them.
A piece written in 2013 shows that this problem is of long standing: "Washington health policy analyst Ramsey Baghdadi predicts a $30B ten-year net gain for the pharmaceutical industry. “Pharma came out of this better than anyone else – I don’t see how they could have done much better,” he said. Industry won hefty concessions with Obamacare, as evidenced by bullish price action in healthcare and insurance equities the day the Supreme Court upheld the bill.
Industry concessions include: brand-name patents to be enforced for 12 years with gradually rising federal drug subsidies. Lobbyists prevented the importation of foreign-manufactured medicine, restricted marketing of generics by competitors and barred Medicare from being able to negotiate drug prices. Pharmaceutical interests spent an estimated $188M lobbying in 2009, with an army of 1,105 lobbyists, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In what may come as a shock to lesser-of-two evils dupes, the Democrats long ago gave up any pretense of opposing corporate power and accepted 56% of total bribes – more than the Republicans. [43] [44]
The methods of for-profit health management organizations are also problematic. For example, take the infamous 1971 tape-recorded conversation between the always-abominable Richard Nixon and aid John D. Ehrlichman (of Watergate notoriety) that led to the HMO Act of 1973:
Ehrlichman: “Edgar Kaiser is running his Permanente deal for profit. And the reason that he can … the reason he can do it … I had Edgar Kaiser come in … talk to me about this and I went into it in some depth. All the incentives are toward less medical care, because the less care they give them, the more money they make.”
President Nixon: “Fine.”
Ehrlichman: “… and the incentives run the right way.”
President Nixon: “Not bad.”
"The Palliative Machine: Medical Monopoly Under the Corporation-State" at https://c4ss.org/content/19098
Whoah, Matt - be careful, you may have lawyers at your door .... or maybe some hit pieces on you on CNN...
That being said - thank you so much for this post! Sunlight is the best disinfectant - and a lot is needed to clean out the Aegean stables that house the MIC (Medical Industrial Complex)
With all the rhetoric coming out of our fearless leaders about coming to the rescue - their noticeable failure to investigate and lay bare the real causes of the problem - "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" - speaks volumes ....
Dominant middlemen. Look for them in every sector of our economy as a sign that a monopoly business is in charge, that folks are getting ripped off, and that product quality is poor.
The media oligopoly controls a bottleneck on truth. It must be profitable for owners and partners to induce shortages but when it comes to BS there’s no supply chain problem. A free market would bring us more information not less but that went away like it did in every sector that was deregulated and mergered. Thanks to Matt and Substack for delivering real information.
Everything is corrupt. I am so glad the anti-monopoly movement is growing and even somewhat occasionally bipartisan.
"The University of Utah, for instance, wanted to switch to Bracco products, but they were told that “any attempt to purchase off contract would cause the hospital to forget up to $80,000 per year in discounts on other products throughout the hospital.””
Isn’t full iine forcing?
Down the corruption rabbit hole we go. Thanks for your thorough and extremely valuable research and writing. I hope everyone who watches CNN reads this post. Becoming aware of how deeply ingrained corruption is, is the first step towards writing a different story...
Pompeo wants immediate war with China.
NATO in Ukraine was Russia’s RED LINE – independence of Taiwan is China’s RED LINE.
US War party (i.e., deep state made of DNC and GOP) wants to cross both RED lines – Pompeo wants imminent war with China as the GOP presidential candidate.
Transcript of Pompeo Speech on Ukraine and a Global Alliance for Freedom
Hudson Institute – June 24, 2022
https://archive.ph/2022.07.03-205120/https://www.hudson.org/research/17914-transcript-of-pompeo-speech-on-ukraine-and-a-global-alliance-for-freedom
Immensely corrupt Ukraine was for many years a bottomless gold mine for US 1% elite. That is why it provoked Russia’s limited military operation whose objective was to MINIMIZE civilian deaths and infrastructure destruction.
Spot on as usual. Thanks for the insights.
Matt … contact Senators Saheen and Collins about Insulin prices. Help them understand.