Pharmacy Benefit Managers: The American Drug Cartel.

Unf*cking The Republic

UNFTR Media

Government, News, Politics

4.9 • 683 Ratings

🗓️ 8 June 2024

⏱️ 78 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, Max breaks down the biggest scandal in the healthcare industry (and that’s saying a lot). We walk through how a bunch of pencil pushing pharmacy middlemen became so powerful they bought out the biggest health insurance companies and pharmacy chains, and did it through hiking up drug prices, kickbacks and taking advantage of government contracts. This is the story of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and how they became the American Drug Cartel.

Chapters

Intro: 00:00:36

Sponsors: 00:03:14

Chapter One: The Birth of the American Drug Mafia. 00:04:47

Chapter Two: Unraveling the Supply Chain. 00:16:15

Chapter Three: Is that all? Please tell me that’s all. 00:28:09

Chapter Four: Bring it home, Max. 00:38:44

Post Show Musings: 00:45:24

Outro: 00:01:16

Resources

NAIC: Pharmacy Benefit Managers

Healthcare Dive: FTC launches investigation into PBMs; CVS, UnitedHealth, Cigna and more hit with requests for data

FTC: FTC Launches Inquiry Into Prescription Drug Middlemen Industry

Healthcare Dive: PBM practices are keeping consumers from generics savings, white paper finds

Association for Accessible Medicines: US Generic and Biosimilar Medicines Savings Report 2021

Lever News: Who’s Killing Your Independent Pharmacy?

PSSNY: PBM Basics

USC: PBMs Are Inflating the Cost of Generic Drugs. They Must Be Reined In

Jama Network: Costco v Medicare study

Frier Levitt: AUDITING PBMs

46Brooklyn

National Bureau of Economic Research: CVS Response: A world without PBMs: Unpacking the data

FTC: White House Roundtable PBMs

Yahoo Finance: 30 Largest Companies by Revenue

UNFTR Episode Resources

Healthcare Series.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the story of a political pundit who looked at the world around him and just said, fuck it.
0:07.8	Gives the middle finger to authority and says, kiss my ass.
0:11.7	But instead of a revolution, he started a podcast.
0:15.5	Just what the world be.
0:17.6	He started a podcast.
0:19.1	Another basic white guy who started a podcast.
0:22.6	But it's fun because he curses.
0:24.6	All through the podcast.
0:26.6	On the fucking the republic.
0:28.6	With his motherfucking podcast.
0:29.6	A hospital janitor works a 40-hour work week for decades.
0:41.3	Lives a modest existence.
0:43.3	Has some savings, clocks in, clocks out.
0:46.3	Since the janitor is so reliable, the board of the hospital allows them to start checking in patients.
0:52.3	In return for their trouble, the hospital gives them a small
0:55.1	percentage of each patient's stay. A few years later, the janitor buys the hospital. The end.
1:02.3	This is the analogy of source in the independent pharmacy world gave me when I first inquired
1:06.7	about this story. Most people probably haven't heard the term PBM, which stands for pharmacy
1:13.1	benefit manager. But in the healthcare industry, PBM has become a four-letter word, unless,
1:18.9	of course, you are one, in which case you are killing it right now. And you have been for about
1:24.5	20 years. Huh, what do they do? PBMs aren't anything new. In fact, they've
1:29.5	been around since the 1960s. But over the last two decades, these administrative organizations
	...

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