Shot in the arm/back

Industrial healthcare

Top: Established in the 1960’s, China’s “barefoot doctors” produced major health gains at very low costs and provided everyone affordable access to primary health care. China, 1982 Below: Community healthcare volunteers provide free vaccinations and other care to undocumented farm workers. Vermont, 2018.

The murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has sparked an outpouring of anger—aimed not so much at the killer, as at the obscenely profitable health insurance industry. In 2023, that industry’s net income increased 6% to more than $18 billion, in part by denying drug and care coverage to its sick and dying customers. As many as 44,789 working-age Americans die each year because they lack health insurance.

The health insurance industry is largely responding to Thompson’s death by promising to put more money into beefing up security details for its executives—rather than pledging to provide better coverage and cut denial rates for its customers:

…UnitedHealthcare’s prior authorization denial rate for post-acute care jumped from 10.9% in 2020 to 22.7% in 2022. Denial rates for skilled nursing centers, in particular, ‘experienced particularly dramatic growth.’ The number of denied claims in 2022 was nine times higher compared to 2019. —U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report

A key component in the tragic scandal that is the high cost of US healthcare is the high price of prescription drugs and the barely (if that) legal manipulations the pharmaceutical industry undertakes to keep them stratospheric. Biden took a tiny first step by mandating lowered cost for a few drugs, but discussion of systemic reform is effectively off-the-table. Meanwhile, US healthcare costs remain the highest per capita in the world, while ranking dead last overall among 10 other high-income countries on key issues such as equity, access to care, and outcome measures.

Until that greed-based system changes, when you need to find affordable drugs, you might check out the Canadian International Pharmacy Association www.cipa.com and PharmacyChecker.com. They verify internationals sources—at a much lower price—for the same drugs available in the US and explain how to get them. Both sites are widely recognized as legit, but as with everything, employ due diligence.

FYI, a comparison of drug prices here, and for Vermonters, a few miles away. As always, be wary of scams.

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