Pharmacy Benefit Managers Hiked Generic Drug Costs by $7.3b
In case you wanted to understand how stupid big health is, it's this stupid.
The Frontier Psychiatrist is a newsletter. And that means sometimes we’re writing about the news. Today's news? A new report from the Federal Trade Commission. I've previously written, in excruciating detail, about how the wholly-owned subsidiaries of Big Health companies that manage contracted rates around pharmaceuticals are running a racket. I mean that in a very literal sense of the term, as in racketeering. As in extortion. Your money or (drugs that save) your life. Here is one prior story in which I highlight how bonkers this system is—this time, for generics.
PBMs are a remarkable scam. At its height, among the most storied criminal enterprises in recent memory, Pablo Escobar’s coke cartel (that is a link to a prior parody, “joinEscobar.health”) was making about $4 billion a year in annual revenue.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, the companies that your insurance company owns that they have negotiations with around how much dru…