Do Not Resuscitate (This System) #334 Feb 9 2024

Tim Frasca here to tell you what’s in the mainstream and specialty healthcare news media about how we spend trillions of dollars making intermediaries rich instead of making ourselves healthier. This week, I look at slipping profit margins in Medicare Disadvantage; some big structural issues such as vertical integration in the healthcare conglomerates and the failed promise of electronic medical records; as always, some news on pharmaceuticals; some clever new billing outrages; nonprofit hospitals taking advantage; and the steady loss of credibility among elite institutions. You can get my full written digest i(including six years of back issues) at nypan.org/single-payer-news and here are the links to the articles mentioned this week: 

Rebecca Pifer, “Cigna sells Medicare businesses to HCSC for $3.7B,” Healthcare Dive, Jan 31, 2024 https://bit.ly/3w6Dcr3

Emily Olsen, “Medicare Advantage profitability is declining, Moody’s says,” Healthcare Dive, Jan 30, 2024 https://bit.ly/3ulPR9b

Terry Savage, “Insurers’ losses to squeeze Advantage plans,” Chicago Tribune, Jan 31, 2024 https://bit.ly/495e7eC

Megan Messerly, “‘The politics have changed’: South warms to expanded health benefits,” Politico, Jan 31, 2024 https://politi.co/48bT20S

Matt Stoller, “Obamacare created big medicine,” The Lever/BIG, Jan 29, 2024 https://www.levernews.com/how-obamacare-created-big-medicine/

Dharushana Muthulingam, “Why everyone hates the electronic medical record,” Logic(s), Dec 13, 2023 https://bit.ly/49reuQF

Matt Stoller, “The dirty business of clean blood,” BIG, Feb 3, 2024 https://bit.ly/3usfvsT

Marshall Allen, “Your money or your life,” Healthcare Un-covered, Jan 31, 2024 https://wendellpotter.substack.com/p/your-money-or-your-life

Evan Bush, “A prestigious cancer institute is correcting dozens of papers and retracting others after a blogger cried foul,” NBC News, Jan 26, 2024 https://nbcnews.to/3uoO2Z8

Annalisa Merelli, “HPV vaccine study finds zero cases of cervical cancer among women vaccinated before age 14,” STAT, Jan 25, 2024 https://bit.ly/494l5kh

Noah Weiland, “U.S. makes initial offers in Medicare drug price negotiations,” New York Times, Feb 1, 2024 https://nyti.ms/3HWoRA1

Bernie Sanders, “Big Pharma will have to answer to the American people,” Fox News, Jan 31, 2024 https://fxn.ws/49mIFs0

Elisabeth Rosenthal, “The FTC is attacking drugmakers’ ‘patent thickets,’” KFF Health News/Fortune, Jan 31, 2024 https://bit.ly/48nfpkl

Nicholas Florko, “Juul spent big to court Black leaders to promote its e-cigarettes, new documents show,” STAT, Feb 3, 2024 https://bit.ly/3ulPTOl

Erika Edwards, “Ohio reverses local flavored tobacco bans, infuriating doctors,” NBC News, Jan 30, 2024 https://nbcnews.to/49kxdOl

Nick Corbishley, “Why is Tony Blair so keen for the UK’s National Health Service to sell off its patients’ health data to private companies?” Naked Capitalism, Feb 6, 2024 https://bit.ly/3UAvLCG

Michelle Crouch, “Atrium Health: A unit of ‘local government’ like no other,” North Carolina Health News/Charlotte Ledger, Feb 5, 2024 https://bit.ly/3HQKx0D

Gene Johnson, “After Washington state lawsuit, Providence health system erases or refunds $158M in medical bills,” Associated Press, Feb 1, 2024 After Washington state lawsuit, Providence health system erases or refunds $158M in medical bills