Pharma pricing, FDA capture, hospital consolidation, insurance, supply chains. How healthcare decisions trace back to quarterly earnings calls.
5 pieces
The Department of Justice has filed or joined a series of major False Claims Act cases against UnitedHealth, Humana, Aetna, and other Medicare Advantage insurers, alleging billions of dollars in fraudulent diagnostic codes used to inflate federal payments. The settlements have been substantial. The model that produced the fraud has not changed.
Hospital system consolidation in the United States has accelerated since 1998. The promise that drove the merger wave, and the regulatory approvals that allowed it, was that scale…
CVS Caremark, Express Scripts, and OptumRx process 4 of every 5 prescriptions filled in the United States. All three are owned by the same parent companies that own…
Private equity firm KKR acquired Envision Healthcare for $9.9 billion in 2018, loading the company with $8 billion in new debt. Five years later, Envision filed for bankruptcy…
Since 1992, when the Prescription Drug User Fee Act made pharmaceutical companies the FDA's largest funder, the agency has approved drugs faster and policed them less. Industry fees…