That gunman was the best lobbyist ever. I’ve never seen the Feds move so fast. There was 10 years of work behind this, granted, so it was all wrapped up with a bow for them to move on.
Say what you will about the ethics. One impact is that he’s made the Fed move fast. That’s important for people to know because we don’t exactly know how all this monopoly busting will play out. When the government does things, the results are not always real certain or clear. For more details see here: Air your diabetes grievances - #36 by mohe0001
I see it, @Marie20. What I mean by, “best lobbyist ever,” is that he made the policy move thru government quickly. I apologize.
ON POLICY…
Something historic is happening. We don’t know what happens as a result of busting up the monopolies. Whatever it is, it’s happening fast now.
I searched for the very fist use of the word “PBM” on this forum.
It’s from 2008. This took the diabetics 20 years to put into the hands of the President of the United States.
NOW, SWITCHING FROM POLICY TO THE FACT THAT SOMEONE WAS SHOT…
Do you think I should go into the reddit threads and try to spread word that this work has already been completed so that vigilantes don’t feel like they need to take action because the Doctors don’t feel like they have any personal or professional agency to stand up to the insurers? I did try that yesterday, but I couldn’t get into the threads because I’m not a Doctor. I’m waiting to hear back from the mods. I don’t know if that the right thing to do, but it is a thing to try.
I’m open to perspectives.
I’m, personally, worried that there is a lack of communication between different healthcare groups. One way to frame this is that we sit in this forum and only talk to one another. So the Doctors and people in other patient communities aren’t aware of any work that is happening. They throw up their hands and say, “Healthcare is irrevocably broken because of powerful monopolies and there is nothing that can be done.” But maybe if they knew that work WAS being done, it would be better.
I’m open to perspectives and ideas.
That kid didn’t need to shoot our potential federal witness. Not only did that not fix healthcare, it might have actually made things worse. I dunno how to communicate that to the whole world. Reporters are saying they aren’t even allowed to report on it because it is so controversial.
I would like to stop talking about the shooting and talk about policy. I’m not certain how to do that because the shooting DEFINITLEY impacted policy.
If people feel a strong need to talk about the shooting, maybe we could open up a separate thread. I don’t know anything about it. I don’t have any information that you don’t have.
Yeah, that’s always been confusing…except that they also negotiate what pharmacies get paid and small pharmacies here have gone to war over it because they say that they are all being put out of business.
The most engaged anti-CVS (CVS Caremark is a PBM) lobbyist that I have ever known in MN was a small business pharmacist from a small town out in the country here. His parents pharmacy got put out of biz. I call him a “lobbyist,” but that’s not exactly the correct terminology because he is not getting paid to talk about this stuff. He’s just a guy who is mad. I first bumped into him when I attended a virtual public meeting held between the FTC and pharmacists to talk about the problems they had identified. Pharmacists are really smart and have launching quite the campaign against the PBMs. They are probably our biggest allies in all this. They are really active. But the gentleman I know had to quit doing that work this year because threats were made against his job.
