Who profits most from America’s baffling health-care system?
Hint: it isn’t big pharma
ON OCTOBER 4TH more than 75,000 employees of Kaiser Permanente, a large health-care chain, began a three-day strike. The walkout was the biggest in the history of America’s health sector, and called attention to the staffing shortages plaguing the country’s hospitals and clinics. In the same week ten drugmakers said they would negotiate medicine prices with Medicare, the public health-care system for the elderly, following legislation which all but forced them to. It will be the first time that companies have haggled over prices with the government.
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This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Really big health”
Chart sources: American Medical Association; Drug Channels; Irving Levin Associates; Refinitiv Datastream; Health Affairs; The Economist
Business October 14th 2023
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From the October 14th 2023 edition
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