Medical fraud, conflicts of interest, capitalism and regulatory capture

This 20:25 video discusses the basis for a high premium increase in 2022 for Medicare Part B and the history of the Alzheimer’s drug that drove the premium increase. The drug was and still is a failure, but it is bleeding billions from taxpayers. 

This is a sad and infuriating story of what happens when capitalism takes control of government regulatory agencies. Capitalism subverts the regulators. Regulators go from protectors of the public interest to powerful instruments that serve the special interests at the expense of the public interest. Those special interests are said to have captured the agency that was supposed to be regulating the interests for the public.

For me, the saddest part of this is the shocking failure of the FDA and leaders of the research community that influences spending of tax dollars for biomedical research. Both institutions have been captured and corrupted. Outright fraud and grotesque conflicts of interest have been normalized and accepted.

In my opinion, this is another example of the deep moral rot that has settled into American society, government, politics and religion. The rot is spreading everywhere. It has become accepted in institutions that originally served the public interest, honest government and defended democracy and inconvenient truth. 

This is how capitalism wants to work. We get endless highfalutin rhetoric and endless bloviation from capitalist ideologue blowhards about wonderful free markets, benign invisible hands, healthy fair competition, honest dealings and prosperity for all. All of that is just lies growing in the fertile soil of deep moral rot. 

In the US, there is no mechanism to justify any cost for any new drug. In the American drug approval process, there is no cost-benefit analysis for new drugs whatsoever. American taxpayers just pay whatever drug companies demand. That’s what capitalism does when it can run free and wild after government regulation has been captured and corrupted. We’ve been betrayed and ripped off.

This is one of the information sources the narrator cites as what he bases this video on:

Newly launched U.S. drugs head toward record-high prices in 2022

• Median annual price for new U.S. drugs this year is $257,000
• Eight of 13 drugs launched in 2022 priced over $200,000 per year
• Some drugmakers disclose less information on pricing

Acknowledgement: Thanks to Larry Motuz for bringing this video to my attention.