Our very own contributors, Drs. Rupali Chadha, Marion Mass, and Mary Tipton are back in the news, speaking out and speaking up against the “kickbacks” enjoyed by Pharmaceutical Benefit Management corporations – AS LEGALIZED by the Safe Harbor protection of PBMs for practices otherwise against the law. Hundreds of billions of dollars are diverted from the patient consumers, and directed to those who add no value to the medical services being rendered and received. Artificial shortages and inflated prices for common prescription drugs are the norm.

As we featured last month, the executive orders signed by President

Trump are a huge and positive step forward – according to some more than any other president has done for the patient consumer as it relates to prescription drug costs. However those orders “expire” when President Trump is no longer in office.

To protect the progress made, congressional action is required. That will only happen if the constituents “get woke” to what goes on behind the shady scenes and demand the repeal of the Safe Harbor laws.

Read more in the article Patients suffer while doctors try to reform ‘corrupt’ prescription drug policies, by T. H. Lawrence, originally published in mdstatewire.com on August 20, 2020, excerpted below

They’re doctors, after all, not politicians or lobbyists.

But they are united to stand against a system that must be changed to provide affordable prescription drugs to their patients, all three told the Maryland State Wire. Drs. Marion Mass, Mary Tipton, Amber Colville, Rupali Chadha and Christine Saba share a strong opposition to the current process, which they say adds needless costs to drug prices and makes people in need of prescription medicines pay unfair amounts or face serious, even fatal health risks.

“It’s scandalous that we have lawmakers in our country that allow this to go on,” said Mass, a Philadelphia-area pediatrician.

Philadelphia-area pediatrician Dr. Marion Mass | Twitter

Mass is also a writer who serves on the editorial board of the Bucks County Courier Times and The Doylestown Intel, and she does public speaking as well. She is also vice chair of the Practicing Physicians of America, a member of the Bucks County Health Improvement Partnership and belongs to the Pennsylvania Medical Society.

Mass is one of 70,000 doctors who belong to Free2Care. The group’s Twitter feed says it is a “national coalition of over eight million patients and doctors dedicated to solutions that make health care affordable and accessible.” Mass says that pharmacy benefit-management firms have seized control of prescription drugs and are squeezing money out of patients – a lot of money, as an estimated $250 billion went to these middle managers in 2013, according to the American Prospect.

Medical expenses have exploded in the last 50 years. A 2019 report from the Peterson-Kaiser Family Foundation Health System Tracker, based on National Health Expenditure (NHE) data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMMS), said it had increased from $74.6 billion in 1970 to $1.4 trillion by 2014. The numbers continued to spike, with healthcare costs – including direct care, prescription drugs, administrative costs and insurance – reaching $3.6 trillion in 2018.