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thomhartmann

(3,979 posts)
Wed Sep 23, 2015, 04:40 PM Sep 2015

Thom Hartmann: Greedy Drug Companies Are Harming Americans



Richard Eskow, Campaign for America's Future/The Zero Hour (radio) joins Thom. A drug that's been sold for more than 60 years just saw it's price increase by 5000% - literally over night. But two democratic presidential candidates have plans to make prescription drugs affordable for Americans again.

For more information on the stories we've covered visit our websites at thomhartmann.com - freespeech.org - and RT.com. You can also watch tonight's show on Hulu - at Hulu.com/THE BIG PICTURE and over at The Big Picture YouTube page. And - be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter!
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Thom Hartmann: Greedy Drug Companies Are Harming Americans (Original Post) thomhartmann Sep 2015 OP
If our health care system were run by organized crime... Maineman Sep 2015 #1

Maineman

(854 posts)
1. If our health care system were run by organized crime...
Wed Sep 23, 2015, 06:50 PM
Sep 2015

If organized crime created a health care system, what would it look like? How would it work?

People would have to pay for protection -- call it insurance.

People would be steered into taking drugs that are difficult to stop taking. Once started in drugs (called medicines), they would gradually find themselves taking more and more drugs they could not stop taking.

People would be charged very high prices for necessary medical help such important tests and procedures. Prices for many medicines would be outrageously high.

The crime bosses would buy and otherwise influence politicians who would then protect them and their profiteering.

Honest doctors would be pressured into helping the mob maximize profits, for example, by not mentioning alternative procedures that would have to be performed elsewhere, or by selling the more expensive surgical procedures and tests that need not be done, and by scaring patients into getting such procedures.

There would be rampant advertising by drug companies to brain wash naive citizens into asking for various drugs that would supposedly provide magical benefits.

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