Unconscionable Waste in Healthcare
March 3, 2022, reported by Brian Mann and Martha Bebinger at NPR, the Sackler family (owners of Purdue Pharma) agreed to increase its settlement of a lawsuit with multiple states to $6 billion from the previous agreement of $4.5 billion. They continue to deny any wrongdoing. The opioid crisis costs the US more than $1 trillion every year!
Purdue Pharma is owned by the Sackler family and it the maker of OxyContin a highly addictive pain killer. Opioid overdoses have claimed more than 500,000 lives since 1999. The drug has produced more than $35 billion in revenue for the company over its 20 plus years of commercial production and distribution. The family has pulled more than $10 billion in cash from the company over the same span of time.
Purdue Pharma has admitted criminal wrongdoing in two separate plea agreements with the US Department of Justice. It has also admitted continuing to commit crimes for another decade after it pled guilty.
I encourage everyone to read Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe published April 13, 2021, by Doubleday. It chronicles the Sackler family’s rise to great wealth throughout the 20th century by marketing pharmaceuticals. This family intentionally mislead the public and ignored prescription patterns across the country to drive sales of its pain killer (OxyContin). They wielded significant influence over officials at the FDA and found ways to extend patent exclusivity for their product. Their actions are despicable and criminal. How they have escaped prison is beyond comprehension.
As hospitals and health system continue to lose money every month since the pandemic while tirelessly caring for those in need, big pharma continues to churn out profits at an alarming rate while avoiding culpability for the flaws in our nation’s healthcare system reflected in its cost and quality compared to other developed nations. Purdue Pharma is only one of the companies agreeing to opioid settlements. Others include Johnson & Johnson and Mallinckrodt.
This may be the most egregious application of questionable tactics and corporate greed found in our pharma industry. I am not so naïve to believe it is the only example. Globally, the pharmaceutical market is valued at $1.48 trillion annually. In the US it is about $500 billion or 3% of GDP. According to CMS, 60 percent of that revenue comes from the federal government via retail drug spending. Think about the impact of sketchy marketing tactics, preservation of patents and marginal “improvements” to next generation drugs that are designed to preserve exclusivity and maximize revenue for individual and corporate gains.
I would like to see a more balanced focus to address our healthcare value proposition. The issues exposed here with big pharma are also present across the supply chain servicing the healthcare sector. And don’t get me started on EPIC and electronic health records.
What form of waste do you see as the biggest opportunity for removal in your environment? What are you doing currently to address waste?