Testimonials
Policymakers, advocates, business leaders and healthcare professionals explain in their own words how Big Medicine has worsened access to quality, reliable, and affordable care.
federal policymakers
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ): “This idea of breaking up Big Medicine is not just about dealing with awful antitrust [violations]. And there are a lot of industries where corporate concentration has caused consumers to pay more. But in this case it’s not just causing consumers to pay more. It is … threatening the lives of Americans.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA): “For the sake of our patients, our doctors and nurses, and the American taxpayer, it is time to break up the UnitedHealth monopoly.”
Congressman Jake Auchincloss (D-MA-04): “I am excited to talk about how we can break up the monopolistic practices that have become endemic to how we practice health care in this country so that we empower doctors and nurses and pharmacists and make patients feel like they are human beings as opposed to reimbursement codes.”
Congressman Greg Casar (D-TX-35): “People from both sides of the aisle, people all over the country, and providers and patients alike are saying it is time to break up Big Medicine.”
Congresswoman Diana Harshbarger (R-TN-01): “I’m a proud conservative Republican, but we have antitrust laws for a reason. That’s why I’m joining my colleagues in introducing the bipartisan Patients Before Monopolies Act, which will protect consumers and taxpayers, and ensure fair competition by breaking up these anticompetitive, conflict-of-interest arrangements. Federal regulators should never have let this excessive concentration of our healthcare industry happen in the first place, and so it’s up to Congress to get the job done.”
Congressman Pat Ryan (D-NY-18): “UnitedHealth has gobbled up our local healthcare practices, creating a monopoly that directly hurts everyone in our community. In their greedy pursuit of profits, they now own the insurance company, they own your doctor, they own the pharmacy and they own the software that processes all of your information – and they use it all to keep prices high and drive quality down. Enough – it’s time to break up UnitedHealth and put you back in control of your own health care.”
Former Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter: “Health care is this massive, complex system that I think is beguiling and overwhelming to so many people. It’s going to take a lot of work to get it on the right track. But I think antitrust … is an extremely important ingredient in the recipe for how to solve it.
Sen. Ed Merkley (D-MA): “Your doctor’s office should be in the business of making sure you get the best possible care, not functioning as a profit center for billionaire healthcare corporations. … The Patients Over Profits Act reins in these out-of-control consolidations, which are great for corporate greed and a bad deal for patients.”
Congresswoman Maxine Dexter, MD (D-OR-03): “Across the country, we are watching as massive hospital systems, private-equity firms, and healthcare conglomerates drive costs up, drive quality down, and drive out independent practices. We are told this is efficiency, but we know the truth: It’s extraction. It’s profits over patients. And it’s not sustainable.”
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-WA-07): “UnitedHealth and other major corporate health care giants clearly cannot be trusted to put the needs of patients over profits, as they show time and time again. … I'm proud to co-lead the Patients Over Profits Act to break up this corporate ownership and ensure that all people can access care when and where they need it.”
Congressman Greg Murphy, MD (R-NC-03): “UnitedHealthcare needs to be broken up. They own PBMs, Pharmacies, Hospitals, Physicians and even a Bank. Multiple levels of Conflicts of Interest.”
Former FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya: “This could not be more serious. And for me personally right now at the FTC there’s nothing more important than getting to the bottom of what’s happening in this industry.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO): “Why shouldn’t we be breaking you guys [the “Big Three” PBMs] up? This looks like classic monopolist behavior. The patients are getting screwed, Missourians are getting screwed, you’re getting rich. … The problem is there is no competition. It’s a racket. It’s a total racket. And the people who lose are the patients who can’t afford their prescription drugs. It’s time for this Congress to do something about it.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA): “It is important that instead of nibbling around the edges and looking for a piece here or a piece there, we go straight to the heart of the problem, and that is the conflicts and the ways in which, without any regulations, PBMs just get to play everybody off against everybody else, keep it all in secret, and make billions and billions of dollars for themselves.”
State policymakers
Oregon State Rep. Ben Bowman (D-25): “[Big Medicine] believes that physician-directed health care is a failed experiment. That is the choice we have – we either have physicians in charge of our medical care or are going to allow corporate profit[eerers] to make decisions about what happens in an exam room. I’m grateful to be with you to stand up and fight for physician independence.”
Indiana State Sen. Andy Zay (R-17): “It is time to break up the PBM monopoly in Indiana.”
Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders: “I am proud to be the first governor to ban the anticompetitive practices that allow P.B.M.s to dominate the prescription drug market, and I encourage other states and Congress to follow Arkansas’s lead.”
39 state and territory attorneys general: “The undersigned State AGOs urge Congress to take action and protect consumers by enacting a law prohibiting PBMs or their parent companies from owning a pharmacy. The passage of such a law would foster competition in the marketplace and give consumers more access to pharmaceutical care, more choice as to their healthcare providers, and more affordable prices.”
Business Leaders
Cost Plus Drugs Co-Founder Mark Cuban: “Break up the big insurance companies first. Make them divest each vertical, PBMs, Providers, ASOs, Digital… Break them up. They have become Too Big To Care.”
Earth & Sky Floral Designs Owner Shayai Lucero: “There are so many business owners across the U.S. who fear a major medical incident will push them to the brink [of closure or bankruptcy]. It is time to break up Big Medicine to support small business owners and the communities they serve.”
healthcare professionals
Independent Pharmacist Rannon Ching: “We just want a level playing field. We’re not asking for special treatment. … And then, if all things are equal, then let the patients choose where they want to go. If they don’t want to use my pharmacy because they feel like I’m not doing a good job, let them choose to go somewhere else.”
National Nurses Organizing Committee Representative and Registered Nurse Monica Gonzalez: “[Mega hospitals’] cost-cutting practices have led to historic surges in organizing throughout Austin, throughout the United States — and at a national level we’re seeing more and more people realize how our healthcare corporations are using their monopoly power to gut our healthcare system.”
Independent Ophthalmologist and Comedian Dr. William Flanary, a.k.a. Dr. Glaucomflecken: [When asked what he would change about the U.S. healthcare system] “Limit the corporate practice of medicine (break up insurance monopolies, ban PE ownership)”
Independent Plastic Surgeon Dr. Elisabeth Potter: “When we see all around us that the system of vertical integration and financialization of health care has moved the pendulum more on the side of financial gain and away from the side of health benefits, we, as physicians, … as the ones that have to speak up.”
Independent Anesthesiologist Dr. Marco Fernandez: “We need to partner with all groups that are fighting vertical integration and vertical power in Big Pharma, PBMs, and insurance companies. Break up Big Medicine!”
Pediatrician and Practicing Physicians of America Co-Founder Dr. Marion Mass: “When you are felled with a disease that you did not ask for, you had no idea was coming down the pike, and you couldn’t plan for, and now you’re told it’s just not covered and what your doctor wants for you doesn’t matter? That’s a suit practicing medicine… It’s not personal care. It’s not what the patients want. And it happens because of all this consolidation… It’s past time to break up Big Medicine.”
Independent Primary Care Physician Dr. Nick Jones: “When there is a physician shortage, we need to advocate for a healthcare system that supports independent medical practices that are owned and operated by physicians rather than publicly traded corporations where that fiduciary responsibility puts profits over patients. I’m a big advocate for breaking up Big Medicine.”
Independent Pharmacist Dr. Emlah Tubuo: “I ask myself, ‘Am I one of the pharmacies that are going to be closed today? Are you going to walk up to the pharmacy tomorrow to get your medication, and there’s a big sign they’re closed because of these PBMs? We need to break up Big Medicine. We cannot sit in a backroom and complain. We need to break up Big Medicine for the sake of ourselves and our families.”
patient advocates
Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America Vice President of Advocacy and Policy Jenna Riemenschneider: “We must start putting patients first, ensuring that every patient can afford and access the medications they need as prescribed by their doctor and not dictated by their insurer or PBM. It is past time that we break up Big Medicine.”
Patient Protector Founder Bil Schmidtknecht: “Ultimately, we must reform PBMs, break up Big Medicine, demand transparency [and] fair pricing, and put patients over profits. I lost my son to this broken system, but as we start missions like [Break Up Big Medicine], we can make sure that other families don’t have to endure the pain that my wife and I have endured.”
Policy Experts
46brooklyn Research CEO and 3 Axis Advisors President Antonio Ciaccia: “As vertical integration across the drug channel grows the conflicts of interest in the supply chain, there is a greater need for government payers, employers, and patients to have better transparency, better system alignment, and fair rules of play so that access to medicines is both robust, efficient, and most importantly, in keeping with the public health needs of every American.”
Fordham Law School Professor Zephyr Teachout: “[J]oin me in seeking to break up big medicine!”
Brown University School of Public Health Senior Fellow and American Economic Liberties Project Senior Fellow Hayden Rooke-Ley: “[Breaking up Big Medicine] is not a new concept. You can look to banking. You can look to how we regulated railroads in the Gilded Age. The idea of structural separation is not a new one, but it’s very much been missing the healthcare policy discourse.”