Federalist Investigates: Serbian Revolutionary Linked To USAID Now Works For ‘Bidenbucks’-Affiliated Group
This 'looks like an insidious intersection of the Bidenbucks and USAID scandals,' said Adam Gibbs, Foundation for Government Accountability.This 'looks like an insidious intersection of the Bidenbucks and USAID scandals,' said Adam Gibbs, Foundation for Government Accountability.The billion-dollar health scam lawmakers refuse to shut down
Americans aren’t stupid. Polls show that only 18% have a favorable view of the pharmaceutical industry, while 60% hold a negative opinion. Though hospitals fare better, their rating is also declining — and it’s no wonder.
Recent reporting from the Guardian has shed light on the predatory tactics used by monopoly hospitals like Parkview Health in Indiana. These institutions exploit patients when they are most vulnerable, charging exorbitant prices with little oversight or accountability.
Banning prior authorization could cost patients and taxpayers billions of dollars.
Rising health care costs are affecting hundreds of Hoosiers. In his 2025 State of the State address, Gov. Mike Braun acknowledged that many families worry about affording necessary medical care. Meanwhile, the reasons behind the relentless price increases have remained unclear — until now.
News reports reveal that regional hospitals have tapped into what they see as “unlimited dollars” by pushing unnecessary, high-cost treatments. These findings help explain why health care prices continue to spiral out of control.
Health care’s dirtiest secret
A heroic whistleblower — a former doctor — has revealed one of the health care industry’s dirtiest secrets: Doctors regularly prescribe invasive surgeries for minor issues to secure bigger bonuses. “Somebody comes in with knee arthritis and basically they’re having pain, but they haven’t had any other treatment,” he told the Guardian. “These guys will jump right to a knee replacement surgery.”
Another Parkview employee, an office manager who worked in the system for over a decade, explained why doctors would do such a thing: “The more you code, the higher you code, the more credit you get, which would translate to bonuses.”
This is unacceptable. Hoosier doctors are penalized for choosing safer, lower-cost options over the highest-cost ones — even if they’re harmful to patients — just to pad Parkview’s $1.66 billion in reserves.
This pattern isn’t limited to surgeries. Research shows that 34% of older adults are prescribed potentially inappropriate drugs, which can pose serious health risks and needlessly drive up costs.
Demand prior authorization
Fortunately, prior authorization serves as a critical safeguard against unnecessary and costly medical treatments. This process requires doctors to submit clinical information to a patient’s insurance company before approving expensive or unusual procedures and medications. By rejecting inappropriate requests, insurers help protect patients from unnecessary care and prevent billions of dollars in wasted health care spending.
Some Indiana lawmakers want to ban or severely limit prior authorization despite its benefits. But the state legislature has no reason to hinder or dilute this critical patient protection from the health care industry’s dirty money-making scheme.
While doctors may find prior authorization paperwork frustrating, it plays a vital role in preventing waste, fraud, and abuse — problems that plague the health care system. An estimated 25% of all health care spending, roughly $935 billion annually, is wasted. Eliminating prior authorization in private insurance could saddle Hoosier patients and taxpayers with billions in unnecessary costs, placing an even greater financial burden on working families and small businesses.
A national issue
Indiana is already experiencing a $1 billion Medicaid shortfall. The state cannot afford an additional $6 billion in health care costs over the next decade by banning prior authorization. Yet the legislature is still considering it.
The Indiana Senate Appropriations Committee has advanced a bill to limit the use of prior authorization in state health plans, but key provisions were stripped from the original proposal due to fiscal concerns.
This problem extends beyond Indiana. Lawmakers nationwide should focus on real solutions to our health care crisis rather than handing out favors to bad actors. Hospitals should be incentivized to serve their communities, not enabled to exploit them.
Americans must step up to ‘Make America Healthy Again’ in 2025
We must all take responsibility for transforming the health care system if we want to make America healthy again.
Americans who believe Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the government, or anyone else can fix their health for them are setting themselves up for failure. Relying on outside solutions will only doom new White House initiatives, leading to the same fate as Michelle Obama’s “be the change” campaign against obesity — another well-intentioned but ineffective federal effort to improve the nation’s health.
The number of Americans genuinely committed to their health should be far higher.
Americans are understandably anxious about their health — and anyone who isn’t should be. Health care remains a key issue in every presidential election, for good reason. Despite ranking as the top global economy with nearly $5 trillion in health care expenditures, the United States ranks 49th in life expectancy. Are Americans getting any healthier? Hardly.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 40% of U.S. adults over age 20 are obese and nearly 74% are at least overweight. This means those at a healthy weight are now a minority. Meanwhile, obesity significantly increases the risk of chronic diseases, which already affect four in 10 Americans, with many suffering from at least two conditions.
Are more Americans simply giving up on their weight? Possibly. The corporate-driven “body positivity” movement, explored in my new book with conservative wellness writer Gina Bontempo, suggests a growing sense of personal apathy. But in “Fat and Unhappy,” we also examine a more likely explanation: Americans have been misled about nutrition for decades by public health authorities.
What appears to be widespread negligence in maintaining metabolic health is, in reality, the result of three consecutive generations following a deeply flawed dietary regimen.
The low-fat diet emerged in the 1960s as a supposed preventive measure against heart disease. The American Heart Association promoted polyunsaturated fats — such as those found in seed oils — over saturated fats from beef and salmon, following substantial financial contributions from food manufacturers seeking to industrialize the American diet. But the low-fat craze, still endorsed by public health officials today, has been disastrous. Americans replaced healthy fats with hyper-processed carbohydrates marketed as “healthy” alternatives, with devastating consequences.
Between 1909 and 1999, U.S. soybean oil consumption increased more than a thousand-fold, while grain consumption has risen nearly 30% since the 1970s. Today, 73% of the American food supply consists of ultra-processed products, primarily engineered by the tobacco industry for maximum addiction. Despite the clear consequences, these nutrient-deficient foods continue making Americans sick.
Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies profit from the damage, developing generations of weight-loss drugs that sustain a cycle of dependence. Instead of addressing the root causes of poor health, the system incentivizes lifestyles that keep health care dollars flowing into Big Pharma’s pockets.
Any effort to make America healthy again must address the widespread presence of seed oils in the food supply, which the federal government still “recognize[s] as safe.” We need responsible regulation to reform an industry that thrives on public ignorance.
While this may be a key pillar of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s health campaign, real change depends on individual action. Whistleblowers may have exposed Big Tobacco’s role in lung cancer, but quitting smoking ultimately remained a personal decision. Americans are responsible for their own health, and by now, most people know the choices they should be making.
Unfortunately, recent polling doesn’t inspire much confidence that they’re willing to make them. A December YouGov survey found that roughly one in five Americans resolved to improve their physical health in the new year, whether by exercising more or eating better. These wellness goals are common post-holiday commitments, but the real problem is that many Americans treat every day like a holiday. U.S. sugar consumption averages 17 teaspoons per day, contributing to widespread obesity and disease.
The number of Americans genuinely committed to their health should be far higher. Even if Kennedy were to remove seed oils from the food supply tomorrow, national health wouldn’t improve significantly if people continue to drink sugary sodas daily and make poor dietary choices.
Too many Americans want a quick fix. A recent survey by the digital health care platform Tebra found that more than a quarter of respondents are turning to weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy to meet their goals. As we discuss in “Fat and Unhappy: How ‘Body Positivity’ Is Killing Us (and How to Save Yourself),” these medications provide a long-term treatment for a problem that already has a clear solution. If Americans truly want to reclaim their health, they must adopt sustainable lifestyle changes, focusing on proper diet, sleep, and exercise.
The reality is no one person or government agency can make America healthy again. Americans will have to make themselves healthy again.
Nutritional renaissance: Better soil, better food, better health
America is facing a chronic illness epidemic fueled by diets rich in high-sugar, ultra-processed foods and devoid of real, nutrient-dense ingredients. It's costing us money, reducing our life expectancy, and depriving us of the ability to fully enjoy life. But there is hope, and it comes in the form of a bold vision: "Make America Healthy Again."
The MAHA movement, championed by leaders like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the dynamic duo of Dr. Casey Means and her brother, Calley, seeks to redefine how we think about food, health, and the future of our nation. It’s not just about personal responsibility or dietary choices — it’s about fostering a food system that nourishes rather than harms Americans.
The MAHA movement can transform our nation — but only if we all work together. Farmers, food producers, policymakers, and consumers alike must demand better.
On November 5, the American people overwhelmingly voted in favor of Donald Trump’s vision to “Make America Great Again.” To fully embrace MAGA, our country must experience a nutritional renaissance, which is why MAHA is a critical part of the MAGA agenda.
RFK Jr. — Trump’s visionary choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services — has been outspoken about the detrimental effects of high-sugar and ultra-processed foods, connecting them to obesity as well as a range of chronic illnesses, from diabetes to autoimmune diseases.
His call to action is clear: We must demand better. Better food. Better health. Better lives.
I’ve always believed that good nutrition is the key to better health. When I started Papa John’s, “Better Ingredients. Better Pizza” was more than just a slogan — it was a commitment that we took seriously every day.
That’s why we spent $100 million a year to fulfill our pledge to provide the highest-quality ingredients and even launched a webpage so that our customers could see exactly which ingredients went into our products — and which ingredients we kept out, such as artificial flavors, synthetic colors, high fructose corn syrup, preservatives like BHA and BHT, MSG, and partially hydrogenated oils. (Unfortunately, since I left, the company has changed the recipe and cheapened the ingredients.)
It’s also why I launched Papa Farms, a regenerative farming project on my land in Louisville, Kentucky. At Papa Farms, we’re starting from the ground up — literally — to build a healthier future.
Our focus is on cultivating the most nutrient-dense and healthiest soil possible, using only local ingredients, to foster a rich "food web" of microorganisms. This is more than farming; it’s a holistic approach to restoring the natural balance of our food system. Healthy soil isn’t just the foundation for nutritious produce — it’s how we can reverse the epidemic of chronic illness in America.
The results at Papa Farms have been eye-opening. The produce we grow — tomatoes bursting with flavor, vibrant leafy greens, and berries so sweet they’re almost dessert — is of higher quality than anything you’ll find in most organic grocery stores. We’re proving that produce grown in nutrient-rich soil is denser in the vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants our bodies need to stay healthy.
Casey and Calley Means have been pivotal in highlighting the connection between what we eat and how we feel. They’ve shown that the path to health starts with our plates, but it doesn’t end there. The fight for better nutrition is also a fight against a system that prioritizes profits over people, subsidies over sustainability, and convenience over care. Their work aligns perfectly with the mission of Papa Farms: to show that real change is possible when we focus on the fundamentals.
We’re not just growing food at Papa Farms; we’re growing a movement. We’re proving that regenerative farming can produce not just better food, but a better future. It’s a long-term solution to the chronic illness epidemic — one rooted in science, sustainability, and common sense.
I believe that under President Trump’s leadership, the MAHA movement can transform our nation — but only if we all work together. Farmers, food producers, policymakers, and consumers alike must demand better. Better soil. Better food. Better health.
Each of us can make choices every day that will contribute to achieving this goal. Support local farmers. Make informed choices at the grocery store. Tell Congress to stop subsidizing products and crops that are weaponizing our food supply and thus hurting our health.
Together, we can build a food system that nourishes our bodies and our nation. We can make America healthy again. Let the renaissance begin.
Mosquitoes inject human test subjects with parasite in study at Bill Gates-linked center
Researchers at the Bill Gates Foundation-backed Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands have joined an international effort to transform mosquitoes into flying syringes. According to a study published late last month in the New England Journal of Medicine, they apparently now have an effective way of using mosquitoes to deliver some protection against malaria in unsuspecting humans — and possibly other payloads in the future as well.
Scientists have long toyed with the idea of transforming mosquitoes into "flying vaccinator[s]."
Shigeto Yoshida, the lead researcher on a 2010 study that modified mosquitoes' saliva such that they would deliver leishmania vaccines to mice when sucking their blood, noted that vaccination by insect was "just like a conventional vaccination but with no pain and no cost."
"What's more, continuous exposure to bites will maintain high levels of protective immunity, through natural boosting, for a lifetime. So the insect shifts from being a pest to being beneficial," added Yoshida.
Despite the Japanese geneticist's optimism, his study acknowledged that "medical safety issues and concerns about informed consent mitigate the use of the 'flying vaccinator' as a method to deliver vaccines."
Robert Sinden, professor emeritus of parasite cell biology at Imperial College London, told Science at the time that in addition to vaccinating people without their informed consent, no regulatory agency would sign off on the initiative.
The issue of informed consent, apparently an ongoing issue for elements of the scientific community, was evidently not enough to hinder the continued development of flying vaccinators. Hiroyuki Matsuoka of Jichi Medical University in Japan, for instance, announced that with the help of a 2008 Gates Foundation grant, he was preparing work on an engineered mosquito that could produce and secrete a malaria vaccine protein into a host's skin.
In 2022, Sean Murphy and his team at the University of Washington demonstrated the workability of that idea, testing mosquito-borne malaria vaccines on humans, establishing what they called a "proof of concept" for the technology.
'The parasite dies before it infects the blood cells and evolves into its deadly phase.'
Concerned about the short-lived and marginally effective nature of the malaria vaccines currently approved by the World Health Organization, Dutch researchers at the LUMC similarly turned to genetically modified parasites and mosquito carriers as a potential alternative.
In an earlier trial, the researchers tested the effectiveness of GA1, a malaria parasite genetically modified to stop developing after roughly 24 hours of infection in humans, but found that it only provided low protective efficacy against malaria. Hoping for a better outcome, the researchers crafted another parasite, GA2, to stop developing around six days following invasion in preclinical humanized mouse models.
The Bill Gates-backed Gavi, also known as the Vaccine Alliance, noted that "because the parasite dies before it infects the blood cells and evolves into its deadly phase, it instead acts as a way of priming the immune system, as a vaccination usually would."
Afforded a test group of 43 adults between the ages of 19 and 35 who previously had no record of malaria infection, the researchers subjected subjects to 50 bites from GA2-infected mosquitoes, 50 bites from GA1-infected mosquitoes, or 50 bites from uninfected mosquitoes (placebo), in three vaccination sessions at 28-day intervals. Three weeks following their third devouring by mosquitoes, the human test subjects underwent malaria infection with five bites from infected mosquitoes.
According to the study, eight of the nine participants in the GA2 group received effective protection against the malaria infection. Only one of eight participants in the GA1 group received protection, and none of the participants in the placebo group received protection.
The Dutch researchers now seek to replicate their results in a larger human trial.
"These findings represent a significant step forward in malaria vaccine development," Julius Hafalla, an immunologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told Nature. "The ongoing global malaria burden makes the development of more effective vaccines a critical priority."
Leiden University Medical Center received a $1,578,317 grant from the Gates Foundation in September 2023 for the purpose of understanding "population and geographic factors affecting response to malaria vaccines in endemic countries." In November, the center received a Gates Foundation grant "to improve health outcomes and prevent premature death in populations around the world suffering from high rates of Malaria infection by developing next generation malaria vaccine candidates."
Bill Gates has demonstrated, both directly and through his foundation, a desire to shape public health, the news landscape, education policy, AI, insect populations, American farmland, the energy sector, foreign policy, and the earth itself.
Gates, who took issue in a January 2021 MSNBC interview with content encouraging "people not to trust the advice on masks or taking the vaccine," has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into malaria vaccine research. He noted on his blog in August, "Malaria is caused by a remarkably adaptable parasite that's constantly changing and developing resistance to our drugs and interventions. Fighting it is like playing a global game of high-stakes whack-a-mole: Just when we think we've got it under control, it pops up somewhere else or in a new form."
Gates noted further that it is important to use existing interventions while "laying the groundwork for a malaria-free future." According to Gates, that future might depend on the use of mRNA vaccines or the genetic modification of mosquito population.
According to the utopian billionaire, "One of our biggest challenges isn't scientific; it's financial and political."
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Luigi Mangione and 'magic bullet' medicine
Why did Luigi Mangione allegedly target UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson?
The original consensus was something like: He had chronic back pain that surgery didn’t help (or even made worse) and that his insurance company wouldn’t pay to fix.
It’s possible the 'system' had a share in derailing Mangione’s life, but surely there are many other factors, including the belief that all pain requires treatment.
But apparently the surgery, which he had no problem paying for, was a success. On Reddit, he raved about it and even recommended it to others. There is no record of him complaining about back pain after the surgery.
We do have a record of Mangione complaining of other maladies: Lyme disease, irritable bowel syndrome, and brain fog — all relatively new conditions often regarded as having a psychosomatic component.
Chronic endless pain
I have a good understanding of this because I come from a family of doctors, and my mother is one of these chronic endless pain people. I also worked in Big Pharma branding for two years, as well as for other creepy, well-funded Silicon Valley health start-ups on the agency side.
Via these experiences, I have come to basically the same conclusion that RFK Jr. has. The American for-profit health/pharma system is the most evil single institution on earth. It's also the most powerful.
This should've become obvious during COVID, where it literally took over the world. It should also be obvious given that it currently has the power to mutilate our own children, sometimes against our will, and to addict them to expensive drugs they will have to take for a lifetime.
I'm dubious that what we're seeing with UnitedHealthcare and Luigi Mangione is the whole story, but I'm more interested in the glaring contradiction at the heart of the alleged killer’s motive, seemingly expressed in the message left on the shell casings: “Defend, deny, depose.”
Among Mangione’s online sympathizers, even those who don’t go so far as to applaud the assassination claim, believe there’s a coherent political message behind it. But that rests on a faulty assumption about pain: that it must always be "treated" via medicines and surgeries.
Physical diagnosis, spiritual condition
This assumption certainly benefits the pharma industry — the more patients with chronic and consistent pain, the better. The only limit is what their insurance is willing to pay. As rapacious as insurance companies may be, some claims actually should be denied.
It’s not uncommon to get a physical diagnosis for a spiritual condition. I've seen my mother go through this her entire life, always with some new pain somewhere or some all-encompassing bulls**t diagnosis like "fibromyalgia" that gives pharma open access to her insurance funds.
Literally millions of aging single women suffer from various versions of chronic pain. They have been told, not by insurance companies, but by pharma companies and the media, that this pain is the result of treatable illnesses. Yet, somehow the more profits are made, the more “treatable” new illnesses pop up in need of cures.
But when none of them work, which is actually a quite common occurrence, what exactly is an insurance company supposed to do? Just pay endless claims forever, knowing that nothing will work? Denying the claims at least communicates that it’s time to try something else besides paying pharma companies with perverse incentives.
Whose profit?
It’s true that companies like UnitedHealthcare shouldn't exist in the first place. Even Adam Smith, father of market capitalism, said specifically that certain products were too elastic to be handled by a market, and medicines would certainly fit that category. The fear surrounding a person's health, and the desperate reliance on authority, warps the market and creates a terrible potential for very deep, evil, and pervasive abuse.
This is exactly what has happened, and it's eaten the globe. But in this instance, it doesn’t seem that UnitedHealthcare's "profit motive" had much to do with Mangione’s struggles. Of course, Mangione’s alleged manifesto encourages us to see his motivations as purely political rather than personal. He is targeting the “parasites” to blame for America’s extremely expensive yet extremely ineffective health care system.
As a diagnosis of what needs to change, the manifesto, if you could even call it that, is unsatisfactory. It ignores the bad actors upstream of the insurance companies: the doctors who offer unnecessary surgeries for hundreds of thousands of dollars and the pharma companies that run commercials telling everyone that chronic pills are the solution to their chronic problems.
Bad pharma
It’s mind-boggling that such commercials are so prevalent. Pharma has become the single biggest advertiser in all media by a massive margin: It literally keeps the mainstream media alive. A culture that heavily restricts cigarette ads should ask itself why it gives free reign to legal international drug cartels to spread their sales pitches. What impact does that have on public health?
We saw the impact during COVID, where people abandoned family members to die because the TV told them to do so. And who was the TV being controlled by? Pfizer (pharma) and Fauci (public health). Not by the insurance companies who had to foot the bill.
It’s possible the “system” had a share in derailing Mangione’s life, but surely there are many other factors, including the belief that all pain requires treatment. Maybe in a less stubbornly secular society he would’ve been able to understand his suffering as a necessary — or at least inevitable — consequence of being alive. Maybe then a father would not have been murdered in cold blood.
But our society has no concept of beneficial pain. In fact, we’re obsessed with eliminating pain entirely. That’s why our medical ideal is to match cause and cure so precisely that one treatment can eradicate a disease with maximum efficiency — and without any collateral damage.
This power such treatments promise is so seductive that it’s easy to succumb to wishful thinking, if not outright delusion. It’s right there in the name we commonly use for them: magic bullets.
Elizabeth Warren tries to walk back justification for CEO's killing while Jimmy Kimmel leans into suspect's fandom
The killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson helped once again highlight the left's appetite for ideologically motivated violence. Among the radicals who came out of the woodwork to seemingly justify the targeted Dec. 4 shooting of the father of two was Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D).
The gun-control advocate who has received many financial contributions from the health and insurance industries not only seemed to exploit Thompson's death to make an apparent threat against others like him but sympathized with his alleged killer, telling the HuffPost in an interview Tuesday, "Violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far."
When initially asked about the callous responses to Thompson's death, Warren told HuffPost, "The visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the health care system."
"Violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far," added the failed presidential candidate. "This is a warning that if you push people hard enough, they lose faith in the ability of their government to make change, lose faith in the ability of the people who are providing the health care to make change, and start to take matters into their own hands in ways that will ultimately be a threat to everyone."
Billy Gribbin, communications director for Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), responded on X, noting, "This statement invents a non-existent connection between the insane murderer and United Healthcare, which did not push this rich kid to do anything, even accidentally. He went crazy and killed someone."
'I should have been much clearer.'
Wall Street Journal film critic Kyle Smith wrote, "Absolutely vile from Elizabeth Warren."
"Really leaning into the 'but' on this one in ways no Democrat has been comfortable doing," tweeted Semafor Washington bureau chief Benjy Sarlin. "No, it is not inevitable that some weird rich kid assassinates an insurance CEO — what is this framing?"
Numerous other critics suggested that the second half of Warren's controversial sentence effectively negates the first, rendering the statement an endorsement for murder. One commentator on X made the point with a similarly formulated statement: "'Rape is never the answer but ... she was dressed provocatively.'"
In the face of incredible backlash online, Warren quickly issued a statement amending her remarks.
Igor Bobic, the author of the HuffPost piece, noted several hours later that Warren had "clarifi[ed] her remarks on the UnitedHealthcare CEO's killing and the response to it," jettisoning the second half of her original statement.
"Violence is never the answer. Period," said Warren. "I should have been much clearer that there is never a justification for murder."
'I would visit him in prison and bake him cookies maybe.'
While the Democratic senator clarified that she actually thinks murder is wrong, fellow travelers continued to relish the bloodletting.
Jimmy Kimmel, who bemoaned the fate of "decency" following President-elect Donald Trump's victory last month, called Thompson's suspected murderer "Time's sexiest alleged murderer of the year" and "the hottest cold-blooded killer in America" on his Disney network show Tuesday. Kimmel also shared messages supposedly penned by producers on his show expressing admiration for Luigi Mangione.
One text message shared on screen said, "I love Luigi." Another message said, "Ppl are saying a NY jury has the power to find him innocent. Bc we all love him." Kimmel also posted a message that read, "I would visit him in prison and bake him cookies maybe."
Kimmel further trivialized the matter on his show the following evening, equating the shooting to a "protest."
The late-night host did, however, acknowledge this week that "sometimes when people identify with why a crime was committed, we lose sight of the reality of that crime."
'It feels like justice in this system.'
Former Washington Post writer Taylor Lorenz was among the radicals who appeared joyful this week about the reality of the crime.
Blaze News previously reported that Lorenz told Piers Morgan of "Piers Morgan Uncensored" on Monday that she "felt, along with so many other Americans, joy" upon learning of Thompson's slaying.
"I take that back. 'Joyful' is the wrong word, Piers," Lorenz later said. "Vindicated, celebratory — because it feels like justice in this system when somebody responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans suffers the same fate as those tens of thousands of Americans who he murdered."
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Mark Cuban’s self-serving prescription for higher drug prices
Promptly after President Trump’s November 5 victory, business mogul Mark Cuban deleted all his pro-Kamala Harris posts on X (formerly Twitter) — an odd move for a former top campaign surrogate to make. What he cannot delete, however, is his track record of trying to use Harris to regulate his company’s competition away. In fact, he’s escalating his anti-free-market strategy.
Cuban participated late last month in a fireside chat at the University of Pennsylvania to explain why he wants the government to regulate pharmacy benefit managers, the companies that businesses (small and large) contract with to negotiate lower drug purchase price costs with Big Pharma.
Mark Cuban should follow the rest of Wall Street’s lead, cut his losses, and move on.
Kamala Harris’ willingness to take them on appears to have factored considerably into his decision to support her as aggressively as he did. Soon after Cuban talked to Harris about PBMs, her campaign came out with a plan against them. Cuban then began stumping for the Democratic candidate in the battleground states of Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
But PBMs should not be regulated — nor should they be demonized. If they were so bad, businesses would not voluntarily pay them to lower their prescription drug costs. They continue to hire PBMs because they make things more affordable — lowering Medicare Part D spending by 20%, for example.
The true price gougers aren’t PBMs. Drug companies are responsible for 65% of the total list price of our prescriptions, and their relationships with Washington decision-makers have enabled them to raise prices above free-market levels. Mark Cuban’s company, Cost Plus Drugs, also negotiates drug prices as PBMs do, so he would benefit if the government squelches PBMs. In other words, he parrots Big Pharma’s talking points on who to blame because an anti-free-market outcome would help him personally.
That’s the problem with Cuban. He relies on political gamesmanship instead of free-market ingenuity to succeed.
While he astutely made a lot of money on dot-com businesses in the internet’s infancy, more recently, he has accrued net losses on all his “Shark Tank” deals. Working with Harris and other government officials to wipe PBMs out of the marketplace would ensure that Cost Plus Drugs has a better future than his “Shark Tank” investments — but it would come at the expense of affordable drugs for millions of Americans.
That is disturbing when, according to the American Hospital Association:
Nearly 30% of Americans say they haven't taken their medication as prescribed due to high drug prices, and it is estimated that more than 1.1 million Medicare patients alone could die over the next decade because they cannot afford to pay for their prescribed medications.
If Cuban wants to wipe his support for Harris off the internet, congratulate President Trump, and move on, that’s fine — but he should be doing the same with his failed attempt to push self-serving regulations through the White House, too. Instead, he’s amping up his efforts, and that’s in no one’s interest but his own.
Trump won't repeat Harris' mistake. His inner circle knows what's at stake if Cuban achieves his political agenda and won't let it happen. Neither will Congress. Although some lawmakers are pushing anti-PBM regulatory bills before the session ends, Trump loyalists like Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) are prepared to block them.
Pharma’s stock shares have dropped precipitously since Trump’s re-election, signaling that many investors already know this cold, hard truth.
Rather than continuing with his self-serving regulatory push, Mark Cuban should follow the rest of Wall Street’s lead, cut his losses, and move on. Maybe even focus on genuine free-market competition rather than legislative bullying. It would be better for all of us.
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