http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TwdsYVHjGA
pretty sad that it takes a foreign news outlet to uncover something our OWN media outlets should make a big deal about.
It is not only in the US. In most of the European countries from which i know this occurs, exclusive deals are made between insurance companies and medicines manufacturers. And between insurance companies and doctors or general practitioners. And between medicine manufacturers and hospitals.
This created situations where doctors or general practitioners subscribed medicines known to cause severe side effects. Why ? These medicines where more cheap to produce, to sell, as such make more profits yada, yada, yada. Other situations occurred where medicine manufacturers made deals with hospitals in the Netherlands about exclusive contracts of only using one type of medicine : The medicine produced but the medicine manufacturer.
These wrong practices where covered in the news a lot and caused a lot of people to move away from the mentioned insurance companies or stay away from the hospitals.
Afcourse it is not forbidden for insurance companies to promote cheaper medicines as long the general practitioners and the hospitals are free to subscribe or use the more expensive ones in case of side effects on a per patient basis. The medicine manufacturers argue they would rather have exclusive contracts. It is obvious it has nothing to do with what is best for the patient, no it is about maximizing profits.
There was a court case in 2006 in the Netherlands between insurance company Menzis and Pfizer,Merck,AstraZeneca about these practices.
Makes you wonder does it not ? :hmm: