Americans spend $300 Billion every year for medication. A 50% reduction would save consumers and taxpayers $1 Trillion in 7 years. Here is how:

Repeal federal legislation banning importation of less expensive FDA approved brand name medication from Canadian pharmacies.

Repeal federal legislation making it illegal for Medicare D to negotiate discounts from drug manufacturers.  Medicare D is the largest purchaser of medication in the world.  It is a prescription med plan for Seniors and, believe it or not, Congress passed legislation that increases consumer prices and taxes by increasing medication costs for Medicare D.

American pharmaceutical costs are by far the highest in the world (link to OECD data). Republicans and Democrats have placed their political interests and the profits of international pharmaceutical corporations ahead of their own constituents.  American  taxpayers pay for health insurance of federal, state and local government employees.  American businesses pay for the health insurance of their employees.  Americans with health issues pay for medication insurance or pay out of pocket.  The Rs and Ds have placed the profits of international pharmaceutical companies ahead Americans.

Repeal federal legislation making it illegal for Medicare to negotiate discounts on $15 billion of durable equipment purchased each year.  Equipment such as wheelchairs, canes, diabetic test strips, home oxygen and so on.

Develop gatekeeping to prevent abuses by a significant minority of consumers who utilize medical services excessively.

Develop effective antifraud measures to deal with abuse of government funded health care.

Reduce exorbitant compensation at non-profit hospitals and non-profit health insurance companies.  That legislation is presented on  the ATLP LEGISLATION page.

Expose monopolist practices and contracts between non-profit health insurance companies and non-profit hospitals that drive economic competition out of the health care market.  For example, have you noticed that independently owned, low cost Urgent Care Centers  have closed. Have you noticed that emergency room utilization has soared for minor medical problems.   Emergency room care costs at least 10 times more that the cost of primary physician office care.  In the ER everyone gets a CT head for a bump on the head.  Costly, yes.  And what about the radiation?  Is this decent medical care?

It can be done. Reduce total health care expenditures  from the highest in the world to Germany’s level,  47 % lower (link to OECD data).  Improve our below average medical quality as compared to other countries.  For example the US ranks 31st out of 41 countries in infant mortality;  we certainly can do better  (link to OECD data)

ATLP will work to enact a constitutional amendment limiting an office holder to 12 years in a Chamber of Congress, with crossover enabling another 12 years in the other chamber.  Congressional office holders will be re-electable for up to 12 years after the amendment is passed.

ATLP endorses the T Boone Pickens Energy Plan to use America’s abundant natural gas to replace imported oil as a transportation fuel, especially in 18 wheelers, which consume 15% of every barrel of oil we consume.  His plan reduces the importation of crude oil ($150 billion in 2011), cleans up the environment (30-40%reduction in CO2) and creates jobs when we develop the required  infrastructure.

To implement the plan, Pickens has called for $1 billion of  federal spending.  ATLP would amend the proposal to tax the beneficiaries of the spending sufficiently to recover the amount of federal dollars spent.

Furthermore the wind, solar and building insulation features help America reduce fossil fuel consumption and also create jobs and help our economy.  We recommend that you read much more on this web site, http://www.pickensplan.com/

Capitation    is a common type of payment system for primary care physicians (pcps) introduced by HMOs and encouraged by the federal government.  It is one of the causes of the  decline of medical care convenience, quality and affordability, as explained below.

Under the capitation system a  family doctor  receives a set amount of money each month from the insurance company for each patient with that insurance, whether the patient is seen or not.  A  pcp gets paid regardless of whether any work is done – so why work?  When a patient calls with a problem, capitation enables avoidance of  work  when the pcp sends  the patient to the ER.  No loss of income to the pcp but the patient wastes  time in the waiting room, sees an unfamiliar doctor and gets a much larger co-pay.

Capitatation is why  your local ER is so packed with patients and it takes a long time to be seen.  Capitation raises the cost of medical care by a huge factor because the ER physicians do not know the patients and have to order many expensive tests.

Capitation is part of the reason most pcps no longer attend their patients in the hospital, but turn over care to hospitalists.  Capitated contracts for pcps may pay little extra for hospital work.  So why would a pcp do in-patient work at the hospital, especially given the  requirement of night, weekend and Holiday coverage?  Easier to sign out at 5 pm.

The irony is that even with capitation abuses by some pcps, primary care physicians are at the bottom of the reimbursement pay scale.   Few medical school graduates want to go into primary care at present.  If the trend continues and pcps are difficult to find,  the ER will become even more overburdened.  Costs will continue to go up.   Is there a solution that will reduce costs and bring back primary care?   Yes and the solution is very simple.   Pay pcps extra to keep their office open in the evening  and on weekends.  The ER should care for emergencies and not every day minor health problems.

ATLP will work to ban capitated contracts and reestablish reasonable fee for service.  A payment schedule to attact young primary care physicians must be developed in a manner that also benefits patient care.  Quality and convenience can improve while  costs are reduced.

When discussing excessive ordering of tests in the ER, it should also be mentioned that malpractice must be must be reevaluated to preserve patient safety but reformed to prevent expensive malpractice cases that arise out of anger or greed and not true malpractice.  ATLP is  studying tribunal systems to initially review cases before expensive litigation starts.  As is well known, even when a physician wins the case,  the legal fees can be huge.  Those fees are eventually paid for by the consumer.

ATLP’s  goal is to bring costs down to the same level as Germany, a 33% reduction at the least.  IT CAN BE DONE.

 Register as an ATLP member and get the job done sooner.

Did you know that non-profit hospital employees in Massachusetts make up to $2,100,000 yeary?  Go to  SUPPORT our Legislation page for documentation and review our  legislation to roll back excessive compensation.

Did you know that non-profit health insurance company executives have retirement packages up to $16,400,000. Todd Wallack discusses Van Faasen’s lump sum payout  by Blue Cross.  Wallack, Boston Globe, 3/15/10.

Did you know that Governor Duval Patrick was quoted as saying, ” I’m not going to get into managing individual compensation” .   Governor Patrick must know that  non-profit hospitals and health insurance companies pay no federal or state income taxes.   Therefore the taxpayer is entitled to government oversight of these huge salaries.  Kevin Cullen puts the issue into the light of day. Kevin Cullen, Boston Globe, 3/7/11.

Perhaps Governor Patrick did not want to “manage individual compensation”  because  some CEOs at non-profit health care corporations were Democratic party insiders.  They were major contributors to the Democratic Party, Governor Patrick and other Democrats such as Attorney General Martha Coakley. See this Globe article by Joan Vennochi.

Did you know that a Blue Cross director defended part time directors’ salaries and said the money given to part time directors’  work is like “pennies a year”? Those part time jobs pay up to $84,463 per year.  Read Levenson and Weisman   in another great Globe article.

President Obama had his health care plan passed and it only shifted costs around.  The problem is that it did not reduce costs.  Obama was a Senator when legislation was passed to ban Canadian pharmacy imports and President when the ban was incorporated into his health care plan.  ATLP party members know as a fact that letters were written to him complaining about the ban.  Governor Patrick has a health care plan that is more of the same.  Universal access to health care should not mean turning a blind eye to spiraling costs.

If  you like the status quo, stay with the peas in a pod.  If  you want to create an organized voice to fight health care costs and corporate greed,  join the ATLP today.

In 2010, the  FDA testified to Congress that it was not sure about the quality of brand name drugs from Canada!  Did the FDA  not know that heparin shots given to Americans in 2008 caused at least 19 deaths and hundreds of allergic reactions?   That heparin was imported from China   New York Times.   Did the FDA not know about the lack of FDA oversight of medication production in China and India Washington Post, 6/17/07  and   The New York Times, 9/18/11 . 

Yes, the FDA is on record complaining about quality of drugs from Canada and supports legislation banning imports from Canadian pharmacies.  What does it tell the American people when the agency created to safeguard health standards criticizes the quality of brand name medication from pharmacies in Canada and is silent about the quality of Asian medications?  Furthermore, all that the FDA had to do was send a small team to Canada to verify that the brand name medications were purchased from the manufacturer named on the box.  There is a quality issue, at the FDA.

The position of the FDA  on this issue has not changed under Republican or Democratic administrations because the lobbyists who pushed the legislation donate to both parties.  The ATLP can change things in Washington.   Consider joining the party that does not accept donations from lobbyists, and  encourage your friends and neighbors to join also.   With strong  membership,  ATLP will be heard, first in Massachusetts and then in Washington.

The Republican and Democratic parties are peas in a pod, equally to blame for passing legislation that raised medical costs.  Here’s a simple example:  why do Americans pay much more for brand name drugs than the citizens of any other country?  Because Federal law enacted during the Bush presidency and reenacted during the Obama presidency make it illegal for Americans to buy brand name medication from Canada that was less expensive than the identical medication sold in the USA.  Canadian imports were reducing profits at pharmaceutical companies and retail pharmacies and that is why the legislation was pushed through by lobbyists. 

Ironically there is no ban on the huge quantities of medication coming from India and China.

When asked by Senator Bernie Saunders (an independent from Vermont) at a Senate hearing in 2010, the head of the FDA said medication imports from Canadian pharmacies were banned  because the FDA was not sure about the quality of those pharmacies.  Remember, we are discussing brand name medications.  All the FDA had to do was to send a small team to those Canadian pharmacies and verify that the medication had been purchased from the  pharmaceutical manufacturer of that brand name.  Not hard to do.  At the same time we have no oversight on the vast quantities of medication manufactured and imported from China and India, as reported in the Washington Post and New York Times.  The quality issue is not about Canadian pharmacies, but about our FDA.  Please refer to our post on The Shot that Hurts.

In a nutshell, our supposedly capitalistic, free enterprise country has passed a law that reduces competition, increases consumer prices and works against free trade with a friendly country.  Since the Republicans and Democrats have voted for reverse price  controls that keep  prices up, can they argue  against legislation that will lower prices?   Logically they can’t, but the peas in the pod are interested in lobbyist donations, not logic. 

 ATLP will introduce legislation to lower the price of medication.  We  expect Republicans and Democrats to be horrified by interference in a free economy!  Of course they will be more horrified if the reader becomes an ATLP member.  Do it today.