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5 days ago

What Happens When Insurance Companies Become More Powerful Than Medicine?

By MATTHEW ZACHARY The American healthcare system behaves exactly as its incentives tell it to behave. That sentence sounds almost boring until you follow it to its logical conclusion. Insurance companies now influence clinical decisions more aggressively than many physicians. They shape hospital consolidation. They determine startup viability. They influence venture capital allocation. They dictate which drugs succeed commercially. They pressure physician behavior through reimbursement design. They decide who accesses diagnostics, rehabilitation, home care, specialty drugs, imaging,...