Chronically Human Podcast

Phillip Zweig joins us to talk about the secretive, massive, and corrupt Group Purchasing Organizations that drive up healthcare costs, decrease medical innovations and cause critical drug shortages in the United States. http://www.philliplzweig.com Phillip Zweig is an award winning financial journalist who is now the Executive Director of Physicians Against Drug shortages, which is a grass root group of physicians and other healthcare professionals working to end  drug shortages in America by lobbying Congress to repeal the 1987 Medicare anti-kickback "safe harbor" provision. This ill-considered statute exempted GPOs from criminal prosecution for taking vendor kickbacks and undermined competition in the generic drug/ healthcare supplies industry. Phil's White Paper on Group Purchasing Organizations: https://careandcost.com/2012/02/14/connecting-the-dots-how-anticompetitive-contracting-practices-kickbacks-and-self-dealing-by-hospital-group-purchasing-organizations-gpos-caused-the-u-s-drug-shortage/