Here’s the jump to what could turn out to be a very scary site for some unfortunates: Discount MedSpa

"There’s so much money in selling pills, that there’s a tremendous temptation to cheat…"

A truly horrid tale of rampant corruption in today’s health care industry.  Not from some small-time shyster doctor, or under-handed veterinarian, or even the drug pinching nurse;  but  from one of the top drug-makers in the US, Pfizer(set to be world’s largest by year-end).  It is much the classic tale of large corporations running amuck and unchecked by government control for the past decade in America.

It is interesting that “criminal” is specified, and one would conclude that maybe someone will go to jail.  No mention in the article of this or any facts surrounding any harm that was caused by all this to actual people.  Yes, yes, the “fine” money will be paid and divvied-up amongst all the parties and everything will be nice and clean.

Here’s the jump: AP via Yahoo: Pfizer to pay record $2.3B penalty for drug promos

I wonder if families, expecting a call from the Insurance Salesman Hero, break out the best China and Silverware, don the Sunday dudes and roll out the red carpet.  I mean, “This guy can get us some of that rip-off, underpaying, over-priced, sorry that isn’t covered, health insurance!”, it’s a special day in our lives.  Maybe we should name the next born after him.

Let us examine this statement out of the context of the 30 second sound-bite.  “119 million Americans will be off healthcare if the Democratic plan is enacted”.  They attribute this statement to the “independent health care analyst”, Lewin Group.  Here is the link to their web site. The whole truth is that these 119 million Americans will be off corporate healthcare plans and onto the government plan and simply because it will have better benefits and cost less.  That statement is also from the same Lewin Group study, and so conveniently left out of the Republican line.

Also conveniently omitted from the Republican line is the fact that this study was conducted by a subsidiary of one of the Nation’s largest health insurance corporations, United Healthcare.  Just do a little Googling and you can find this article over at BusinessWeek.com that states, “The company was founded in 1970 and is based in Falls Church, Virginia. As of June 12, 2007, The Lewin Group, Inc. is a subsidiary of Ingenix, Inc.”  We turn to Google again and find this statement on the Ingenix web site, “Ingenix is a wholly-owned subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, founded in 1996…”.

I leave you to conjure your own conclusions about the statement, “119 million Americans will be off healthcare” if the Democratic healthcare reform plan is enacted.

the jump