News & Blogs

Commitment to Seniors Launches National “End the Raid” on Medicare Petition Campaign Urging Congress to Address Failures of the IRA Spending Bill

CONTACT: Michael DeSantis michael@americancommitment.org Biden-Harris Administration claimed the IRA would lower inflation and health care costs for older Americans; instead, it spiked premiums by 20% or more and raided an est. $260 billion in Medicare “savings” to help pay for costly special interest handouts like electric vehicle tax credits and subsidies paid to big insurers Washington, D.C. — August 1, 2024 — American Commitment’s Commitment to Seniors project has launched a national and multi-state “End…

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New Poll Shows Majority of Older Americans Say Democrats’ IRA Spending Bill Increased Health Insurance and Prescription Drug Costs

CONTACT: Stephen Manfredi smanfredi@manfredistrategygroup.com Just 12% say the IRA benefited consumers, patients, and families & nearly 80% want increased Congressional oversight on big health insurers and their pharmacy benefit managers Washington, D.C. — June 26, 2024 — As part of its Commitment to Seniors initiative, American Commitment released a comprehensive poll conducted by KA Consulting, LLC. that explores ongoing concerns over healthcare costs held among Americans leading into the 2024 elections. Despite continued praise from…

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The Opaque Industry Secretly Inflating Prices for Prescription Drugs

Americans are paying too much for prescription drugs. It is a common, longstanding complaint. And the culprits seem obvious: Drug companies. Insurers. A dysfunctional federal government. But there is another collection of powerful forces that often escape attention, because they operate in the bowels of the health care system and cloak themselves in such opacity and complexity that many people don’t even realize they exist. They are called pharmacy benefit managers. And they are driving…

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What Happens When Your Insurer Is Also Your Doctor and Your Pharmacist

America’s health insurers don’t say this openly, but it isn’t a secret that many of them would like to be a little more like UnitedHealth Group. Just as Amazon is the e-commerce industry’s 800-pound gorilla, UnitedHealth has built a sprawling health services company that shows no sign of slowing down. With annual revenue of $372 billion in 2023, it ranks among the five largest companies in the U.S. on that measure. Its stock, meanwhile, has…

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Biden’s War on Medicare

President Joe Biden’s full-frontal assault on Medicare is becoming visible to America’s seniors. It will result in fewer patient choices, reduced benefits, and ultimately worse health outcomes. Biden’s efforts, assisted by Congressional Democrats, are destroying Medicare Advantage and Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage. Medicare Advantage was originally created as Medicare Part C in 1997 when I was Speaker of the House. It was introduced to create more comprehensive health plan options for seniors that…

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UnitedHealth’s Harms Reach Far Beyond Recent Cyberattack

This month, two committees in Congress hosted Andrew Witty, CEO of UnitedHealth Group, to discuss the recent cyberattack on Change Healthcare, a subsidiary of the health conglomerate. That attack crippled claims processing across the country for weeks. The head of the American Hospital Association declared it “the most significant and consequential incident of its kind against the U.S. healthcare system.”

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Time For Congress to Take a Good Look at UnitedHealth and the AARP

Earlier this month, the CEO of UnitedHealth Group was called to testify before the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate regarding his company’s handling of a major cyberattack on its wholly owned health IT subsidiary company, Change Healthcare. Considering that the massive company interacts with nearly a third of all medical records and has just acknowledged that a “substantial proportion of people in America” could be impacted in some form or another due to the breach,…

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Breitbart: ‘Too Big to Fail’: Congress Grills UnitedHealth CEO Over Company’s Vertically Integrated Consolidation and Massive Cyberattack

As Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) recently said, “UnitedHealth Group is the Standard Oil of Healthcare.”  It has bought virtually every aspect of the healthcare system. In January 2021, it bought one of the biggest health payment systems, Change Healthcare, for $13 billion. In February, it was hit by a cyberattack that exposed millions of personal patient records and delayed reimbursements for doctors, hospitals, and independent pharmacies. So, on Wednesday, the House and Senate held hearings…

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