The UnitedHealth Group is overcharging patients for necessary life-saving drugs as a result of price gouging that increases the cost of such medication exponentially, according to federal investigators.
UnitedHealth Group, who employed the recently deceased CEO Brian Thompson, has been collecting additional revenue by inflating the price of drugs that are medically necessary for the patients they are prescribed to, according to a report from the Federal Trade Commission.
Other drug and healthcare providers, such as Cigna and CVS, were also found to be selling such medications at highly inflated prices. The pharmacy benefit managers (PBM) for each of these providers, OptumRx, Express Scripts and CVS Caremark Rx, collectively made an additional $73 billion in revenue as a result of price gouging over the course of the five years for which the study was conducted, says the report obtained by Fortune.
"The Big 3 PBMs marked up numerous specialty generic drugs dispensed at their affiliated pharmacies by thousands of percent, and many others by hundreds of percent," it concluded.
Such price inflation means that a drug costing PBMs $10 to buy would then be sold to patients at the increased price of $110.
Specialty therapy drugs for life-saving care, including drugs used to treat leukemia, such as Imatinib, or those used to treat pulmonary hypertension, such as Tadalafil, are subject to these inflated rates.
This report comes on the heels of the recent highly publicized murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Thompson's alleged killer, Luigi Mangione, cited the inequity existing within the modern U.S. healthcare system as part of his motivations for conducting the crime. Mangione has been celebrated for his actions online and by other customers who have become disillusioned by the healthcare system.
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