Drugmakers have secretly been paying insurance companies and benefit managers rebates and discounts to the tune of over $100 billion for years to lessen their cost of drugs for diabetes, asthma, arthritis and allergies. All the while Americans are being squeezed to pay from their own pocket resulting from insurance plans with deductibles as high as $4,000 for a family. The insurers receive the rebates even though they have not paid a single penny.
Novo Nordisk, Merck, Pfizer and Mylan told Bloomberg news that their contracts with benefit managers require rebates to be paid to them on all prescriptions, even when the patients pay the full cost due to high deductibles. That means, for example on a $500 prescription, the insurer could receive a rebate of $250 and could pocket that money without sharing it with the patient.
Jeffrey Newman represents whistleblowers.
