{{ Two years ago, Cuban’s companies were self-insured, with him effectively writing personal checks for out-of-pocket health care expenses. As Cost Plus Drugs got off the ground, he says he compared the prices of generic prescription medications he’d been paying for to those offered by his new pharmacy.
“What we spent $160,000 on at the [Dallas Mavericks], we could have purchased for $19,000 for Cost Plus,” he tells Fortune. “We decided once that plan ended last year, we were going to replace it, and so I wanted to go through the entire process of understanding what I did right or wrong.”
He first turned to the employee benefits consultant who had assured him he was getting a great deal—someone whose advice also cost $30 per employee per month.
“That’s insane, that was millions of dollars,” Cuban says. “The person who put me into a program where I was paying eight times more than I should have for generic medication, they’re done.”
Around the time he dropped the consultant, Cuban was planning to get a CT colonoscopy, which he says would’ve cost more than $2,000 through insurance. Yet the walk-in cost for the same procedure was less than $500.
“What is the purpose of this insurance company that I’m working with—and the PBM that they’re connecting me to—when I can just walk in off the street and save myself a ton of money?” Cuban asks. “What we’ve done at my companies is we’ve walked away from the traditional way.” }}
I’ve known this for at least the past 25 years and assume that my health insurer is “legally” trying to cheat me. Thus, I always try to figure out the cost of paying cash for the medical service or prescription drug I’ve been prescribed, and compare it to what the insurance company would charge me. I’ve saved tens of thousands of dollars over the years by assuming the worst from the Medical/Industrial Complex.
As long as voters continue to support the bipartisan culture of corruption in Washington, nothing is going to change.
I got a letter yesterday in the mail that my Primary Care doctor had been bought out by Big Medicine. Pending regulatory approval, I have until Jan 1st 2025 to make other arrangements.
When I went to the new owner’s website to see if they’d still accept traditional Medicare, I got a link to a Medicare Advantage sales agent. {{ LOL }}
I’ll get my Primary Care in the emergency room before I sign up with Medicare Advantage.
intercst