Medicare Premiums Rise to Subsidize Private Insurer Bonuses, 60 Minutes Finds Insured Americans Camping for Tooth Extractions, and Judges Doubt PBM Transparency Promises

Hey all,

Happy Tuesday! Welcome to another day in the American healthcare pageant, where we’ve successfully innovated a system that requires citizens to pay monthly premiums for the "privilege" of sleeping in parking lots for charity dental work while their Medicare premiums rise to subsidize record-breaking private insurance profits. It’s truly a testament to our national character that we allow PBM middlemen to operate with all the transparency of a lead-lined bunker, forcing federal judges to step in and ask if maybe, just maybe, "managing" drug prices shouldn't involve making them more expensive for everyone but the shareholders. Whether you’re a senior citizen losing your lunch money to corporate overpayments or a family hoping a high-deductible plan covers more than just the paper it’s printed on, rest assured the system is working exactly as intended—just not for you.

Enjoy the rundown!

Jacob Brody (Co-Founder & CEO, ZorroRX)

[(HEALTH CARE un-covered)] 60 Minutes Returns to Remote Area Medical

The latest 60 Minutes report on Remote Area Medical (RAM) highlights a worsening crisis where even insured Americans must rely on charity clinics and sleep in parking lots to receive basic dental and vision care. This trend is driven by high-deductible plans and "hollow" benefits that prioritize corporate profitability over patient access, effectively turning health insurance into an unaffordable illusion for many. It is truly heartening to see that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, we’ve successfully innovated a system where a monthly premium acts as a VIP pass to sleep on a frozen fairground pavement for the "luxury" of a tooth extraction.

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[Healthcare Brew] Impact of Medicare Advantage Overpayments on Traditional Medicare

Overpayments to Medicare Advantage plans, driven largely by inflated risk scores and favorable selection, are significantly driving up costs for beneficiaries enrolled in traditional Medicare. Research indicates that these excess payments inflated Part B premiums by $212 per beneficiary in 2025, as premiums are legally tied to overall program spending levels. This highlights a critical systemic flaw where the primary "innovation" of private insurance seems to be successfully tricking the government into subsidizing record-breaking corporate profits with the lunch money of elderly citizens.

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[BenefitsPRO] Aetna, Cigna, and UnitedHealth PBM Lawsuit Progresses

A federal judge in Rhode Island has denied a motion to dismiss a lawsuit against major pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) including OptumRx, Express Scripts, and CaremarkPCS, allowing the state’s claims of price inflation and deceptive practices to move forward. The court ruled that the allegations of opaque contractual relationships and misleading consumer information regarding drug pricing are significant enough to warrant a full discovery process. Apparently, the court is operating under the wild, radical delusion that multibillion-dollar middlemen should actually be transparent about how they "manage" to keep drug prices high while pinky-promising they are doing the exact opposite.

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