Washington, D.C. — As corporate consolidation in healthcare produces unprecedented drug shortages, rising prices, and unacceptable working conditions, all while giant healthcare companies rake in massive profits, the American Economic Liberties Project today released a new policy toolkit “Tools to Challenge Big Medicine: A Guide for State Lawmakers.” It outlines practical steps that state lawmakers can take to reform the American healthcare industry and challenge corporate power. The new toolkit was released at an Economic Liberties event today featuring Minnesota State Senator Erin Murphy.

“Rampant consolidation has put U.S. healthcare in the hands of powerful corporations who can undermine patient care and take advantage of medical workers without fear of competition,” said Pat Garofalo, Director of State & Local Policy at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Every American family is familiar with the result: an outrageous mixture of runaway costs, poor working conditions for staff, and substandard care. While the federal government can and must play an important role in the fight against monopolies hijacking life-saving services, state lawmakers can lead the charge to protect their own communities. This toolkit empowers them with the information and the practical legislative steps to do so.“

The toolkit identifies three key areas of consolidation for state lawmakers to address. First is hospitals, which have undergone waves of mergers in recent decades. Studies have shown that hospital mergers are disastrous for patients, who face higher prices, reduced access to care, and worse health outcomes. Hospital workers also suffer, as their employers enjoy greater bargaining power and can reduce wages.

Second is pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), the sprawling yet poorly-understood middlemen in U.S. pharmaceutical markets. The top 3 PBMs manage 80% of drug claims in the United States, have vertically integrated into insurance companies and pharmacies, and also manage pharmaceutical benefits for government programs like Medicare Part D and Medicaid. As the toolkit explains, PBMs parlay their far-reaching power over drug prices into outrageous forms of self-dealing at the expense of patients, taxpayers, and independent pharmacies.

The final highlight is on corporate ownership of historically-independent medical practices. Giant conglomerates such as CVS have been acquiring pharmacies and other segments of the healthcare system, while private equity investors are increasingly acquiring independent medical practices to turn a quick profit by hiking prices and cutting expenditures on care. From hospitals to nursing homes, private equity’s influence on healthcare is clear from the many documented instances of chronic understaffing, poor patient outcomes, bankruptcies, and sky-high profits for investors.

The toolkit lays out concrete roadmaps for how state lawmakers can fight back. Each of these sections features practical state-level policy proposals to address affordability and quality of care, price transparency, and fairness in healthcare markets—including model legislation where applicable. The toolkit also features chapters on strengthening conditions for healthcare industry workers in the face of consolidation and implementing public options to discipline for-profit providers.

Read “Tools to Challenge Big Medicine: A Guide for State Lawmakers,” to learn more.

Rewatch the event with MN State Senator Erin Murphy here.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.