Customers sue UnitedHealth over prescription drug co-pay costs
By Brendan Pierson
Reuters, October 5, 2016
UnitedHealth Group Inc has been sued by three customers who accused the largest U.S. health insurer of charging co-payments for prescription drugs that were higher than their actual cost and pocketing the difference.
For example, the lawsuit claims, one class member paid a $50 co-payment for Sprintec, a contraceptive, while UnitedHealth paid the pharmacy only $11.65. The pharmacy was then required to hand the extra $38.85 over to UnitedHealth under its agreement with the insurer, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit claims that such a co-payment “is not a ‘co-‘ payment for a prescription drug because the insurer is paying nothing,” but is instead “a hidden additional premium.”
The lawsuit says UnitedHealth has hidden this practice from its customers, forcing them to overpay for a wide variety of common, low-cost drugs.
The lawsuit claims UnitedHealth’s co-payments violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), a federal law used to target illegal conspiracies, and in some cases also violate a federal law governing employee benefit plans.
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Comment:
By Don McCanne, M.D.
Yesterday’s message described how insurers were using the deductibles to avoid paying anything for covered drugs while collecting a significant proportion of the patient’s payment for the prescription. Today’s shows how UnitedHealth is establishing co-payments much larger than the retail value of many of its authorized prescriptions, then requiring a kickback of the balance of the co-payment. In both instances, the insurer’s net payment for the prescriptions is zero whereas the patient is unknowingly making a generous payment to the insurer. The insurer is collecting additional patient funds in exchange for providing…nothing!
These two examples are not a mere coincidence. They are written into the contracts. They are proof of the ongoing conspiracy of the insurers to cheat their own clients – the patients.
A racketeering lawsuit has now been filed. But that is not enough. We need to expel these rip-off artists from our health care system. We need to replace these leeches with our own dedicated public stewards serving us in a financing system that works for patients instead: Single payer.
