Instead of targeting PCPs as they have, they should be making big pharma a cost-cutting focus. What HMOs and Medicare have done is virtually destroy primary care in the US:
It remains a mystery why managed care and Medicare have centered their cost reduction efforts for so long on physicians, and particularly on the least well paid physicians, while apparently willingly paying out ever more for pharmaceuticals . . .
. . . However, the effects of continuing decreases in primary care physicians’ reimbursements have not been mysterious. Fewer medical school graduates are going into primary care. Primary care physicians are retiring early.
