Spoiler Alert: The Middlemen Cost More Than the Medicine

HEALTHCARE EXTRACTS TIME FROM PATIENTS. DIGNITY FROM FAMILIES. BILLIONS FROM EMPLOYERS WHO CALL IT BENEFITS.

I went on William (Toby) Usnik podcast, "The Caring Economy" to say what most boardrooms still dodge.

He spent his career inside American Express, The New York Times, Christie's, the UK Government. He knows how institutions protect reputation while causing harm. So we talked about the gap between the wellness program in the CSR (acronym alert) report and the prior authorization department delaying chemotherapy down the hall.

We talked about employers who spend $20,000 per employee per year on coverage and then leave workers alone to fight denials at 11 pm on a Sunday.

The math is simple. Health systems consolidate. Insurers post record profits. Private equity rolls up specialty practices. Patients get bills they cannot decode and denials they cannot appeal without a law degree.

Executives call it complexity. Families call it Tuesday.

I survived the era of fax machines, paper charts, and hold music that sounded like a lost Phil Collins B side. The tech changed. The incentives did not. The system still rewards obstruction, opacity, and delay. It punishes clarity. It punishes speed. It punishes patients who ask why.

Corporate leaders love to talk about human capital. Fine. Then treat healthcare as infrastructure, not a perk. Stop accepting a benefits model that shifts administrative labor onto sick employees. Stop funding a system that counts on exhaustion to close the file.

Insurance companies now cost the system more money than the drugs. Read that again. The middlemen cost more than the medicine.

This is not broken. This is the design.

Have a lisen to our episode. You'll be glad you did. (Says me)

Welcome to 2026: The Year of the Patient where the sick shall inherit the ballot.

If this hits home, drop your horror story in the comments and tell me where you have seen it happen. How about a rage repost? Or tag a former colleague just for fun. Every impression pushes this in front of more people who deal with the same mess.

Are you new here? My condolences and my thanks. Follow along and stay loud with the rest of us. More voices means more pressure on a system that counts on silence.

YOUTUBE ➡️ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujTTGyKabuU