The days where you could go see a psychologist or psychiatrist and talk out your problems and learn life skills are quickly becoming a way of the past. The power to heal has increasingly shifted away from doctors to the all-powerful insurance and drug companies. Traditional insurance and health plans are now replaced by more “efficiently” managed care models. This means that when a patient is offered mental health care he or she is more times than not prescribed medication. Why? This is because the doctors are given financial incentives to do so. According to the ICSPP, for the same billing time a doctor is paid more money through the insurance companies to prescribe medication than to actually administer therapy. The Drug companies are marketing these “cure-all” drugs by using extremely aggressive and corrupt tactics. They use misleading promotional information and give the insurance companies the excuse to say that medication is the safest treatment investment for patients.Annually the drug industry spends up to 60 billion dollars on marketing their drugs. They spend half of that on research and development. Most notable is the industries investment in there lobbyists in Washington that they use to sway public policy. The drug industries lobbying and campaign dollar contributions are topped only by the insurance industry. This has directly led to an industry friendly regulatory policy at the Food and Drug administration, the agency that approves its products for sale and most directly oversees drug makers. More than a third of the industries 3000 lobbyists were at one time federal officers. Many of who were former senators and congressmen who hold a great influence inside the capital hill committees that oversee the drug bills. Probably the most tragic outcome to our society that has been brought on by this incestuous relationship has been the Medicare provisions. Medicare is a government funded insurance program that provides health insurance to 41 million people across our country. As a consequence of drug industry lobbying, government programs like Medicare are barred from negotiating with drug companies for lower prices. This will take wealth from our countries sober working taxpayers and put it directly into the pockets of the drug industry. According to Professor Allen Sager of Boston University 61% of Medicare money spent on prescriptions will become profit for the drug industry.
So, doctors are financially rewarded from the insurance and drug industries for prescribing medication. The drug regulatory officials are financially rewarded from the drug industry for passing favorable policy bills. It is a trifecta attack on our countries sick people. It is simply criminal market manipulation. This has created a culture where now patients expect to be medicated to solve their mental problems. Instead of therapeutic work, people have come to expect to be doped so they can forget their problems. Its sad that these doctors, insurance companies, and drug companies are more than happy to deal them these drugs.