Richard Helppie's Common Bridge
The problems we have in the country are solvable, but not solvable the way we’re approaching them today, because of partisan politics. Richard Helppie, a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist seeks to find a place in the middle where common sense discussions can bridge the current great divide.
Richard Helppie's Common Bridge
Episode 303- Mark Cuban On PBMs, Rebates, And Rewiring Healthcare Incentives
If you’ve ever wondered why your deductible feels like a brick wall while insurers tout “savings,” this conversation goes straight to the source. Nathan Kaufman sits down with Mark Cuban to pull apart how PBMs and insurers shape drug prices, hide rebates, and use denials as financial float—while patients and providers pay the price. It’s a rare, unfiltered tour through the pharmacy supply chain, medical loss ratio math, and the perverse incentives that keep care costly and complicated.
We dig into the real-world fallout for physicians and hospitals: Medicare’s stagnant updates, shadow-priced commercial contracts, and the administrative churn that drives independent practices into the arms of health systems or private equity. Mark challenges the industry to think like a startup—publish prices, strip out unnecessary vendors, and pay clinicians more with transparent, fixed margins. He shares why GPOs often inflate costs, how a virtual wholesaler model can save millions on injectables and specialty meds, and what happens when leadership manages silos instead of the whole enterprise.
Then we get tactical. Imagine a standardized claim process across payers and a new financing model that replaces premium fights with unlimited HSAs plus government-backed medical loans pegged to Medicare rates. Pair that with direct contracts that pay providers quickly, no prior auth, no denials, and zero out-of-pocket for employees using posted agreements. Add agentic AI to audit thousands of contracts, verify invoices, and stop leakage dimes at a time—and a clearer path emerges: fewer middlemen, faster pay, better outcomes. Along the way, we confront uncomfortable truths about facility fees, subprime patient financing, and why breaking up insurance conglomerates or forcing divestiture of non-insurance assets could restore real competition.
If you care about practical reform—transparent pricing, direct contracting, real outcomes data, and technology that kills waste—this is your playbook. Listen, share with a colleague who manages benefits or a hospital P&L, and tell us: where should transparency and direct contracts start in your market? Subscribe for more unscripted conversations that push healthcare toward simpler, fairer, and smarter.
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