FOLLOW THE MONEY: Who Profits from America's Broken Healthcare System?

Welcome back to Disruptive Dialogue, the show that pulls back the curtain on America’s broken healthcare system. Your host, Chuck Melendi, spent 35 years in the industry — including 25 with Johnson & Johnson — and he’s seen enough to know: Americans are being ripped off.

In This Episode:

Chuck pulls back the curtain on one of the biggest drivers of the U.S. healthcare crisis: corporate profit. While Americans struggle to afford care, a small group of healthcare giants are raking in trillions. In this explosive episode, we break down:

Why Everything Costs More in U.S. Healthcare

From drugs and insurance to hospital stays and devices—every single aspect of the system costs more in the U.S. than anywhere else.

Who’s Cashing In?

Chuck spotlights the biggest players across healthcare sectors and their explosive revenue growth from 2010 to 2023:

• Insurers like UnitedHealth, CVS/Aetna, and Cigna have ballooned to dominate the market—together, the top five raked in revenues of $1.25 trillion in 2023.

• Drug Wholesalers like McKesson and AmerisourceBergen (now Cencora) earned a combined $742 billion.

• Compared to Big Pharma: While the five largest drug manufacturers earned a whopping $311 billion in revenues, that's still less than one single top insurer.

• Hospitals may claim “non-profit” status, but the top five took in $260 billion, with questionable transparency and ballooning executive pay.

The Real Power Players:

Just eight companies made over $2 trillion in revenues in 2023. And they’re not just in healthcare—they are the healthcare system now. They control access, pricing, and profits—and they’re more focused on Wall Street than patient care.

Critical Insights:

• Why middlemen like insurers and PBMs (Pharmacy Benefit Managers) are making care harder to access and more expensive.

• The system is confusing by design—and it’s leaving patients, doctors, and small businesses in the dust.

• Countries with better outcomes and lower costs don’t have these bloated middle layers. So why do we?

The Fallout:

• Physician burnout

• Collapsing independent pharmacies

• Rising costs for employers

• Patients avoiding care or drowning in debt

Why Create Change?

This isn’t about politics—it’s about survival. The cost to employers drives up cost of goods sold, the cost to consumers drives medical debt, and providers are burning out. If we don’t address the greed at the heart of the system, our health, economy, and future are all on the line.

💥 This is not your average healthcare talk. It’s Disruptive Dialogue — passionate, fact-driven, and unapologetically honest.

🎙 Get informed. Get involved. Let’s fix this — together.

👉 Visit DisruptiveDialogue.org and join the movement. Here you find resources and podcast notes and connect with Chuck directly for speaking engagements and to share your story.

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