Solidarity HealthShare President and Co-Founder Chris Faddis joins Bob Sansevere on The BS Show to discuss the changes that could be coming to big pharma and the healthcare industry as a whole. Read the interview transcript below or listen to it here.

Bob Sansevere (00:00):

We are joined by Christopher Faddis, co-founder and president of the nonprofit Healthcare Sharing Ministry Solidarity HealthShare, which is an ethical, affordable alternative to traditional health insurance and is faithful to the moral teachings of the Catholic Church. Now Chris, besides doing The BS Show, I’m also a guest on Tom Bernard’s show. I was on with Tom on the KQ Morning Show for more than 30 years, and Tom is in the National Broadcasters Hall of Fame. When I was on the morning show with Tom, we were number one in the country in terms of overall ratings. It was a huge show. Anyway, I met, he said, well, what do you have to interview? Who do you have to interview? And I said, well, I’m going to interview Chris Faddis, the president and co-founder of Solidarity HealthShare, and here’s what we’re going to talk about. And I asked them to give me, here’s the line. I read them, I said, you tell me. You give me the percentage. UnitedHealth made profits of more than X percent on a lifesaving leukemia drug. His son guessed 500%. Tom guessed 500. His wife came the closest at 1000%. Chris, this is disgusting. It is over 5000%.

Chris Fadds (01:13):

5000%

Bob Sansevere (01:14):

Of profit. Do they, I mean, hopefully this is what RFK Jr is going to go after. How can you sleep at night when you do that? I know it’s all about making money for a lot of these corporations and companies and these shareholders, but how could you not feel? It’s absolutely disgusting to be doing that to people. And this was for the generic drug, not even for the original. That’s what’s so disgusting about this.

Chris Fadds (01:41):

Yeah, I mean, you’ve got to really think this through a lens of complete profit motive and nothing else. I mean, there’s clearly no incentive and no drive to help people with their health. We’re not trying to save lives. We’re trying to make as much money as we can off of misery when we’re starting to say 5000%. This is, it is sickening. Of course, Bob, you and I are both capitalists at heart. We certainly think that a person should get their just wage, and I’m certainly cancer drugs probably get more profit than Tylenol, right? That makes sense. Yes. But this idea of 5000% of profit, the only way I think that people, whether it’s UnitedHealthcare or anyone in these big pharma companies and big industrial complexes of medicine can really sleep at night, I think is in their minds. They think, well, it’s the insurance and we’ve divorced that whole piece of like, well, it’s not really the patient paying, it’s the insurance paying, but obviously do the math. At some point, the premium the patient’s paying is going to be affected by the cost of the care. Of course, of course it has to (Chris), and you’re charging this kind of money. This is all over the place.

Bob Sansevere (02:52):

Here’s an example. I have a plan for a medicine or drug plan. I was paying for this plan until this year, $7.99 a month, and it was great. I mean, some of them were like a buck, some of ’em, they didn’t cost anything. Well, that has jumped to over $40 a month now, just jumped without any warning. I would’ve actually gone in and there was an open period. I have, and I am a Solidarity HealthShare member, but I’m on Medicare too. I have that. I just went on that a year or so ago. But it’s just disgusting that they can get away with it and you don’t have a recourse. They could set whatever price they want and then it just, it’s disgusting.

Chris Fadds (03:35):

 To be clear, I want to just be clear on what we’re talking about. UnitedHealthcare is obviously an insurance provider and they own what’s called A PBM, which is a pharmacy benefits manager. And the pharmacy benefits managers are the people in between the manufacturers of the drugs and the health plan and ultimately the consumer. And they get to choose the price of the drug and they get these ridiculous incentives and rebates back from the manufacturer when they overcharge for the drug. And those rebates are completely undisclosed, so you don’t get to see what they’re getting. This is why CVS bought out Caremark. This is why United bought out Optum. They get to control these companies. So it’s not just United, it’s United. It’s Optum. They’re Optum, it’s CVS Caremark, it’s Cigna’s Express Scripts. All of those companies make up the three big pharmacy benefits managers, and they’re upping the price of these drugs 5000%, sometimes 2300%, sometimes a thousand percent. And we’re just talking about generic ones. Just think about how much more that is on the name brands.

Bob Sansevere (04:42):

Well, and by the way, this is the source of this. It’s a Newsweek story, and it is, it’s UnitedHealth. They’ve got Optum. A lot of people have that CVS Health, CVS Caremark and Cigna’s Express Scripts, as you mentioned. If you have one of those, chances are there’s a huge markup on whatever your drugs are. And this is why your premiums are so high, even for your drugs, just, oh my God, it’s just unbelievable. And by the way, the number, all three marked up pharmacy prices by thousands of percent. This added 7.3 billion in revenue, collectively 7.3 billion. Now, this is where RFK JR needs to start looking and stick Elon Musk on this one too. This is disgusting, and I don’t know what they can do about it, but I’ll tell you what, if these Democrats are fighting everything that Elon Musk is doing, it’s a kill the messenger thing and not look at what’s happening. Anyone that would say, this is okay, they should be gone in the next election. You cannot vote people like this in because this is the kind of waste, not waste. People are dying over this.

Chris Fadds (05:51):

It’s abuse. It’s abuse.

Bob Sansevere (05:52):

And then there’s stories about how the cost of diabetes medicines and insulin has gone up since Trump took over. I don’t know what he did on that, and I’m not going to defend it if they went up because of something he did. But these prices people will complain about. I’ve seen the left complaint about that. These leftist politicians, I haven’t seen ’em complain about this. The first I heard of this when I received something from your office about it, and by the way, UnitedHealth is out of Minnesota, so is something called the Mayo Clinic. We got a major clinic, and there’s stories about that, about the Mayo Clinic as well. A report says tax breaks for Minnesota’s hospitals, including Mayo outweigh community benefit. And basically it’s a national report finds a Mayo Clinic was one of 10 worst performing nonprofit US health systems in 2021 when it comes to fair share deficit. And that’s a measure comparing charity care and community spending against the value of the tax breaks received. Well, I’ll tell you what, in Minnesota, it’s like giving out things like we have several scandals that have come up for money going to groups that were not real, and they give out money like it’s a PE dispenser here except to the people who actually live in the state and are funding it with tax dollars.

Chris Fadds (07:07):

Yeah, yeah it’s a-

Bob Sansevere (07:08):

I’m popping off my little soap box for a moment.

Chris Fadds (07:11):

The little high horse. Yeah, look, the bottom line is these nonprofit hospitals, the trade-off for them is that they are supposed to give a certain amount of charity care. And instead what we see is they’re suing poor people for care. They can’t afford, they’re not giving the percentage of care to care, and they’re getting way more benefit out of this arrangement than they should. And again, as a nonprofit organization ourselves, these things matter. You have to follow these rules in order to do these things, right? And I think it’s really unfair to consumers and patients. The whole idea here is we want people to have access to care and these hospitals just, they’re not owning up to their end of the deal. And these insurance companies, when you see this about UnitedHealthcare, remember that 7.3 billion in revenue that was added to all these drugs between all the PBMs. United got a big share of that in addition to the profits that they made in their insurance business in addition to the profits that they made in some of their other products they own.

Bob Sansevere (08:10):

That’s a great distinction.

Chris Fadds (08:11):

They own the entire chain. So much of the chain of the healthcare they provide, they own. So all the money they’re spending on insurance claims, so much of that is coming back to them. So these levels of profit are just insane. And again, obviously we understand they’re a publicly traded company, they’ve got to make money for their investors and all that stuff, but there’s a limit and it certainly should not be at the abuses of individuals.

Bob Sansevere (08:36):

Absolutely not. And when I saw those numbers, my blood doesn’t boil too often, but it certainly was percolating because it’s just absolutely disgusting. Now, I’d mentioned before, I am a member of Solidarity HealthShare. If you happen to be tired of traditional healthcare and want to look into a great alternative, look into Solidarity HealthShare, you go to solidarityhealthshare.org. Chris was a co-founder along with two other, I mean, one of ’em is also people who have heard Dr. Oertle is on the show as well, and Brad had been on the show. And these are three guys that did it with great intentions. How many years has it been since you first, I know it’s longer, I’m sure than I’m thinking.

Chris Fadds (09:21):

Yeah, we launched as Solidarity. Of course, our founding came out of a little Mennonite church that’s been doing this since the seventies, but we launched a Solidarity in 2016, so we’re going on nine years this year. Yeah, so we’ll be finishing nine years this year, and I think we met you probably a year into that, so probably 2017.

Bob Sansevere (09:39):

It wasn’t long at all. It was-

Chris Fadds (09:40):

Shortly we started talking to your listeners

Bob Sansevere (09:43):

And I want to just let people know, solidarityhealthshare.org is the website. And Chris, do you have a number that they can call as well?

Chris Fadds (09:51):

Yeah, yeah. Give us a call at three one three four nine nine nine eight four four three one three four nine nine nine and get one of our lovely sales reps. There’s awesome people on that line to help you out.

Bob Sansevere (10:02):

And you will not have to go through a failing. To me. It’s like you’re going through one of these things they put mice in to sort of weave their way through.

Chris Fadds (10:11):

 It’s not like that at all. I think you hit option one. I think you only have to go through one option.

Bob Sansevere (10:15):

You will get people right away. So check that out. Chris, it’s always greatly appreciated. Chris Faddis is president and co-founder of Solidarity HealthShare at solidarityhealthshare.org. Take a quick break. The BS Show’ll be right back.

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Solidarity HealthShare is a non-profit healthcare sharing ministry rooted in the teachings of the Catholic Church. Established in 2016, we operate on the Catholic principles of solidarity and subsidiarity, in accordance with the Church’s commitment to promoting life-affirming, faith-based healthcare.

We strive to provide an ethical, community-driven alternative to traditional health insurance. Through direct Member-to-Member sharing, Members are able to access quality healthcare services while preserving their family’s financial, physical, and spiritual health, all at once. Members never need to worry about their healthcare dollars funding immoral medical procedures. We promote a holistic approach to healthcare, emphasizing the importance of physical, mental, and spiritual well-being.

At the heart of our ministry’s mission to restore and rebuild an authentically faith-based healthcare culture in America is the recognition that every single person has inherent human dignity. We seek to promote healthcare that honors the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death.

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