The entire healthcare industry is built on anti competitive practices like unnecessary gatekeeping (like needing to see a doctor repeatedly to renew prescriptio

The entire healthcare industry is built on anti competitive practices like unnecessary gatekeeping (like needing to see a doctor repeatedly to renew prescriptions), stringent licensing that restricts the supply of people to treat you (each assistant role that reduces costs was fought against), lack of transparency (no explicit up front pricing to enable competition), unnecessary intermediaries (insurers, PBMs, etc), and a whole lot more. One thing that shocked me is my local university hospital network refusing to tell me what data of mine was stolen in a breach of their systems. They said they do not answer questions about individual patients and just have a generic notice to share. These organizations really think they are untouchable and have no regard for anything except money. Given the kind of culture that is prevalent in American healthcare, I am not at all surprised that the entire industry has dragged its feet on letting patients control their own data. I hope this HHS starts making examples of companies and their executives. But I don’t hold much hope either - in the end, these industry is too entrenched in politics to suffer any consequences.