Billionaire Mark Cuban’s 5-step plan to make healthcare affordable targets drug middlemen’s ‘contractual terrorism’

Mark Cuban says many of the customers flooding his low-cost pharmacy have something in common: They already have insurance.

And they’re still better off paying cash.

“They come to us because our cash price is often lower than what their insurance plan asks them to pay,” Cuban told Texas House lawmakers on Sept.

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“That tells you something is wrong.” The billionaire Cost Plus Drugs cofounder and former Shark Tank star used the hearing to prescribe five steps to fix America’s healthcare affordability crisis , which has left a record 51% of U.S. adults unable to reliably afford quality care, according to West Health-Gallup.

Many of his remedies share a common active ingredient: transparency.

Mark Cuban’s 5-step plan to fix healthcare costs Let insured patients choose the cheapest option—without penalty.

If a prescription costs $500 through insurance but $100 through Cost Plus Drugs, patients should be able to take the cheaper route and have that spending count toward their deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums.

“Patients should be rewarded for saving themselves and their health plan money.

They shouldn’t be punished for it,” Cuban said.

“That’s how you create something healthcare desperately needs: price competition.” Standardize contracts for drug middlemen.

Cuban wants standardized contracts for pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and third-party administrators.

Three PBMs—CVS Caremark, Cigna’s Express Scripts, and UnitedHealth’s OptumRx—handle roughly 80% of U.S. drug claims .

Their contracts can run hundreds of pages, making harmful terms easy to bury.