It's easy to blame so-called Big Medicine for our healthcare affordability crisis. These large vertically integrated companies, such as CVS Health and UnitedHealth Group, combine healthcare providers, insurers that pay for care, and middlemen who help negotiate prices. This setup is, unsurprisingly, prone to conflicts of interest, where the parent company benefits by paying itself and taking a cut of negotiated rebates at the patient's expense. The stories of these ethically questionable dealings are also well known, and include patients being tricked into paying higher prices for generic drugs or steered to affiliate practices against their wishes.

Considering these unscrupulous business practices, it's no wonder that the Break Up Big Medicine Act has bipartisan support. Even Mark Cuban, self-titled disrupter of healthcare, has been vocal in his support for the legislation and the politicians who support it. He argues that breaking up Big Medicine will increase patient choice and competition in healthcare. But that is where Cuban and his political allies are wrong.

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Colleen Smith, MD, is a Clinical Policy Analyst at the Center for Modern Health.