When a patient walks into a local medical clinic, they assume the person making the decisions about their care is the physician wearing the white coat. Increasingly, that assumption is dead wrong. Behind the scenes, the person calling the shots is a corporate bean-counter working for a massive, vertically integrated insurance cartel thousands of miles away.

The rapid corporate takeover of American medicine has reached a crisis point. Research compiled by the Physicians Advocacy Institute shows that more than 82% of U.S. physicians are now employed by corporate entities or hospital systems. This alarming consolidation has uprooted the traditional model of independent private practice. The shift has triggered a high-stakes legislative battle in Washington, headlined by the bipartisan Break Up Big Medicine Act, co-sponsored by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO).