Rock. I'd love to know how come
rock stars never go bald. Ozzy, Robert Plant,
Paul McCartney, Steven Tyler... They all have more hair
than I did at 15. Mick Jagger loses
soccer games every day, but doesn't lose
a single strand of hair. Keith Richard's head is still
full of hair, even after a life of Marlboros and injecting drugs. Someday, we'll find out that
the best medicine for hair loss is heroin. I'd love to see what would happen
in the Congress, or at Faria Lima, then. Guess we'd see a "heroinerie"
at every corner of São Paulo. "Here, we work with gourmet needles,
blowtorched copper spoons, our famous heroin truffles..." "Come on, Gregório, people
wouldn't become heroin addicts just to avoid hair loss". Look... I take finasteride, which can cause impotence
and increase one's breasts. You think I wouldn't prick
myself if that'd give me Iggy Pop's mane, for instance? "Ew, but you have to pierce
the skin to use heroin!" Honey, people already
do that to avoid hair loss. They get hair plugs.
They pierce the head's skin and stick hair in the scalp,
strand by strand, and it ends up looking like shit.
And what's worse? No waves. You think people wouldn't
stick some heroin here? As if! As you might've guessed,
I'm not really a rock expert. I see rock festivals' line-ups
and recognize no one. "'Rumble Flutters' who?
'Robic Lockles' what?" It's all Greek to me. Sometimes I think
it's because I'm old, but then I see
the festivals' audience and think, "No, maybe
it's because I'm young!" Because, funnily enough, liking rock
kind of became an old fogey's pastime. Back in my day, old people
listened to oldies stations. Now, they listen to Metallica.
Which makes no sense, since rock'n'roll began as music
made by black youngsters - which white men hated,
by the way! It's like, in 50 years,
right-wing geezers only listening to Poze do Rodo funk. "I only listen to Kevin O Chris!
Those were the days! We would go to 'Baile da Gaiola'
intent on getting laid!" Anyway, I don't know
any more rock bands. It was only when writing
this show that I found out that there is a Brazilian band
that managed to be featured both in Lollapalooza
and Rock in Rio, in addition to serving as the opening
act in the Brazilian tour of Guns N' Roses, Black Sabbath,
and the Rolling Stones! Yep. That band did all that,
and I'd never heard of them. And you probably haven't, either. The band's called "Doctor Pheabes".
Ever heard of 'em? Didn't think so. And most curious of all:
all members are doctors and dentists. You can just TELL
they're doctors - I've never heard such generic
rock music in my life. And you can also tell
they're dentists, because their sound sounds a lot
like that classic dentist sound... Listening to them
makes me miss that sound. I liked their
previous hit better... It was more pleasing to the ears. But how did that band manage
to open for Rolling Stones with music that reminds
one of tooth filling? "Oh, maybe they're actually
very popular among dentists, full of followers"... Well, no. They only have 11k Instagram followers,
and 3k subscribers on YouTube. It makes no sense. How did they do it?
Well, they paid for it. That's not me saying it, but their
very own vocalist, Eduardo Parrillo. "If you think we only did the
opening act because we financed it, that is true. Whatever. Which band
should play, if not us?" Well, basically any band
that didn't need to pay. But just so I don't sound
prejudiced against your band, let me just say that a review
of one of their Rock in Rio shows said that Supla, of all people,
stole their thunder during the show. Not that the band COULD steal thunder.
They'd already bought it. But how did those guys raise enough
money to play at Rock in Rio? Which, by the way, should have
its name changed to "Rock in Rich", both for ticket prices, and what they're
charging for people to play there. Anyway - they didn't raise
enough money to pay Medina doing gigs at bars. Nor did they amass
that fortune by filling teeth. You might not have
heard of the band, but surely you know
the band members' company. Doctor Pheabes's
vocalist and guitarist are the owners of Prevent Senior, the healthcare provider
that's been in the center of the latest scandals in the
COVID corruption investigation, being accused
of a myriad of iniquities, including using old people
as unwitting lab rats and speeding up the deaths
of COVID patients by shoving chloroquine
down their throats, and O2 up their recta. Oh, how I miss the days when people said
rockers'd stick heroin in their arms, rather than O2
in other people's asses. But before making headlines
as a horror story, Prevent Senior
was a success story. It started as a healthcare plan
specifically aimed at the elderly, with relatively affordable
monthly plans, under 1,000 reais. Hence "Senior" -
fancy talk for "elderly". Couldn't be calling it "Prevent Geezer".
Wouldn't be as charming. And curious how
Prevent Senior opted to specialize in patients who, in theory,
are the most expensive. In their final
four months of life, people spend half the health
expenses of their entire lives. That's why, according to all experts
in the field who we've talked to, healthcare plans don't really
care for elderly clients, since they make use of their plans
more often than they pay monthly fees. Which is why, as we get older, healthcare plan costs skyrocket, reaching up to many thousands
of reais past our sixties. A healthcare plan
for the elderly can cost almost five times as much
as one for the young, which has made
beneficiaries drop their plans due to being unable
to pay for increases. And that is especially cruel, because it's the elderly who
most desperately need the plans. It's like a gym not
accepting muscle-heads. "Sorry, we only take
couch potatoes. Those biceps... clearly you'd
get us in the red, so, no". Well, in that gap between
the elderly wanting healthcare plans and healthcare plans wanting
nothing to do with the elderly, Prevent Senior blew up. And that happened while the median age
in Brazil has been rapidly increasing - the number of Brazilian
elders grows nonstop. Even you, young viewer,
is growing old right now, even if you're called Enzo. It sounds weird, but one day,
"Enzo" will be an old man's name. Everybody will have
a "Grandpa Enzo". Heck, maybe we'll have a
"president Enzo" - a "presidenzo". Statistically, you're likely
to vote for a "presidenzo". After all, "Jair" and "Regina"
were, at one point, baby names. "Jair" was "Enzo" once. 70 years ago,
daycares were full of Veras, or Gregórios... No, scratch that.
Gregório's always been an "old" name. Gregórios are born 80,
like Onofres and Apolinários. Weirdly enough, I was born Gregório.
It must've been so weird. I vaguely remember that kids at the
daycare didn't give me "good morning", but "bless me, sir!" Anyway. Prevent's revenue quadrupled
between 2014 and 2020, and profits, too, increased
at an astronomical rate, reaching almost
500 million reais last year - an impressive record, reached
while the company's target audience was the most affected
by the disease that most rapidly hospitalized
and killed Brazilians in history. Prevent Senior is currently Brazil's
ninth biggest healthcare provider, caring for over 500 thousand
people, mostly elders. They have an army
of Mrs. Ruths and Mr. Valdirs. And by what miracle are they
managing to prosper so much, and profit so much,
off of the elderly, who cost the most
for any healthcare plan? We did some press research to uncover
Prevent's secret for all that growth. Over the last decade,
many news stories were published, mostly very positive ones,
exploring the company's success. Valor Econômico's story was, "Going against the flow,
Prevent Senior survives and thrives". Istoé, meanwhile, used
this gem of a headline: "Neither 'old' nor 'elderly' -
call it 'opportunity'". Which is a terrible idea. Don't try
to call an old person "opportunity". They won't answer. "Excuse, Mr. Opportunity?
Yes, you". "Sorry, you can't park here, because
you aren't opportunity yet, ma'am". According to those pieces,
Prevent's secret is that they have their own
network of facilities, including eight emergency centers and 12 hospitals from the
"Sancta Maggiore" network. A name that sounds like it means
nothing, but surprise! It really doesn't. They made it up. I mean, there is
an actual Saint Mary Maggiore, but no Mary-less "Maggiore",
much less a "Sancta", which is a made-up Italian word! They fabricated an Italian
and religious-sounding name, but which is neither. It's like "Häagen-Dazs"
which is Danish for... nothing. It's an American company
whose owner came up with a Danish-sounding name
so that his products sounded foreign, and thus,
he could price them higher. So very "sancta-monious" of him. Anyway - thanks to that
model of being both healthcare provider
and hospital owner, Prevent seemingly managed
to keep costs relatively low, avoiding, as described
by an Exame piece, "losses thanks to
unnecessary exams". Not to be confused with "unnecessary
Exame". That's the magazine. It's the so-called
verticalization of health services: a single company handling
everything for the patient, from the health insurance,
to scheduling, to exams, to transportation, to surgeries. But the testimony of Prevent's doctors,
patients, and directors to the CPI brought to light a possible new
reason behind their profits, and it doesn't seem to be by
"avoiding unnecessary procedures". According to the reports, Prevent has
been avoiding necessary procedures, which definitely
does lower costs. One of the most revealing
reports to the CPI was this one, by Bruna Morato, lawyer of the doctors
who reported the company. And they reported that for
patients who were hospitalized in certain intensive care units for over 10 to 14 days, it was recommended
to reduce oxygenation. In other words, they would
slowly reduce oxygen supply. Those patients, according
to doctors' reports, would depart in the ICU,
freeing beds. Yep: according
to Prevent doctors, when COVID-infected elderly
were admitted for too long, the company's recommendation was for
doctors to reduce their oxygen supplies, which is a soft way of saying
that they'd let patients die, which is a soft way of saying
that they'd kill their clients who were rudely
insisting on living. According to various doctors
who worked for the company, they were told to reduce
their oxygen until, as the lawyer says
in very legal, neutral words, they'd "depart". Didn't get what she meant? Then try listening to this
testimony by Tadeu Andrade, a Prevent Senior patient who
had a serious case of COVID. It'll become clear. At Prevent Senior,
the doctor contacted my family, telling them that I'd need to be
transferred to a "hybrid bed", for palliative care. So, my equipment
would be turned off, they'd apply morphine
in me, and I'd die. My family riled up against them, threatening to take it to court,
to file for an injunction, to tell the media,
so they backed down. Now, I'm alive. All that was left was
to prescribe a pillow to his face. "Sorry, sir, your plan
doesn't cover surviving". According to Tadeu's
CPI testimony, his family hired
a non-Prevent doctor who told them there was no reason
to consider Tadeu's case irreversible. It was just a complicated case
that'd require care, and care is expensive. It's cheaper
for the patient to just die. Since the case
wasn't irreversible, then it wasn't right to say
he'd get "palliative care". That's a different thing. That's legitimate,
humane medical actions, consisting in treating one's
pain and discomfort even when nothing else can
be done to save their life. Administering palliative care does not
mean speeding up a patients' death. That has a different name.
But I can't say it here, or our legal team will
administer palliative care on me. The doctors' lawyer made
Prevent's philosophy regarding palliative
care quite clear, though still under
her neutral lawyer speak. The one expression I often
heard being utilized was: "a death is also a discharge". So, it sounds like that's how you
turn the elderly into "opportunities", and make billions with them: by vacating ICU beds ASAP. After all, "a death
is also a discharge". In a way, it was obvious
that Prevent's billionaire model could be hiding a dark secret. After all, some areas of life
are simply not profitable, elderly healthcare being
the clearer example of one. It's basically impossible for the
adequate care of an elderly person to be profitable, unless the person
pays insane amounts. So much so that even the US, the
model nation for pro-market ideology, the only rich country without a big,
accessible public healthcare system, has a small exception in the capitalism
that rules over everything else: elderly healthcare. American elders have
the right for Medicare, a health insurance
exclusive to people over 65, one that is subsidized
by the government. Not even Republicans, who are
completely against State intervention, have the gall to be
against Medicare. They know that offering profitable
health insurance for the elderly is an almost impossible task,
and that serving older clients would end up breaking
the insurance plans themselves. Plus, they wouldn't be
crazy enough to do that, because if everyone
over 65 started dying off, who would vote
for the Republicans? The only way to turn
the elderly into "opportunity" is by taking measures to free up
beds, rather than to treat people. By working while denying treatments that
can save lives, as they're expensive. And when the insurance's manager
owns the hospital as well, then there's a very twisted
incentive for the hospital to spend the least it can
on patients during hospitalization. And that seems to be the result of
Prevent's "innovating business model": the faster a patient dies,
the more the company's CEO profits. So maybe next year
you'll see their band opening the Coachella - because during the pandemic,
Prevent Senior thrived even more than
they had been before. Prevent drew in
so many new clients that they opened
two new hospitals, in addition to expanding
their coverage from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro, Brasília,
Curitiba, Porto Alegre, and Santos. Yes, Charlie Brown Jr.'s
hometown. And like the band'd say, "I see what they talk about old people
on TV, and it ain't serious. Old people aren't taken
seriously in Brazil". The group has also announced the
construction of "Prevent Senior Town", which the company's guitarist-CEO
called a "Disneyland for seniors". But a "Disneyland for seniors"
already exists - it's called "SESC Copacabana". I'm not saying that every
private healthcare provider follows Prevent's model. We all know that some of Brazil's
best hospitals are private, such as Albert Einstein,
Sírio-Libanês, and Moinhos de Vento. But they aren't COMPANIES.
They're all foundations. They were created by communities
and are managed by councils, that afford them
thanks to donations, and they all have clinical staff
unaffected by the logic of profit, with the autonomy to do whatever's
necessary for the patient's well-being. The boss of any given
Albert Einstein doctor doesn't own their patients'
healthcare plan. That boss doesn't pay
the bills of the procedures the doctors utilize
to save their patients. When a doctor helps a patient through
the use of an expensive procedure, the doctor's boss doesn't berate
them for "increasing costs". Witnesses who testified
to the CPI didn't accuse Prevent of just denying adequate treatment
for patients who could still be saved. Another accusation
raised against Prevent was that they'd have carried out
medical experiments, without the consent
of the patients or their families, to prove the efficacy
of chloroquine through an adulterated study
that omitted important results. That same study was of special interest
to the Federal Government, who by this point was,
of course, very close to Prevent. Bolsonaro sees a mess, wants
to be part of it. By all indicators! According to witnesses,
right when the pandemic began, when many Prevent patients
started dying of COVID, surveillance over
the company reported overcrowding, overcharged staff, and disorganized
hospital activity. Relatives of patients have also
reported that the hospitals didn't inform them of the
severity of their disease, and even allowed for visitors as usual,
facilitating contamination. São Paulo's Municipal Department
went as far as requesting intervention in three of Prevent's hospitals. Even then-Minister of Health
Luiz Henrique Mandetta suggested an intervention
in the hospitals. Just goes to show - Brazil is
so bad, we even miss Mandetta! The lawyer who's representing
12 Prevent doctors in the CPI claimed that after Mandetta's
criticism, back in 2020, the company's execs
attempted to approach Mandetta, unsuccessfully. During that same period,
those same execs would have learned that
there was a shadow office advising Bolsonaro. And so, they decided
to go seek those guys. And by all indicators, that shadow
office was comprised of doctors, such as Nise Yamaguchi,
Paulo Zanotto, and Anthony Wong, who, coincidentally, advocate
for the so-called "early treatment". They'd advise Bolsonaro
to oppose vaccines. And according to witnesses,
that group also included doctors from the
Federal Council of Medicine - the people who SHOULD be ensuring
medical ethics amidst the chaos. Yes, it looks like a government body
meant to stop a supposed shadow office may have been part
of that supposed office. According to reports,
they were all perfectly aligned with Ministry of Economy
Paulo Guedes. Who probably also sees
retirees dying as "discharges". Because for him,
high inflation and high dollar exchange rates
are also "discharges" of sorts. Coincidentally, or not, 16 days after Mandetta publicly
criticized Prevent Senior, Bolsonaro fired him
off the Ministry. On that same day,
the Federal Council of Medicine requested an emergency
meeting with Bolsonaro, and soon after,
approved the order for doctors to prescribe the
so-called "COVID kit" to COVID-19. And the first company
to puff their chest and declare that they were saving
hundreds of lives with chloroquine? Yep - Prevent Senior. Doctor Pedro Batista Junior,
Prevent's executive director, even made a point of stressing
that the company had "great relations with the Ministry,
with the Federal Government, and with all governments!" So good those relations were
that, on that occasion, Bolsonaro himself
published this on Facebook, celebrating how Prevent Senior
had managed to reduce deaths by COVID to zero
through the use of chloroquine. Bolsonaro cites data
from the study that indicate that the group of patients who didn't
use chloroquine saw five deaths, while the patients
who used it had zero. But the information we have today
indicate that Prevent omitted at least seven patient
deaths in the study. So, looks like we had some
fraud. Why, you ask? Probably so that the result would be
the one Bolsonaro wanted to hear. The study started being carried out
without the Ethics Committee's approval, and many patients and their families
report that they weren't informed that they were being
used as lab rats, which violates ethical
research principles. Yes, it seems like harmless
senior citizens were used as lab rats without their consent, and had the real
reason behind their deaths omitted, their families fooled,
all so that the relationship between Prevent Senior and the
Federal Government remained, in Pedro Batista's
words, "great". And here's the key point:
the importance of medical autonomy, which Prevent itself
defends so passionately when they claim that doctors have
the "right" to prescribe chloroquine to a patient with COVID,
despite no proven effectiveness... That autonomy really is
fundamental to the medical sector, and it applies both for
doctors and their patients. But what we've learned at the
COVID CPI seem to indicate that the opposite happened
at Prevent Senior: patients had no autonomy. According to Prevent's CEO, treatments were omitted both
from patients and their families, and ID codes for diseases
were altered, which means that death
certificates were fraudulent, all in order to omit COVID-19. As for medical autonomy, doctors
seemed to have anything but. According to reports, Prevent would impose on their staff
to prescribe the so-called COVID kit, and retaliate against those who
disobeyed, even by firing them. They had so little autonomy
that 12 doctors claimed they were even forced
to sing the company's anthem, which is this wonderful
work of art. And together, we will stay And together, we will win With swords and with cannons We are the guardians Yes, it's an anthem, but it super
sounds like a funeral march. "We will..." It's weird, doctors
having an anthem, but the anthem itself
is even weirder, which is not only funeral-ish,
but also mentions swords and cannons. What doctor uses those?!
If it was "catheter and scalpel", then fine,
but swords and cannons?! What world do they live in?
So medieval! "I'll have to operate him, Ronaldo.
Hand me my hatchet!" But if you recall
Dr. Pheabes, the band, then it's understandable why they
force their staff to sing that thing. It's the only chance
those guys have of having an audience
singing one of their songs. The staff is like
their paid fan club. Instead of an Onlyfans,
they have and "Onlystaff"! After a group of doctors decided
to report Prevent's actions, Mr. Pedro Benedito
Batista Júnior, Prevent's executive director, was recorded talking to a doctor who had given a revealing
interview about Prevent, and Pedro admonishes
his former subordinate's actions and demands company
loyalty from him! Don't be like that.
Think about it. This company built your life.
You've just forgotten it. That over the last
eight, nine years, you were only able to get a house
and stability with your family thanks to the company! You could only pay
for school thanks to it. That is so sad of you. It says a lot that
the company's CEO called the staff member
who reported on it not to express his
surprise over the claims, or anger over his subordinate
for possibly making up such a story, but to beg him to be
nicer to the company, that was supposedly
so nice to him, as if saying, "you really won't show
any gratitude for what we've done?" That's the difference between calling
someone a liar, and a snitch. That's what it looks like.
And it isn't just Prevent that seems to have bent to the
Federal Government's policies, ignoring scientific evidence - the FCM's very own director,
without a hint of shame, admitted that,
back then, the council, that was supposed to act only
based on scientific evidence, was making decisions
aligned with the government to support Bolsonaro. And President Bolsonaro has welcomed us
at the Presidential Palace five times since he came to power,
a year and four months ago. All of our requests were
granted by the President. All of them. He's never said,
"No, I can't grant you this". Not once. And so, things become
so much easier, because when
there's communication, before norms are established,
we have the opportunity of agreeing upon
what will be proposed. And that's the path we're following
in the Bolsonaro government. So, the Federal Council of Medicine
does, indeed, support the Ministry of Health
and the President, because we now communicate. Yep. The Federal Council
of Medicine supports Bolsonaro because the President
never tells them "no". I'm curious, now - so the FCM never told the President to wear
a goddamn mask, for instance? Never asked him to tell
people to stay home? Or to not slash
the public health budget? That didn't occur
for them to ask?! Then what DID you ask for,
Mr. FCM director? "Hi, Mr. President, can you send my mom
a video of yours? She's a big fan! Guys, he sent it! We'll have to support
him - he grants our requests!" Anyway, by all indicators, it was
in that supposed shadow office that people gathered so that Prevent
Senior's uber-profitable model would become Brazil's
main public healthcare directive. While fighting the biggest
health threat in history! Yes, during the pandemic,
the government allowed for the public health budget -
which funds SUS - to be slashed. Over 25 billion reais of it,
to be exact. But who needs SUS, when you already
have Prevent Senior's stellar service? That all sounds
a lot like a horror movie, which may explain
Parrillo's band's name. In case you don't remember,
"Dr. Pheabes", his band, was named after a horror movie. It tells the story of a man who
loses his wife due to a medical error. He then decides to get revenge
on the doctors responsible by killing each one of them with tortures inspired
by the Plagues of Egypt. Rats, frogs, bats... Yeah, if I was the Parrillo brothers,
I'd change the band's name, and pray that the victims' families
never watched the movie, so they wouldn't get any ideas... But rock bottom's still further down,
because Prevent Senior's case, shocking as it is,
isn't an isolated incident. The incentives that led to Prevent's
rise and flourish are everywhere. They're in the scrapping
of the public healthcare system, and also in the seizing
of the National Health Agency, ANS - which, by the way, ignored
reports against Prevent Senior until it all blew up in the CPI. In Brazil's healthcare market,
we're seeing more and more people making life-or-death
decisions taking only finances and investor
profits into account. Prevent only managed to get this far
thanks to hidden support from the media, investors, and all of the
public debate in Brazil, while it established
a successful business model based on the collapse
of the public system! Many believed in that illusion
that it was totally feasible to give the healthcare
of all Brazilian senior citizens to people who only
think about profits. So much so that amidst
that whole scandal, many of Prevent's patients
defended the company. A group called "Prevent Friends" - which should honestly be called
"Prevent Survivors" - boasts 54,000 members
on Facebook, promoting a petition
that requests "greater responsibility
in the ascertainment and disclosure, out of respect for the thousands
of beneficiaries who may be affected". They're afraid of being
left with no insurance. Just imagine how
helpless someone must be to defend a company that
is charged by its own staff of committing
all of those atrocities. But if I were him,
I wouldn't make that much noise, because if Prevent finds out that
there are still 54,000 clients living, I think they'd take measures. I think it's better to just
lay low, play dead. Heck, if I were them, I wouldn't even
accept any coffee they'd offer me, because the other side
of that same insanity was a new scandal that
came to light last week, after we found out
that numerous Brazilians - entrepreneurs,
members of the government - kept some their fortune
in foreign banks. It's the "Pandora Papers scandal".
What's the connection, you ask? Well, among them are, yes,
Prevent Senior's president and Paulo Guedes. Paulo Guedes, the same
multimillionaire minister who allowed for the health budget
to be slashed during a pandemic. He sent his money to a tax haven so that he wouldn't have to
contribute to the budget he slashed. I mean, that he
allowed to be slashed. How to leave that mess? The least we expect is that all of those declared
guilty are punished, but that's the minimum. Because their
punishment won't fix the issue. Who'll keep the profits that were
obtained through that macabre scheme? That's why, in this case, it isn't
enough to just punish the individuals. They also have to hold
the company accountable, especially because, in this case,
the individual is the company. Prevent is a VERY
private company. There isn't a council
of shareholders that can take down the rocker brothers
who profit off of that model. They're the owners.
There's no other way. Should the accusations
be proven true, the company has to be held
accountable as a company. After all, its business
model produce the worst incentives possible
for its medical staff, and their clients, too, need to know
that they won't be left behind. For that, ANS has to do
the bare minimum, intervening so as to ensure
that other insurance providers can provide good coverage
for the elderly who pay for Prevent, and if those providers say that
they can't do that without grants, ANS could confiscate
the 500 million reais in profits that the Parrillo brothers
made during 2020 alone for that. The worst part is, it's very likely
that that kind of grant is needed, because, in truth, the traditional
healthcare plan model is unfeasible. Because many private hospitals
also have financial incentives to increase the prices
of insurance plans, creating ways to inflate
their patients' cost. So, verticalized models
such as Prevent Senior's, in which the insurance
company owns the hospital, have incentives for doctors
to cut necessary expenses, which, as we've just
seen, is tragic. But the traditional
insurance model can also encourage doctors
to create unnecessary expenses. Neither works, and, most of all, neither works
to provide care for the elderly in a way that's
accessible and right. And that's not a problem we can
solve through monitoring alone - no amount of monitoring
can fix a system with structurally
twisted incentives. Therefore, if there's one thing
we can take from the Prevent scandal, besides "always doubt
Exame's stories", is that the only healthcare model we
can count on for our own golden years is non-profit healthcare. Even young people
with private plans now will most likely be unable
to pay for it when they're 65. Unless it's a plan that lets
you die without oxygen, just to save costs. We'll only see
hope for a solution when Brazilian society
understands that it has, as obligation and interest, protecting
the healthcare of the elderly. That needs to be a team effort,
with the State's support. It doesn't need to cost
an arm and a leg, but it can't, and won't,
generate profit. Healthcare companies are simply
not the model we can't count on. In a country with a strong
and well-financed healthcare system, they'd never have flourished
to the point of making billions of reais to only a few people,
at the expense of all of society. It's time we reduce
the oxygen of those companies and put them in palliative care, giving a fitting end to a sector
whose days should already be counted. That's it for this Greg News.
