So, have you ever scalped a pair of tickets for a baseball game?

Better yet - have you ever scalped some cancer drugs to save your life?

That's right - scalping drugs is the latest "get rich quick scheme" in our distorted health care system that's costing tens of thousands of people their lives every year - but it's making big bucks for doctors, health insurance providers, and pharmaceutical companies.

Right now there are more than a half million cancer patients in the United States who cannot get the medication they need to save their lives.

And the reason is - companies are buying up all the drugs at wholesale - and then trying to sell them back to hospitals and patients at anywhere between 650 to 4,000 percent above what they paid for it.

They're the scalpers - and they operate in a "grey market" - without safety regulations - calling up hospitals all around the nation to pass off their drugs at these new super-high prices.

And here's the kicker - it's perfectly legal.

Nobody's on a dark street corner - nobody's using an alias - it's right out in the open - all while cancer patients are dying because suddenly they can't afford - or even find - the medication that they need.

Oncologists - cancer doctors - have their own little scheme going too, their own game - they've been doing something similar to this for years.

Because chemotherapy drugs can be hazardous - oncologists - cancer doctors - are one of the few types of doctors who can legally sell the drugs that they prescribe - so they got in the habit of boosting their bottom lines by buying the generic cancer drugs at a low price - and then selling them to their patients and billing the patients and the health insurance companies or Medicare at a much higher price.

It's why so many oncologists are millionaires.

So when the Bush Administration got wise to the scheme in 2003 and Medicare was getting squeezed by it - they told the oncologists that from now on Medicare would only reimburse for the cost of the cancer drug plus 6% costs, basically the cost to administer it, put the needle in - so what do you think the doctors did?

They stopped buying the generic drugs - they went to big Pharma and said, give us the expensive stuff.

After all - why, if you can make 6%, why make 6% off a drug that costs a few hundred bucks a dose - when you can make 6% off a drug that costs a few thousand dollars a dose?

So demand for the cheaper generics collapsed, and the drug companies stopped making them.

So now - there's a shortage of generic cancer drugs.

I guess the oncologists didn't get the memo that saving peoples' lives comes first - having a vacation home in the Bahamas comes second.

Pharmaceutical companies also got in on this scheme.

Whenever the patent on one of their designer drugs is about to expire - they slow down their production line or they hoard their inventory - so that there's a shortage - just in time for their new, super-expensive replacement designer drug to come out.

If you have a kid or know somebody with ADHD, for example, you've seen this played out a decade ago with a Ritalin shortage and now it's an Adderal shortage.

Thanks to all these schemes - run by doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and scalpers - actual legal scalpers - over the last five years prescription drug shortages - and in particular cancer drug shortages - have tripled.

And people are dying.

These are all examples of what happens when you let the so-called free market run our healthcare system.

When the profit motive is put above the healing motive - whether it's for the doctors, the drug companies or whatever - and Americans will continue to die - and scammers will continue to get rich - as long as the United States doesn't join the rest of the developed world and adopt a single-payer healthcare system.

Do you know, Europe doesn't have a problem with scalpers - they don;t have a problem with oncologists gaming their patients - because there's basically only one drug purchaser in the market place in most European countries - and that's the government - and it's elected by and represents the people, so it has to be responsive to them.

There's a price for the drug - there's no middle-man trying to turn a quick profit - and there's no doctor who forgot the Hippocratic oath hoarding chemo drugs in the back room of their offices.

Everybody gets paid what they deserve - doctors make really good money - and patients get the care they need.

That's what we need in America - and it would be really easy to make it happen.

Ever heard of Medicare?

Just add an "E" to the end of it - Medicare Part E - Medicare for everybody.

Drop the eligibility age from 65 down to zero - you're covered the moment you're born.

End the drug shortages - and leave the scalping to the sports fans.

That's The Big Picture.