Scared celebs paying alleged Diddy victims to stay quiet, Ray J claims

 Ray J has claimed he knows of multiple celebrities who are so scared of their ties to Sean “Diddy” Combs that they’ve been offering accusers cash to stay quiet as part of a “catch and kill” scheme.

The R&B singer, who is friends with the fallen music mogul, told a new TMZ documentary that high-profile names have been reaching out to him after allegations started swirling that celebrities could have been part of Combs’ so-called “Freak-Off” sex parties.

“I’m hearing about artists paying victims to keep their names out of it,” the 43-year-old alleged in “TMZ Presents The Downfall of Diddy: Inside the Freak-Offs.”

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Ray J claimed to TMZ that he knows of multiple celebrities who are so scared of their ties to Sean “Diddy” Combs that they’ve been offering alleged victims cash to stay quiet as part of a “catch and kill” scheme.TMZ/Tubi

“Here’s what I do know, people do catch-and-kills all day … for the regular world, somebody has a truth, somebody pays you to keep it quiet and hopefully that money you got paid secures your happiness while you watch the lie continue to succeed.”

Asked if he knew of instances where women were coming to celebs with an ultimatum, Ray J suggested it was the unnamed stars actually going to alleged victims in a bid to cut them off first.

“Here’s the other way around that … ‘I’ll give you money, please don’t talk,'” he claimed of what the celebrities are allegedly doing.

Ray J, who once starred in a sex tape with Kim Kardashian, insinuated that the high-profile names are reaching out to him because of his friendship with Combs — and they fear he could be the reason their names potentially get leaked.

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Ray J and Combs attended the TAO and LAVO anniversary weekend held at TAO in the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino on October 3, 2009, in Las Vegas, Nevada.WireImage

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Ray J said when asked he if believed others thought of him as a possible “vessel” for leaks.

“And I don’t even know why I just said it, but I said it, so what. Now they’re gonna be mad.”

The singer refused to divulge names, or what behaviors the celebrities allegedly engaged in, saying instead, “I’ve said too much.”

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“I’m hearing about artists paying victims to keep their names out of it,” Ray J alleged in “TMZ Presents The Downfall of Diddy: Inside the Freak-Offs.”WireImage for Bragman Nyman Cafarelli

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The singer refused to divulge names, or what behaviors the celebrities allegedly engaged in.ZUMAPRESS.com / MEGA

It comes after Combs, who has pleaded not guilty, was slapped with federal sex trafficking charges in September.

The federal indictment against him detailed troubling allegations that Combs manipulated alleged victims and plied them with drugs to participate in “Freak-Offs” — violent sex sessions that were sometimes recorded against participants’ will.

Some have since alleged they witnessed celebrities at the sex-fueled parties.

Since his arrest, a flurry of civil lawsuits have also been filed against the Bad Boy Records founder alleging abuse dating back decades.

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Ray J insinuated that the high-profile names are reaching out to him, fearing he could be the reason their names potentially get leaked.TMZ/Tubi

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Combs was hit with federal sex trafficking charges in September.TMZ/Tubi

Combs’ lawyers have repeatedly derided the legal actions as “clear attempts to garner publicity.”

Combs, who is set to face trial next May, is being held without bail in federal custody in Brooklyn.

His lawyers didn’t immediately respond to The Post regarding Ray J’s claims.

https://nypost.com/2024/11/13/entertainment/ray-j-claims-scared-celebrities-are-paying-alleged-sean-diddy-combs-victims-to-stay-quiet/

Yet More Evidence That Price Controls Are Bad For Patients

 The Democrats' days in control of federal healthcare policy are numbered. But they were able to do quite a bit of damage during President Biden's term.

The scheme of price controls they've put in place for drugs dispensed through Medicare is a case in point. Ten drugs in Medicare Part D will be subject to price controls starting in 2026. More will be ensnared in every subsequent year.

There's no shortage of research illustrating the disastrous impact that price controls have on consumer welfare and the broader economy. The latest is a new paper from Georgetown University's Yunan Ji and Indiana University's Parker Rogers that examined 20 years of data to evaluate the impact of Medicare price cuts in the durable medical equipment industry.

The results are staggering. As revenue for DME manufacturers declined, so too did innovation and quality. It's a sobering reminder of how price controls work, and how they could wreak havoc in the pharmaceutical market.

From the outset, Ji and Rogers dispense with one of the most pernicious ideas in all of health policy: that because the United States spends a lot of money on health care, it must necessarily be wasting money.

The authors note that while conventional wisdom holds "that a substantial portion" of health spending "is 'wasteful,'" in reality "efforts to reduce spending may inadvertently suppress incentives for innovation—the driving force behind most advances in life expectancy and quality of care."

They specifically examine how Medicare's attempts to reduce spending on DME—things like oxygen tanks and glucose monitors—have ground advancement in the space to a halt.

Rogers and Ji note that, while Medicare did not impose price controls on DME, it functionally capped prices by harnessing its market power to underpay producers. The authors identify three "stages" of these de facto price controls: two across-the-board price cuts in 2009 and 2016, and the implementation of an auction system between 2011 and 2016.

They found that these payment reforms led to a 61% decrease in payment for affected devices—around a $2.5 billion difference. These payment reductions in turn led to a 25% decrease in new device introductions and a 75% decrease in patents.

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The study also considered "stock market valuations of patented innovations" and found that the price cuts led to economic "losses of $46 billion annually" which, as the authors note, is "substantial relative to the $3.8 billion Medicare savings."

This disjunction illuminates an important point about price controls. Whatever savings they may generate are dwarfed by the losses they bring about. In this case, we see not only that Medicare savings are considerably less than economic losses but also that price cuts led to a reduction of 53% in research and development funding. That's equivalent to $2.6 billion.

Lest these numbers distract from what these price cuts mean for patients, the authors lay it bare. Innovation in the DME space has made it possible for portable oxygen devices to replace "heavy, hazardous oxygen tanks," and for "continuous glucose monitors" to make obsolete "painful finger-stick tests."

It's hard to overstate how much these improvements have helped patients. But just because we've come this far does not mean we're reached the peak of DME technology. Without price caps, there's no telling how much farther this technology could advance.

"Policymakers must weigh the short-term benefits of cost savings against the long-term risks of stifling innovation, disrupting market structures, and compromising product quality," the authors write.

Of course, DME is not the only space where price caps are a live threat. As the authors observe, their "analysis provides valuable guidance for ongoing policy discussions, especially in light of proposed reforms such as those in the Inflation Reduction Act, which aim to reduce health care costs through price controls on pharmaceutical drugs." Price controls on the first ten drugs dispensed through Medicare Part D take effect in January 2026.

The Inflation Reduction Act's price controls could lead to the development of 135 fewer drugs by the end of 2039, according to research from University of Chicago Professor Emeritus Tomas Philipson.

As with DME, this effort to achieve short-term savings will hurt patients in the long run. Government intervention can cut costs in the moment. But it does so at the expense of future treatments and cures.

Sally Pipes is the Pacific Research Institute’s president, CEO and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care policy

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sallypipes/2024/11/12/yet-more-evidence-that-price-controls-are-bad-for-patients/