By Sydney Lupkin Kaiser Health News March 13, 2018 As a health economist, Karen Van Nuys had heard that it’s sometimes cheaper to pay cash at the pharmacy counter than to put down your insurance card and pay a copay. So one day, she asked her pharmacist how much her prescription would cost if she...Read More
By Reed Abelson The New York Times March 6, 2018 In response to growing consumer frustration over drug prices, UnitedHealthcare, one of the nation’s largest health insurers, said on Tuesday that it would stop keeping millions of dollars in discounts it gets from drug companies and share them with its customers. Dan Schumacher, the president of...Read More
By Robert Pear The New York Times February 24, 2018 WASHINGTON — As consumers face rapidly rising drug costs, states across the country are moving to block “gag clauses” that prohibit pharmacists from telling customers that they could save money by paying cash for prescription drugs rather than using their health insurance. Many pharmacists have expressed...Read More
By Casey Ross StatNews February 16, 2018 As Washington’s interest in drug prices has spiked in recent years, a largely invisible industry has suddenly found itself in the spotlight. Pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, are the middlemen who stand between manufacturers and consumers in the nation’s drug business. And they’ve been blamed by pharma companies for...Read More
Cancer is frightening in the abstract, and even more so when it becomes your reality. Three years ago, I was diagnosed at a relatively young age with late-stage colon cancer and have since gone through extensive treatments.Read More
Small and innovative biopharmaceutical companies across California are currently investing in the life-saving treatments of tomorrow, creating well-paying jobs throughout the state and spurring economic growth.Read More
"By focusing on list prices [in SB 17], Sen. Ed Hernandez distorts true costs, failing to ask whether drug discounts and rebates reach patients, or are pocketed by middlemen."Read More
"The California Assembly is currently considering SB 17 that’s being deceptively sold under the label of drug pricing transparency." - Op-Ed in the San Diego Union-TribuneRead More
"SB 17 would mean less innovation, less economic growth and less investment in our world-leading bioscience sector. It’s bad medicine for California."Read More
Senate Bill 17, currently under consideration by the legislature, will not do anything to address the price that California consumers actually pay for medicine, and could jeopardize patient access to critical innovative medications.Read More
"SB 17 is unlikely to result in lower drug prices. But it is highly likely it could drive down investment in new companies, reduce employment and slow development of new cures and treatments."Read More
