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It's troubling that among Americans over 64, a full 25% struggle to afford their medicines, according to a poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation. A separate analysis by the Department of Health and Human Services put the number of Medicare patients struggling with pharmacy costs at more than three million in 2019. (Kenneth Thorpe, 10/7)

There’s been a lot of attention on the federal government’s move to set price limits on 10 prescription drugs under Medicare to help reduce costs. While it’s encouraging to see some relief for a segment of consumers, this is merely a drop in the bucket when it comes to overall prescription drug cost savings – and more needs to be done to help Floridians. (Keith Dean, 10/4)

While insurers and their related entities should have the ability to question fraudulent or unnecessary treatments, they should not artificially inflate patient out-of-pocket costs to boost their profits. However, this is precisely what pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) — the middlemen negotiating drug prices with pharmaceutical companies — are doing. (Dodson Thompson, 10/3)

As director of the Health Outcomes, Policy, and Evidence Synthesis group at the University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy, I teach and study about the ethics of prescription drug prices and the complexities of drug pricing nationally. (C. Michael White, 10/3)