The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.
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To contain the opioid crisis, health and law enforcement agencies have turned to technology to monitor doctor and patient prescription data. Experts have raised questions about how these systems work and worry about their accuracy and potential biases. Some patients and doctors say they鈥檙e being unfairly targeted.
A Colorado board has named five drugs it will review for affordability and potential cost caps. But patients with cystic fibrosis worry they will lose access to a life-changing therapy.
Brand-name drug prices in the U.S. 鈥 more than three times the price in other developed countries 鈥 are related neither to the amount of research and development required to bring them to market nor their therapeutic value, recent research shows. Have drugmakers overplayed their hand?
A federal appeals court issued a split decision on whether the abortion pill mifepristone should remain on the market 鈥 rejecting a lower court鈥檚 decision to effectively cancel the drug鈥檚 FDA approval in 2000, while ordering the rollback of more recent rules that made the drug easier to obtain. Nothing changes immediately, however, as the Supreme Court blocked the lower court鈥檚 ruling in the spring. It will be up to the high court to determine whether the pill remains available in the U.S. and under which conditions. Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Shefali Luthra of The 19th join 51视频 Health News鈥 chief Washington correspondent, Julie Rovner, to discuss these issues and more. Plus, for 鈥渆xtra credit,鈥 the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week they think you should read, too.
51视频 Health News and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Here鈥檚 a collection of their appearances.
PBS NewsHour featured 51视频 Health News鈥 Aneri Pattani as it reported on how this debate is playing out in North Carolina and Ohio.
Clinics serving Alzheimer鈥檚 patients are working out the details of who will get treated with the new drug Leqembi. It won鈥檛 be for everyone with memory-loss symptoms.
Nearly a year to the day after Kansas voters surprised the nation by defeating an anti-abortion ballot question, Ohio voters defeated a similar, if cagier, effort to limit access in that state. This week, they rejected an effort to raise the threshold for approval of future ballot measures from a simple majority, which would have made it harder to protect abortion access with yet another ballot question come November. Meanwhile, the number of Americans without health insurance has dropped to an all-time low, though few noticed. Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico, Rachel Roubein of The Washington Post, and Emmarie Huetteman of 51视频 Health News join 51视频 Health News鈥 chief Washington correspondent, Julie Rovner, to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Kate McEvoy, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors, about how the 鈥淢edicaid unwinding鈥 is going, as millions have their eligibility for coverage rechecked.
Novo Nordisk, the dominant company in the multibillion-dollar market for weight loss drugs, focuses on Black lawmakers and opinion leaders to spread the message that obesity is a chronic disease that needs treatment.
A new poll reveals enthusiasm for a pricey new generation of weight loss drugs, but interest drops if users potentially have to deal with weekly injections, lack of insurance coverage, or a need to continue the medications indefinitely to avoid regaining weight.
The annual cost of lecanemab treatment quadruples if the expense of brain scans to monitor for bleeds and other associated care is factored in. The full financial toll likely puts it beyond reach for low-income seniors at risk of Alzheimer鈥檚, experts say.
President Joe Biden is kicking off his reelection campaign in part by trying to finish a decades-long effort to establish parity in insurance benefits between mental and physical health. Meanwhile, House Republicans are working to add abortion and other contentious amendments to must-pass spending bills. Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico, Anna Edney of Bloomberg, and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join 51视频 Health News鈥 chief Washington correspondent, Julie Rovner, to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews 51视频 Health News鈥 C茅line Gounder about her podcast 鈥淓pidemic.鈥 The new season focuses on the successful public health effort to eradicate smallpox.
Although nearly 40% of Americans 60 and older are obese, Medicare doesn鈥檛 cover weight loss medications. Meanwhile, studies haven鈥檛 thoroughly examined new drugs鈥 impact on older adults.
It鈥檚 been the summer of broken weather records around the world 鈥 for heat, rain, and wildfire smoke 鈥 advertising the risks of climate change in a big way. But, apparently, it鈥檚 not enough to break the logjam in Washington over how to address the growing climate crisis. Meanwhile, in Texas, women who were unable to get care for pregnancy complications took their stories to court, and Congress gears up to 鈥 maybe 鈥 do something about prescription drug prices. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Shefali Luthra of The 19th, and Rachel Cohrs of Stat join Julie Rovner, 51视频 Health News鈥 chief Washington correspondent, to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Meena Seshamani, the top administrator for the federal Medicare program.
The Food and Drug Administration鈥檚 approval is viewed as groundbreaking, but many details still must be figured out.
Pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, are companies that negotiate the prices of prescription drugs. Hear about their role in raising drug prices and the ongoing efforts to regulate this complex industry.
At least nine bills introduced in Congress take aim at pharmacy benefit managers, the powerful middlemen that channel prescription drugs to patients.
Black patients and other minorities tend to be diagnosed at later stages of the disease, which would exclude them from use of Leqembi. Few Black people were included in the main trial of the drug.
To drive down costs, insurers are bypassing hospital system pharmacies and delivering high-priced infusion drugs, including some used in chemotherapy, via third-party pharmacies. Smarting from losing out on billing for those drugs, hospitals and clinics are trying to convince states to limit this practice, known as "white bagging."
Twelve of the largest drugstores in the U.S. sent shoppers鈥 sensitive health information to Facebook or other platforms, according to an investigation by The Markup and 51视频 Health News.
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