- How can it be a crime for a consulting firm to help a drug company promote its product to customers?
- Members of Congress consistently beat the market on stock trades.
- Eli Lilly will allow self-pay patients to purchase (direct-to-consumer) the weight-loss drug Zepbound for less than half the list price.
- 10 states have passed new laws this year aimed at reducing the growing burden of prior authorization requirement.
- Opportunities for Democrats to learn about public policy while they were in Chicago: the city has the highest homicide rate in the country and only 21% of eight graders are proficient in reading. But did they really learn anything? (WSJ)
Category: Single-Payer/Medicare-for-All
House Oversight Committee: PBMs Increase the Drug Costs
I wrote about pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) extensively in the past. PBMs are the middlemen who manage pharmacy benefits for employee health plans, Medicare, Medicaid and insurance companies. The concept is simple: PBMs leverage buying power to extract discounts from drug makers. These discounts are (in theory) passed on to consumers and health plan clients. PBMs also create drug formularies and adjudicate drug claims.
Are Medicaid Work Requirements a Success or a Failure? It Depends
Many Red States have proposed to add work requirements to Medicaid eligibility. The Georgia Medicaid program is currently the only state in the nation to have a work requirement as a condition of eligibility, but other states have expressed an interest.
Monday Links
- The U.S. military now estimates that the cartels directly control around 30-35% of Mexican territory. Over eighty politicians or candidates for political office were killed in Mexico during the country’s 2021 midterm elections. (HT: Tyler)
- Does living around people with a college degree lengthen your life expectancy? Apparently.
- Reasons to doubt the USDA report on the prevalence of food insecurity.
- Why the Biden/Harris claim that they have legalized marijuana is mostly false.
- What explains the slowdown in Medicare spending? A major reason is pharmaceuticals.