Pharma Says Price Regulation Will Take Life-Saving Drugs Away From Us. Here’s The Truth.

Pharma Says Price Regulation Will Take Life-Saving Drugs Away From Us. Here’s The Truth.

The US isn’t the only country struggling with the high price of prescription drugs. A decade ago, Germany was facing rapidly rising medication prices. In 2011, it struck back, with a law regulating the price of new medications. Here’s how that law works, and what it has meant for whether Germans have access to new…

Here’s How Tripling Prices Could Save You 40% On Your Medications

Here’s How Tripling Prices Could Save You 40% On Your Medications

Medication prices in the US have gone from wild to insane; from expensive to outright unaffordable. But a tripling in prices could save us all a lot of money. Here’s how that would work. It’s a policy known as external reference pricing. The idea is simple. First, the US government would look at how much…

Show ‘Em the Money: Paying Patients to Shop for Affordable Medical Care

Show ‘Em the Money: Paying Patients to Shop for Affordable Medical Care

After three months of physical therapy, her doctor told her that it was time to get an MRI. She had already paid off her annual deductible, meaning the imaging test would “only” cost her the $150 co-pay. An imaging center near where she worked charged $1500 for the test. Just two miles away, another facility…

An 0 Head Cold? Time to Fight for Price Transparency in American Healthcare

An $800 Head Cold? Time to Fight for Price Transparency in American Healthcare

Jay Singh had a nasty head cold. Not a “will-I-survive-this-plague” kind of infection, but also not one he thought, if left to its own devices, would blow over in a day or two. So he went to the primary care clinic near his exurban New York City home. The doctor spent ten minutes examining and…

It’s Time For Health Insurance To Pay For Dental Care
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It’s Time For Health Insurance To Pay For Dental Care

Last time I checked, the mouth was still part of the human body. If I remember correctly, when people experience mouth problems, they ache just as much (often more) than if they experienced problems elsewhere in their bodies. So why do we still treat care of the mouth differently than other types of medical care?…

Here’s Why Pharmaceutical Companies Raise Their Prices So Much
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Here’s Why Pharmaceutical Companies Raise Their Prices So Much

Yes, I’ve ranted about healthcare prices before. On more than one occasion. But I have a new rant for you. It’s not about the high price of new drugs It’s not about a couple pharmo-bro CEOs hiking prices of generic medications by 4 or 5,000% It’s about brand name drugs already on the market, that,…

Why People With MS Need Permission from Insurers To Take Life-Saving Drugs. It’s Not The Reason You Think.
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Why People With MS Need Permission from Insurers To Take Life-Saving Drugs. It’s Not The Reason You Think.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the number one cause of non-traumatic disability among young adults. MS is a chronic, incurable illness that destroys some of the body’s most basic neurological functions. Fortunately, there are now a slew of amazing medicines that often slow the disease considerably. These medicines can be the difference between whether or not a person…

Why High Drug Prices Persist Despite The Fact Good Medicines Are Lowering Healthcare Spending

Why High Drug Prices Persist Despite The Fact Good Medicines Are Lowering Healthcare Spending

Here are a few things we know to be true. ●      Healthcare spending in the U.S. is too high ●      Drug prices in the U.S. are growing rapidly ●      Drug prices in the U.S. are higher than they are in other parts of the world Based on these facts, you’d think high drug prices are causing healthcare spending…

Angry Your Doctor Won’t Tell You What That Test Costs? You Should Be!
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Angry Your Doctor Won’t Tell You What That Test Costs? You Should Be!

Steve B. wasn’t going to be fooled twice. He’d recently seen an ear, nose, and throat specialist for a “tickle in the throat” that wouldn’t go away. He’d forked over a co-pay at check-in, but then the doctor said he needed “to put a scope down there” and check his throat. He later received a…

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Your Risk Of Prostate Cancer Just Dropped Precipitously. Here's Why

Most men diagnosed with prostate cancer don’t die of the disease. Between 2011 and 2015, 112.6 per 100,000 men per year were diagnosed with prostate cancer in the U.S., but only 19.5 per 100,000 men per year died of the disease over that same period of time. That is still far too many deaths. But the…