While insulin is the poster child for outrageous prescription costs, patients are paying ever more to treat depression, asthma, HIV, cholesterol and more. And the pandemic has overtaken efforts to force the issue in Congress.
President Donald Trump has the legal power to authorize a COVID vaccine over the objections of the Food and Drug Administration and vaccine manufacturers. Such a move could further erode public trust in a vaccine and foist an unsafe shot on Americans.
The Trump administration is primed to approve a plan designed to help lower costs of some prescription drugs by allowing states to import them from Canada. The announcement could come before Election Day, and Florida appears to be in line to go first.
President Donald Trump this week issued a prescription drug pricing order unlikely to lower drug prices, and he contradicted comments by his director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the need for mask-wearing and predictions for vaccine availability. Meanwhile, scandals erupted at the CDC, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Food and Drug Administration. And the number of people without health insurance grew in 2019, reported the Census Bureau, even while the economy soared. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Tami Luhby of CNN and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss this and more. Plus, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read, too.
The National Institutes of Health has suggested minorities should be overrepresented in COVID-19 vaccine trials — perhaps at rates that are double their percentage of the U.S. population. But efforts to recruit patients from racial minority groups are just beginning, while some trials have already advanced to phase 3.
The AstraZeneca trial is on hold in the U.S. as scientists try to unravel whether a rare neurological condition is linked to the vaccine. But regulators are frustrated by a lack of information from the drugmaker.
The nation’s top infectious disease official is confident that an independent panel will base vaccine approval on science, not politics.
California could become the first state to develop its own line of generic drugs under a bill approved Monday by the legislature. The measure heads to Gov. Gavin Newsom for consideration.
Donald Trump accepted his party’s nomination to seek reelection for a second term as president in front of a partisan audience that appeared to largely lack masks and opt against social distancing.
The statistic is accurate but experts say other factors make it difficult to say indicators to think about that make it hard to say it’s a “huge win.”