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New Opioid Bill Would Impose Sweeping Limits on Some Prescriptions, Boost Funding

February 28, 2018

A group of eight senators on Tuesday unveiled bipartisan legislation that would increase funding for addiction treatment and prevention by roughly $1 billion and impose a sweeping three-day limit on opioid prescriptions for initial pain treatment

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Pressure Mounts on Insurance Companies to Consider Their Role in Opioid Epidemic

October 27, 2017

Another lawmaker is asking insurers whether their policies have made it easier for patients to access cheaper, more addictive drugs over less addictive alternatives. Meanwhile, the insurance industry trade group pledged additional steps to combat inappropriate prescribing

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Old-School Pharmacy Hand-Delivers Drugs to Congress

October 11, 2017

“At first it’s cool, and then you realize, I’m filling some drugs that are for some pretty serious health problems as well. And these are the people that are running the country,” Pharmacist Mike Kim said, listing treatments for conditions like diabetes and Alzheimer’s. “It makes you kind of sit back and say, ‘Wow, they’re making the highest laws of the land and they might not even remember what happened yesterday.’”

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9 Health Reform Lies Congress Members Are Telling Their Constituents

March 22, 2017

The takeaway from a review by ProPublica and its partners at Kaiser Health News, Stat, and Vox of more than 200 letters that members of Congress sent out to their constituents in response to the public’s questions and concerns about the Affordable Care Act and its proposed replacement, the GOP’s American Health Care Act

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What we know about how Republicans might replace Obamacare

January 5, 2017

There are at least seven different replacement plans that Republican legislators and conservative think tanks have offered in recent years.

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What we know about how Republicans might replace Obamacare

Thursday, January 5th, 2017

If there’s one thing Republicans have been clear about for the past six years, it is that the top of their agenda includes repealing Obamacare.

But Obamacare repeal would leave an estimated 22 million Americans without coverage and wreak havoc on the individual insurance market. It’s becoming increasingly clear that Republicans can’t just repeal Obamacare — they need to replace it with something.

It turns out Republicans have a lot of choices: There are at least seven different replacement plans that Republican legislators and conservative think tanks have offered in recent years. I’ve spent the past week reading them, and what I’ve learned is this:

Yes, Republicans have replacement plans. It is true that the party has not coalesced around one plan — but there are real policy proposals coming from Republican legislators and conservative think tanks. There is a base that the party can work from in crafting a replacement plan.
There is significant variation in what the plans propose. On one end of the spectrum, you see plans from President-elect Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz that would repeal Obamacare and replace it with virtually nothing. On the other end of the spectrum, there are plans from conservative think tanks that go as far as to keep the Affordable Care Act marketplaces and continue to give low-income Americans the most generous insurance subsidies.
If we can say one thing about most Republican plans, it is this: They are better for younger, healthy people and worse for older, sicker people. In general, conservative replacement plans offer less financial help to those who would use a lot of insurance. This will make their insurance subsidies significantly less expensive than Obamacare’s.
Economic analyses estimate that these plans reduce the number of Americans with insurance coverage. The actual amount varies significantly, from 3 million to 21 million, depending on which option Republicans pick. They will near certainly provide more coverage than Americans had before Obamacare, but also less than what exists currently under the health law.

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Congress Passed A Bill On Opioid Treatment

July 15, 2016

Now They Need to Fund It. Our Travis Rieder comments

Zika Is Coming, But We’re Far From Ready

May 23, 2016

Ronald A. Klain was the White House Ebola response coordinator from 2014 to 2015. “The good news is that both the House and Senate have finally passed bills that would provide some funding to combat the Zika virus. The bad news is that this action comes more than three months after President Obama requested the aid”

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Zika Highlights Role of Controversial Fetal-Tissue Research

March 31, 2016

Fetal tissue may prove crucial to probing link between virus and birth defects

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New Opioid Bill Would Impose Sweeping Limits on Some Prescriptions, Boost Funding

New Opioid Bill Would Impose Sweeping Limits on Some Prescriptions, Boost Funding

Pressure Mounts on Insurance Companies to Consider Their Role in Opioid Epidemic

Pressure Mounts on Insurance Companies to Consider Their Role in Opioid Epidemic

Old-School Pharmacy Hand-Delivers Drugs to Congress

Old-School Pharmacy Hand-Delivers Drugs to Congress

9 Health Reform Lies Congress Members Are Telling Their Constituents

9 Health Reform Lies Congress Members Are Telling Their Constituents

What we know about how Republicans might replace Obamacare

What we know about how Republicans might replace Obamacare

Congress Passed A Bill On Opioid Treatment

Zika Is Coming, But We’re Far From Ready

Zika Is Coming, But We’re Far From Ready

Zika Highlights Role of Controversial Fetal-Tissue Research

Zika Highlights Role of Controversial Fetal-Tissue Research

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