PBMs Driving Up Prescription Drug Prices The three largest pharmacy benefit managers—CVS Health, Cigna and UnitedHealth Group—often “steer patients toward pricier drugs, charge steep markups on what would otherwise be inexpensive medicines and...
Hospital Cost Transparency Bill Advances in PA The Pennsylvania House Health Committee approved a bill ( HB 2339 ) that would require hospitals to publish a list of the standard costs for all of their services on their website. It would also prohibit hospitals...
FDA Advisory Panel Rejects Use of MDMA-Assisted Therapy for PTSD An advisory panel for the Food and Drug Administration rejected the use of MDMA-assisted therapy for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. Among other things the panelists raised concerns...
LA County Launching Ambitious Plan to Address Medical Debt Los Angeles County’s Department of Public Health has developed an ambitious plan to address the problem of medical debt, which impacted one in ten, or about 810,000, residents of the county and...
AL Enacts Bill Allowing Off-Label Medical Treatment Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) signed a bill ( SB 72 )—passed unanimously by both legislative chambers—that bars the state’s Board of Medical Examiners and Medical Licensure Commission from taking...
Bills Dealing with Psychedelics, Nurses and Breast Exam Insurance Coverage Near Enactment in AK Alaska’s Senate passed a pair of health care bills that originated in the House ( HB 228 and HB 237 ), sending them to Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R). A third health...
CA to Cap Health Care Providers’ Annual Price Increases at 3% California’s Health Care Affordability Board voted to limit annual price increases from doctors, hospitals and health insurers to 3%, about 2.4% below the annual rate of those increases...
MD Drug Affordability Board Weighing Caps on Eight Drugs Maryland’s Prescription Drug Affordability Board could soon impose price limits on up to eight drugs on state-run health insurance plans, including diabetes and weight loss medication Ozempic, ADHD...
GA Lawmakers Pass Health Care Facility Permitting Bill Georgia lawmakers gave final approval for a bill ( HB 1339 ) aimed at expanding health care coverage for lower-income individuals, sending the measure to Gov. Brian Kemp (R). Among other things, the bill...
The number of states with prescription drug affordability boards could more than double this year if pending legislation is approved. Maryland became the first state to authorize a prescription drug affordability board, or PDAB, in 2019. Since then, 10 other...
IL House Takes Up Gov’s Proposed Health Insurance Reforms The Illinois House Human Services Committee heard testimony last week about changes to the state’s health insurance industry that Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) proposed in his State of the State address...
AL Lawmakers Scramble to Address Supreme Court’s IVF Ruling Alabama’s House and Senate have fast tracked legislation ( HB 237 and SB 159 ) that would grant civil and criminal immunity to providers of in vitro fertilization procedures. Several providers...
AL High Court IVF Ruling Draws Backlash Alabama’s Supreme Court ruled in a wrongful death case that frozen embryos used for in vitro fertilization are people, bringing IVF procedures at several state hospitals to a halt and drawing widespread disapproval...
Just three months after we wrote about states’ slow embrace of psychedelic drugs like psilocybin (the hallucinogen found in magic mushrooms), you’d be forgiven for thinking the issue was petering out. After all, the effort to decriminalize psychedelics...
States Addressing High Drug Costs with Prescription Drug Affordability Review Boards Since 2017 at least 11 states have passed laws creating prescription drug affordability review boards, some of which have the authority to implement cost-cutting measures for...