Prescription Drugs

• Drug Industry Quietly Funds “Patient Advocacy” Groups to Fight Medicare Drug Price Negotiations

  May 23, 2025: A new investigation by Patients for Affordable Drugs (P4AD) has uncovered a troubling tactic used by the pharmaceutical industry to protect profits and keep drug prices high: secretly funding so-called “patient advocacy” groups. The report pro...Read more >

• KFF Health News: Biden Administration Bars Medical Debt From Credit Scores

  January 08, 2025: The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Tuesday issued new regulations barring medical debts from American credit reports, enacting a major new consumer protection just days before President Joe Biden is set to leave office. The rules ...Read more >

• KFF Health News: Lack of Affordability Tops Older Americans’ List of Health Care Worries

  July 11, 2024: What weighs most heavily on older adults’ minds when it comes to health care? The cost of services and therapies, and their ability to pay. “It’s on our minds a whole lot because of our age and because everything keeps getting more expens...Read more >

• KFF Health News: Save Billions or Stick With Humira? Drug Brokers Steer Americans to the Costly Choice

  September 21, 2023: Tennessee last year spent $48 million on a single drug, Humira — about $62,000 for each of the 775 patients who were covered by its employee health insurance program and receiving the treatment. So when nine Humira knockoffs, known as biosimilars, ...Read more >

• Census Report Highlights Older Households’ Sources of Income

  February 16, 2022: While Social Security makes up the largest share of most older adults’ incomes, other sources also provide earnings to people 65 and older. A new report from the United States Census Bureau analyzed older households’ sources of income, the am...Read more >

• Hearing Exposes Greed of Drug Corporation AbbVie

  May 24, 2021: According to a study released on May 18 by the U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee, the pharmaceutical corporation AbbVie has raised prices 470% in the United States for its widely used drugs Humira and Imbruvica over the past two decades. The ...Read more >

• As Drug Prices Keep Rising, State Lawmakers Propose Tough New Bills to Curb Them

  February 18, 2021: The WA State Alliance for Retired Americans supports Senator Karen Keiser's bill: Substitute - SSB 5020 is in the Senate Ways and Means Committee now. This article is from BenefitsPro By Harris Meyer, Kaiser Health News | February 15, 2021 ...Read more >

• KHN: As Drug Prices Keep Rising, State Lawmakers Propose Tough New Bills to Curb Them

  February 16, 2021: Fed up with a lack of federal action to lower prescription drug costs, state legislators around the country are pushing bills to penalize drugmakers for unjustified price hikes and to cap payment at much-lower Canadian levels. These bills, sponsor...Read more >

• Seniors stand ready to support pro-worker legislation in 2021

  January 11, 2021: Lessons learned from 2020: We need access to affordable health care, reliable internet access, and our pensions protected. https://www.thestand.org/2021/01/seniors-stand-ready-to-support-pro-worker-legislation-in-2021/...Read more >

• KHN: Seniors Face Crushing Drug Costs as Congress Stalls on Capping Medicare Out-Of-Pockets

  January 07, 2021: Sharon Clark is able to get her life-sustaining cancer drug, Pomalyst — priced at more than $18,000 for a 28-day supply — only because of the generosity of patient assistance foundations. Clark, 57, a former insurance agent who lives in Bixby,...Read more >