• David Lazarus: Drugmakers need to take a chill pill over new price-disclosure requirement

    Los Angeles Times

    But they already know that. Drug companies, for their part, are already comfortable with being the bad guys in many people's eyes. Every other nation has concluded that the practice causes more harm than good. Including prices in drug ads is helpful.

  • Bill Johnston-Walsh Drug prices threaten more than health of older adults

    The Tribune-Democrat

    They want to forget about closing the donut hole a year early and reduce discounts on brand name drugs for Medicare Part D beneficiaries. Over 40 million older Americans rely on the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit to help them pay for life-saving medicines. As drug prices continue to rise, we must keep in place policies that make it easier for older adults to access their medications.

  • Chronic pain patients protest in Valparaiso

    The Times

    They were asking to fix it," she said. Marialyce Akers, of Portage, said she's now largely confined with a wheelchair because of her pain issues.

  • How opioids reshape your brain, and what scientists are learning about addiction

    The Philadelphia Inquirer

    Opioids act at the beginning of that pathway," says Unterwald. But opioid drugs like morphine do much more than stimulate pleasure. This drives up drug cravings. The effects of opioids are now being discovered throughout the brain. Nearly irresistible cravings begin steering behavior, Berrettini said.

  • Expert: Wasteful spending accounts for nearly half of U.S. health care burden

    Chattanooga Times/Free Press

    ...trillion America spends on health care, an expert told members of the U.S. Senate Health Committee on Tuesday. Dr. Brent James, a professor at Stanford University School Of Medicine, was one of four experts who testified during the second in a series of health care cost hearings, which focused on reducing excess or unnecessary health care spending. "Midpoint estimates suggest as much as $1.8 trillion in recoverable waste," James said, adding that more than half of that waste is...

  • Ask for help, take time for yourself: caregivers share survival tips

    Star Tribune

    In 2010 she left Schroeder Dairy and became a consultant. In the fall of 2015, Tucker, then 59, was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, sometimes described as early onset dementia. People all the time ask how Jeff is.

  • Dying friend of Anne Wojcicki gets help -- after the 23andMe founder rails against Stanford, Valley Med

    San Jose Mercury News

    Wojcicki's friend was told he had run out of options and he wouldn't survive, she said. His family wanted a second opinion at Stanford Medical Center. Before Stanford doctors could evaluate him, they needed his medical records. The patient got emergency insurance and acceptance by Stanford. But which Stanford doctor could help?

  • Charity care crunch? Rise in uninsured, underinsured offers hospitals tough choices

    Duluth News-Tribune

    Luke's CEO John Strange. In the complex machinery of health care economics, many factors affect the cost of care and how it's delivered. Luke's and Essentia Health both told the News Tribune they have no plans to further limit the care they provide to people who can't pay. Luke's, data shows charity care has drifted below $3 million over the past few years.

  • These two local families have a very rare connection, and it has tested them both greatly

    Dayton Daily News

    Feb. 28--BUTLER COUNTY -- Rare Disease Day takes place on the last day of February each year.

  • Opioid crisis costs US economy $1 trillion, problem continues to grow: study

    The Patriot-News

    In 2017, the cost was an estimated $115 billion. The growth rate between 2011 and 2016 was double the rate in the previous five years. Those costs largely come from emergency room visits and immediate treatment of the patients, and secondary treatments because of increased risk of other diseases or complications.

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