Pharmaceuticals

Two academics suggest that loans financed by the private sector could be one way to help patients cover the cost of expensive, curative pharmaceuticals. Think mortgages.

Seconal used to cost less than $200 a bottle. After Valeant Pharmaceuticals bought the medication, the cost rose to $3,000. Advocates for aid in dying say that's a burden for the terminally ill.

Meditation can help relieve chronic back pain, and so can cognitive behavioral therapy, a study finds. But good luck getting insurance to pay for it.

The giant health insurer says Express Scripts, a manager of drug benefits, should be passing along more of the savings it negotiates with drugmakers.

How coinsurance hurts: If a drug costs $200, a patient may owe 20 percent of the cost, or $40, instead of a flat copayment of $20. The higher the cost of the drug, the bigger the coinsurance bite.

Patients switching to generic medicines and hard bargaining with drugmakers helped moderate spending on prescription drugs in 2015, according to Express Scripts, a manager of drug benefits.

The agency plans to reduce the incentive for doctors to use the most expensive drugs and link prices to patient outcomes, perhaps paying less when patients have to be admitted to a hospital.

A cystic fibrosis drug that is expected to be taken by only a few hundred people may drain almost $36 million from California's general fund over two fiscal years.

Congressional investigators have pried loose emails showing how the company's executives anticipated huge profits from a 5,000 percent drug price increase. They were blindsided by the blowback.

The generic form of the blockbuster cancer drug is being shipped to pharmacies. The generic is likely to cost 30 percent less than the brand-name version, but Gleevec's price doubled in recent years.