Health care costs

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, participates in a meeting of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on May 10, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Committee video screenshot)

U.S. senators press pharma executives on cost of insulin, prescription medications

BY: - May 10, 2023

WASHINGTON — U.S. senators sparred with pharmaceutical companies and pharmacy benefit managers during a Wednesday hearing on the costs of insulin and other prescription medications.  Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, the top Republican on the panel and a physician, noted that a century ago a diabetes diagnosis was essentially a death sentence for patients before the […]

Iley and Frank Petereit, both 92, pictured in their home in Sioux Falls. (John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight)

Workforce woes, nursing home closures pressure sustainability of long term care

BY: - February 4, 2023

Iley and Frank Petereit bought their burial plots two decades ago. Frank likes to think of himself as a planner, so he has most everything worked out for when they eventually, in his words, “kick the can.” The now 92-year-olds have a gravestone at the site, already etched with everything but the year of their […]

COMMENTARY
(Getty Images)

Treating health care as a commodity has not driven costs lower

BY: - January 29, 2023

Assuring effective health care to a population is a challenge for every society. As care options become more complex — and expensive — the challenges increase. In the U.S. both the organization and the financing of health care are perennial issues in public discussions, political campaigns and among social policy researchers. Basically there are two […]