For how we live.
The list price is the sticker; the net price is what the maker keeps after rebates. For one insulin, list rose 27% over five years as the net price fell 10%. Who you are decides which you pay.
A study estimated semaglutide's class could be produced for under $75 a month; it lists near $1,000. The gap is patent protection, and in the US it runs to 2032.
Americans owed about $140 billion in medical bills in collections. But two randomized experiments that relieved debt found no average effect on credit, financial distress or mental health.
When a large firm moved everyone to a high-deductible plan, spending fell about 12-14%. The catch: people cut valuable and low-value care alike, and barely shopped on price.
Pharmacy benefit managers sit between you, your insurer and the pharmacy. The three largest process nearly 80% of US prescriptions, and a federal regulator says the structure can raise costs.
Since 2021, hospitals must post the rates they negotiate with each insurer. The data confirms the same procedure at the same hospital varies widely by which insurer is paying.
Physician surveys report delays and abandoned treatment; those are self-reported. A harder number: a federal audit found 13% of Medicare Advantage denials met Medicare's own coverage rules.
For many older generics, discount cards and cost-plus pharmacies undercut insured prices. One analysis found Medicare could have saved $3.6 billion on 77 generics buying at cash-plus prices.
Medicare's cap is statutory; the commercial version is a voluntary manufacturer promise with conditions. Before the caps, 1.3 million adults rationed insulin because of cost.
The prices apply only to 10 drugs, only in Medicare, and only from January 2026. Here is exactly which drugs, by how much, and who actually sees the difference.
A generic must prove its absorption matches the brand within a defined statistical window. Across 2,070 FDA studies the average gap was under 5%. Generics are 90% of prescriptions and a fraction of the cost.
The FDA's approval bar requires no clinically meaningful difference from the original, and a large switching trial found no loss of control. The savings gap is a market problem, not a safety one.
Across all drugs, US prices are 2.78 times those in 33 other wealthy countries. The gap is not that Americans use more medicine — it is that no one sets the launch price.
The first large-scale policy evaluation of medically tailored meals covers 1,866 recipients across 11 health systems. It is quasi-experimental, not randomised — and that is the finding's main limit.
Twelve years of English primary care records put a price on weather. The heat effect is loud and short; the cold effect is quiet, cumulative, and much larger.