This week, a federal judge blocked the proposed $37 billion merger of health insurance giants Aetna and Humana, ruling that the two companies would significantly reduce competition in the health care market if they teamed up. Now what are the two companies going to do? They might appeal the ruling. Or not. [More]
Pharma Medicine
Pricey Wearable Baby Monitors May Be Better At Giving Parents Anxiety Than Monitoring Babies
By 1.24.17 — Updated: 1.25.17
Raising a baby can be pretty nerve-wracking, especially for first-time parents. Babies make weird sounds, do bizarre things, and can’t describe when something’s actually wrong. Meanwhile, it’s 2017 and our solution to basically every old problem is: “Have you tried throwing new technology at it?” [More]
Trump Executive Order Directs Federal Agencies To Scale Back Obamacare; Could Remove Individual Mandate
By 1.21.17 — Updated: 2.24.17
One of President Trump’s first acts in the Oval Office on Friday was to sign an executive order directing federal agencies to scale back on enforcing and implementing the Affordable Care Act wherever they can, while the new administration and Congress work on dismantling the 2010 law. [More]
Costco Settles Federal Charges That It Turned Blind Eye To Bad Prescriptions
By 1.20.17
Costco has reached a deal with the U.S. Department of Justice to pay $11.75 million to resolve federal allegations that the warehouse club’s pharmacies violated the Controlled Substances Act by filling prescriptions they probably shouldn’t have. [More]
3 Benefits Your Employer-Sponsored Health Care Could Lose After Obamacare Repeal
By 1.19.17
With the House and Senate moving forward with their plan to disassemble the Affordable Care Act through a budget resolution, much of the focus has been on the millions of people who would be affected by losing insurance that they purchase directly through an exchange. However, the ACA also has a number of aspects that benefit Americans who receive insurance through their employer, some of which could be at risk if the law is repealed. [More]
Report: Affordable Care Act Repeal Could Increase Rates, Leave 18 Million Without Coverage After First Year
By 1.17.17
Last week, both the House and Senate took the first steps toward dismantling the Affordable Care Act. This morning, a review by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded that one approach to repealing this law would result in millions of additional uninsured Americans and higher rates for those with insurance. [More]
House Joins Senate In Taking First Step Toward Affordable Care Act Repeal
By 1.13.17
About 36 hours after the U.S. Senate narrowly voted to approve a budget resolution that gets the ball rolling on repeal of the Affordable Care Act, the House of Representatives has also okayed the resolution by a vote that largely — but not unanimously — followed party lines. [More]
Arizona Planning Lawsuit Against Former Blood-Testing Company Theranos
By 1.12.17
The vision of blood-testing company Theranos would have been great for patients, doctors, and even drugstores: mini-labs right inside stores, with a whole suite of blood tests available in a small machine and results available from a few drops of blood. Only the company’s tests proved inaccurate, and Arizona, the state where its labs set up shop, is planning to sue the company. [More]
Senate Takes First Step Toward Repealing Affordable Care Act
By 1.12.17
In the early hours of Thursday morning, the U.S. Senate voted — largely along party lines — on a resolution instructing multiple legislative committees to begin the process of disassembling the 7-year-old Affordable Care Act. [More]
CVS Selling Generic Alternative To EpiPen For Fraction Of The Price
By 1.12.17
Until the recent launch of the generic EpiPen, the only affordable competitor available to the emergency allergy treatment was Adrenaclick, but that drug was hard to find and some pharmacies charged nearly as much as they did for EpiPen. Now CVS says it is selling two-packs of an authorized generic of Adrenaclick at about one-sixth of the price tag for brand-name EpiPen. [More]
Why Pet Owners Should Care About Banfield & VCA Animal Hospitals Coming Under Same Corporate Umbrella
By 1.9.17 — Updated: 1.10.17
A pending merger will put a number of the nation’s biggest veterinary care chains — VCA Inc., Banfield Pet Hospital, and BluePearl Veterinary Partners — under the ownership umbrella of candy and packaged foods giant Mars Inc. This deal will add VCA’s nearly 800 hospitals into what some critics say is a one-size-fits-all medical assembly line. [More]
Former Blood-Testing Company Theranos Somehow Still Has 155 Employees To Fire
By 1.9.17 — Updated: 1.11.17
Remember Theranos, the blood-testing company that managed to be one of the most scandal-plagued startups of recent years? The company is back in the headlines, with the sad news that it’s managed to find 41% of staff it hadn’t yet laid off, and has targeted them for downsizing immediately. [More]
More Than 125,000 People Call On Burger King, KFC, Starbucks & Others To Curb Antibiotics Use
By 1.5.17
While a handful of fast food chains have made at least some commitment to reducing the use of antibiotics in livestock, the majority of these restaurants still have no policy when it comes to this issue. This morning, CEOs of those companies are receiving a petition signed by more than 125,000, asking them to do their part to help prevent the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. [More]
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Others Call On Treasury To Make It Easier For Marijuana-Related Businesses To Bank
By 1.3.17
With marijuana now legal — at least for medical purposes — in more than half the states, a small but growing number of federally insured banks have allowed pot retailers and other legitimate marijuana-related businesses to open accounts. Still, some 97% of U.S. banks won’t work with these companies over concerns about the regulatory ramifications, which is why a number of U.S. senators are asking the Treasury Department’s financial crimes division to help the marijuana industry — particularly those businesses that service the industry — move away from being purely cash operations. [More]
Burger King, Tim Hortons To Use Fewer Antibiotics In Chicken
By 12.29.16
Three months after earning its second consecutive “F” grade from public health advocates for its lack of any policy to limit the use of antibiotics in the meat it sources, Burger King’s parent company — which also owns donut chain Tim Hortons — has finally announced plans to cut back on overusing some of these drugs in the chickens it uses. [More]
Sales Of Antibiotics For Farm Animals Continues To Increase, Despite FDA Guidance
By 12.28.16
Three years ago, the Food and Drug Administration — in response to growing concerns about the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria — issued long-delayed guidance to the pharmaceuticals industry, asking drugmakers to voluntarily stop selling antibiotics to farmers solely for the purpose of growth-promotion in cows, pigs, and chicken. And while sales of these drugs have indeed slowed, the latest FDA report shows that they are still on the rise. [More]
Did Big Pharma Hire Dozens Of DEA Officials To Reduce Scrutiny Of Opioid Painkillers?
By 12.22.16
It’s not uncommon for folks at federal agencies to cash in on their public sector connections by taking a high-paying job with a company they used to regulate. But when it comes to the pharmaceuticals industry’s hiring of dozens of Drug Enforcement Administration officials, the question is whether these former DEA staffers were being hired because of what they could contribute, or because it was better for the industry to get them out of law enforcement. [More]
Rite-Aid Selling 865 Stores To Fred’s For $950 Million
By 12.20.16
What to do, what to do, when you’re merging and want to be the biggest without being too big? Divest, of course. And that’s where Rite-Aid finds itself today: in order to sell itself to Walgreens and allow their onetime-competitor to become the biggest drugstore chain in the country, it’s ready to shed several hundred stores to build a new third-place competitor. [More]
