Prescription Drugs

Oregon Insurers Double Profits From Last Year

Shedding members, padding surplus and increasing profits continued
September 1, 2010 -- Oregon’s eight largest health insurers continued to shed members and increase profits in the first six months of this year, based on the industry’s latest financial statements released by the Oregon Insurance Division. Read More >>

Federal Drug Discount Program Begins

The Obama administration announced this week a drug discount program largely for children
Originally at TheHill.com
August 2, 2010 -- Children's hospitals and other medical centers on Monday became eligible to enroll in a Medicaid program that offers discounted drugs, as called for in the healthcare reform law. Read More >>

Mail Order Pharmacy Said to Save Money

Pharmacies push back against what some say may drive them out of business
May 20, 2010 -- Controversy is brewing over a proposed cost-saving measure that could offset CAREAssist’s projected $2.1 million biennial shortfall -- and change the way some of its 2,300 clients receive their HIV medications. Read More >>

State Backs Away From Mail Order Pharmacies

The change would have impacted 115,000 Medicaid clients
April 21, 2010 -- Mandates are never swallowed easily, particularly when they defy the status quo. State officials learned that lesson when they attempted to change the way Medicaid clients get their prescriptions filled. Read More >>

New Patent Standards Needed to Stem Costs

Raising the bar for what deserves patent protection would reduce skyrocketing costs of medical technology
March 30, 2010 -- According to a landmark study by The Kaiser Family Foundation, the only long term solution for controlling health care costs in America, is to: "Delay or prevent the implementation of new medical technology." Read More >>

Health Insurers Increase Profits 32 Percent

Whether Oregon health insurers were profitable or not last year largely depended on the stock market
March 17, 2010 -- Investment gains for Oregon’s eight largest health insurers were about the only thing keeping consumers’ premiums from climbing even higher this year. Read More >>

Governor Wields Final Say on Psychologist Bill

No matter what he decides, this issue will come back to haunt the 2011 Oregon Legislature next February
March 4, 2010 -- The battle lines have been drawn, and now it’s up to Gov. Kulongoski to determine whether psychologists should be able to prescribe psychotropic drugs. Read More >>

Psychologists Win Prescribing Rights

Not surprisingly, closing one of the Oregon legislature’s most longstanding “scope-of-practice” issues still feels unresolved
February 25, 2010 -- Beginning in July of next year, licensed psychologists may gain the right to prescribe certain mental health drugs under a bill that passed the Oregon House and Senate this week. Everything hinges on whether Gov. Kulongoski decides to veto the measure. Read More >>

Drug-Makers Pay-for-Delay Schemes Cost Consumers

Paying competitors to delay generic drug production keeps people paying higher prices
December 3, 2009 -- Over the last few years, drug-makers have embraced a startlingly simple tactic for fending off competition from generic brands: paying them off. Read More >>

Legislature Takes Up Prescription Monitoring Program

A bill to track prescriptions of controlled substances faces heated opposition from the ACLU as it has in past sessions
June 17, 2009 -- People addicted to pain medications know the ropes. They go from one doctor to the next and end up with multiple prescriptions for such painkillers as Oxycodone or Vicodon. Read More >>
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