The seller of the brain-cancer drug Gleostine has pulled out of a federal discount program for Medicare patients, leaving some struggling to pay for a therapy that can cost as much as $1,000 per capsule. NextSource Biotechnology LLC’s decision to leave the program, rendering its drug ineligible for the Medicare Part D drug benefit, comes after the Miami company raised the drug’s price exponentially since acquiring rights in 2013. Gleostine, which treats a tumor known as glioblastoma and other brain cancers, is off-patent but has no generic alternative.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Wednesday signed into law a public health care option, making it the third state in the US to approve the creation of a government-run health insurance plan to be sold alongside commercial coverage on the Affordable Care Act’s insurance marketplaces.
A special enrollment period for older Coloradans to sign up for certain Medicare supplement insurance ends June 30. The Colorado Division of Insurance opened up the six-month period after federal changes kept newly eligible people from purchasing some of the supplement policies, which are often sold by private companies to help with costs for copays, deductibles and other things that aren’t covered by original Medicare. People that buy supplemental policies, called Medigap, can do so without having their health or risk evaluated in order to get a plan, said Vincent Plymell, assistant commissioner for the agency.
Recent health insurance market consolidation linked to Obamacare regulations has raised premiums for employers and individuals. Consolidation happens when either producers in a market leave or two or more producers merge into one company. Either way, it means a larger market share for the companies that remain. In recent years, consolidation due to insurers exiting a market has become more common, especially in the Obamacare exchanges. According to data from the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, 345 insurers offered coverage on the exchanges in 2013. By 2019, that had fallen to 202.
Each year, an obscure federal rule forces thousands of seniors to pay penalties for the rest of their lives simply because they made an honest mistake while signing up for Medicare. That number will rise unless Congress modernizes the program’s enrollment process, which is tethered to outdated ideas about seniors and retirement. Seniors are twice as likely to be working today as in 1985. So many more of them have to decide whether to sign up for Medicare when they become eligible at age 65 or keep their job-based health plan. Making the wrong decision can be costly.
At a time when higher grocery bills and surging gas prices are taking big, toothy bites out of your paycheck, it can feel like everything suddenly costs more in America. But at least one item — a critically important one at that — has seen its cost fall for the third year in a row. A new report by the Urban Institute has found that the cost of health insurance plans sold on Obamacare marketplaces has shrunk each year since premiums rose dramatically in 2017 and 2018.