Congress fixed (a piece of) Medicare. It only took a few decades.
Lots of seniors have to pay thousands of dollars for drugs—even tens of thousands—or do without life-saving medicine. That’s finally going to change.
The new Inflation Reduction Act will set a $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket drug costs for seniors. (Yes, it’ll do a bunch of other stuff too.)
It took a long time. Folks like researcher Stacie Dusetzina spent years building evidence about how Medicare prescription drug policy was failing people with cancer and other conditions.
The pharmaceutical industry fought this change tooth and nail — for decades. Julie Rovner, Chief National Correspondent for Kaiser Health News, takes us on a journey back to the late 1980’s, when Congress learned the cost of messing with Big Pharma.
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Dan Weissmann
Creator and Host, An Arm and a Leg
Prior to creating An Arm and a Leg, Dan was a staff reporter for Marketplace and Chicago’s WBEZ. His reporting has appeared on outlets including 99 Percent Invisible, Planet Money, Reveal, Code Switch, and NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered.
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Emily Pisacreta
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