“Pharmacy benefit managers are companies that, behind the scenes, determine what patients have to pay for medications. They manage insurance benefits for prescription drugs, dictating which drugs are covered by insurers and what costs patients will face when they fill their prescriptions.
To do that, they negotiate discounts, or rebates, with drug manufacturers and afford privileged status to the companies that give them the best deals.
And over the past few decades, as the prescription drug market has evolved and become more lucrative, so have PBMs. They run their own mail-order and specialty pharmacies. More recently, they have begun merging with health insurers, creating behemoth companies with the power to determine where and how billions of dollars are spent within the US health system.
Pharmacy benefit managers have become known as the mysterious middlemen of the pharma trade — and as a useful scapegoat for drug companies seeking to deflect blame from their own pricing practices.
Now the Senate, as part of forthcoming prescription drug legislation, appears poised to impose new rules on them. The committee overseeing health care debated last week a slew of measures requiring PBMs to be more transparent about their business and cracking down on some of their moneymaking practices.”
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“Experts generally agree that these companies play a role in driving up drug costs for some US patients, even as they negotiate discounts with drugmakers that benefit others, and that the amount of secrecy about their financial arrangements warrants scrutiny.
But reforms to the PBM industry aren’t a cure-all for making drugs more affordable: Sanders said the PBM measures being considered in the Senate would not meaningfully lower the cost of medicine for most people, even if they would bring more accountability and transparency to the sector.”
https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/5/11/23719825/supreme-court-pigs-california-national-pork-producers-ross-neil-gorsuch
“There is nothing inherently illegal about accepting money from foreign interests if you are a private citizen and your dad is a famous, powerful person. But you do have to pay taxes on it. And according to the New York Times, a federal inquiry into whether Hunter had properly paid his taxes began back during the Obama administration. Then, in 2018, the tax inquiry became a broader federal criminal investigation into Hunter.”
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“In 2018, during a period in which Hunter has admitted to having a serious drug addiction (he wrote a book about it), he bought a gun. In connection with that purchase, he filled out a federal form and attested that he was not a drug user. The gun became an issue when his sister-in-law became concerned he might harm himself and threw it in an outdoor trash can, where it was discovered and reported to police. Texts from his laptop make clear he was not particularly stable at the time, but no one was hurt.”
“Yaccarino is a seasoned media executive who could help repair Twitter’s relationship with its advertisers, many of whom have quit or cut back from the platform recently because of Musk’s perceived volatility. She has a reputation for being a tough negotiator and was key in the launch of NBCUniversal’s digital Peacock streaming service, according to the Wall Street Journal. She’s also a known Trump supporter, according to sources. In the past few months, Yaccarino has publicly praised Musk, and she interviewed him at a major advertising conference in April — paving her way, in the eyes of media insiders, to take on the role.”
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“if you think that means the Elon-Twitter story is over, don’t hold your breath. Musk is still very much in control. He will still be the owner of Twitter. Unless he sells the company — or a controlling share of it — he’s the one calling the shots.
How much power he gives Yaccarino is entirely at Musk’s discretion.”
“In 2016, Trump put absolutely zero effort into preparing for the possibility that he might actually govern after the election. The result is that he took office with a staff heavily drawn from the ranks of the GOP establishment, some of whom worked to curb his most disruptive impulses.
This time around, we can expect no such discordance — meaning that we’re likely to get Trump unleashed from day one.
Moreover, experience with politicians like Trump abroad suggests that Trump’s agenda will be every bit as radical as the town hall suggests — with a focus on dismantling constraints on Trump’s authority and undermining the fairness of the political system.”
“The proposed rules are a less elegant and splashy solution than the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, but the complex set of proposals also stands a better chance of withstanding court scrutiny. The EPA breaks down requirements based on the type of plant, its size, and how often it is in use. Utilities, working with states, would ultimately decide how to meet the EPA’s emissions rates by choosing among available technologies. Coal plants, for instance, could fire less carbon-intensive fuels such as hydrogen and gas, to supplement coal. Coal and gas plants can also install carbon capture and storage or sequestration, a technology that removes carbon dioxide at the smokestack to eventually store it underground. Or a plant could bypass all this if it sets a retirement date in the medium term.
As a result, existing coal plants would cut their carbon pollution 90 percent by the end of the decade, unless a plant sets a retirement date before 2040. Existing gas plants get more leeway — only the largest gas plants, less than a third in operation, will have to slash their pollution by 90 percent by 2035.
The EPA makes a dent in coal pollution especially, but it doesn’t eliminate power plant pollution entirely. It leaves a mixed bag of winners and losers.”
“The paper, set to be published later this year, is a new review of dozens of studies. It finds that when schools get more money, students tend to score better on tests and stay in school longer, at least according to the majority of rigorous studies on the topic.”
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“The findings seem like a remarkable turnabout compared to prior research from Hanushek, who had for four decades concluded in academic work that most studies show no clear relationship between spending and school performance. His work has been cited by the US Supreme Court and pushed a generation of federal policymakers and advocates looking to fix America’s schools to focus not on money but ideas like teacher evaluation and school choice.
Despite his new findings, Hanushek’s own views have not changed. “Just putting more money into schools is unlikely to give us very good results,” he said in a recent interview. The focus, he insists, should be on spending money effectively, not necessarily spending more of it. Money might help, but it’s no guarantee.
Hanushek’s view matters because he remains influential, playing a dual role as a leading scholar and advocate — he continues to testify in court cases about school funding and to shape how many lawmakers think about improving schools.”
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“The context matters, they say. Sometimes money is spent well; sometimes it’s spent poorly. Sometimes the effects are big; other times they are small or nonexistent. Just focusing on the overall effect masks this variation.”
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“Other researchers agreed that the variation in results is important, but that shouldn’t mean ignoring the overall impact. “The average effect still matters,” said West, the Harvard professor.”
” A U.S. Air Force officer helping to spearhead the service’s work on artificial intelligence and machine learning says that a simulated test saw a drone attack its human controllers after deciding on its own that they were getting in the way of its mission. The anecdote, which sounds like it was pulled straight from the Terminator franchise, was shared as an example of the critical need to build trust when it comes to advanced autonomous weapon systems, something the Air Force has highlighted in the past. This also comes amid a broader surge in concerns about the potentially dangerous impacts of artificial intelligence and related technologies.”