Liz Szabo, Senior Correspondent for Kaiser Health News, is an enterprise reporter focusing on acute care and end-of-life issues. She has an extensive background in medical reporting, including 12 years as a health writer at USA TODAY, where she led a yearlong series on the neglect of people with mental illness. Her work for USA TODAY won the prestigious Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Reporting. Her investigation of dangerous doctors, written while working at The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va. in 2002, won two National Press Club awards and led Virginia lawmakers to toughen state laws for disciplining physicians.
Dr. Anne Schuchat, the CDC's principal deputy director, said she was surprised by the extent of the spread of the bacteria, which are virtually untreatable and capable of spreading genes that make them impervious to most antibiotics.
“If you’ve paid half a million dollars for drugs and half a million dollars for care, and a year later your cancer is back, is that a good deal?” asked Leonard Saltz, chief of gastrointestinal oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
Closing cancer health equity gaps require medical breakthroughs made possible by new funding approaches.
“From what we’re hearing, this will be a quantum leap more expensive than other cancer drugs,” said Leonard Saltz, chief of gastrointestinal oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
Although Better Care Reconciliation Act would increase hospital beds for psychiatric patients, some mental health groups say they see no reason to celebrate.
The high prices Americans pay for generic drugs may have been cooked up by pharmaceutical salespeople on golf courses, at a New Jersey steakhouse or over martinis at a “Girls Nights Out” in Minnesota.
Mental health advocates have described it as the most significant piece of mental health legislation since the 2008 law requiring equal insurance coverage for mental and physical health.
The future looks bright for the integrated specialty pharmacy model – for health systems, providers, and most importantly, for patients.