Jay Hancock
Recent Stories By Jay Hancock:
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Drugmakers Master Rolling Out Their Own Generics to Stifle CompetitionAugust 5, 2019
When PDL BioPharma’s $40 million blood-pressure medicine faced the threat of a generic rival this year, the company pulled out a little-known strategy that critics say helps keep drugs expensive and...
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Record Approvals for Generic Drugs, but Many Aren’t for SaleFebruary 8, 2019
The Trump administration has been trumpeting a huge increase in FDA generic drug approvals the past two years, the result of its actions to streamline a cumbersome process and combat anti-competitive...
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Secretive ‘Rebate Trap’ Keeps Generic Drugs for Diabetes and Other Ills Out of ReachJanuary 22, 2019
Lisa Crook was lucky. She saved $800 last year after her insurance company started covering a new, less expensive insulin called Basaglar that was virtually identical to the brand she had used for...
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High-Deductible Health Plans Fall From Grace In Employer-Based CoverageOctober 3, 2018
With workers harder to find and Obamacare’s tax on generous coverage postponed, employers are hitting pause on a feature of job-based medical insurance much hated by employees: the high-deductible...
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6 Ways Your Company Health Plan Could ChangeNovember 19, 2014
You don’t get a pass this year on big health insurance decisions because you’re not shopping in an Affordable Care Act marketplace. Employer medical plans — where most working-age folks get coverage...
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Sickest Patients Could Be Shifted Off Employer PlansMay 8, 2014
Can corporations shift workers with high medical costs from the company health plan into online insurance exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act? Some employers are considering it, say benefits...
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Maryland Hospitals May Be Paid for Keeping People OutJanuary 10, 2014
Maryland officials have reached what analysts say is an unprecedented deal to limit medical spending and abandon decades of expensively paying hospitals for each extra procedure they perform. If the...
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Obamacare Startups Will Compete with Big InsurersSeptember 12, 2013
They have rented offices and zero customers. All their capital is borrowed. They’re trying to sign the kind of expensive, chronically ill individuals that insurers have avoided for decades. In three...
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Why Obamacare Will Keep ‘Junk’ Health InsuranceAugust 26, 2013
Consumer Reports calls it “junk health insurance.” A California regulator described them as “skeleton policies.” To an expert from the American Cancer Society, they “are a perfect example of why...
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UPS to Remove Scores of Spouses from Medical PlanAugust 22, 2013
Partly blaming the health law, United Parcel Service is set to remove thousands of spouses from its medical plan because they are eligible for coverage elsewhere. Many analysts downplay the...
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Health Costs Take Bigger Bite Out of Family Budget December 12, 2012
Medical costs aren’t just breaking government budgets. The price of commercial health insurance has risen five times faster than family incomes since 2003 even as the financial security it offers has...