Prescription Drugs

• KFF Health News: Save Billions or Stick With Humira? Drug Brokers Steer Americans to the Costly Choice

  September 21, 2023: Tennessee last year spent $48 million on a single drug, Humira — about $62,000 for each of the 775 patients who were covered by its employee health insurance program and receiving the treatment. So when nine Humira knockoffs, known as biosimilars, ...Read more >

• Hearing Exposes Greed of Drug Corporation AbbVie

  May 24, 2021: According to a study released on May 18 by the U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee, the pharmaceutical corporation AbbVie has raised prices 470% in the United States for its widely used drugs Humira and Imbruvica over the past two decades. The ...Read more >

• Legislators should support COVID-price law

  April 15, 2021:   "As vaccine rollouts remain patchy throughout the United States, we who live in Scott County, Iowa, and Rock Island County, Illinois, have seen an increase in vaccinations. There is no doubt that many more still need to be vaccinated, bu...Read more >

• KHN: As Drug Prices Keep Rising, State Lawmakers Propose Tough New Bills to Curb Them

  February 16, 2021: Fed up with a lack of federal action to lower prescription drug costs, state legislators around the country are pushing bills to penalize drugmakers for unjustified price hikes and to cap payment at much-lower Canadian levels. These bills, sponsor...Read more >

• KHN: Seniors Face Crushing Drug Costs as Congress Stalls on Capping Medicare Out-Of-Pockets

  January 07, 2021: Sharon Clark is able to get her life-sustaining cancer drug, Pomalyst — priced at more than $18,000 for a 28-day supply — only because of the generosity of patient assistance foundations. Clark, 57, a former insurance agent who lives in Bixby,...Read more >

• Cost of Vaccine

  December 14, 2020:   The holidays are a time for cheer and goodwill toward your fellow human. Someone should send that message to Chuck Grassley. At a time when many should be celebrating, they’re jobless due to a pandemic of which Grassley has been infected....Read more >

• Coal in Grassley’s Stocking

  December 14, 2020: He’s making a list. He’s checking it twice. He’s gonna find out who’s naughty and nice. It is easy to tell which side of the list Chuck Grassley is on. The last four years he has aided and abetted a conman grifter who enabled a pandemic to...Read more >

• If ever there was a time to delay filling a Supreme Court vacancy, it is now

  October 01, 2020:   When Chuck Grassley & Joni Ernst refused to hold a hearing on President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, I thought they were being racist and playing partisan politics.  They insisted that voters “needed a say” in an election year ...Read more >

• Iowa Republicans fail to uphold promises of Older Americans Act

  July 20, 2020:   President Lyndon Johnson signed the Older Americans Act into law on July 14, 1965. It responded to the need for community services, evidence-based health promotion, disease prevention programs, civic engagement, and elder justice for senior...Read more >

• Miller-Meeks touts Trump’s unproven anti-malarial drug

  July 20, 2020:   This week we celebrated the 55th anniversary of the Older Americans Act (OAA). The OAA funds many social service programs that keep older adults healthy and independent. Important pieces of this legislation include evidence...Read more >