Yesterday at the World Medical Innovation Forum in Boston, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma argued that government can often foil innovation. 

The Trump administration’s plan to end legal protections for drug rebates in a move to curb costs would actually boost Part D premiums and federal spending, according to the Congressional Budget Office. 

If The Senior Citizens League is correct in its forecasts — and it has a strong record of that — roughly half of the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for 2020 for the average retiree will be wiped out by the increase in Medicare Part B premiums that year.

More than 500 drugs saw price hikes at the beginning of 2019, including price increases of nearly 3% prices for generics, according to a new report. Researchers at GoodRx, an app and website that tracks drug pricing and offers coupons, found a 2.9% price hike across brand-name and generic drugs in the first quarter of 2019. Most of that was reported in the first week of January, when drugmakers often raise their prices, according to the report.

More than 750 people have been diagnosed with measles in the United States this year, the most cases nationwide in more than 20 years. Health officials say that more than 500 of those people had not been vaccinated.

The Trump administration formally declared its opposition to the entire Affordable Care Act on Wednesday, arguing in a federal appeals court filing that the signature Obama-era legislation was unconstitutional and should be struck down.