Biden Is Right About $35 Insulin Cap but Exaggerates Prior Costs for Medicare Enrollees

Most Medicare enrollees likely were not paying a monthly average of $400 — as President Joe Biden stated — before the insulin cap took effect. However, because costs and other factors result in widely varying prices, some Medicare enrollees might have paid that much in a given month.

Biden Said State of the Union Is Strong and Made Clear His Campaign Is Off and Running

President Joe Biden used his roughly 68-minute address to Congress to counter lackluster public approval ratings and draw clear contrasts between his administration’s policies and those of Donald Trump and some congressional Republicans. Abortion and health care were in the spotlight.

Biden Is Right. The US Generally Pays Double That of Other Countries for Rx Drugs.

Research has consistently found that, overall, U.S. prescription drug prices are significantly higher, sometimes two to four times as high, compared with prices in other high-income industrialized countries. However, some market factors can obscure actual prices, making comparisons harder.

In a Fractious Rerun, GOP Rivals Haley and DeSantis Debate Health Care. Trump Sits It Out.

The fifth debate of the 2024 GOP presidential primary season took place days before Iowa Republicans will caucus to determine their pick for the top of the party’s ticket. The front-runner, former President Donald Trump, once again did not participate.

RFK Jr.’s Campaign of Conspiracy Theories Is PolitiFact’s 2023 Lie of the Year

Debate and speculation are heating up over whether Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign will factor into the outcome of the 2024 election. But one thing is clear: Kennedy’s political following is built on a movement that seeks to legitimize conspiracy theories.

Candidates Clashed But Avoided Talk of Abortion at 4th GOP Primary Debate

Obamacare had its moment, but not until the faceoff’s final minutes. Front-runner Donald Trump again was not on the debate stage, leaving the other Republican presidential hopefuls to slug it out to break through and gain voters’ attention.

Another GOP Primary Debate … Another Night of Verbal Clashes

In a faceoff that took some strange turns, five presidential hopefuls focused on foreign affairs and inflation but still revealed the party’s political struggles over its abortion position. Once again, former President Donald Trump did not appear on the debate stage.

Trump Misplaced Blame When He Said Drug Shortages Were Biden’s Fault

Former President Donald Trump, who’s running for another term in the White House, recently blamed drug shortages on his successor, President Joe Biden. Our findings don’t align with Trump’s claims; by some measures, drug shortages increased more on Trump’s watch than on Biden’s.

Activist Misuses Federal Data to Make False Claim That Covid Vaccines Killed 676,000

Anti-vaccine tech entrepreneur Steve Kirsch, whose wild assertions have been repeatedly debunked, wrongly attributes deaths following vaccination to the vaccines themselves. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which runs the database, calls that inaccurate and irresponsible.

A Windfall in Health Insurance Rebates? It’s Not as Crazy as It Sounds

The billion-dollar amount cited by former Sen. Al Franken, while an estimate, is likely very close to what insurers will owe this year under a provision of the Affordable Care Act that compels rebates when insurers spend too little on actual medical care.

Are US Prescription Drug Prices 10 Times Those of Other Nations? Only Sometimes

Sen. Bernie Sanders’ broad statement that some U.S. drug prices are 10 times those of other nations doesn’t paint the full picture. Studies we examined generally found that U.S. prices were two to four times those in other countries, not 10.

Republicans Vow Not to Cut Veterans’ Benefits. But the Legislation Suggests Otherwise.

Sparing veterans and defense spending, as Republicans promise, would be extremely difficult, requiring cuts of more than 20% in other parts of the budget. The Republicans’ Limit, Save, Grow Act already proposes a $2 billion cut to the Department of Veterans Affairs by taking back unspent covid relief funding.

Proposed Medicare Advantage Changes Cannot Accurately Be Called ‘Cuts,’ Experts Say

CMS advanced two proposed changes that could affect Medicare Advantage plans. One would allow the government to recover past overpayments. As a result, it could reduce those insurers’ profits, leading them to increase enrollees’ out-of-pocket costs or reduce benefits. But it’s inaccurate to characterize the changes as “cuts.”