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When PBMs are overburdened, they can increase costs for patients, not just employers and government programs like Medicare.The country's most popular Medicare drug plan, SilverScript Choice, covered nearly 3 million Medicare beneficiaries last year. Caremark is its PBM and it overcharges.Caremark uses Medicare money to pay pharmacies, including its own, about $2,000 a month for a generic blood cancer drug, imatinib, according to a pricing tool on the SilverScript plan website. Because the payment is so high, the out-of-pocket cost for Medicare patients is also high: $664 in most months.That's more than 10 times the selling price of imatinib – often less than $50 – at online pharmacies when patients forgo insurance and pay with their own money.For patients, the situation amounts t...

Edi Rama's best friend during the summer of the 1982 World Cup was the only person he knew who owned a color television. So, every evening, Rama found himself crammed into his kitchen with countless others, desperately hoping that the fuzzy, flickering signal would hold.Then Albania was an island, under the repressive and conspiratorial government of Enver Hoxha. Foreign travel was banned for all but a few industry insiders. Communication with the outside world, particularly the West, was also limited. Rama and his friends were only able to follow that World Cup through what he later called a "dark web" run by RAI, the Italian state broadcaster.In a recent interview with Tuttosport, he said he still remembers that month fondly. Italy was Albania's avatar for the tournament; t...

Listen and follow 'Hard Fork'Apple | Spotify | Amazon | YoutubeThe Surgeon General calls for warning labels on social media platforms: should Congress like his proposal? Then, former Stanford researcher Renée DiResta joins us to talk about her new book on modern propaganda and whether we're losing the war against disinformation. And finally, Times reporter David Yaffe-Bellany stops by to tell us how cryptocurrencies could reshape the 2024 election.Credits“Hard Fork” is hosted by Kevin Roose AND Casey Newton and produced by Davis Land AND Rachel Cohn. The show is edited by Poyant only. Engineering by Alyssa Moxley and original music by Dan Powell, Elisheba Ittoop, Marion Lozano, Sofia Lanmann AND Rowan Niemisto Fact checking by Caitlin Love.Special thanks to Paula Szuchma...

He is an Egyptian tycoon little known outside the region.Tycoon Ibrahim al-Organi, president of Organi Group, oversees a vast network of companies involved in the construction, real estate and security sectors. He maintains close ties with senior Egyptian officials, according to three people who followed the report and who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their work in the region.But it is Hala – a company that Organi Group has listed as one of its own – that is getting the most attention. Hala has emerged as a lifeline for Palestinians trying to flee war-torn Gaza, but it has also been accused of squeezing desperate people with exorbitant fees. In an interview this month, Mr. Organi spoke at length and in detail about Hala's activities, although he said that his role in t...

When U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy announced Monday that he intended to push for a mental health warning label on social media platforms, he was met with applause from many parents and teachers, who described a long and lonely fight to break children from a habit that hurt them.It drew, however, a colder reaction from some scientists who study the relationship between social media and mental health. In interviews, several researchers said that the general warning offered by Dr. Murthy – “social media is associated with significant harm to adolescent mental health” – extends and oversimplifies the scientific evidence.For many years, researchers have been trying to determine whether the amount of time a child spent on social media contributes to poorer mental health, and "the result...

Barbara Gladstone, an art dealer whose eye for spotting talent and skill in cultivating it helped her build one of New York's largest and most influential contemporary art galleries, died Sunday in Paris. She was 89 years old.His gallery says that his death, in hospital, was caused by an ischemic event, the symptoms of which are similar to those of a stroke. Mrs. Gladstone, who was on a business trip to Paris, lived in Manhattan.Mrs. Gladstone represented more than 70 artists and estates, including Americans such as Robert Rauschenberg, Keith Haring and Elizabeth Murray; the provocative video and installation artist Matthew Barney; key figures of the Italian Arte Povera movement such as Mario Merz and Alighiero Boetti; Richard Prince, the pioneer of photographic appropriation; th...

TikTok explained Thursday why it believes a new federal law that could lead to a ban on the popular video app in January is unconstitutional, calling the legislation an "extraordinary restriction on free speech."The company said Congress has not given the law — which would force TikTok's Chinese owner to sell the popular social media app or face a ban in the United States — with nearly enough scrutiny and attention.TikTok made the arguments in a filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where the company sued to block the law in May.“This law represents a radical departure from this country's tradition of supporting an open Internet and sets a dangerous precedent that allows political branches to target an unfavorable speech platform and force it t...

After days of intense clashes between Hezbollah and Israel, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese militia, warned on Wednesday that "there will be no place safe from our missiles and our drones" if an all-out war breaks out. He also threatened Cyprus if it allowed Israel to use its airports and bases in a full-scale conflict.“The enemy knows very well that we have prepared for the most difficult days, and he knows what he will face,” Nasrallah said. “If war is imposed, the resistance will fight without constraints, rules or limits.”President Nikos Christodoulides of Cyprus responded to the threat by saying his country was “absolutely not involved in any way,” according to comments posted on social media.In his first public statements amid the recent outbreak of violence along the...

Doctors and physical therapists have long incorporated aerobic exercise into treatment programs for low back pain. Movement can relieve lower back pain and at the same time strengthen the muscles that support your back. However, many people with back pain may be reluctant to exercise.A new study, published Wednesday in The Lancet, offers further evidence about the power of the movement. The study found that regular walking can be very effective in preventing back pain from recurring. The study focused on adults with a history of low back pain; those who walked regularly walked almost twice as long without back pain returning compared to the control group.The new findings align with a large body of existing research that has established an association between physical activity and bett...

The European Union has agreed to a new round of economic sanctions against Russian individuals and companies, the Belgian government said on Thursday. In particular, they include measures aimed at squeezing Russia's profits from the sale of liquefied natural gas to EU members.Most EU countries stopped importing natural gas arriving by pipeline from Russia soon after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But the bloc had refrained from launching formal sanctions against the imports of Russian gas, leading many EU countries to purchase LNG from Russia, which arrives by ship.The latest action includes measures against imports of Russian LNG passing through EU ports to other countries, known as transshipments, said a senior EU diplomat familiar with the deal who spoke on co...