Who benefits from the drug-pricing bill?

If the Democrats’ latest drug pricing plan becomes law, millions of Medicare patients could eventually see lower prescription drug costs. The plan has four major policies: It would allow Medicare to negotiate prices for some costly drugs, penalize drug makers for hiking prices faster than inflation, redesign Medicare’s prescription drug benefit and cap annual costs at $2,000, and cap Medicare patients’ insulin costs at $35 per month.

Those changes won’t take effect right away, but STAT’s Rachel Cohrs explains who will likely benefit the most:

Medicare patients who pay a lot for drugs
Low-income patients on Medicare
Medicare patients who use insulin
Medicare patients taking drugs on the market now

Rachel reminds us to keep insurance premiums in mind: “It’s possible in the short-term that some beneficiaries could pay more for premiums than they would save.” Read more.

Opinion: Drug pricing reform was inevitable, but its effects may be unpredictable

You could say the Senate’s sweeping plan to allow Medicare to negotiate some drug prices is the inevitable result of a math problem, STAT’s Matthew Herper suggests in a new commentary. After all, prices for new medicines are double to quadruple the levels seen in France, Australia, or Canada. Advocates say the biggest drug pricing reform in a generation will remove a curse that prevented Medicare from keeping drug prices down, while drug companies say it will prevent cures from reaching patients. The truth is probably somewhere in between, in Matt's view.

“Like Renaissance astronomers trying to figure out how to make the sun circle the earth, Congress is adding new complexity to an already complicated system,” he writes. Read more about how that complexity could play out in unintended consequences.

More Americans returning to ‘normal’ pre-Covid life

The continuing risks of Covid-19 haven’t gone away, but most Americans (54%) say they’re done with masks indoors and 4 out of 10 — more than double the proportion in January — have returned to “normal, pre-Covid life.” New data published today by the Annenberg Public Policy Center and based on a national survey conducted last month also show people know:

Someone who has died of Covid (54%).
Someone who is living with long Covid (31%).
And someone who has been infected after being vaccinated and boosted (68%).
But most (79%) are unfamiliar with Paxlovid, the oral antiviral treatment for Covid.

Here’s who’s more likely to say they're back to normal life (41%): Men who say they are or lean Republican, don’t regularly wear masks, and are less worried about getting Covid anytime soon. About an equal number (42%) think a return to normal is more than a year away.

Closer look: Access to trauma care is better but uneven

(John Moore/Getty Images)

Surviving trauma — and surviving it well — is the driving force behind efforts to set up a national system to care for patients with traumatic injuries at centers that meet certain benchmarks on care and have specific staff on call around the clock. That’s not a reality yet, but new research published in JAMA concludes access to trauma care improved since 2010. Mapping the distance from each census block to the nearest trauma center, the researchers found that 91% of people in the U.S. could get to a trauma center within 60 minutes by air or land travel, up from 78% in 2013.

But that’s not enough, Brian Daley, chief of the trauma division at the University of Tennessee Medical Center, told STAT’s Edward Chen. “We shouldn’t be applauding that. We should say we’re still lacking 10%.” Read more about how access varies depending where you live.

Climate dangers make more than half of infectious diseases worse, study finds

Climate hazards such as flooding, heat waves, and drought have worsened more than half of the hundreds of known infectious diseases in people, including malaria, hantavirus, cholera, and anthrax, a new study in Nature Climate Change concludes. That proportion comes from already reported cases of illness — it's not a prediction — caused by 375 human infectious diseases. Extreme weather connected to climate change made 218, or 58%, of those diseases worse.

Carlos del Rio, an Emory University infectious disease specialist not involved in the study, called the results “terrifying.” “Those of us in infectious diseases and microbiology need to make climate change one of our priorities, and we need to all work together to prevent what will be without doubt a catastrophe as a result of climate change,” he told the Associated Press. Read more.

Time-restricted eating gets a nod in a small study

Intermittent fasting is a popular way to lose weight, but scientific evidence to support it is scant. A new study in JAMA Internal Medicine tested the idea in 90 adults with a BMI of 30 to 60. They followed the same weight-loss plan but half were randomly assigned to eat from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and half were to asked to eat across 12 hours of their choosing, six days a week.

After 14 weeks, the time-restricted participants lost more weight (13 vs. 9 pounds) but not more body fat than the control group. Blood pressure declined four points on the diastolic, or bottom, number for time-restricted participants and their mood also improved, but other cardiometabolic risk factors, food intake, physical activity, and sleep were similar. “For now, [time-restricted eating] is a promising idea in need of stronger clinical trial evidence to support its benefits and long-term safety,” a companion editorial says.

What to read around the web today

Biden administration to allow new injection method for monkeypox vaccine, New York Times
Locked-in syndrome and the misplaced presumption of misery, Undark
Aldosterone, a hormone that prevents dehydration, is linked to worsening kidney disease, study suggests, STAT
For the second time, Pfizer tries a drug warranty in response to concerns over high costs, STAT
Pfizer begins late-stage trial testing Lyme disease vaccine, NBC News
Karuna Therapeutics’ schizophrenia drug achieves study goals, heralding new treatment approach, STAT