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Medicare spent billions more money on generic drugs for its beneficiaries than warehouse chain Costco did for the same drugs, according to an analysis published Tuesday. This overspending hit $2.6 billion in 2018, Erin Trish, associate director of the University of Southern California's Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics, and colleagues wrote in a letter to the Journal of the American Medical Association's JAMA internal Medicine. (Fox and Luhby, 7/6)

A healthcare advocacy group launched digital ads this week seeking the attention of federal lawmakers for a bill that could reduce prescription drug prices. Protect our Care West Virginia held a press conference Thursday announcing a digital ad buy that started Tuesday to promote passage of H.R. 3, the Lower Drug Costs Now Act. The ads, which will run all summer, tell the story of Morgantown-native Mindy Salango, a type 1 diabetic who relies on insulin to manage her diabetes. (Adams, 7/3)

One Democratic defector in the Senate could sink the party's effort to lower prescription drug prices, and a series of new ad campaigns are giving strong hints about who advocates are most worried about. Driving the news: Two organizations advocating for Medicare to have the authority to negotiate drug prices announced new ad campaigns yesterday. (Owens, 7/2)

Erin Bonin, 40, was going through the already stressful process of in vitro fertilization when she learned that one of the medications she needed wasn’t covered by her health insurance. Her South Bend, Ind., pharmacy was charging $733.99 for a one-month supply of the medication, and she needed to take it for three months. A nurse suggested she check GoodRx, a prescription discount and cost-comparison app, for a better price. She scored a deal there. “Using GoodRx at a pharmacy about 20 minutes from my home would get me the same drug for $30.10,” Bonin says. “I was shocked, but it proves you can find a deal if you are willing to do a little research.” (Daily, 6/29)

Temperatures aren’t the only thing rising as we head into the dog days of summer. Drug prices are too, and they come just six months after most pharmaceutical manufacturers rang in 2021 with a prior round of price hikes. Here we are just a few days into July and price hikes averaging 3.6% have already been announced for 32 brand drugs, says GoodRX, a medical and healthcare services provider. For all of 2020, says the firm’s director of research Tori Marsh, prices were hiked for 67 drugs. “Every year, it seems like more drugs increase in [July],” says Marsh. (Brandus, 7/6)