PODCAST: Brand-name drugs prescribed to Medicare patients cost taxpayers
Boeing’s new 777X airplanes led the Dubai Air Show’s opening day. The company claims orders of roughly $95 billion, purported to be the largest product launch in the history of commercial aviation.
Far too many doctors in the U.S. prescribe brand-name drugs when generics can be dramatically cheaper. When it comes to lower-income Medicare patients, it can be the taxpayer who covers the difference in price — up to hundreds of millions of dollars a year. ProPublica senior reporter Tracy Weber has been gathering data about the cost of prescription drugs to the taxpayer, and tells Marketplace Morning Report host David Brancaccio what she found.
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