If your company has more than about 500 employees, the card in your wallet probably says Aetna or United or another insurance company- but none of them are actually paying for your care. Your employer is, with your premium dollars. 67% of workers are in self-funded plans, which means the money from your paycheck and […]

Hannah Mamuszka and Lena Chaihorsky bring on Russell DuBose, VP of Human Resources at Phifer, a family-owned manufacturer in West Alabama, to tell an unforgettable story. In 2017 DuBose — a retired Army colonel with no healthcare background — took over benefits, and two months later stood in front of a CEO-chaired committee holding numbers […]

Hannah Mamuszka and Lena Chaihorsky interview entrepreneur Mark Cuban about why U.S. drug and healthcare prices are so high — and what he’s building to counter them. Cuban walks through the drug supply chain: brand manufacturers sell to three dominant distributors, then pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) — the three largest of which are owned by […]

Hannah Mamuszka and Lena Chaihorsky interview Greg Baker, founder and CEO of AffirmedRx, a pharmacy benefit manager structured as a public benefit corporation. Baker, a pharmacist who spent years running on-site pharmacies for large employers, argues the drug-pricing system isn’t broken but “working as designed” to maximize shareholder profit. He explains how the dominant PBMs […]

Hannah Mamuszka and Lena Chaihorsky take on the drug pricing debate from the patient’s side, where the question is not what a drug costs but whether it works for the person taking it. Chaihorsky frames it with a metaphor that runs through the episode: we argue endlessly over the price of milk while ignoring that […]

Hannah Mamuszka and Lena Chaihorsky interview Kristine Ashcraft, a molecular biologist who has worked in pharmacogenomics since 2000 — first at Genelex, one of the earliest labs to offer the testing, and later as founder of the clinical-decision-support tool YouScript. Ashcraft traces the field’s slow adoption despite strong evidence. She explains that the vast majority […]