In the News

From the Seattle Times Washington House and Senate lawmakers have passed four major bills that could provide relief to residents paying exorbitant prices for prescription drugs, with a focus on insulin. Those bills — which would cap prices for the diabetes drug and create a centralizing purchasing program for insulin — cleared a key hurdle in Olympia on Wednesday, the deadline for bills to ...

From the Kent Reporter The state Senate passed three bills sponsored by Sen. Karen Keiser, D-Des Moines, that would rein in sharply rising prescription drug prices. “Prescription drug costs are out of control,” Keiser said in a Washington State Senate Democrats news release. “Our constituents can’t wait. The taxpayers can’t wait. We have to do something about this increase in ...

From the AP The Washington Senate on Tuesday passed three bills that aim to reign in the costs of prescription drugs. Two of the measures, all sponsored by Democratic Sen. Karen Keiser, address insulin costs, while the third addresses overall drug affordability.c

From UW Medicine Newsroom Dana VanBuecken and her husband had to take a good long look at their budget this year. Given that Dana’s insulin costs the family $600 a month, could they afford to send their four-year-old son, Remy, to preschool this year? In the end, the Seattle-area family opted  for the preschool, but VanBuecken readily admits that she has friends ...

From Spokane Public Radio Both the Washington and Idaho legislatures were on duty during this federal Presidents’ Day holiday. In Olympia, Washington legislators used Presidents’ Day as an opportunity to approve a large number of bills. At least three focused on health care and prescription drug costs.

From the Kent Reporter A bill passed Thursday by the state Senate in Olympia with a broad bipartisan majority would extend the statute of limitations for filing a pregnancy discrimination complaint from six months to one year.

From Crosscut  Liz Donehue was a 22-year-old college senior when she was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Although she was covered by state-provided health insurance, Donehue said she still had to go through the hassle of getting prior authorization from her endocrinologist and her insurance company every three months when she needed a refill on her insulin supply. The process took ...

From Bloomberg Law A small but growing number of employers are finding they can save money on high-priced pharmaceuticals by flying their workers to Mexico, Canada, and the Cayman Islands to buy those same drugs at a fraction of the cost. The practice joins the more established trend of Americans going abroad for dental work and surgery. Only a relative smattering ...

From The Stranger Washington’s fans of e-cigarettes just got a flavorful hit of good news. After months of dealing with Gov. Jay Inslee’s ban on all flavored e-cigarettes, the local e-cigarette industry was bracing for lawmakers to make that flavor ban permanent. But after a committee hearing yesterday, the proposed bill banning flavors has now been changed to allow flavored e-cigarettes ...

From Sports Handle Karen Keiser, Chair of the Washington State Senate’s Labor and Commerce Committee graciously referred to Thursday’s hearing on legal sports betting as “robust.” She would have been just as right to say the battle lines have been drawn. On one side is Maverick Gaming, a commercial card-room operator that is squarely behind SB 6277, which would allow sports betting ...