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Health Care for All
Insulin's Inventors Sold the Patent for a Dollar, and Then Prices Soared Insulin's inventors sold the patent for a token dollar in 1923. A century later Americans rationed it. How a gift became a scandal, and what the 2022 cap fixed. Pharmacy Benefit Managers, From Rebates to Spread Pricing In July 2024 the FTC's staff reported on the three largest pharmacy benefit managers. What these middlemen do, how rebates and spread pricing work, and why patients pay for it at the counter. 219 to 212: The Sunday Night Vote That Passed the Affordable Care Act How a lost Senate seat, an abortion-language deal and a budget procedure got the Affordable Care Act through the House by seven votes on a Sunday night in March 2010. Georgia Pathways and the Cost of Checking Who Works Georgia launched the only active Medicaid work requirement in July 2023. Its thin enrollment and heavy paperwork costs are a warning now that federal law pushes every expansion state the same way. Harry and Louise and the Collapse of the 1994 Clinton Health Plan Two actors at a kitchen table helped sink the Clinton health plan. Here is how the ads worked, why the bill died without a floor vote, and what reformers learned. How a 2012 Supreme Court Ruling Made Medicaid Expansion a State Choice NFIB v. Sebelius saved the ACA's insurance mandate as a tax but let states refuse Medicaid expansion. Here is how that ruling created the coverage gap and how voters answered it. Ryan White and the 1990 AIDS Care Law Named After an Indiana Teenager A boy with hemophilia was barred from his Indiana school in 1985 because he had AIDS. Months after he died in 1990, Congress passed the HIV care program that still bears his name. The 1974 Deal Between Nixon and Ted Kennedy That Never Got Signed In 1974 a Republican president offered near-universal coverage through employers. Kennedy and organized labor held out for more, and Watergate ended the chance. The Black Panther Party's Free Clinics and Its Sickle Cell Campaign In 1971 the Black Panther Party launched a national sickle cell testing campaign from free clinics in cities across the country. What it did and why it matters. The Early-Morning Thumbs-Down That Saved the Affordable Care Act Why seven years of promises to repeal the Affordable Care Act ended with John McCain's no vote in July 2017, and what the failure revealed about who a law belongs to. The First Ten Drugs and How Medicare Price Negotiation Works In August 2023 Medicare named the first ten drugs whose prices it would negotiate, from Eliquis to Jardiance. Here is how drugs get picked, how the bargaining runs, and what changed in 2026. Truman's 1945 Health Plan and the AMA Campaign That Buried It How Truman's 1945 call for national health insurance died: a two-word label, a California consulting firm, a famous painting and a lobbying drive paid for by doctors.