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Medicaid provides roughly 65 million Americans with health care coverage paid for by taxpayers. This federal-state health insurance program provides a safety net for low-income adults, children, the elderly, and people with disabilities. I worry that it could unravel because of unsustainable spending for unchecked drug pricing. Medicaid spending is growing and it is fast contributing a larger share to federal health spending. States contributed roughly one-third of the half-trillion Medicaid dollars spent last year. (Sen. Chuck Grassley, 7/29)

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., again defended his “Medicare-for all” plan Sunday, as he headed from Detroit to the nearby Canadian city of Windsor with a group of diabetics to dramatize the lower cost of insulin in Canada. Sanders is bound to mention his Canadian trip when he debates nine other presidential contenders Tuesday night to make his frequently stated point that Americans pay too much for prescription drugs and that pharmaceutical companies' “greed” to blame. (Sally Pipes, 7/29)

Pfizer on Monday announced a deal to combine its off-patent drugs with Mylan, one of the world’s largest generic manufacturers. This Big Pharma cocktail could help both manufacturers cope with increased competition, but maybe it should come with a black box warning for investors: High risk of political intervention. (7/29)

When I was 13 years old, my doctor told me I had Crohn’s disease, a painful gastrointestinal condition that swells the intestines and threatens the digestive tract. Breakthrough treatments like Remicade, Enbrel, and Humira were still decades away, so the diagnosis cost me my colon. My surgeries and the lifelong challenges — and triumphs — that came with them inform my vantage point in the simmering drug pricing debate. I believe in the social contract that drug companies, mine included, have a duty to responsibly set list prices so patients can access needed medicines. And I think it’s time for industry leaders to exert more pressure on colleagues who violate that contract. (Paul Hastings, 7/30)

Merck & Co. has a problem, but it’s the kind of problem the rest of the pharmaceutical world  wish they had.  The drugmaker released second-quarter earnings and revenue figures Tuesday that smashed Wall Street expectations and prompted a significant boost to full-year guidance. The driver – as always for Merck – was blockbuster immune-boosting cancer treatment Keytruda. Sales of the medicine, which is approved to treat a wide variety of cancers, were $2.6 billion in the latest quarter, 58% higher than a year earlier. Keytruda’s performance was so good, its year-over-year growth exceeded the second-quarter sales of all but one other Merck franchise.  (Max Nisen, 7/30)