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Last week we learned that Novartis, the Swiss drug company, had paid Michael Cohen — Donald Trump’s personal lawyer — $1.2 million for what ended up being a single meeting. Then, on Friday, Trump announced a “plan” to reduce drug prices. Why the scare quotes? Because the “plan” was mostly free of substance, controlled or otherwise. (O.K., there were a few ideas that experts found interesting, but they were fairly marginal.) During the 2016 campaign Trump promised to use the government’s power, including Medicare’s role in paying for prescription drugs, to bring drug prices down. But none of that was in his speech on Friday. And if someone tries to convince you that Trump really is getting tough on drug companies, there’s a simple response: If he were, his speech wouldn’t have sent drug stocks soaring. (Paul Krugman, 5/14)

After President Trump announced his plan for reining in prescription drug prices, shares in drug companies and pharmacy benefit managers spiked. Why? Based on Trump’s campaign rhetoric — drug companies are “getting away with murder,” Medicare should bargain down prices, etc. — Wall Street feared that big changes were afoot. But Trump’s plan (titled “American Patients First“) doesn’t propose any big changes, so investors were relieved and stock prices jumped up. Trump even endorsed two policies that could modestly increase drug makers’ profits. (Charles M. Silver and David A. Hyman, 5/14)

In the steadily growing U.S. economy, with tax reform and regulatory relief leading businesses to invest more in both facilities and people, the unemployment rate stands at 3.9 percent, the lowest since 2000. A record number of business owners say now is a good time to expand, but our workforce needs are going unmet. I see this in Ohio, where employers increasingly tell me that their biggest challenge is finding workers. ... Some new data suggest that the most significant factor contributing to this labor-force decline is the opioid epidemic. (Sen. Rob Portman, 5/14)

For many of the Americans devastated by opiates — whether through their own addiction or the pain of a loved one’s suffering — no apology from Cardinal Health Chairman George Barrett can be sufficient. The Dublin-based drug distributor’s role in the tsunami of opiate addiction that has overtaken the U.S. will be debated for a long time in courts of law and public opinion. Drug distributors didn’t cause the opiate crisis; unethical manufacturer/marketers, prescribers and pharmacists bear the biggest share of blame. But the fact remains that Cardinal and a few other major drug distributors failed to notice or took no action when filling small pharmacies’ orders for preposterously large shipments of highly addictive opiates. The company occupied a pivotal place in the chain that conceivably could have allowed it to head off the growing scourge of addiction years ago, preventing who-knows-how-much suffering. (5/15)

Have you ever heard an idea so good and obvious that you can’t believe it hadn’t been thought of before?That’s the case with a program at Mid Coast Hospital in Brunswick that grabs people with substance abuse disorder when they are most likely to be ready for help, and gets them treatment before their addiction chases that readiness away. The program – the first of its kind in Maine – changed how the hospital deals with people who show up at the emergency department because of their drug use, most often following an overdose. (5/14)

Is state-level medical cannabis access mitigating or fueling America’s opioid crisis? Testifying before Congress last week, Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) acting administrator Robert Patterson claimed the latter. But when he prompted to provide evidence in support of the agency’s position, he acknowledged that he could not.His failure to substantiate this claim is unsurprising. That is because numerous peer-reviewed studies show that increased cannabis access is associated with declining rates of opioid use, abuse, hospitalizations, and mortality. (Paul Armentano, 5/14)

Eating too much added sugar has become one of the riskiest health behaviors in the modern world. None too soon, governments are waking up to the fact. Staggering under the burden of increasingly overweight populations, more than 30 countries have put new taxes on sugary beverages, most in just the past four years. This is good policy, and it needs to be taken further. (5/14)

My condition is not life-threatening and my baby is healthy, but there are some days when life is downright miserable. But with Iowa's six-week abortion ban — and the possibility of overturning Roe v. Wade — how many women will be forced to make a sacrifice for something they don’t want? I can’t imagine living life in such a torturous way if I didn’t have a choice in the matter. ... Abortion is an essential part of women’s health care. This choice should always be between a woman and her doctor. (Alyssa Reynolds, 5/14)

I’m proud to be the executive vice president of a medical device company I co-founded 16 years ago. I love my industry and the innovative changes it creates that improve people’s lives around the world. And yet I’m dismayed to see how few female executives there are in the medtech and biotech industries — roughly 1 for every 4 male executives and senior officers. That imbalance is bad for women and the future of these industries, because women make up half of the population and represent more than half of health care consumers. Despite positive changes in family responsibilities and greater shared parenting, in most households women are still the primary decision-makers when it comes to family and health. (Melissa Burstein, 5/15)