Typical bought-Congress bill that sounds better in the headlines than it actually is.

Passed last year 2022 but doesn’t take effect until 4 years later, 2026. And only for just 10 drugs that year. Only 30 more total for 2026 to 2027. And these negotiated price drugs cannot be newer drugs - they are only negotiable if they’ve been marketed 9 whole years first without any generic competition.

Yeah, the already-effective $35 insulin cap, and the 2025 $2000 max out-of-pocket are legit improvements for USA but still are laughably bad compared to most of the developed world and an increasing amount of the highly developing world.

This bill was just enough to make the Democrats (for whom I vote, given the alternative), AARP, and other rich players crow about how much good they’ve done in this issue, fundraise on it, ignore fixing it further, and leave us seniors in a still-unaffordable situation. Just slightly less unaffordable.

A Visa or MasterCard that has no rewards of any kind: No cashback, no “miles”, not even donations to charities as the “reward”.Anything that has any kind of rewards usually costs the businesses accepting it a higher “swipe fee” taken out of what they receive.

That’s not always true but it’s very common with most merchant accounts.