From 2006 to 2015, health insurers and pharmacy benefit managers that run Medicare's prescription drug program reaped $9.1 billion in additional taxpayer funds because they overestimated how much their members would spend on drugs, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation.
The bottom line: Medicare's complex rules allowed companies — including UnitedHealth Group, CVS Health and Humana — to pocket most or all of those overestimated funds instead of paying them back to the federal government.
Worries over the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have spiked after violence surrounding last weekend's elections led to hundreds of refugees flooding bordering countries and caused DRC and international health workers to withdraw completely in some areas.
Why it matters: Efforts to treat and contain Ebola had been successful in the hotspot city of Beni during the early weeks of December, but experts say recent events have likely taken a significant toll on progress. That includes the government's move to reportedly shut down the country's internet in the wake of the election violence.
