by Brittney Melton

April 5, 2026

Good morning. This week, the Supreme Court struck down a ban on conversion therapy in Colorado, an appeals court rejected the Trump administration's push to impose new conditions on homelessness funding, and a judge ruled Homeland Security illegally stripped immigration status from thousands who entered the U.S. through the CBP One App.

Avoid overpaying for prescriptions

by Sydney Lupkin, pharmaceuticals correspondent

Brand-name drug prices in the U.S. are high. But it can be just a statistic until you have to fill a new prescription.

Again and again, people in my life — from family members to pals to people I’ve just met — have questions for me. That’s because they know I’m NPR’s pharmaceuticals correspondent. The thing about having “pharmaceuticals” in my job title is that people find me. And I love to help.

Sometimes, these people want to know more about the ins and outs of drug pricing or how a new pill works, but the vast majority of the time, they tell me about a drug they need and can’t afford.

And they want to know how to pay for it.

Illustration of patients navigating a maze to find their medicines at the right price.

Rose Wong for NPR

When I was reporting on the launch of TrumpRx, the government website the president touted as a place to get deals on prescription drugs, I thought more about how many sites consumers have to check to find the best drug price. Because even TrumpRx’s seemingly steep discount on Protonix for heartburn and gastroesophageal reflux disease at $200 isn’t a great deal when the generic version, called pantoprazole, costs less than $30 with a coupon from GoodRx, another drug discount website. And insurance plans likely cover the generic for just a $5 or even $0 copay.

How can the average person know they’re not overpaying? Wading through patient assistance, copay cards, discount sites, cash prices and more is complicated.

So I started working on a guide for how people can tackle it.

I had a list of questions I’d run through, for example, when my mom told me her autoimmune drug wasn’t covered. But I wanted to make sure I talked to a mix of doctors and pharmacists to inform the guide. And in the end, they helped me come up with a logical step-by-step approach.

It starts with asking for a generic as early as possible. Ideally, you want to ask your doctor as they’re writing the prescription. But life happens. Sometimes you forget. And that’s OK because your pharmacist has your back, too.

Just last week, that happened to my colleague when she walked into her pharmacy with a prescription for brand-name eye drops that her insurance didn’t cover. She asked what she would have to pay out of pocket. The answer: $290. But the pharmacist at this particular shopping center had been through this before. They sent my colleague back to her optometrist and told her to ask for a new prescription, this time for a slightly different drug with a lower concentration of the same active ingredient. That’s available as a generic and only costs a few bucks.

The whole adventure took time, but my colleague saved hundreds of dollars and still got the treatment she needed.

Unfortunately, generics aren’t always available, and that’s where the other steps in the guide come in. Like looking for patient assistance, copay cards and searching discount sites.

The whole thing reminds me of this concept you might remember from math class called “order of operations.” When you get an equation to solve with all kinds of bells and whistles, you’re supposed to do things in order. You start with what’s in the parentheses, then the exponents, then multiply or divide, then do addition and subtraction.

When it comes to getting a low prescription drug price, all the things you have to check can be really intimidating. But if you approach the tasks one at a time and in the right order, you can solve the problem.

Check out more great reads from the NPR network you may have missed:

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Pod Club

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Thanks for tuning in last week to the The Indicator from Planet Money episode discussing why flight tickets are currently so pricey. Increased oil prices seem like the obvious answer, but they aren't the only factor. Airlines used to use a financial strategy called "fuel hedging" to keep airfare down as oil prices rose, but they stopped. NPR listener Janice Rihn said she finds the concept of fuel hedging interesting. “It seems to me, however, that for any speculation to be successful, both stability and honor, from those involved, must be assured,” Rihn said. “Unfortunately, the current United States government does not provide either, therefore, fuel hedging would not be advisable.”

Today, we’re listening to Short Wave. This episode is part of Nature Quest, a monthly Short Wave segment from listeners noticing a change in the world around them. This month, the hosts dive into the ins and outs of cherry blossoms. People travel from all over the world to Washington, D.C., to enjoy the annual National Cherry Blossom Festival each spring. This episode explores how scientists make the annual prediction of when the cherry blossoms will reach peak bloom, and why focusing on the blooms helps scientists better understand climate change. Listen to the episode, or read the transcript.

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In this week's episode of The Sunday Story from Up First, NPR’s Kat Lonsdorf and Meg Anderson discuss the growing trend of Americans getting caught up in Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s web of tracking and surveillance.

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