1/ #BrokenPledge Chapter 1 - Brotherhood

They beat him with belts.

They forced him to binge drink until he passed out, poured hot sauce on him and made him strip down to his underwear and play tackle football in a small room. 2/ On the day Collin Wiant was buried, his parents didn’t know that their son had been a hazing victim for months.

Over the course of a year our reporting in the #SideEffects series has created transparency, influenced legal action and helped consumers get the best price for their prescription medication.

Here is a thread of our biggest stories in the investigation in the past year. 2/ March 2018 - Dispatch reporters @martyschladen @CCandisky @DispatchSully and @darreldrowland started investigating the role of pharmacy benefit managers and the high costs of prescription medication.

1/ For the past couple of years, Ohioans could buy the generic version of the heartburn treatment Prilosec off the shelf at most any drugstore for less than 60 cents a tablet — and less than 40 cents online. 2/ However, Ohioans were being charged $6.57 a tablet to provide large quantities of the exact same drug through the state’s Medicaid program.

This is Elvin Weir. He is battling Stage 4 colon cancer — and a convoluted healthcare system that forced him to wait weeks for chemo pills. That’s because insurance only covers the pricey drugs if filled through a specific mail-order pharmacy: AllianceRx.
bit.ly/2LjVmZT 2/ Weir isn’t the only one, cancer-care providers and pharmacists say. Instead of getting drugs at their treatment centers, Ohio cancer patients are forced to use mail-order pharmacies for insurance to cover medications. And cancer’s no waiting game.
bit.ly/2LjVmZT