All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

On a campaign stop in 2008, then candidate Barack Obama firmly declared "we'll tell the pharmaceutical companies 'thanks but no thanks for overpriced drugs.'"

Cut to August, 2009.

As he tries to lower the temperature in the health care debate those drug companies are now part of his prescription They're pledging to spend as much as $150 million for an ad campaign promoting the plan and $80 billion over a decade to help pay for it.

It's an unlikely alliance for a man they once considered a foe.

In exchange, they stand to gain protection against government price controls on drugs.

It's a strange turnabout for a man who called a law preventing Medicare from negotiating costs a "profound mistake."

Members of his own party say this asks too little of drug companies. The cost of drugs after all is one reason why health care is out of control.

Let's hope this new deal isn't just treating the symptoms instead of curing the disease.

That's a page from my notebook.

I'm Katie Couric, CBS News.

For Michael Jackson fans, it's a golden ticket. Just 11,000 thousand people out of 1.6 million applicants will get to see the sendoff for the King of Pop live at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Another 6,500 will be next door at the Nokia Theater.

The tickets are free but the event obviously is not. It will require the LAPD and other city departments to work overtime to handle what could be record-breaking crowds in the downtown area. Police say they're preparing for crowds similar to what they saw during the 1984 Olympics.

One LA city councilwoman said she hopes the Jackson family will help pay the tab but told CBS there has been no such offer as of today.

Last month it was private donations that covered much of the cost of a parade to celebrate the Lakers' NBA championship.

For now, an already cash-strapped city hopes a King's memorial service won't cost a King's ransom.

I'm Seth Doane, CBS News.

I'll never forget that night back in 1975.

I wore a long white eyelet dress and a white hat, and Ernie, my date, wore white tails and carried a walking stick.

I'm not sure what look we were trying to achieve, but I know we danced to "Stairway to Heaven."

Today it might be Lady Gaga or T-Pain bringing on the boogie, but the rite of passage known as prom remains the same.

This year, many students are cutting costs because of the recession. Some schools have made tuxedos optional, limo rentals are down, and in an online poll from Seventeen.com, 60 percent of teens say they'll spend less than $200 on the big night - total.

But it's not about how much you spend. It's about spending time with your friends, and making memories that are priceless.

And, I'll let you in on a secret. No matter what you wear to your prom 20 years from now, your children will make fun of it.

That, too, is a rite of passage.

That's a page from my notebook.

Kelly Wallace is a CBS News correspondent based in New York.

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Ever wonder why a gallon of milk costs as much as it does (more than $4 at my local grocery store in New York City) and who benefits when the prices go up? We did.

That’s what led to tonight’s piece on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.

With the price of a gallon of whole milk up 15 percent in the past year (May 2007 – May 2008), we thought someone must be profiting big time. Could it be a great time to be a dairy farmer?

Not a chance.

We met Richard Byma, a dairyman in northern New Jersey for the past 36 years, who told us his costs are skyrocketing — feed and fertilizer have doubled in the past year, and rising gas prices at the pump mean higher farm fuel prices for his farm equipment.

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Ben Tracy is a CBS News correspondent based in Los Angeles.

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A couple of weeks ago I received an e-mail from a producer in New York who said, “We’d like you to do a story on trickle-down economics.” I was kind of perplexed as to why we would be revisiting Ronald Reagan and the 1980’s.

I was quickly corrected. The story idea was actually about the effect someone at the top of the economic food chain (well-off person) cutting back their spending has on those of us further down (middle class and below).

It’s actually reverse trickle down economics.

So, we set out to find some people affected by someone else’s cutbacks. Believe me, it wasn’t hard.

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A new study suggests that the more you spend on something, the more you'll enjoy it.

Researchers concluded that what we experience has a lot to do with our expectations.

For more, just click the little monitor.