Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
How does a hospital’s participation in a health plan’s Medicare Advantage (MA) provider network impact their commercial rates? Since many insurers offer both MA plans and commercial plans, there could be spillovers with respect to negotiating. How would MA network participation impact commercial rates? Marr et al. (2025) offers some hypotheses: On the one hand,…
Typically, cost effectiveness analyses assume a constant price between drug approvals and loss of exclusivity. It is not clear, however, to what extent that assumption is valid, particularly after taking into account drug price discounts and rebates. A paper by Lin et al. (2024) uses 2007-2023 data on drug prices from SSR Health to answer…
I’ll be at ISPOR. Health Care Subscriptions: Who Benefits and Who Gets Left Behind? NIH bans new funding from US scientists to scientists abroad Most favored nation. CDC: RSV vaccine works.
Perhaps so according to Politico: Trump early next week is expected to sign an executive order directing aides to pursue the initiative, called “most favored nation,” for a selection of drugs within the Medicare program. The idea would use the administration’s authorities to force prices down… White House officials initially pressed congressional Republicans to draft…
The answer is ‘yes’ according to a paper by Borrelli et al. (2025). The authors use annual Medicare Star Rating health plan performance for Medicare Advantage-Part D (MAPD) plans over the past decade (2015 to 2024). They find that: For plans achieving at least 4 stars on the medication adherence measures, 70%-74% of them also…
From Coby Lefkowitz in Building Optimism: In Los Angeles, “luxury” units in non-high-rises can be delivered for around $300,000 to $400,000 per unit. Non-“luxury” market rate units can be completed for half of that, conditional on their size and location. Capital “A” Affordable units, on the other hand, can cost more than $850,000 for what…
Three panels. One great city. Can’t wait for the conversations at ISPOR 2024 in Montréal. GCEA: Where do we go from here? (14 May, 5-6pm) Should we finally rethink the 3% discount rate? (15 May, 3:15-4:15pm) How can HEOR support providers in value-based care? (16 May, 10-11am) I’ll be diving into all three — including teaming…
Innovative Payment Models for Sickle-Cell Disease Gene Therapies. EHR records transfer: fax, CD, mail. ‘Why public health must always be led by economists’ Impact of federal cuts and inflation on food banks. End of an era?
That is the title of a paper by Arnold and Priestley (2025). They examine whether gun purchase wait periods impact suicide rates using both variation in gun laws by state over time as well as variation in a county’s distance to the nearest state without a waiting period. First, some background on US gun purchase…
It seems like the answer is now ‘yes’. EndPoints reports: Stealth BioTherapeutics said the FDA would not meet its Tuesday deadline for approving or rejecting the company’s drug, elamipretide. It had been seeking regulatory clearance of elamipretide for a rare disease called Barth syndrome, which affects only about 150 people in the US and causes…