Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
That is the title of a new USC white paper by Darren Filson, Karen Van Nuys, Darius Lakdawalla and Dana Goldman with the subtitle “How Much Does Revenue Drive New Drug Development?” What is the elasticity of innovation? It measures the percentage change in innovation—using the flow of new drugs approvals, or Phase 1, 2,…
That is according to a paper by Wolff et al. (2025). They use 2011-2022 data from the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS) linked to data from the National Study of Caregiving (NSOC). Using these data, they find. …the numbers of family caregivers providing help to older adults increased by nearly six million between…
As reported by the BBC: NHS England will be abolished and brought under “democratic control” in an attempt to cut bureaucracy and duplication, Sir Keir Starmer has announced. The organisation, which oversees the country’s health service, will be brought into the Department of Health, and the PM said the move would free up money for…
On Tuesday (11 March 2025) the European Commission presented the draft of its new Critical Medicines Act (CMA). The Science Media Centre España writes that the CMA’s objective is: …to address the serious shortage of medicines and healthcare products, reduce external dependence on critical medicines and ingredients — especially from Asia — and guarantee the…
The Incidental Economist website has a helpful explainer video. The truth is that higher cost is due to both higher prices and more utilization of healthcare goods and services. It is not caused by any one stakeholder within the healthcare ecosystem. Reducing health care costs would require significant–and often painful–tradeoffs.
That is the question asked in a new paper by Enright, et al. (2025). The authors use the Tufts Medical Center Specialty Drug Evidence and Coverage (SPEC) database current as of August 2023. This database contains publicly available specialty pharmacy coverage decisions as issued by 18 large US commercial health plans, which—collectively—cover 200m people (i.e.,…
Can LLM experience anxiety? Impact of economic shocks on infant health. The advent of managed long-term services and home care. “Nothing would will have more impact on workers’ comp than significant cuts to Medicaid.” Impact of work from home.
A paper by Ng, Zhang and Kowal (2025) use the American Community Survey (ACS) data from 2016–2022 were used to construct Social Vulnerability Index (SVI). SVI is calculated from 16 social determinants of health (SDoH) variables that are grouped into 4 themes: socioeconomic status, household characteristics, racial and ethnic minority status, and housing type &…
This is the title of a recent paper by Jiao et al. (2025). Previous studies (e.g., Goldman et al. 2013, Goldman et al. 2023) have argued for a 3-part pricing model. Under a 3-part pricing model, drugs would come to market quickly under accelerated approval with a relatively lower price. As clinical trials and other…
Last month, I noted that the decrease in vaccination rates has likely resulted in increased rates of measles in Texas and around the US. With measles cases on the rise, RFK Jr. now is has made a “call to action” to increase uptake of the MMR vaccine. Here is a quote from his editorial: As…