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Drug pricing and broader quality of life. What are ‘dark antigens’? Did ACA increase sexually transmitted infections? Mystery shopping for HIV testing. California youth in mental health crisis.
Why is wellness gaining ground?
In the past I have written about the limited evidence that wellness program work. So we should see that employers are abandoning these programs or at least scaling back? According to one recent study, however employers are actually increasing investments in wellness programs. The study surveys employers from over 500 companies with more than 100…
Why drug importation from Canada won’t work
A number of politicians have called for the ability to import drugs from Canada and other developed countries. For instance, Bernie Sanders said: “I believe we should be able to import into the United States from Canada, and from other countries, FDA-approved medicine, which would substantially lower prices.” However, Canada does not want the U.S.…
What evidence do health plans use to determine coverage for specialty drugs?
According to Chambers et al. (2019), the answer varies widely depending on the health plan. The authors use a data from the Tufts Medical Center Specialty Drug Evidence and Coverage (SPEC) database. 203 specialty drugs issued by 17 of the 20 largest US commercial health plans are included in the database. This study examines nearly…
How to do external reference pricing
Many European countries use external reference pricing (ERP) to help set their drug prices. External reference pricing caps the prices of drugs at some average or weighted average of the drug price in other countries. The comparison countries typically are either in close proximity or of similar GDP/capita level. The advantage of reference pricing is…
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Does anyone know what ‘value-based care’ means? A tale of two networks. “$540,841.90 for 14 weeks of dialysis care” Can we really finance Warren’s Medicare-for-all? California air quality over time.
Why is the rent is too damn high?
In many cities–particularly urban areas on the coasts–rent and home prices are much higher than in other areas. Many politicians talk about a housing crisis. Famously, Jimmy McMillan ran for office multiple times under “The Rent is too Damn High” Party. But why is the rent so high? Today I turn to a classic economics…
Do patients actually want access to their EHR?
Maybe they do and maybe they don’t. However, few patients actually access their electronic health record (EHR) when given the chance. According to a paper by Lin et al. (2019): On average, hospitals gave 95 percent of discharged patients access to view, download, and transmit their information, but only about 10 percent of those with…
Choice matters
What happens when consumers have have fewer health plan choices? In single payer markets, this may just result in less satisfied individuals. In the U.S., however, individuals can opt of of one type of insurance (e.g., health insurance exchanges) and into others (e.g., Medicaid, private insurance). One interesting question is empirically, how does the number…
Where do you want to live if you’re an entrepreneur?
According to the Doing Business 2020 study by the World Bank, East Asia, Nordic countries and the US/UK are good places to be. Africa (particularly East, North and Central Africa) and Venezuela are places to avoid. The top and bottom 10 countries are listed in the figure below. How does the World Bank arrive at…