Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
The answer to this question likely will be shaped in part by a new multilateral working group that will include not only representatives from the U.S. (U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division, and Offices of State Attorneys General), but also Canada (Canadian Competition Bureau), Europe (the European Commission Directorate General for Competition) and the United…
To get people vaccinated for COVID-19, a lot of things have to go right. First, you have to have purchased the vaccine. Second, you need a supply chain to be able to deliver the vaccine. Third (or perhaps first) you need people who actually are interested in receiving the vaccine. As you can see from…
A number of different federal agencies buy prescription drugs. However, the price at which these pharmaceuticals are purchased varies dramatically. To quantify this variation, a 2021 report from the Congressional Budget Office examines the following prices: Medicare Part D: the prescription drug program for Medicare beneficiaries. Prices are set when private insurers (or pharmacy benefit…
The list price for pharmaceutical price is not what health insurers have to pay. Sure there are patient copayments and coinsurance, but the main reason why insurers don’t pay full list prices are due to pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). PBMs contract with payers to negotiate rebates by which pharmaceutical manufacturers discount their prices for specific…
ISPOR’s new Science Strategy. MedPAC: “CMMI has put 54…[alternative payment] models into practice during the past decade. But only four of them have met the criteria for expansion.” Lifestyle and mental health disruptions since COVID-19. Impact of COVID-19 on small business CDC guidance for the fully vaccinated
That is the finding from a study published by Anne Case and Angus Deaton this week in Proceedings from the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). While COVID-19 has had a clear impact in the last 12 months, in fact figures from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) indicate that American life expectancy peaked in…
At first glance, John Cochrane makes a compelling case that pay toilets should not be illegal. The absence of pay toilets is in fact a delightful encapsulation of so much that is wrong with American economic policy these days. Activists decide free toilets are a human right, and successfully campaign to ban pay toilets. For…
Conventional wisdom holds that the U.S. has become more and more partisan and the views of both Democrats and Republicans have become less moderate over time. Is that the case with respect to views on health policy? A paper in JAMA last week by Blendon et al. (2021) conducted probability-based national surveys on four topics…
Food insecurity and health care spending. Access in a new world. Credibility Revolutionistas. Do individuals with limited English proficiency use telehealth? Desk clearing and drug safety. UCI: Re-open California schools
Cost effectiveness analysis aims to capture identify (and monetize) all of a treatments benefits, risk and costs and then determine if the treatment is worth the money. Traditionally, however, benefits, risk and costs only related to benefits that accrue to the health care system. Many studies in the academic literature have advocated for a societal…