Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
In general, you would think the answer is no. If there are multiple treatments available, patients have more choice. Further, the treatments may need to compete with one another which may lead to lower prices. One issue with drug prices is that the the list (a.k.a. gross) price affects patient cost-sharing, but the net price…
That was the conclusion of The Economist on his decision to suspend intellectual property protections for the makers of COVID-19 vaccines. In the article “Ten million reasons to vaccinate the world“, they write: Many experts argue that, because some manufacturing capacity is going begging, millions more doses might become available if patent-owners shared their secrets,…
Some interesting and very positive news linking the world of cryptocurrencies to the fight against COVID-19. As reported in Forbes: Ethereum’s co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who became the world’s youngest known crypto billionaire less than two weeks ago, has donated over $1 billion in crypto to the India Covid Relief Fund and a range of other charities. He…
Real-world evidence is often used to assess the safety of devices and diagnostics. For instance, the FDA’s , Postmarketing Surveillance Program includes the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS); FDA may also require some MedTech companies to conduct Post-Approval Studies. However, as new legislation (e.g., 21st Century Cures Act) has passed and new technology has…
Joe Newhouse has a nice overview article on the value of preventive care in the latest edition of the Journal of Economic Literature. He makes three key points: Preventive care may save money, but often does not. That does not mean that they are not high value. Preventive care should be seen as an insurance…
LGBTQ Economics. Does health insurance improve health outcomes for cancer patients? Shattered. Mr. Jim. KHN: “Moderna…announced in October that it would not enforce its covid-related patents during the pandemic. Even so, no known independent producer has used the available patents to replicate the company’s mRNA vaccine. Experts say that’s telling.”
Conventional wisdom would hold that the prices are rising…aren’t they? To correctly answer this question, one must define which prices you are talking about. Are we looking at the list price that is widely available or the net price after we take into account discounts are rebates life sciences firms pay? A paper by Sarpatwari…
An interesting discussion from This American Life (“The Herd“, transcript) talking about the origin of the term “communicable disease” with respect to public health monitoring for the 1918 flu pandemic. Ira Glass: Howard says [St. Louis Commissioner of Health] Dr. Starkloff had all kinds of messages, telling people to wash their hands, don’t cough on…
One reason for worse health outcomes for racial minorities could be reduced access to pharmacies. However, how big a problem is pharmacy access? A recent Health Affairs paper by Guadamuz et al. (2021) uses 2007-2015 data from the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs (NCPDP) to identify pharmacies, which were then geocoded and linked to…
This weekend I received my second COVID-19 vaccine. While I certainly feel lucky to live in a country with ample vaccine supply, other countries are not so lucky. Let’s take a look at the numbers from the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center. These numbers are updated through May 2, 2021. First, you’ll see that…