Reference pricing in the US for COVID drugs?

Perhaps according to a report from Stat News: A groundbreaking clause in a new deal between the Department of Health and Human Services and the pharmaceutical company Regeneron marks the first time the Biden administration has directly used its leverage to challenge drugmakers’ list prices, experts told STAT.The contract between Regeneron and the government requires…

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Excess mortality in China after ending “Zero COVID” Responsiveness to private health insurance subsidies among the elderly. power=0.06 New COVID vaccines for all. ChatGPT made zero “grossly inaccurate” statements when presented with a standard set of eye complaints.

Addressing 0 values with econometrics

Health care data–particularly spending data–often has a right skewed distribution with a high number of 0’s. For instance, US health care spending in 2019 was $11,852. However, many people don’t get sick and have no health care spending. Moreover, people generally don’t have negative health care spending. Further, some many patients with serious diseases rack…

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CMS pushing an all-payer model? The real secret to blue zones. New approaches to treating pain. COVID excess deaths by political party. “We have a specialty-driven system. Primary care is seen as a thankless, undesirable backwater.”

Measuring the novelty of new drugs

All of us want new, improved medicines. Drugs that provide incremental benefits (often called “me too” drugs) are good, but truly revolutionary therapies are even better. However, how does one separate how “novel” a treatment is? Is there a way to quantify this? In fact there is. One way to do this is based on…

Labor Day post: Economic Impact of Nursing

From Brownie et al. (2017): Healthcare access impacts almost every human indicator including maternal/child mortality rates, rates of preventable infectious and noncommunicable disease, employability, gender equality, workforce productivity, trends in mortality rates and more… Several hospital-based studies can be cited to illustrate nursing impacts; for example, increasing the ratio and educational level of nursing staff…

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Cost sharing analogy: “hydrologist charges travelers high prices for well water” ABCD. AI-generated Narx Score. Does AI already drive safer than humans? FDA: protector or obstacle?