Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
This week is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Antibiotics Awareness Week. Although antibiotics are inexpensive, but are among the most valuable treatments around for fighting infection. Unfortunately, antibiotic resistance is on the rise. While antibiotic resistance has existed since ancient times, in the modern world antibiotic resistance may costs the world economy…
FDA is encouraging the development of abuse-deterrent formulations of opioids. What are abuse-deterrent formulations (ADF)? FDA explains: Abuse-deterrent formulations target the known or expected routes of abuse, such as crushing in order to snort or dissolving in order to inject, for the specific opioid drug substance. The good news is that ADF opioids reduce the…
How do you measure the value of new drugs? An organization known as the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review relies almost exclusively on Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALY)-based framework. While that is a good start, many new treatments may have impacts beyond directly on health including on educational outcomes, productivity, caregiver burden. Further, society is…
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.
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…
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.…
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…
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…
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.
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…