Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Ultimately, individuals and households pay for health care. Whether payments are made directly to providers, via taxes or through commercial insurance, households are the sole source of health care financing. Further, all treatments are ultimately provided on behalf of individuals and households. A key question, however, is which types of individuals pay more for health…
Nurse practitioner employment has nearly doubled between 2010 and 2017 according to Auerbach et al. (2020). If nurse practitioners can provide similar quality for some services at lower cost, nurse practitioners could save money. If nurse practitioners can help better leverage physician time for more complex services, and increase access to care, they may be…
On March 9, I wrote a post titled “COVID-19 in context” which showed that COVID-19 (annualized) death rate would make it the the 27th leading cause of death worldwide. By March 21st, it was the 17th leading cause of death. Now, on March 31st, COVID-19 is the 13th leading cause of death (worldwide), if we…
That is the projection from CMS’ Office of the Actuary. Keehan et al. (2020) write in Health Affairs: National health expenditures are projected to grow at an average annual rate of 5.4 percent for 2019–28 and to represent 19.7 percent of gross domestic product by the end of the period. Price growth for medical goods and services…
On March 9, I wrote a post titled “COVID-19 in context” which showed that COVID-19 was the 27th leading cause of death worldwide. Now that we are two weeks later, it is worth revisiting where we are. As you can see from the WHO situation report from March 22, the growth in the number of…
A paper by Hernandez et al. (2020) in JAMA examines trends in branded drug prices using data from SSR Health between 2007 and 2018. The authors find the following: From 2007 to 2018, list prices increased by 159% (95% CI, 137%-181%), or 9.1% per year, while net prices increased by 60% (95% CI, 36%-84%), or…
COVID-19 has caught the headlines, and for good reason. According to the WHO, there have been 109,577 confirmed cases (3993 new on 9 Mar 2020) and 3809 deaths (225 new as of 9 Mar 2020) The stock market has plunged. Sporting events have been halted all over Italy. And the rise of cases has been…
New drugs have the potential to not only extend patients’ lives but also change their quality of life. But are the drugs approved by the FDA reflective of the broader US population? If there were lots of drugs developed for men but not women,or whites but not blacks, health gains from new drugs would be…
A famous paper by Anderson et al. (2003) attempted to explain why health care in the U.S. is so expensive. The answer: “It’s the prices, stupid.” However, is that really the case? A fascinating blog post on Random Critical Analysis disputes this piece of conventional wisdom. In the U.S., prices certainly have risen. However, they…
In Health Affairs, CMS Office of the Actuary (OACT) notes that while health care spending grew in 2018, it actually fell as a percentage of the economy. US health care spending increased 4.6 percent to reach $3.6 trillion in 2018, a faster growth rate than the rate of 4.2 percent in 2017 but the same…