Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Drugs known as “orphan” drugs are those used to treat rare disease. However, how “rare” is rare disease? In Europe, a rare disease is one affecting 5 or fewer people per 10,000 residents. In the U.S. this figure is less than one in every 1,500 residents. Although each rare disease is–by definition–rare, about 350 million…
Between 2017 and 2018, premiums Obamacare health insurance plans plans rose by 32%. To be more specific, the Urban Institute reports that: The national average increase was 32.0 percent for the lowest-priced silver plans and 19.1 percent for gold plans, but the increases varied by states…State changes in average lowest-priced silver premiums ranged from a 22.5…
That is the conclusion from a Bloomberg article highlighting some research done by some of my colleagues at Precision Health Economics in conjunction with the Alzheimer’s Association. An excerpt is below. The Alzheimer’s Association commissioned researchers at Precision Health Economics to study the potential savings of obtaining an earlier diagnosis. It used data from the Health…
A paper in JAMA by Papanicolas, Woskie and Jha (2018) try to answer the question. One reason could be that Americans are less healthy than people in other countries. On the one hand, Americans do have the highest rate of obesity in the world; on the other hand, smoking rates are among the lowest. Another…
According the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Office of the Actuary (OACT), in 2016 the U.S. spent $328.6 billion on prescription drugs, or 10% of all health care spending. We also see that prescription drug spending increased 1.3% to $328.6 billion in 2016, slower than the 8.9% growth in 2015. These trends towards more…
Defining which cancer treatments are the “best” is not as easy as you think. At first glance, treatments that produce the largest survival gains should be considered best. Most cancer treatments come with serious side effects. Thus, new treatments that better improve survival may also increase the risk of adverse events (although in some cases–like…
Located in South America, Peru is almost twice the size of Texas and has 31 million people. About one third of these live along the coast, largely in Lima. About half of the population–largely Amerinidan population–live in the Andean highlands, with the rest spread on the eastern slopes of the Andes and the adjoining rainforest. …
An interesting study measuring trends in cancer survival between 2000 and 2014 found, unsurprisingly, that patients in more developed countries had better survival. For women diagnosed with breast cancer between 2010 and 2014, 5-year survival rates reached 89.5% in Australia and 90.2% in the United States, but generally varied worldwide and remained low in some…
Aaron Carroll argues ‘no’ and–in most but not all cases–I agree with him. Here is the evidence he cites: More health insurance does not reduce emergency department (ED) visits. States that expanded Medicaid eligibility with ACA funding saw an increase in ED visits relative to non-expansion states. In Oregon, individuals who won an eligibility ‘lottery’ to…
The CMS Office of the Actuary released their 2016 estimates for U.S. health care spending. We’re getting close to health care taking up 18% of the economy. Total nominal US health care spending increased 4.3 percent and reached $3.3 trillion in 2016. Per capita spending on health care increased by $354, reaching $10,348. The share of gross…