Cartoon of the day
Redesigning health care is not as easy as it may seam.
Section 8 Housing Vouchers: Origin Story
Section 8 housing vouchers uses government funds to subsidize low-income households when paying rent to private landlords. While the program may drive up rent somewhat, it does allow low-income households (that are lucky enough to get the voucher) to afford higher quality, more stable housing. But the Section 8 program was not the idea of…
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Does ICER respond to industry comments? Surgery-specific comorbidity score. What makes a non-profit hospital? NHS staffing shortages lead to delayed cancer diagnoses. The end of the individual mandate.
Drug importation from Canada won’t work
Today, the Trump administration laid out a plan to allow states, drug wholesalers and pharmacies to import some cheaper drugs from Canada. While at first glance many may believe that this approach would lead to large decreases in drug prices, in practice the impact on prices is likely to be modest. In a Washington Times…
How should we define “unmet need”?
Many health technology assessment (HTA) agencies give additional consideration to treatments if there is unmet need. But what really defines unmet need? According to an article by Vreman et al. (2019), there are three key elements. First, there should be no or limited treatment alternatives. If there are lots of good treatment options available, then…
Single Payer and Sledding in the Snow
This weekend, I took my daughters to go sledding. Since we live in Southern California, this was an exciting event. In time for the holidays, a nearby park had set up a sledding hill and area for snowball fights. Even better, the snow event was free! The snow event worked just liked a single payer…
Winning the fight against tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) kills the most people in the world of any other pathogen. While treatments are available to fight TB, there are a number of challenges. First, many individuals may have latent TB where the disease may be contagious before symptoms are apparent. Second, the spread of HIV has also been problematic for controlling TB,…
Quality Measurement in Oncology: Is the Race Worth Running?
This is the title of my recent commentary in the Journal of Clinical Pathways. The article discusses a number of challenges of measuring quality of care in oncology: The challenges mentioned included: the long time-lag to develop new guidelines and then incorporate these into validated quality measures, the potential narrow populations to which guidelines would…
Improving Care for Older Adults with Cancer
Cancer is a horrible disease. Providing high quality care often means providing safe, effective and cost-effective treatments that meets a patient’s priority. Reaching these goals, however, is particularly challenging when treating older adults with cancer. A paper on this exact topic by Ramsdale et al. (2017) notes that: Cancer care delivery for older adults with…
Health benefits of the Freedom Dividend
Andrew Yang, Democratic candidate for President, is running largely on a platform of the “Freedom Dividend“. The Freedom Dividend is a $1000 monthly payment to ever American adult. The goal is to reduce inequality and provide some liquidity for low-income individuals to start a business, or have more work-life flexibility. This approach–a form of Universal…