ANNOUNCEMENT

These 11 companies will be featured in the MedCity ENGAGE Innovation Showcase June 5-6 in Washington, D.C.

Merrill Goozner

Merrill Goozner

Merrill Goozner is an award-winning journalist and author of "The $800 Million Pill: The Truth Behind the Cost of New Drugs" who writes regularly at Gooznews.com.

Follow Merrill Goozner: Website |

Is Gilead’s new once-a-day, four-in-one AIDS med worth $78 a pill?

Is Gilead’s new once-a-day, four-in-one AIDS med worth $78 a pill?

October 15, 2012 8:00 am by | 1 Comments

Gilead’s four-drug combo pill, taken just once a day, clearly is an innovation. But is it really 140 times more valuable than a generic approach? ... Read more
Maybe it’s time to put a dollar value on end-of-life treatments

Maybe it’s time to put a dollar value on end-of-life treatments

September 24, 2012 8:07 am by | 1 Comments

Instead of having a binary option of either not allowing Medicare to pay for the drug or paying $10,000 a month, why not simply set the price that Medicare will ... Read more
Obama’s Medicare revamp plan cuts waste, Romney’s would add 20% copay

Obama’s Medicare revamp plan cuts waste, Romney’s would add 20% copay

September 2, 2012 2:37 pm by | 1 Comments

Dr. Aaron Carroll at the Incidental Economist blog captures the essence of the GOP platform on Medicare:So Medicare will both stay a defined benefit program and be saved by no ... Read more
Hospitals aren’t chain restaurants. That’s why they need big government regulation

Hospitals aren’t chain restaurants. That’s why they need big government regulation

August 6, 2012 1:52 pm by | 0 Comments

Atul Gawande of The New Yorker has another breakthrough article, this time on improving quality and lowering costs through the standardization of care delivered through ever-more-concentrated hospital systems. Don’t miss ... Read more
Public officials deserve credit for exposing anemia drug dangers

Public officials deserve credit for exposing anemia drug dangers

July 29, 2012 10:13 pm by | 0 Comments

As a long-time observer of the Amgen/Epo saga (Ye gads, did I really write my first major investigative article on that subject 13 years ago? How time flies), I thoroughly ... Read more
If universal healthcare isn’t a priority for either party, how will everyone get coverage?

If universal healthcare isn’t a priority for either party, how will everyone get coverage?

July 4, 2012 8:33 am by | 0 Comments

For the time being, the United States’ long slog toward universal health insurance coverage remains on track.The voters could still intervene. A political earthquake in November that puts Republicans in ... Read more
Why health insurance reform will survive the loss of the individual mandate

Why health insurance reform will survive the loss of the individual mandate

June 25, 2012 7:00 am by | 0 Comments

The Supreme Court’s imminent decision on the Affordable Care Act will trigger a political firestorm whether they accept the legislation in its entirety, throw out every page of the 906-page ... Read more
Device firms complain about jobs to keep attention away from great margins, opaque pricing

Device firms complain about jobs to keep attention away from great margins, opaque pricing

June 17, 2012 11:47 pm by | 0 Comments

Ignoring threats of a presidential veto, House Republicans earlier this month repealed the medical device tax included in the 2010 health care reform law to help pay for coverage of ... Read more
Hospice-centric cancer care means less Neupogen and fewer robotic surgeries

Hospice-centric cancer care means less Neupogen and fewer robotic surgeries

June 8, 2012 3:34 pm by | 2 Comments

Any time you hear someone use the phrase “death panels,” ask them if they are aware of a study of terminally ill lung cancer patients which appeared in the New ... Read more
International health groups push patent pool to solve funding problems

International health groups push patent pool to solve funding problems

May 16, 2012 11:49 am by | 0 Comments

Amid a growing crisis in financing treatments for AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in the developing world, an arm of the World Health Organization will meet in Geneva later this month ... Read more
Pharma, device firms kill conflict of interest rule, win accelerated approval

Pharma, device firms kill conflict of interest rule, win accelerated approval

May 13, 2012 10:41 pm by | 0 Comments

Over the angry protests ofconsumer groups, Congress is moving rapidly ’ and in bipartisan fashion ’ to give drug and medical device companies an easier path to Food and Drug ... Read more
GOP worries that voucher label is dangerous

GOP worries that voucher label is dangerous

May 4, 2012 1:18 pm by | 0 Comments

What’s in a name? Everything, it would appear, when it comes to describing Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to privatize Medicare, which the Republican-controlled House of Representatives backed in its budget ... Read more
Less Medicare spending: Skimping or smarter management?

Less Medicare spending: Skimping or smarter management?

April 27, 2012 2:12 pm by | 0 Comments

Health care spending over the last two years has slowed to levels not seen since the mid-1990s. The conventional wisdom is that it reflected the recession-related reductionsin demand by people ... Read more
Donor info shows that Medtronic, St. Jude both give to Hauser’s institute

Donor info shows that Medtronic, St. Jude both give to Hauser’s institute

April 15, 2012 3:17 pm by | 0 Comments

When you take money from everyone, is it no longer a conflict of interest?I only raise the question after reading the latest in the ongoing dust-up over implanted defibrillators, where ... Read more
Latest expansion of Medicaid is smaller than previous growth during Bush

Latest expansion of Medicaid is smaller than previous growth during Bush

April 8, 2012 9:10 pm by | 1 Comments

Justice Stephen Breyer seemed unsure of his facts during the recent Affordable Care Act hearings.During oral arguments on the constitutionality of health care reform, he suggested that the law’s Medicaid ... Read more