Is Gilead’s new once-a-day, four-in-one AIDS med worth $78 a pill?
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?
Maybe it’s time to put a dollar value on end-of-life treatments
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 pay at its actual value? If the drug company continues to insist on charging more, then people will have to pay the difference out-of-pocket.
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Market Trends to Watch for Health Systems and Their Specialty Pharmacies
The future looks bright for the integrated specialty pharmacy model – for health systems, providers, and most importantly, for patients.
Obama’s Medicare revamp plan cuts waste, Romney’s would add 20% copay
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 longer being a defined benefit program. We will eliminate the $700+ billion in savings to the trust fund, yet extend its life. We will […]
Hospitals aren’t chain restaurants. That’s why they need big government regulation
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 it. For people like me with long memories, it provides a jarring reminder of the changes that the manufacturing sector went through a generation ago […]
Public officials deserve credit for exposing anemia drug dangers
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 enjoyed Peter Whoriskey’s retelling of the story on the front page of the Washington Post. Don’t miss it if you are looking for one-stop shopping […]
If universal healthcare isn’t a priority for either party, how will everyone get coverage?
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 control of the White House and both houses of Congress could overturn Obamacare, a.k.a. the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. But Chief Justice […]
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Transforming Patient Care: The Role of AI-Powered Assistants
The progress in artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping patient care, across various dimensions, from facilitating faster discharge to curating treatment plans and suggesting lifestyle changes.
Why health insurance reform will survive the loss of the individual mandate
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 bill or do something in between, which is the most likely outcome. If the high court follows the polls, it probably will rule the requirement […]
Device firms complain about jobs to keep attention away from great margins, opaque pricing
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 the uninsured. A handful of Democratic representatives with major device makers in their states also supported repeal, which passed 270-146. Opponents of the 2.3 percent […]
Hospice-centric cancer care means less Neupogen and fewer robotic surgeries
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 England Journal of Medicine in 2010. It showed that those who chose palliative care and hospice lived three months longer and had a better quality of […]
International health groups push patent pool to solve funding problems
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 to consider alternative ways of producing lower-cost drugs, vaccines and diagnostic tools to fight the those diseases in poor countries. A background report issued last […]
The Funding Model for Cancer Innovation is Broken — We Can Fix It
Closing cancer health equity gaps require medical breakthroughs made possible by new funding approaches.
Pharma, device firms kill conflict of interest rule, win accelerated approval
Over the angry protests of consumer groups, Congress is moving rapidly – and in bipartisan fashion – to give drug and medical device companies an easier path to Food and Drug Administration approval for some products in exchange for sharply higher user fees to fund the agency. The five-year user fee reauthorization bill, which includes new […]
GOP worries that voucher label is dangerous
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 resolution late last month. The plan would subsidize seniors’ purchase of private insurance plans instead of enrolling in traditional government-financed Medicare, although that would be […]
Less Medicare spending: Skimping or smarter management?
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 reductions in demand by people who lost jobs and their health care coverage. That could not have affected Medicare’s nearly 50 million beneficiaries, most of whom are retired. Yet Medicare […]
Donor info shows that Medtronic, St. Jude both give to Hauser’s institute
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 the latest company on the hot seat for selling flawed devices (St. Jude Medical) has accused the scientist who brought the situation to light–Dr. […]
Latest expansion of Medicaid is smaller than previous growth during Bush
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 expansion, which will offer government coverage to about 15 million low-wage workers and their families, was smaller than previous expansions — notably, the change […]