For the fifth consecutive year, federal healthcare spending grew less than 4 percent in 2013 – a markedly lower rate than the historical average of 7.2 percent per year from 1990-2008. But government actuaries and economists say we shouldn’t expect slow growth to last much longer. New estimates from the Office of the Actuary at […]
Analysts who fear health spending is accelerating got plenty of evidence in Wall Street’s second-quarter results to support their thesis. But so did folks who hope spending is still under control. Now everybody’s trying to sort out the mixed message. The answer matters because deficit debates and affordability concerns revolve around forecasts that health spending will […]
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Stupidity is in the eye of the beholder. Smoking is “stupid,” some would say, because it is unequivocally bad for one’s health. But what if the pleasure gained from smoking outweighs the decrease in life expectancy? Is that still stupid? The United States of America has a general paradigm for dealing with these questions. Americans […]