The New York Times reports that nursing homes are reducing capacity in New York State and across the nation. A recent study found a 5 percent decrease in national nursing home capacity from 2019 to 2024.
Author: Devon Herrick
Trump Administration is Aggressively Promoting Medical AI; but is it too Tech Friendly?
The Trump Administration is moving ahead with plans to integrate medical artificial intelligence (AI) into the U.S. health care system. Officials are greenlighting efforts to allow AI agents to diagnose and prescribe medications and therapies to patients. However, some stakeholders and veteran HHS regulators worry that top officials are allowing the tech industry too much latitude in rolling out AI medical providers, despite no experience in federal health policy.
The Employee Health Insurance Market is Crumbling Under Rising Costs
Next year (2027) premiums are expected to rise by at least 10%. Some estimates put the increase at 14% to 18%. Employers increasingly find it difficult to shift the cost to workers, whose wages are stagnant and their medical bills significant.
Few Biosimilar Copycats of Blockbuster Drugs Losing Patent Protection
A while back I wrote about how an avalanche of blockbuster drugs face patent expiration within the next few years. Many of these are biologic drugs, an expensive type of drug derived from living substances. The cost is high. By some accounts, the top 1% of specialty drugs account for about half of all drug spending. Many of these are biologics. Biologic drugs are not as easy to copy as typical small molecule drugs made from simple organic compounds. For this reason, there are no biogeneric drugs. Rather, there are what are called biosimilars, since competitors must develop a similar drug and assess it to ensure it is, well, similar.