Saturday Links

Posted on by John C. Goodman

Study: If the IRA drug price controls were in place in 2014, “between 24 and 49 therapies currently available today would most likely not have come to market and therefore not available for patients.” The act will cause patients to lose access to an estimated 40% of new medicines or up to 139 new therapies over the next decade.

Licensing laws are creating a shortage of dentists, just like they create a shortage of physicians.

AFP endorses the Pete Sessions health reform bill.

Study: School lunches no longer lead to more childhood obesity. But is that because the kids are throwing the food away?

6 thoughts on “Saturday Links”

  1. I am a longtime skeptic whenever Big Pharma claims victimhood, as they do in the first post above.

    The IRA drug law allows Medicare to negotiate just 10 drugs in 2026, rising to 60 drugs by 2029.
    Drug prices after that will be tied to the rate of inflation. I cannot believe that this will knock out 40% of new medicines. By any international standard these are absolute baby steps.

    Meanwhile, the largest drug companies spent more money in the last decade on stock buybacks than they did on pure research.

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  2. It’s not clear from to attached article (or other articles I’ve been able to locate on the web) whether the Sessions plan would be offered only for those not eligible for Medicaid or Medicare.

    Specifically the cost of Medicare is currently more than $10,000 per year per person, for a couple more than $20,000. The Sessions plan offers a payment to “Americans” of $4,000 per year, or $8,000 per couple. Question is, which Americans? The Medicare cost is very substantially higher than the Sessions plan subsidy. The difference would greatly increase the net cost of Medicare for seniors, and for Medicare Advantage as well.

    According to CMS, Medicaid enrollment in February 2023 was about 93 million. And Medicare enrollment another 65 million (nearly half actually enrolled in Medicare Advantage). The present population of the US is roughly 335 million. Medicaid and Medicare together cover about 47% of the entire population so the eligibility rules in the Sessions plan are not a minor detail.

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  3. Thanks for bringing this up, John. I have had the impression (nothing more) that the $4,000 credit will be for anyone in the individual market. If you also include everyone on Medicaid and everyone with employer coverage, you need hundreds of billions more money.

    I also wonder if there would be anything extra for persons over age 55. Their premiums are normally over $4,000 a year, and even higher if there is guaranteed issue. I have emailed a writer named Dean Clancy who speaks for the Sessions plan, but he has not yet responded to me.

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    1. Thanks Bob.
      Your comment speaks to federal cost but not the individual’s cost.
      You are in Medicare Advantage as I recall. So am I.
      Neither of us want our yearly premiums to rise by $6,000
      Twice that to include a spouse.

  4. When anyone of us signs up for Medicare Advantage, our insurer of choice receives a check from the government of at least $13,000 a year. (more if we have a chronic illness).

    This largess enables the insurers to offer extra benefits. It also means that many insurers make most of their profits on Medicare-related business.

    If this was cut back to $4,000, the insurers would go ballistic and so would about 30 million high-propensity-to-vote senior citizens.

    Thus I severely doubt that the Sessions plan would include persons now on Medicare.

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  5. Bob I would like to doubt it too. But the government does so many things I severely doubted it would do.

    I’d just like to see the Sessions plan proposed eligibility rules in writing.

    (Keep in mind federal payments to private insurers per Medicare Advantage member are equal to the risk/adjusted cost the feds are already paying for those individuals in Medicare Part A and Part B. If that’s “largesse” it’s only because the feds have failed to manage the cost of Part A and Part B effectively. Nearly 50% of all Medicare-eligible individuals – like you and me – are enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan.)

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