The FDA under Trump has consistently maintained its stated goal of removing bureaucratic obstacles to drug approval. FDA commissioner, Marty Makary, announced steps to speed the approval of new drugs, including allowing one well-designed clinical trial rather than two or more trials to show efficacy. Yet, drug companies continue to claim inconsistent guidelines, endpoints changed and a skeptical agency when it comes to rare disease therapies. Recently drugmakers have complained the FDA moved the goalposts, after agreeing to them.
Category: Affordable Care Act
Why Insurers Do Not Negotiate Aggressively to Hold Medical Prices Down
The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) Health News reports that patients often are aghast at the prices of services and wonder why their insurers agreed to pay that much. Me too! I have told the story a million times about my wife almost scheduling a CT scan at a hospital near our home. The hospital had to seek prior authorization for the ($3,000+) diagnostic procedure. A day later the hospital called to say it was approved and her share of the cost would be $2,700. When would she like to schedule? My wife told me the story and within 10 minutes I found a facility with a BlueCross rate of $403.
What is the Purpose of Health Insurance?
This year the cost of Obamacare for someone my age living in my North Texas county is roughly $10,000 for a $10,000 deductible. That means I would pay premiums of just over $800 a month in return for coverage that would cover nothing unless my health needs exceed $800 a month for the entire year. Assuming I spent more than $10,000 during the coverage period, the ACA plan would cover only $0.60 cents of every dollar I spend above my deductible.
Thursday Links – 19 February 2026
- Why does health care spending keep rising? It’s higher utilization, not higher prices.
- US education failure: fifteen countries have higher average science scores than the United States.
- Why Congress can’t fix Obamcare: abortion.
- “The Food and Drug Administration is full of rules that keep safer drugs prescription-only while allowing more dangerous ones to be sold over the counter.”
- Does coffee lower your risk of dementia?