- Blue Cross say its reforms would save $767B over 10 years. Chief among them: pay the same price for medical care, regardless of where it is delivered. That means a facility can’t bill a higher rate to Medicare, just because it has a link to a hospital.
- To save a child from a rare disease, a one-time injection costs $1.7 million. (NYT) I don’t have a problem with the cost. But who is going to pay for it?
- Should doctors bill for answering patients’ emails? (NYT) I say, yes. Other professionals bill by time. Why should doctors do the same?
- Ten myths About nutrition. Myth No 1: fresh is better than frozen, canned or dried fruits and vegetables. (NYT)
- 3 problems with Covid boosters: (1) the virus is evolving much faster than the vaccines can be updated; (2) vaccines have hard-wired our immune systems to respond to the original Wuhan strain, so we churn out fewer antibodies that neutralize variants targeted by updated vaccines; (3) antibodies rapidly wane after a few months. (WSJ)
Category: Cost of Healthcare
The War on Drugs that Save Lives and Cure Diseases
About 85% of new medicines launched between 2012 and 2021 were available in the U.S., compared to 61% in Germany, 59% in the U.K. and 52% in France and Italy. Bluebird bio in 2021 said it was unwinding operations in Europe and withdrawing gene therapies for rare diseases, citing the challenges of “achieving appropriate value…
Friday Links
- Reason (magazine) investigation: CDC used Facebook to silence Covid dissent.
- More than 1,000 nursing homes reached a 75% infection rate during the Covid pandemic.
- For: more off label uses of existing drugs.
- IRA bill is already affecting drug development – negatively.
- What it will cost to attend this year’s Super Bowl game: almost $9,000.
- The Manchin/Capito Trust Act would force Congress to do what it doesn’t want to do: Tackle our unfunded entitlement liabilities.
Direct Primary Care and other Direct Pay Practice Models on the Rise
An article in the Denver Post claims that more of the city’s physicians are converting their practices to direct primary care (DPC).