The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine just released a 600-page report on problems found in nursing homes. Among the complaints were mediocre quality, too little investment in quality improvement, inadequate staffing levels, poorly trained staff, staff shortages due to low pay and inadequate funding sources. With 77 million Baby Boomers approaching old age, it is likely there will not be enough long-term care facilities to meet their needs. In addition, nursing homes are expensive and unaffordable for most Americans who lack long term care coverage.
Category: Cost of Healthcare
Medicare to only cover pricy Alzheimer’s drug for seniors in clinical trials
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the agency will limit coverage for the controversial Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm to seniors enrolled in clinical trials. The decision is intended to protect seniors while the agency gathers more data on whether Aduhelm slows disease progressions in Alzheimer’s patients.
Will The FDA ever approve OTC hearing aids?
It’s been nearly five years since President Trump signed into law the Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act. The bipartisan bill, introduced by Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), was intended to make hearing amplification devices much cheaper and more readily accessible. The Act gave the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) three years to formulate a guidance proposal and an extra six months to collect comments and issue final guidance. Then COVID got in way. Or was it bureaucratic inertia that got in the way. Perhaps it was both.
The Worst of Obamacare
Ever since Obamacare became law, my colleagues and I have been writing about a race to the bottom in the exchanges – where health plans try to attract the healthy and avoid the sick. The result: people with serious health problems are being denied access to the doctors and hospitals they desperately need.