Our health care system is inefficient with physicians’ time. One study found doctors spend about 17% of their time on administrative tasks. A systematic review of 23 specialties found physicians spend from 9 to 19 hours a week on administration. Overall, physicians spend 15.5 hours per week on paperwork and administration, according to the report. Of that,…
Category: Consumer-Driven Health Care
Tuesday Links
- Matthew Holt goes to Disneyland and sees …… fat people!
- Extending life expectancy in mice. HT: Tyler
- Why it’s hard to know how many people died because of Covid.
- A better way to practice drug price discrimination: plan by plan.
- New GAO report on improper pandemic payments: over $500 billion in fiscal years 2021 and 2022. [That equals $5,000 for every household in America.]
- Against the Endocrine Society’s guidelines on gender affirming care. (WSJ)
Monday Links
- Richard Hanania reviews Christopher Rufo’s book, America’s Cultural Revolution.
- Another review by Bryon Caplan: “The current denial of academic freedom truly is much worse than McCarthyism ever was.”
- Can psychedelics sometimes be useful?
- On an average night, close to 600,000 people in the country will be homeless, and about 20% will be dealing with severe mental illness. (WSJ)
- Two views of Jesse Jackson: NYT: hagiographic; WSJ: he was a dishonest shakedown artist who engaged in race baiting for personal profit.
Regulations and Patent Gaming Undermines Drug Maker Competition, Delays New Products
Yesterday John Goodman posted a link about pharmaceutical companies gaming the patent system. The following is an excerpt from the American Institute for Economic Research:
Senator Bernie Sanders isn’t right about much, but he is about one thing: The United States pays too much for prescription drugs.
… [t]here are also many bad US government policies putting upward pressure on domestic drug prices.
The fundamental issue is that there is no free market in the drug industry. It’s been steadily eroded by regulators and lawmakers, often at the behest and to the benefit of drug manufacturers, resulting in their ability to charge prices well over what a competitive market would allow.
Much of the blame for a lack of market competition can also be attributed to a U.S. patent system that is too easily gamed and exploited by drug companies.