- Study: The global COVID-19 campaign vaccinated over 2 billion people within the first 8 months. We find that the vaccination campaign across 141 countries averted 2.4 million excess deaths, valued at $6.5 trillion.
- Burnout among health care workers: Less than 30 percent are “very happy”; more than a third report symptoms of “depression”; more than half have symptoms of “anxiety.”
- Who makes more money from the sale of generic drugs – PBMs or drug manufacturers?
- How many prescription drugs do people take over their lifetimes? non-Hispanic Whites take the most, Hispanics take the least, and non-Hispanic Blacks fall in between these extremes.
Category: Consumer-Driven Health Care
Tuesday Links
- Misinformation Update: One of the strangest aspects of the Covid pandemic was the early insistence by the WHO and the CDC that COVID was not airborne.
- Good news: since before the pandemic, Americans’ wealth is way up, and inequality is down.
- A positive view of doctor assisted suicide. (NYT)
- 55 percent of E.R. doctors say they have been physically assaulted, almost all by patients.
- New test says it can find cancer for $949. Why do some doctors think that is not a good idea? (WSJ)
OTC Hearing Aids Approved One Year Ago, No Thanks to the FDA
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finally got something right when it finalized rules allowing over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids. Only kidding. The FDA can’t take credit for OTC hearing aids. It took the FDA five years after Congress passed legislation in 2017 forcing the FDA to create a category of OTC hearing aids.
Monday Links
- Who delays care because of cost? Only 29% with employer coverage; 37% with Obamacare; 39% with Medicaid and 42% with Medicare.
- Given an average waiting time of 2½ hours before being discharged, how can there be too many emergency care physicians?
- The “surprise billing” solution isn’t working: Only 4% of the roughly 90,000 payment disputes initiated between April and September have been resolved.
- A CMS rule change will lead to $700 million less savings than the CBO estimated when evaluating the act that allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices.