- Study: Bans on flavored tobacco products don’t work.
- Are women taking over our health care system?
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There are 4.2 million nurses, over 1 million doctors, and over 1/2 million PAs and NPs in the US…. Women hold … 90% of all nursing positions, 66% of PAs, and 55% of all current Medical School slots.
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- NBER study: As hospital prices went up 1%, the percentage of people who ended up out of a job rose by 0.4% and payments for tax-funded unemployment insurance increased 2.5%.
- The total expense [of developing a new drug] is estimated at $1 billion on average. It takes 10 to 15 years. And nearly 90 percent of the candidate drugs that enter human clinical trials fail.
- Colorado wants to import drugs from Canada. Pharma is opposed.
Category: Policy & Legislation
Tuesday Links
- Cost of extending Obamacare enhanced subsidies: CBO and the JCT estimates:
- Direct cost to taxpayer over the next 10 years: $383 billion.
- Increase in interest payments on the federal debt that would arise from the larger deficit: —$48 billion
- 31 percent of the total cost will go to individuals with incomes over 400 percent of the federal poverty level, including those making as much as $599,000 a year.
- Cost of subsidies to illegal immigrants would reach $11 billion.
- Singer: If opiates are killing Americans, why won’t the FDA approve alternatives that are available in other countries.
- Claim: Fasting can help with Type 2 Diabetes. (speculative)
- The cause of most global deaths: heart disease.
Hospital Price Transparency
Effective January 1, 2021, Trump-era federal regulations require all hospitals accepting Medicare payments to fully disclose their standard charge for everything they do. Greg Dattilo and Dave Racer explain how well this requirement is working.
What’s Wrong with the PBM Market?
People who need expensive drugs are being overcharged so that drug insurance premiums can be artificially lowered for everyone – including all the people who don’t need those drugs. In this way, the sick are subsidizing the healthy.