- Jeff Goldsmith does an about face: vertical integration in health care doesn’t work.
- Study: Which matters more for ER spending – price increases or upcoding? Next study should examine the IQ of the insurers who pay the ER fees.
- 99% of hospitals pharmacists report drug shortages, causing 85% to ration treatments and 84% to rely on different dosages. (STAT)
- Another cost of covid lockdowns: fewer stage 1 cancers were diagnosed and treated – leading to more stage 4 cancers and deaths. (WSJ)
- The next president of Argentina may be a libertarian.
- School Choice in Los Angeles: It works.
- Scott Sumner has the best explanation I have seen on why inflation is a monetary phenomenon – something Keynesians have been slow to accept.
Category: Drug Prices & Regulations
Pharmacies Put More OTC Drugs Behind the Counter to Avoid Retail Theft
Over the years I’ve written a lot about shopping for drugs, using price comparison and other techniques like pill splitting, asking for a generic or all the above. The best deal in health care (almost the only deal in health care) is over-the-counter (OTC) drugs. Almost all OTC drugs were once available only by prescription.
Prior Authorization Seems to Work for Drugs
We study the trade-off between bureaucratic costs and reductions in moral hazard induced by managed care tools in healthcare…. Prior authorization reduces a drug’s utilization by 26.8%. Half of marginal beneficiaries are diverted to another related drug, while the other half are diverted to no drug. These policies reduced drug spending by $96 per beneficiary-year (3.6% of drug spending), while generating approximately $10 in paperwork costs. Revealed preference approaches suggest that the net cost savings exceed beneficiaries’ willingness to pay for foregone drugs.
Tuesday Links
- Last week’s most disturbing headline: “Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s health director hired by CDC.”
- Contributing to the infant formula shortage: over-regulation, restrictive trade barriers and ridiculous welfare rules.
- The time cost of care may be greater than the money cost of care, and may make care not worth it.
- Why ChatGPT could make bioterrorism a lot easier.
- The downside of personalized medicine: Patients can face the agonizing decision to forgo treatment or suffer financial ruin. (NYT)