- CBO: competition and price transparency are the best ways to lower private sector health care costs.
- Nurse fired for refusing to admit she’s a racist. (WSJ)
- Against hormone therapy for children.
- When the dangers of one type of drug addiction become widely known, teenagers switch to another addictive drug. (NYT)
- Why did McKinsey get into the addiction business? (NYT)
Category: Drug Prices & Regulations
Texas Hospitals Thrive While Saddling Patients with High Medical Bills and Debt
Kaiser Health News and the Urban Institute looked at areas with high medical debt and compared them to hospitals’ profit margins. It profiled the North Texas region surrounding Dallas-Fort Worth.
Of the nation’s 20 most populous counties, none has a higher concentration of medical debt than Tarrant County, home to Fort Worth. Second is Dallas County, credit bureau data shows.
Does a lot of medical debt indicate that a Urban Institute are struggling to pay their medical bills and the local hospitals are struggling as a result? That was not the case according to the analysis.
Doctors: Friends Don’t Let Friends Ride Bicycles Stoned
From 2019 to 2020 more than 11,000 patients were treated in hospital emergency rooms for bicycle accidents while high on methamphetamine, marijuana or opioids. Some were also drunk or had been drinking alcohol.
The most common drugs found were methamphetamine (36%); marijuana (32%); and opioids (19%). Nearly a quarter of injured bikers had also been drinking alcohol, the study found.
Researchers speculate that some of the crash victims may have suffered fatal injuries.
340B Explained
This is priceless:
Thanks to 340B, Richmond Community Hospital can buy a vial of Keytruda, a cancer drug, at the discounted price of $3,444… But the hospital charges the private insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield more than seven times that price — $25,425, according to a price list that hospitals are required to publish. That is nearly $22,000 profit on a single vial.