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Category: Drug Prices & Regulations

Medicare to Cover Some Costly Weight-Loss Drugs (that’s both good and bad)

Posted on March 30, 2024 by Devon Herrick

The first Medicare health plans announced they will cover the weight-loss drug, Wegovy for certain patients with heart disease. By law, Medicare is not allowed to cover drugs solely for weight loss. Elevance (operates many Blue Cross and Blue Shield health plans), Kaiser Permanente and CVS Health are the first Medicare plans to cover weight loss drugs for health reasons, according to the Wall Street Journal.

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Friday Links

Posted on March 29, 2024March 29, 2024 by John C. Goodman
  • California had the worst job growth of any state.
  • How Medicare pays providers:  for the fiscal year that began on October 1, the new rule for hospital inpatient care is just short of 800 pages, with three columns of text for most of the published pages. The physician fee schedule and skilled nursing facilities rules for 2024 run 1227 and 147 pages, respectively.
  • Other things equal, 3 psychological traits (competitiveness, risk tolerance, and confidence) lead to higher incomes.
  • The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review determined that a cost-effective price for the newly approved gene therapy Lenmeldy is between $2.3M and $3.9M. Orchard Therapeutics, will be asking $4.25M.
  • Why is colon cancer rising among young adults, but falling for seniors?
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Monday Links

Posted on March 25, 2024March 25, 2024 by John C. Goodman
  • More young people are getting cancer.
  • FDA gives up in its battle against ivermectin.
  • Adultery is a crime in New York. (And you don’t get a jury trial.)
  • US life expectancy is rising again. HT: Tyler.
  • Future deficit spending may be worse than what the CBO is projecting.
  • For the first time since the Black death, the world’s population is set to decline.
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Saturday Links

Posted on March 23, 2024March 22, 2024 by John C. Goodman
  • The U.S. is no longer among the top 20 happiest countries.
  • Saving lives with pig kidneys.
  • Why is fetal tissue research so controversial?
  • Liberating the pharmacists.
  • Highest drug price ever: $4.25 million per treatment.
  • Site neutrality (same fee regardless of where the procedure is performed) would save Medicare more than $3.7 billion over the next decade, and lower beneficiary co-payments by $40 a visit. 
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For many years, our health care blog was the only free enterprise health policy blog on the internet. Then, when the NCPA closed its doors, the health blog stopped as well.

During this five-year hiatus no one else has come forward to claim the space. So, my colleagues and I have decided to restart the blog in connection with the Goodman Institute. We invite you and others to use this forum to share your views.

John C. Goodman,

Visit www.goodmaninstitute.org

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