Health Care Innovation
Commentary
Bungled bundling of hospital payments for joint replacements
Federal officials are about to make orthopedic surgery a lot more painful. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services soon may order hospitals in 75 metropolitan regions to change the way they pay health care providers for knee and hip replacements for seniors on Medicare. Instead of paying for each ...
Commentary
Obamacare’s latest trend: sticker shock
Americans rank health costs as their top financial concern, according to Gallup. That’s not likely to change anytime soon. Health insurers are requesting massive premium hikes for next year — some in excess of 50 percent. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. The Affordable Care Act has been driving up ...
Commentary
Two More Pieces Of Obamacare May Be On Their Way Out
House Republicans have launched another assault on Obamacare. This time, they have some support from their foes on the other side of the aisle. Two bipartisan bills that would repeal parts of Obamacare are scheduled to reach the House floor this week. One would get rid of a job-killing tax ...
Commentary
Drug importation is a dangerous idea that won’t die
A federal judge just struck down a program in Maine allowing state residents to import prescription drugs from foreign countries. The reason: it’s against federal law — and justifiably so. The importation of price-controlled foreign drugs severely undermines research into future cures, hurting patients in the long run. And more ...
Commentary
Letting patients buy Canadian drugs will only import trouble
Good news for American patients — prescription drugs are effectively on sale. Drug spending climbed just 2.5 percent in 2013. Drug cost growth has now lagged overall health inflation for four straight years. Naturally, Washington lawmakers are ignoring the cost problems plaguing the rest of the healthcare marketplace and focusing ...
Commentary
Healthcare’s Problem Is Not High Drug Prices
Is $84,000 too much to pay to save a life? That’s a question worth asking now that the insurance industry has declared war on what it has deemed outrageous prices for new specialty drugs. In this case, the complaints focus on Sovaldi, a breakthrough treatment that gives three million people ...
Health Care
Why Pharmaceutical Prices Drop Once Drugs Are Off-Patent
Today PRI released the new report The Economics of Pharmaceutical Pricing by PRI senior fellow Wayne Winegarden, Ph.D. The study examines the market forces influencing the often dramatic price differences in pharmaceutical drugs before and after their patents expire. Some critics erroneously see the sharp declines in the prices of ...
Commentary
Industry Succeeds Where Obamacare Fails
Walmart is about to get into the health insurance business. The retail giants Sams Club division just announced that it would launch a private health insurance exchange for its small-business customers. Business owners shopping at the wholesaler will effectively be able to pick up health insurance for their employees along ...
Commentary
The News Is The Declining Incentives For Medical Innovation
The federal health exchange Healthcare.gov, one of the centerpieces of the Affordable Care Act (ACA or ObamaCare), is gasping for life. This is not the important story, however. The U.S. health care system has flaws. And, these flaws should have been the focus of the health care reforms back in ...
Commentary
India’s War On Intellectual Property Rights May Bring With It A Body Count
Last month, drug maker Roche withdrew its patents for the breast-cancer drug Herceptin in India and thus gave tacit approval to other companies to make low-cost generic versions of the drug. But the withdrawal of those patents was not completely voluntary. If the Swiss pharmaceutical firm had not relinquished ...
Bungled bundling of hospital payments for joint replacements
Federal officials are about to make orthopedic surgery a lot more painful. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services soon may order hospitals in 75 metropolitan regions to change the way they pay health care providers for knee and hip replacements for seniors on Medicare. Instead of paying for each ...
Obamacare’s latest trend: sticker shock
Americans rank health costs as their top financial concern, according to Gallup. That’s not likely to change anytime soon. Health insurers are requesting massive premium hikes for next year — some in excess of 50 percent. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. The Affordable Care Act has been driving up ...
Two More Pieces Of Obamacare May Be On Their Way Out
House Republicans have launched another assault on Obamacare. This time, they have some support from their foes on the other side of the aisle. Two bipartisan bills that would repeal parts of Obamacare are scheduled to reach the House floor this week. One would get rid of a job-killing tax ...
Drug importation is a dangerous idea that won’t die
A federal judge just struck down a program in Maine allowing state residents to import prescription drugs from foreign countries. The reason: it’s against federal law — and justifiably so. The importation of price-controlled foreign drugs severely undermines research into future cures, hurting patients in the long run. And more ...
Letting patients buy Canadian drugs will only import trouble
Good news for American patients — prescription drugs are effectively on sale. Drug spending climbed just 2.5 percent in 2013. Drug cost growth has now lagged overall health inflation for four straight years. Naturally, Washington lawmakers are ignoring the cost problems plaguing the rest of the healthcare marketplace and focusing ...
Healthcare’s Problem Is Not High Drug Prices
Is $84,000 too much to pay to save a life? That’s a question worth asking now that the insurance industry has declared war on what it has deemed outrageous prices for new specialty drugs. In this case, the complaints focus on Sovaldi, a breakthrough treatment that gives three million people ...
Why Pharmaceutical Prices Drop Once Drugs Are Off-Patent
Today PRI released the new report The Economics of Pharmaceutical Pricing by PRI senior fellow Wayne Winegarden, Ph.D. The study examines the market forces influencing the often dramatic price differences in pharmaceutical drugs before and after their patents expire. Some critics erroneously see the sharp declines in the prices of ...
Industry Succeeds Where Obamacare Fails
Walmart is about to get into the health insurance business. The retail giants Sams Club division just announced that it would launch a private health insurance exchange for its small-business customers. Business owners shopping at the wholesaler will effectively be able to pick up health insurance for their employees along ...
The News Is The Declining Incentives For Medical Innovation
The federal health exchange Healthcare.gov, one of the centerpieces of the Affordable Care Act (ACA or ObamaCare), is gasping for life. This is not the important story, however. The U.S. health care system has flaws. And, these flaws should have been the focus of the health care reforms back in ...
India’s War On Intellectual Property Rights May Bring With It A Body Count
Last month, drug maker Roche withdrew its patents for the breast-cancer drug Herceptin in India and thus gave tacit approval to other companies to make low-cost generic versions of the drug. But the withdrawal of those patents was not completely voluntary. If the Swiss pharmaceutical firm had not relinquished ...
