A report published in Health Affairs estimates that Medicare Part D spending will rapidly increase in the coming years. The reasons are both good news and bad news. Basically, new drugs in the pipeline and an increasing array of specialty drugs will drive spending growth. From 2009 to 2018 spending on Medicare Part D drugs increased about…
Category: Cost of Healthcare
Monday Links
Doctors file lawsuit against HHS over paying more to docs who practice “woke” medicine.
Why don’t medicines have names that are easy to pronounce and remember?
Biden Adm. wants certificate of need for charter schools.
There aren’t enough Covid boosters for everyone to have a second booster by Sept 1.
Sec. Mark Esper: Trump proposed shooting Patriot missiles into Mexico to destroy drug labs.
What if Future Voters Could Vote?
An interview with Alex Tabarrok:
Future residents don’t have the vote, so we prevent building which placates the fears of current homeowners but prevents future residents from moving in. Future patients don’t have the vote, so we regulate drug prices at the expense of future new drug innovations and so forth. This has always been true, of course, but culture can be a solution to otherwise tough-to-solve incentive problems. America’s forward looking, pro-innovation, pro-science culture meant that in the past we were more likely to protect the future.
Drug Maker’s Copay Assistance Ended Up in Drug Plans’ Pockets
A while back I wrote about drug company copay assistance programs. The purpose of these is to entice patients to use higher-cost brand drugs by blunting health plan incentives for enrollees to choose lower-cost drug options.