In was the dawn of the 21st Century when untreated pain became a public health priority. In 1990 Dr. Mitchel Max, then president of the American Pain Society, authored an editorial in the Annals of Internal Medicine lamenting the lack of progress treating pain over the previous two decades. Within a few years Joint Commission jumped on the bandwagon and published Pain: The Fifth Vital Sign. Thus began America’s experiment in aggressive pain treatment and its descent into opioid addiction and overdose deaths.
Category: Drug Prices & Regulations
Saturday Links
- The US government has reinstated funding to EcoHealth Alliance, the agency that collaborated on bat research with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China.
- Krguman on how Pharma avoids paying income taxes. Answer: tax people, not corporations
- Food Stamps: “We find the fastest-growing groups of the adult caseload suffer from low employment levels and poor health outcomes.”
- Top 20 hospitals and their CEOs racked up huge pandemic profits.
Congress: Why Don’t Consumers Benefit from Drug Rebates?
When you pick up a prescription at the drugstore you don’t always pay cash, you often pay an insurance copay. Occasionally if you’re picking up a generic drug it may be free with no cost sharing, although that is far less common than it once was. My wife and I use a program called GoodRx. One time I went to CVS to pick up my dog’s medication and the pharmacy tech informed me that CVS had a special program for veterinary medications. The discounted price would be $54 as I recall. I pulled out a GoodRx coupon and asked if the coupon was good. He said it was. My new price was around $15. How is that possible?
Friday Links
- Over-the-counter birth control decision is a small step in the right direction – many more steps are needed.
- At $3.5 million for a one-time dose, Hemgenix (which cures hemophilia) is now the most expensive drug in the world.
- Gender bias in academia? A lot less than you might think.
- Michael Drummond on high US drug prices: “My hope as a European is that US never gets its health system in order.”
- British babies born with DNA from three people.