By Christopher Robertson With 148,000 members, the American College of Physicians (ACP) is the largest medical-speciality organization. This summer, its board released a new report on the growing financial burdens faced by patients who enjoy health insurance but are nonetheless exposed to unbearably large costs for healthcare. At the end of the day, cost-sharing is just the absence…
Bt Emma Sandoe Full post at Health Affairs Blog. Congress is currently debating the level of federal funding that should be made available to fight to reduce the spread of Zika. Administration officials working with local public health agencies on the ground have recently expressed fear that the funding levels are insufficient to prevent the…
By Ameet Sarpatwari and Aaron S. Kesselheim Each month, members of the Program On Regulation, Therapeutics, And Law (PORTAL) review the peer-reviewed medical literature to identify interesting empirical studies, in-depth analyses, and thoughtful editorials on pharmaceutical law and policy. Below are the papers identified from the month of May. The selections feature topics ranging from a review of progress in the fight against multidrug-resistant…
By Nicolas Terry and Frank Pasquale A special TWIHL episode with analysis of the new EEOC regulations under the ADA and GINA on Employer Wellness Plans. Nic is joined by Professor Wendy Mariner. Professor Mariner is the Edward R. Utley Professor of Health Law at Boston University School of Public Health, Professor of Law at Boston University School of Law, Professor at Boston University…
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on May 12 with portions of the essay missing. The corrected text is below. By Ted Marmor Presidential campaigns in the United States are not typically fought over competing manifestos, with policy details set out in reasonably clear language. Rather they are disputes among candidates about the state…
By Michael Anne Kyle In recent days there has been a lot of action around CMS’ Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative (CPCI). First, the next phase of the program was announced, expanding the program in size and scope. Several days later, an evaluation of the first two years of the initiative was published in the New…
By Zack Buck Following months of news coverage highlighting how American drug prices are “out of control,” the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) seems to have been spurred into action. Last week, CMS proposed a new reimbursement regime for drugs paid for by Medicare Part B (drugs administered on an outpatient basis). Addressing the concerns that…
This new post by Nancy Beaulieu, Michael Chernew, Soren Kristensen, and Meredith Rosenthal appears on the Health Affairs Blog as part of a series stemming from the Fourth Annual Health Law Year in P/Review event held at Harvard Law School on Friday, January 29, 2016. The notion that the American health care system should transition from paying for volume to paying for…
By Elizabeth Guo Pharmaceutical companies are making breakthrough drugs to cure diseases, but no one knows how to pay for them. In 2013 and 2014, FDA approved Solvaldi and Harmoni, which can cure hepatitis C in more than 90% of patients. Solvaldi and Harmoni cost $84,000 and $95,000, respectively, for a standard course of treatment.…
By Cornelia Hall This is the third entry in a three-part series on the AcademyHealth National Health Policy Conference, held in Washington, DC, on February 1-2. Read the first entry here and the second entry here. The national debt as a percentage of GDP has spiked in the last several years, rising from approximately 35%…
