How We Wrested Control of Our Rx Drug Spending. Maybe You Can, too.
This week, we ' ve heard reporting that the big Congressional bill which was supposed to include a provision for Medicare, which is the taxpayer-funded senior insurance plan to actually negotiate prices on prescription drugs (just as most other countries, as well as the Veteran ' s Administration [VA] already do right now) was going to be omitted because of a handful of PhRMA-bankrolled lawmakers pushed to kill it. That said, it isn ' t over until its over. Although we don ' t know what she might or might not do, House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi still has some tricks in her own playbook if it doesn ' t happen a...
Source: Scott's Web Log - November 1, 2021 Category: Endocrinology Tags: coupon-generating websites apps PBM prescriptions Source Type: blogs
Young People Around The World Report High Levels Of Climate Anxiety
By Emma L. Barratt
In the past few years, the effects of climate change have become undeniably apparent. In the last two years alone, headlines have been full of climate disasters — from forest fire smoke turning San Francisco’s sky luminous red, to torrential flooding in Germany and China.
In the face of events like this, anxiety and fear about climate change is undoubtedly increasing. Far from being indicative of mental illness, climate anxiety (also known as eco-anxiety or climate distress) more neatly fits under the banner of “practical anxiety”: fear that motivates change to help us respond to threa...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - October 29, 2021 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: environmental Mental health Source Type: blogs
Can China Be Sued under International Law for COVID-19?
Abbas Poorhashemi, Can China Be Sued under International Law for COVID-19?, SSRN (2021): Under the immense human and economic loss caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, some countries have mentioned that they are willing to file lawsuits against China. Do they... (Source: HealthLawProf Blog)
Source: HealthLawProf Blog - October 23, 2021 Category: Medical Law Authors: Katharine Van Tassel Source Type: blogs
Lawsuit Highlights Need to Let Parents, Not Government, Choose Disabled Education Plans
Solomon ChenIs California ’s public education system working for students with disabilities? No, and it is past time for California to implement private school choice for students with disabilities so that their families can choose the best educational path for them.A recent civil-rights lawsuit filed by the Berkeley-basedDisability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF) agrees that students with disabilities (SWD) are not being fairly treated. In July, California legislators passedAB 130, allowing all public-school students to enroll in independent study, in part to accommodate desires for distance learning during CO...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - October 21, 2021 Category: American Health Authors: Solomon Chen Source Type: blogs
Ninth Circuit: Oakland Can ’t Sue Wells Fargo Over Risky Mortgages
Walter OlsonIn a welcome development, a unanimous en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit has called what we may hope is a permanent halt to a reckless campaign under which city governments have sought to mulct bank shareholders by way of a strained theory of fair ‐housing liability.Following the housing bust of the late 2000s, some American cities signed up with contingency ‐fee plaintiff’s counsel to sue bank lenders on a highly ambitious legal theory: by extending too many risky loans to minority borrowers on dangerous terms (e.g., low ‐money‐down loans with adjustable inte...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - October 11, 2021 Category: American Health Authors: Walter Olson Source Type: blogs
Some Key EASD News for T1D
This week, the European rival to the ADA Scientific Sessions known as EASD (which stands for the European Association for the Study of Diabetes) held its annual meeting, which was the organization ' s 57th Annual Meeting and it took place virtually (much like the ADA Scientific Sessions did this year) due to COVID-19. EASD was held from September 27, 2021 to October 1, 2021. In recent years, neither the ADA Scientific Sessions not the EASD Meetings have yielded many surprise findings or previously unknown product launches.My short summary is that Novo Nordisk is finally getting on the " smart pen " cap bandwagon, while riv...
Source: Scott's Web Log - October 1, 2021 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2021 Bigfoot Unity Companion Medical EASD FTC insulin prices Lilly Medtronic diabetes Novo Nordisk rebate reform Smart Pen Caps Smart Pens Source Type: blogs
If businesses can mandate vaccines, they should mandate affordable health care, too
Earlier this year, Houston Methodist gave its 26,000 hospital employees an ultimatum: Get vaccinated or get a new job. It was one of the nation’s first vaccine mandates. And it was a big, multilayered risk: with legal, financial and ethical consequences all hanging in the balance. In the end, more than 150 hospi tal employees refused, filed a lawsuit,Read more …If businesses can mandate vaccines, they should mandate affordable health care, too originally appeared inKevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - September 21, 2021 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/robert-pearl" rel="tag" > Robert Pearl, MD < /a > < /span > Tags: Policy Public Health & Source Type: blogs
U.S. Patients Need U.S. FTC to Do More to Bring Rx Drug Prices Down to Earth
For a moment, try to answer the following question honestly:When are biosimilar insulins, even those which are designated by the FDA as " interchangable " with the innovator, MORE EXPENSIVE than the originator molecule the biosimilar is supposed to be a copy of? The correct answer is when a person with diabetes lives in the United States. It defies logic!In theory, the biosimilars should be cheaper because the work of developing, conducting clinical trials and whatnot is not the same to make a copy. The biosimilar doesn ' t have to go through the same process of conducting extensive three phases of clinical trial...
Source: Scott's Web Log - September 15, 2021 Category: Endocrinology Tags: Federal Trade Commission FTC PBM rebate reform rebates Source Type: blogs
U.S. Patients Need U.S. FTC to Do More to Bring Rx Drug Prices Down to Earth
For a moment, try to answer the following question honestly:When are biosimilar insulins, even those which are designated by the FDA as " interchangeable " with the innovator, MORE EXPENSIVE than the originator molecule the biosimilar is supposed to be a copy of? The correct answer is when a person with diabetes lives in the United States. It defies logic!In theory, the biosimilars should be cheaper because the work of developing, conducting clinical trials and whatnot is not the same to make a copy. The biosimilar doesn ' t have to go through the same process of conducting extensive three phases of clinical tria...
Source: Scott's Web Log - September 15, 2021 Category: Endocrinology Tags: Biosimilar biosimilars Federal Trade Commission FTC PBM rebate reform rebates Source Type: blogs
Your best defense? Don ’t play by the rules in a medical malpractice case.
Unfortunate outcomes are inevitable even when practicing quality medicine. Most are random events, but some are medical errors. The majority of physicians have been sued and those, who have not, will be. Common to all defendants is that the lawsuit is totally fallacious. To be fallacious, the outcome of a medical intervention must be anRead more …Your best defense? Don ’t play by the rules in a medical malpractice case. originally appeared inKevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - September 4, 2021 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/howard-smith" rel="tag" > Howard Smith, MD < /a > < /span > Tags: Physician Malpractice Source Type: blogs
Coupons, PBM's ... oh my!
Over the past few years, my coverage of coupon-generating websites/apps has increased by a lot in this blog because those have emerged as a critical way for patients to get prescriptions at lower, PBM-negotiated prices even if they have yet to satisfy an annual insurance deductible or they have no insurance at all. In general, coupon-generating websites/apps offer consumers access to the deeper pharmacy benefits manager ( " PBM " )-negotiated prices on prescription drugs, at prices which are often substantially less than the prices you could otherwise attain as a consumer without the benefit of a commercial healthcare...
Source: Scott's Web Log - September 1, 2021 Category: Endocrinology Tags: CGM CGMS coupon-generating websites apps Dexcom insulin Libre PBM test strips Source Type: blogs
Coupons, PBM's ... oh my!
Over the past few years, my coverage of coupon-generating websites/apps has increased by a lot in this blog because those have emerged as a critical way for patients to get prescriptions at lower, PBM-negotiated prices even if they have yet to satisfy an annual insurance deductible or they have no insurance at all. In general, coupon-generating websites/apps offer consumers access to the deeper pharmacy benefits manager ( " PBM " )-negotiated prices on prescription drugs, at prices which are often substantially less than the prices you could otherwise attain as a consumer without the benefit of a commercial healthcare...
Source: Scott's Web Log - September 1, 2021 Category: Endocrinology Tags: CGM CGMS coupon-generating websites apps Dexcom insulin Libre PBM test strips Source Type: blogs
It takes a pandemic: Mental Health parity may finally have its day!
By EMILY EVANS
Emily Evans is the health policy guru at equity research company HedgeEye. She sends out these reports in emails to her clients regularly but (since I asked nicely) she allowed me to publish this one from late last week on THCB. You can catch Emily in person on the “How Much Are These Companies Really Worth? The IPO & SPAC Panel” at Policies|Techies|VCs–What’s Next for Health Care, the conference Jess Damassa & I are chairing on September 7-8-9-10 — Matthew Holt
Politics. President Biden is going to have more important things to do this week than worry about the ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - August 20, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Policy COVID-19 Emily Evans Hedgeye masks Mental Health Source Type: blogs
Making Sense of the Novo Nordisk-Walmart Partnership to Sell Some Discounted Insulin Analogues
On June 29, 2021, Walmart Inc. and the American business unit of Novo Nordisk A/S (which is based just outside of Princeton, New Jersey known as Novo Nordisk Inc.) dropped what was intended to be a news bombshell coming just as the ADA Scientific Sessions was coming to a close. In fact, the insulin makers had hardly any big news coming from the ADA Scientific Sessions themselves this year (in fact, Novo Nordiskacquired a UK-based company known as Ziylo in 2018 to use its technology to try and develop glucose-responsive insulin, but it still has a long while before it is ready for commercialization ... if ever), becaus...
Source: Scott's Web Log - July 15, 2021 Category: Endocrinology Tags: Aspart Novo Nordisk Novolog Walmart Source Type: blogs
