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From Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution: One of the problems with an RFK Jr. ascendancy is that his core views, which run strongly against vaccines and pharmaceuticals, make it unlikely that any of these reimbursement revisions will be done in a rational or scientific way. The best evidence indicates that pharmaceuticals are a relatively cost-effective ways of saving…

That is the argument from an interesting post on the Carcinisation website titled “A Case Against the Placebo Effect“. In short, the authors argue that placebos in-and-of-themselves may have small impact out health outcomes. However, care practices in clinical trials may be different such that health outcomes improve or people feel more cared for in…

That is the title of an ISPOR Europe panel I saw with Hugo Pedder, Jeroen Jansen, Dawn Lee and Mark Harries. The goal of sequential pathways model is to be able to answers questions like (i) how does a new treatment impact the cost and effectiveness for patients within a sequence of treatment, or (ii)…

ISPOR Europe kicks off this week in Barcelona, Spain. In honor of ISPOR, I will summarize some key attributes of the Spanish health care system based on a 2024 report from the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies and the Instituto Aragones de Ciencias de la Salud. Country overview Population: 48.4 million (as of…

It looks like the answer is ‘yes’. KFF reports that Holden Karau, a software engineer from the San Francisco Bay Area, created an AI tool to help appeal insurance denials. She calls it: Fight Health Insurance,  How does it work? You’ve gotta make a scan of the denial letter from your insurance company, and run…

I will be presenting two panels at ISPOR Europe 2024 in Barcelona next week! This year’s conference theme centers on the importance of scientific evidence in understanding and improving the health and well-being of people across the globe. Panel 1: Broader Value Elements: Methods to Quantify Each and Their Relevance for European Markets Monday, Nov…

That is the title of a new publication with co-authors Joshua T. Cohen, Louis P. Garrison, Dana A. Goldman, Jalpa A. Doshi, Joshua Krieger, Darius N. Lakdawalla, Peter J. Neumann, Charles E. Phelps, Melanie D. Whittington and Richard Willke. This consensus paper aims to provide researchers with a user guide for estimating broader societal value…

Employee opinions on their health insurance. Republican vs. Democratic physicians. States’ perspective on private equity in health care. California’s expansion of Medi-Cal for Unauthorized Residents. 4D geometry.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) allows the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to negotiate drug prices. However, CMS can only negotiated drug prices 9 years after drug approval for small molecules and 13 years after approval for large molecules. Why the difference? Do biologic treatments produce superior health benefits for patients? This is the…

That is the question posted by a recent paper by Li and Dor (2024). However, they define competition not just by the number of community health center (CHC) competitors or market concentration (e.g., Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, HHI) but also the quality of care provided by their competitors. A key methodological question is how this should be…