- Center on Health Equity and Access
- Clinical
- Health Care Cost
- Health Care Delivery
- Insurance
- Policy
- Technology
- Value-Based Care
What We're Reading: Americans Have a Mostly Negative View of Pharma Industry
What we're reading, August 31, 2016: 51% of Americans have a negative view of the pharmaceutical industry; the CDC is running out of funds to fight the Zika virus; and Pennsylvania chooses 3 private companies to manage Medicaid plans.
A Gallup poll has found that just 28% of Americans have a positive view of drug makers, while 51% have a negative view. According to STAT, the only business sector included in the survey that the American public holds in lower esteem is the federal government. Ongoing controversy over the rising cost of drugs has overshadowed advances made by the pharmaceutical industry with new medicines treating cancer and curing hepatitis C. The pharmaceutical industry registered a net positive rating of negative 23, but the healthcare sector didn’t fare much better with a rating of negative 20.
The coffers for fighting the Zika virus are running dry. CDC Director Tom Frieden, MD, MPH, announced Tuesday that the CDC is out of money to fight Zika and that Congress needs to “do something,” reported The Hill. Almost all of the $222 million borrowed from HHS has been spent or budgeted, with half going to state and local health agencies and the rest going to development of new diagnostic tests, public outreach efforts, and staffing to deal with outbreaks in Puerto Rico and Florida.
Private companies will manage Medicaid plans for 420,000 people in Pennsylvania. The contracts with the 3 companies are part of the state’s overhaul of how nursing home stays, home care, and other supports for the elderly and physically disabled are paid for, reported The Philadelphia Inquirer. The contracts are part of a new program called Community HealthChoices and it supplements managed physical and mental health care for Medicaid beneficiaries, as well as covers people who are eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare.
Prices for care at hospital trauma centers vary across hospitals; drug shortages reached a record high during the first quarter of 2024; although 3 of the biggest makers of asthma inhalers pledged to cap out-of-pocket costs for some US patients at $35, these do not apply to daily inhalers used by the youngest kids with asthma.
Read More
Navigating Health Policy in an Election Year: Insights From Dr Dennis Scanlon
April 2nd 2024On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we're talking with Dennis Scanlon, PhD, the editor in chief of The American Journal of Accountable Care®, about prior authorization, price transparency, the impact of health policy on the upcoming election, and more.
Listen
The Biden administration recently launched the Global Health Security Strategy, a new effort to combat the spread of infectious diseases; lawmakers zeroed in on the risks of massive consolidation in health care during the first congressional hearing on the Change Healthcare hack; the FDA recently announced the recall of a pair of heart devices linked to numerous deaths and injuries.
Read More
Exploring Medicare Advantage Prior Authorization Variations
March 26th 2024On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we're talking with the authors of a study published in the March 2024 issue of The American Journal of Managed Care® about their findings on variations in prior authorization use across Medicare Advantage plans.
Listen
