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This Week in Managed Care: June 27, 2015
This week the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the government in King v. Burwell, preserving access to healthcare subsidies for millions of Americans, and the high cost of cancer drug was in the spotlight.
The top story of the week came Thursday when the Supreme Court delivered its opinion on King v. Burwell. In a 6-3 ruling, the justices preserved access to healthcare subsidies for plans purchased on HealthCare.gov for the millions of Americans living in states that did not set up their own exchanges.
In the span of 1 week, the cost of cancer drugs has come up twice. First, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, led by the efforts of Peter B. Bach, MD, MAPP, released an interactive calculator that allows people to discover how much cancer drugs should really cost based on factors like side effects and years of life gained. Then, the American Society of Clinical Oncology announced its framework for assessing and discussing value of cancer treatments with patients.
Finally, researchers reported in JAMA that more than two-thirds of Americans over the age of 25 are overweight or obese and those older than 55 years were more likely to be so.
