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What We're Reading: Health Insurers Have Demands for ACA Repeal
What we're reading, December 7, 2016: health insurers provide demands if Republicans repeal Obamacare; women face 20% higher healthcare costs in retirement; and immunotherapies are being considered for sepsis.
As Republicans prepare to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act under the new administration, health insurers are taking a stand on the issue. According to The New York Times, insurers are asking that the new administration keep rules to encourage young, healthy people to sign up for insurance, and continue to offset some of the cost for low-income people. Without those 2 provisions, the market for individual buyers will become unstable and it will be more difficult for insurers to do business.
Women need to save more money for healthcare in retirement. With women expected to live, on average, 2 years longer than men, they face healthcare costs in retirement that are 20% higher than those of men, according to The Wall Street Journal. The projections for healthcare costs in retirement understate the cost of care for people with high incomes—who pay surcharges on Medicare premiums—and healthy individuals—who live longer and pay higher lifetime medical bills. The projection doesn’t take into account the potential costs of long-term care.
Immunotherapies are breaking out of the cancer space. STAT reported that drug makers are looking at using an immunotherapy drug to treat sepsis. Bristol-Myers Squibb is running trials of 2 immunotherapies—nivolumab, which is already approved to treat cancer, and BMS-936559—to treat sepsis. Revimmune is running a trial of interleukin-7, which has previously been tested in cancer and HIV.
Standard Criteria for Loss of Ambulation Needed in DMD
April 19th 2024A recent study suggests the differences between ambulation definitions for patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) can impact the identification of ambulant vs nonambulant individuals, and standard criteria across settings are needed.
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Navigating Health Literacy, Social Determinants, and Discrimination in National Health Plans
February 13th 2024On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we're talking with the authors of a study published in the February 2024 issue of The American Journal of Managed Care® about their findings on how health plans can screen for health literacy, social determinants of health, and perceived health care discrimination.
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Early Involvement Critical in Treating Immunotherapy-Induced Overlap Syndrome
April 19th 2024A series of case studies reveals the importance of early diagnosis and involvement of special teams of clinicians when dealing with potential cases of overlap syndrome, which encompasses myocarditis, myasthenia gravis, and immune checkpoint inhibitor–related myositis.
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Drs Raymond Thertulien, Joseph Mikhael on Racial Disparities in Multiple Myeloma Care Access
December 28th 2023In the wake of the 2023 American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition, Raymond Thertulien, MD, PhD, of Novant Health, and Joseph Mikhael, MD, MEd, FRCPC, FACP, chief medical officer of the International Myeloma Foundation, discussed health equity research highlights from the meeting and drivers of racial disparities in multiple myeloma outcomes.
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Government agencies have created an online portal for the public to report potential anticompetitive practices in health care; there are changes coming to the “boxed warning” section for chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies (CAR T) to highlight T-cell blood cancer risk; questions about the safety of obesity medications during pregnancy have arisen in women on them who previously struggled with fertility issues.
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