HEALTHCARE COSTS
The Source Roundup: March 2018 Edition
Source Fellow March 1, 2018
By: Katie Beyer, Student Fellow Happy March! In this edition of the Source Roundup, we cover four academic articles and reports from January and February. The topics this month include: (1) recent state solutions to reduce prescription drug costs, (2) legal challenges to Maryland and Nevada’s prescription drug laws, (3) how the CVS-Aetna deal could reduce healthcare costs, and 4) economic and demographic trends behind increasing healthcare spending. Recent State Solutions Aimed at Reducing Prescription Drug Costs Medicaid spending on outpatient drugs increased 25%, from $22.4 billion in 2013 to …
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Special California Assembly Hearings Provide Insights and Solutions to Increasing Healthcare Costs
Sammy Chang, Health Policy Researcher February 20, 2018
After the public outcry following last year’s tabling of SB 562 (Lara), which would have created a single-payer program in California, a special California Assembly committee was formed. The Assembly Select Committee on Health Care Delivery Systems and Universal Coverage began hearings in late October 2017 and adjourned on February 7th, 2018. While much of the hearings was a crash course on health insurance, some of them addressed high healthcare prices. This month, we will summarize two of the hearings that focused on understanding the origins of high healthcare pricing …
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How the 2017 Tax Reform Act May Impact Healthcare Costs and Spending
Source Fellow January 11, 2018
By: Katie Beyer, Student Fellow The 2017 Tax Reform Act, formerly known as H.R.1 the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, was signed into law by President Trump on December 22, 2017. This politically charged bill first passed the Senate by a strict party line vote of 51-48 and passed the House by a final vote of 224-201. No Democrats voted for the bill in either the Senate or the House. Republicans were eager to pass the bill, claiming that families would see an average of $2,200 cut from their annual taxes.[1] …
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The Source Roundup – January 2018 Edition
Source Fellow January 2, 2018
By: Briana Moller, Student Fellow Happy New Year! In this Roundup, we cover four articles from November and December 2017. The topics include 1) the rising cost of emergency care, 2) promoting price transparency through contract law, 3) the move towards value-based payment systems, and 4) government regulation to control prescription drug prices. Rising Cost of Emergency Care As a part of a year-long investigation, Vox, working alongside the Health Care Cost Institute (“HCCI”), investigated the recent phenomenon of increased emergency room prices. In “Emergency Rooms Are Monopolies. Patients …
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Do Bundled Payments Have a Future in Medicare?
Katie Gudiksen, Senior Health Policy Researcher December 7, 2017
In an op-ed written for the Wall Street Journal on September 19, 2017, Seema Verma, the new administrator for the Centers for Medicare &|Medicaid Services (CMS), announced a “new direction” initiative for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI).[1] The Affordable Care Act (ACA) created the CMMI to design and evaluate new payment models designed to either lower spending without reducing the quality of care, or improve the quality of care without increasing spending.[2] The CMMI established payment initiatives that used Medicare to test and implement payment reforms that …
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Academic Articles & Reports Roundup: November 2017
Source Fellow December 2, 2017
By: Katie Beyer, Student Fellow Happy December! In this Roundup, we cover four articles from November. The topics this month include: (1) new methods to measure healthcare costs and (2) economic impacts of ACA repeal efforts. Better Understanding Healthcare Costs Through the Use of New Methodologies Two articles in November propose two new methods of measuring healthcare spending rates. In Measuring the Burden of Health Care Costs on US Families: The Affordability Index (Journal of American Medical Association), authors Ezekiel Emanuel, Aaron Glickman, and David Johnson offer a new index measure …
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Academic Articles & Reports Roundup: October 2017
Sammy Chang, Health Policy Researcher November 1, 2017
Happy November! In this Roundup, we cover five articles from October. The topics this month include: (1) pharma-tribal cooperation and the patent system, (2) Medicare subpopulations with the highest preventable spending, (3) privacy protections in All-Payer Claims Database legislation, (4) medical spending on autism spectrum disorder, and (5) a game theory model to understand hospital competition. Pharma-Tribal Cooperation Undermines the Patent System The Association for Accessible Medicine paper Patent-Assignment Transactions Between Brand-Name Drug Companies and Native American Tribes Will Undermine A Healthy Patent System and Harm Patients arises from Allergen’s …
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The End of CSRs: Trump Eliminates “Bailouts” While Others Seek a Solution
Source Fellow October 30, 2017
By: Briana Moller, Student Fellow Trump Administration Has Eliminated CSR Payments On October 11, 2017, in a memo to the Department of Treasury and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Attorney General Jeff Sessions provided his legal opinion that Cost Sharing Reduction (CSR) payments were unlawful. CSR payments reimburse insurance companies for losses in deductibles, copays, and coinsurance payments owed by lower income individuals in health plans on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges. The following day, Eric Hagan, the acting Secretary of HHS, announced that CSR payments …
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Source Short: A Basic Understanding of What’s Really Driving Healthcare Costs
Amy Y. Gu, Managing Editor October 12, 2017
It’s common knowledge that the U.S. spends more than any other country on health care. In a series of blog posts, David Lansky, PhD of the Center for Health Journalism aims to give us a basic summary and understanding of the many factors contributing to the out of control healthcare spending. In part 1 of his blog post, Lansky explains why our healthcare spending is so high, and the five main culprits that push costs up. In part 2 of his blog post, Lansky outlines additional factors that should bring …
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Interesting California Bills that Did Not End Up on the Governor’s Desk This Year
Sammy Chang, Health Policy Researcher October 11, 2017
The California legislature has finished up the first year of a two-year legislative cycle. While enrolled bills await the Governor’s signature, today’s article will discuss three bills that are still pending in the legislature and why they should pass. These bills include granting a state agency the authority to approve all mergers and acquisitions involving a health care plan (AB 595), developing a commission to examine health care access and affordability (AB 1643), and preventing hospitals from imposing anti-competitive contract provisions (SB 538). AB 595 (Wood): If this bill passed, …
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