Working Americans Are Using Less Health Care And Yet Paying Significantly More, Report Finds
In many other businesses, declining demand would cause prices to drop, but that “common sense” doesn’t always apply to health care, said Niall Brennan, president of Health Care Cost Institute, which released the report.
The Wall Street Journal:
Health-Care Costs Rose For Americans With Employer-Sponsored Insurance
Spending on health care accelerated in 2016 for Americans who get insurance through work, even as use of most health-care services declined or remained flat. The reason, according to a new report: price increases. Rising prices for prescription drugs, surgery, emergency-room visits and other services drove a 4.6% increase in total spending per person, versus 4.1% in 2015 and less than 3% in the two previous years, according to the research nonprofit Health Care Cost Institute, which analyzed data for nearly 40 million people up to age 65 with employer-sponsored insurance. (Whalen, 1/23)
In other national health care news —
The Associated Press:
Work Requirements May Prompt More States To Expand Medicaid
In an ironic twist, the Trump administration's embrace of work requirements for low-income people on Medicaid is prompting lawmakers in some conservative states to resurrect plans to expand health care for the poor. Trump's move has been widely criticized as threatening the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion. But if states follow through, more Americans could get coverage. (1/24)
The Washington Post:
Bernie Sanders Talks Universal Medicare, And 1.1 Million People Click To Watch Him
With more than one million people watching at home, and hundreds watching from the studio audience, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) leaned across his desk with a crucial health-care question. “What’s the quality of the Norwegian system?” Sanders asked Meetali Kakadi, an Oslo-based health researcher. “Is it good?” In her view, it was: “Far better than Canada.” (Weigel, 1/24)
Stat:
Pharma Is Urged To Do More To Thwart The Superbug Crisis
As public health officials continue to lament a dearth of antibiotics, a new report finds some drug makers are making strides in developing medicines to combat superbugs, but that the pharmaceutical industry, in general, needs to do more. Overall, more companies are addressing R&D priorities, particularly the development of new antimicrobial drugs, but remain less active in bolstering manufacturing or sufficiently widening access, according to the report from the Access to Medicines Foundation, a non-profit based in the Netherlands, that regularly compiles indices to rank the progress made by drug companies on various matters. (Silverman, 1/23)
The New York Times:
Vaping Can Be Addictive And May Lure Teenagers To Smoking, Science Panel Concludes
A national panel of public health experts concluded in a report released on Tuesday that vaping with e-cigarettes that contain nicotine can be addictive and that teenagers who use the devices may be at higher risk of smoking. Whether teenage use of e-cigarettes leads to conventional smoking has been intensely debated in the United States and elsewhere. While the industry argues that vaping is not a steppingstone to conventional cigarettes or addiction, some antismoking advocates contend that young people become hooked on nicotine, and are enticed to use cancer-causing tobacco-based cigarettes over time. (Kaplan, 1/23)