How Pharma Influences Legislation They Do Not Like From 2006 to 2015, pharmaceutical companies spent $880 million in lobbying state and federal legislatures and contributing to campaigns to prevent laws restricting Opioid prescriptions. Their lobbying expenditures has outstripped those advocating for greater controls on prescriptions by 200 times giving them greater influence at the state […]
The Wall St. Journal quoted Peter Thiel’s business plans. It is mostly behind a paywall. Competition is for Losers If you want to create and canpture lasting value, look to build a monopoly, writes Peter Thiel By Peter Thiel Sept. 12, 2014 11:25 a.m. ET What valuable company is nobody building? […]
National Health Spending at $3.5 Trillion in 2017, CMS Says: CMS is reporting healthcare spending was $3.5 trillion in 2017. National healthcare spending grew by 4.6%, up 3 tenths of 1% from 2016. The increase was blamed on increased spending for Medicare and higher premiums for healthcare insurance. The increase in healthcare premiums can be […]
I have been writing on healthcare for a while now and started to look at various topics with regard to pharmaceuticals. In my researching other topics, I found this particular correspondence to the Editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. Illuminating, if one might call it such? “A 1980 Letter on the Risk of […]
Lest we forget: David Dayen’s Weekly Newsletter Politico notes today that the 90-day emergency declared actually ends in a couple weeks, and we’re in essentially the same place that we were before the declaration. Trump has not formally proposed any new resources or spending, typically the starting point for any emergency response. He promised to roll […]
I’ve been trying to learn a bit more about PPACA (aka, Obamacare) and its effects. It hasn’t been something that has interested me a great deal until the last week or so, so I am approaching this from a position of ignorance. But I have been reading through as much material as I can find. […]
From Employer Coverage to Single Payer Health Insurance This holiday season I’ve heard several tales of woe from working class acquaintances, mostly self-employed, about Obamacare: how they are just above the subsidy cutoff and would rather pay the fine than buy expensive individual policies, or how they are just below and can’t afford to put […]
“The FCC voted 3-2 Thursday to repeal net neutrality rules, ending Obama-era regulations that prohibited Internet providers from blocking or slowing web content. Whereas all Internet traffic previously shared same ‘lane,’ it can now be split among different lanes with different speeds. Those differing speeds could hurt telemedicine since it requires a ‘pretty robust connection,’ […]
A Little History of the legislator who wrote the bill: Chair of the House Appropriations Committee since 2017, Rodney Frelinghuysen’s campaigns have been funded by the aerospace, defense, pharmaceutical and health care industries. On domestic issues, he opposes legalized abortion, Planned Parenthood, sanctuary cities, and federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. He endorsed Donald Trump […]
Pharmacy chain CVS Health has agreed to buy health insurer Aetna for $69 billion in cash and stock, retaining its current management, the companies announced late Sunday. The deal brings together one of the largest providers of pharmacy services with the No. 3 U.S. health insurer, which together would establish a healthcare giant with more […]