AJMC Staff

In the second quarter of 2018, real US drug prices declined 5.8%, and it may be thanks to co-payment accumulators; more than 25 patient and consumer groups released a statement that said a new bill to protect Americans with pre-existing conditions would not be sufficient; the Department of Justice has issued a warning to cities planning to set up supervised injection sites as a tactic to curb opioid overdose deaths.

Senate Democrats plan to use the confirmation battle for Brett Kavanaugh's to the Supreme Court of the United States to mobilize their base around threats to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the social safety net, and reproductive rights; a Texas courtroom will be the setting for another critical chapter in the fate of the ACA; consumers who buy insurance through ACA markets will find premiums have stabilized in 2019.

Here are the top 5 articles for the month of August.

Coverage of our peer-reviewed research and news reporting in the healthcare and mainstream press.

A judge tossed a lawsuit brought by pharmaceutical companies to block a California law requiring advance notice of big price increases; the FDA is testing all angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) over a discovered impurity that is linked to cancer; research in monkeys has suggested that an experimental painkiller is effective at easing pain without being addictive.

Illinois has passed a law allowing doctors in the state to prescribe marijuana as pain medication in a fight against the opioid epidemic; the FDA has told California that a cancer warning label for coffee is misleading; and the FDA is continuing its push against the illegal sale of opioids.

New York and Minnesota will receive lost federal funding for programs they created under the Affordable Care Act; the government has officially increased the death toll in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria to 2975 people; after years of controlling the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, the United States has seen the number increase 4 years in a row to a new record high in 2017.

Nebraska voters will decide on Medicaid expansion in November; a medical watchdog has called for a stop to a clinical trial for sepsis treatment; Medicare Advantage insurer Clover Health is expanding its health plans to 6 new markets.

GOP senators have introduced legislation they say would protect provisions for preexisting conditions under the Affordable Care Act; Cigna shareholders have voted in favor of the acquisition of pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts; and study results show that aspirin does not lower cardiovascular (CV) risk in the long-term.

Coverage of our peer-reviewed research and news reporting in the healthcare and mainstream press.

The Senate approved an $854 billion spending measure, including a 5% boost for the National Institutes of Health; Maine’s Supreme Judicial Court said 2 lower-court rulings ordering the state to implement the voter-approved Medicaid expansion stand; the chief information officer of California’s public employee benefits and retirement system (CalPERS) is trying to use data to analyze trends and recommend policies to stem rising costs.

Facing ever-increasing costs, some families are forgoing traditional medical insurance in favor of patching together an alternative using multiple sources; a new initiative led by former CMS Administrator Andy Slavitt is looking to transform Medicaid with actionable solutions to address the health and social determinants of vulnerable populations; before kids go back to school, sales of the EpiPen usually spike, but this year parents are scrambling to find the injector.

CMS today released a formal guidance that outlines the federal payer’s approach to calculating budget neutrality for Medicaid section 1115 demonstration projects, “to strengthen fiscal accountability.”

Patients living in rural areas have fewer options for a hospital as closures continue at a rate of about 30 a year; the Trump administration is sending mixed messages about how it views pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs); thousands of veterans suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder may be left without benefits after the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) improperly handled as many as 1300 sexual trauma claims.

Senator Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, wants to attach his proposal to cut funding for Planned Parenthood to a massive defense, HHS, labor, and education funding bill that is currently being debated on the Senate floor; nearly 1 in 5 jail and prison inmates regularly used heroin or opioids before being incarcerated, making jails a place for intervention, treatment, and rehabilitation; in Maine, residents who applied for health coverage under Medicaid expansion are still waiting to hear from the governor, and in Kentucky, the governor was rebuffed in his lawsuit against 16 residents who sued the state over Mediciaid work requirements.

A Dartmouth College investigation has concluded that H. Gilbert Welch, MD, MPH, a prominent healthcare policy researcher, committed research misconduct in connection with a breast cancer paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2016; a Boston University endocrinologist, Michael Holick, MD, who had a crucial role in drafting national vitamin D guidelines, has benefitted from the industry in the amount of hundreds of thousands of dollars; 24 states have passed 37 bills this year to curb rising prescription drug costs as bipartisan efforts are forcing pharmaceutical companies to disclose and justify price increases.

Every single future medical student who will study at the New York University School of Medicine, in perpetuity, will have their tuition costs fully covered; HHS has approved New Jersey’s waiver request to create a reinsurance program that would help lower insurance premiums for everyone in the state; an analysis highlights how marketing documents from the mid-1990s downplayed addiction to opioids.

Coverage of our peer-reviewed research and news reporting in the healthcare and mainstream press.

The FDA will start to review gene therapy experiments and products the same as other treatments and drugs; Alaska and Minnesota have become models for other states looking to curb health insurance premium increases with reinsurance programs; patients with limited English proficiency often have to rely on family members and friends to interpret for them, which can have serious consequences.

Advocacy groups filed a lawsuit on behalf of 3 Medicaid recipients challenging Arkansas' Medicaid work requirements; CVS Health announced that its pharmacy benefit manager will target expensive drugs to be excluded from formularies if they are not cost effective; Senate leaders have received a letter from 120 consumer and patient associations on the impact Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh could have on health policy.

Major tech companies publicly committed at a Trump administration event to improve provider–patient communications and data exchanges in health information technology in an effort to cut costs and improve outcomes; public health advocates and the FDA are at odds over how to regulate the exploding electronic cigarette industry, even as both sides agree teens and college students are using the devices at an alarming rate; billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who last week said Cigna was overpaying for Express Scripts, is no longer intending to solicit proxies to vote against the $52 billion deal.

A proposed rule from CMS would end the practice of home health aides paid directly by Medicaid having their union dues automatically deducted from their paychecks; the Trump administration says it has found a way around a federal judge’s June ruling stopping a Kentucky plan from introducing work requirements on those receiving Medicaid and will continue to allow states to put the restrictions in place; a California jury found Monsanto liable in a lawsuit filed by a school groundskeeper who said the company’s weedkillers, including Roundup, caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Coverage of our peer-reviewed research and news reporting in the healthcare and mainstream press.

Health insurance and drug companies have joined together to form the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future to wage a campaign against the growing idea of single-payer healthcare; surgery centers operate under an uneven mix of rules so that deaths and serious injuries can result in no warning to government officials, much less to potential patients; depending on which side you’re on, a ballot initiative called Proposition 8 in California to limit the profit of dialysis clinics is either an effort to improve patient care or it could jeopardize it by threatening the financial viability of clinics.

Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, has claimed his Medicare-for-all plan will cut healthcare spending by $2 trillion, but fact checking shows that's unlikely; CVS' CEO defends its pharmacy benefit manager against claims rebates are driving up drug prices; researchers have found that immigrants have healthcare costs that are half to two-thirds of the costs of people born in the United States.

Researchers from the CDC have found that 1 in 7 children born to women who had the Zika virus while pregnant, including children who initially seemed healthy at birth, now have serious health issues; more jails and prisons are offering inmates addiction medications; Carl Icahn recommends Cigna's shareholders vote against Express Scripts purchase, in part because of the "highly flawed" rebate system that pharmacy benefit managers utilize.

General Motors (GM) announced its partnership with the Henry Ford Health System to ensure wellness services and healthcare management for salaried employees; Democratic and Republican representatives in the House and the Senate have sent separate letters to HHS Secretary Alex Azar on eliminating direct and indirect remuneration fees; despite using infected kidneys in transplant patients, outcomes improved.

One of the reasons why hospital readmissions for the elderly are remaining high may be posthospital syndrome; priority review vouchers, which can be awarded by the FDA to 1 company and sold for a hefty price to another, are commanding a lower price than in past years; almost 8 months after Amazon, JP Morgan Chase, and Berkshire Hathaway announced their joint healthcare venture, there is little public information about it.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain documents showing the FDA did little to intervene in the wider prescribing of fast-acting fentanyl drugs approved for patients with cancer who have high opioid tolerance; HHS said 96 organizations will get funding under Title X, the federal family planning program; drug companies may have reduced some prices in response to President Trump taking to Twitter to complain about costs, but the moves are largely symbolic and won’t have any real effect, analysts said.

Coverage of our peer-reviewed research and news reporting in the healthcare and mainstream press.