Pharmaceutical Product Hopping: A Proposed Framework For Antitrust Analysis
Skyrocketing drug prices are in the news. Overnight price increases have riveted the attention of the public, media, and politicians of all stripes. But one reason for high prices has flown under the radar. When drug companies reformulate their product, switching from one version of a drug to another, the price doesn’t dramatically increase. Instead, it stays at a high level for longer than it otherwise would have without the switch. Although more difficult to discern than a price spike, this practice, when undertaken to prevent generic market entry, can result in the unjustified continuation of monopoly pricing, burdeni...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - June 1, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Michael Carrier and Steve Shadowen Tags: Costs and Spending Drugs and Medical Innovation antitrust drug reformulations Hatch-Waxman Act prescription drug prices product hopping Source Type: blogs

Telecommunication Policies May Have Unintended Health Care Consequences
In our April 24, 2014 Health Affairs Blog post “It’s Hard to Be Neutral About Network Neutrality for Health,” we discussed network neutrality and its potential impact on health care. With the new Trump administration, we are seeing changes to the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) stance about network neutrality (NN) and other important telecommunications policies that may significantly impact the delivery and pace of innovation in health care. The FCC, under the guise of “restoring internet freedom,” believes that big telecom giants should be allowed to treat their business partners more favorably than ...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - May 31, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Mark Gaynor, Leslie Lenert, Kristin Wilson and Scott Bradner Tags: Featured Health IT Health Professionals Hospitals EHRs net neutrality rural health Telehealth Source Type: blogs

Health Affairs Briefing: Pursuing Health Equity
With an eye toward understanding how to achieve greater equity through interventions both inside and outside the health services sector, in 2016 Health Affairs launched a multi-year project to examine and overcome the factors that contribute to disparities in health and health care. The results of the first phase of this work are contained in the forthcoming June 2017 issue of the journal, “Pursuing Health Equity.” Please join us on Tuesday, June 6, at a forum at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, featuring a high-level conversation on the issues with experts and theme issue advisers Paula Braveman of the Unive...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - May 30, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Health Affairs Tags: Elsewhere@ Health Affairs Source Type: blogs

Looking At The Centers For Medicare And Medicaid Services Research Designs In A New Context
It’s time to take a fresh look at how the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) designs its initiatives to test new models of provider payment and care delivery. As highlighted recently in the Health Affairs Blog by Tim Gronniger and colleagues, the new administration faces important choices about imposing requirements that support more rigorous and informative evaluations of new models on providers. With the recent widespread implementation of alternative payment models (APMs), strong designs are needed more than ever to provide evidence for policy decisions about model expansion, modification, or termination...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - May 30, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Thomas W. Grannemann and Randall S. Brown Tags: Costs and Spending Insurance and Coverage Medicaid and CHIP Medicare Organization and Delivery Payment Policy Alternative Payment Models Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services factorial exp Source Type: blogs

California ’s Coverage Expansion: Fiscal And Political Risks
Young people growing up in California lived under the dark shadow of the risk of a cataclysmic earthquake (also known as “The Big One”) that would destroy their homes and lives. Two significant earthquakes—the 1971 Sylmar quake in the Los Angeles’ suburban San Fernando Valley (6.6 on the Richter Scale) and the 1989 Loma Prieta quake (6.9 on the Richter Scale) in the southern mountains of the San Francisco Bay Area—killed dozens, reminding residents of nature’s frightening hidden power. But these quakes left the rest of California intact. So far, the Big One has not arrived. On May 4, 2017, with the pass...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - May 30, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Jeff Goldsmith Tags: Costs and Spending Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage Payment Policy ACA repeal and replace American Health Care Act California Covered California Medi-Cal Source Type: blogs