What do BJC and St. Luke’s propose to style this combination they are investigating? Two headquarters in different parts of the state but a BJC CEO and a St. Luke’s first board chair mean what for integration? If the entities are to remain so distinct, what are the coordination benefits? If they are to merge, will this cross-market merger be worthy of regulator scrutiny?
Are FDA Inspections of Overseas Production Facilities a Thing or Not?
With the outbreak of potentially deadly transmittable infections from the bacterium P. aeruginosa apparently sparked by contaminated eye drops manufactured in India, we once again confront how dependent we are on health items (including ones that can kill or blind you) produced overseas in largely unregulated manufacturing facilities. And what did the FDA find when they found their way there? They found a facility grossly in violation of cleanliness standards.
We are talking about a treatment-resistant bacteria that can be spread person to person, rendering those in congregate living situations (think, nursing homes) particularly vulnerable to transmission. You can learn about the FDA’s foreign drug inspection program here. Mind you, this report predates the COVID pandemic, but the author is still crowing that roughly half of all previously never inspected facilities have now been inspected.
Hospital Consolidation and Patient Benefit or Harm
Sandra Alvarez has a distinct perspective on this. Listen here: https://heal-ca.org/how-hospital-consolidation-inflates-prices-and-hurts-patients/?fbclid=IwAR2f64mHUi8Snpyk6DdztifavIR_aYZUo1UCfhadArXVoaL83yebOun42cI
Rising Nursing Home Bankruptcies
Nursing Home Bankruptcies are apparently leading the way on healthcare bankruptcies. Is this correlated with private equity ownership of nursing homes? Anybody know? Inquiring minds would like to know.
Rebecca Blank’s Alternative Measure of Poverty
Rebecca Blank died in February. Perhaps her greatest legacy is the supplemental poverty measure she crafted, most remarkable for measuring some different things, including government benefit programs, when measuring poverty.
Insulin Affordability
Over nearly three decades … Lilly has raised the list price on its most widely used insulin product, Humalog, by more than 1,000 percent, which is why I greet Lilly’s announcement of the $35 a month out of pocket cap for the commercially insured with both joy and sorrow.
Is it, Lilly had a great gig going with those Humalog price run ups and now knows all good things must end? Or, give a little to avoid being forced to give a great deal more on general pharmaceutical pricing? And, what about those who are not commercially insured, who must seek this insulin price relief for out of pocket purchases, for example, by applying to Lilly’s co-pay support program? What will happen to them?
The Great Unwinding:Medicaid’s Continuous Enrollment Provision Expires March 31, 2023
But each state must choose whether to implement 30, 60, or 90 day enrollment renewal and unwind accordingly. The Great Unwinding is complicated, to say the least.
Let the Co-Pays Commence
Once the COVID Public Health Emergency Ends (anticipating May 11, 2023), Americans will be fully exposed — once again — to the vagaries of pricing in our health care system as it applies to COVID-19 testing. All of the problems with a lack of transparency on pricing encapsulated in one question: How will I pay for COVID-19 testing after May 11, 2023?
California State of Mind
Good to know what is not causing vote tally delays in California. Good to know.
Fixing the Family Glitch
The final regulation is out from HHS attempting to fix what is know as “the family glitch” and giving a further 200,000 Americans opportunity access subsidized health insurance coverage through the exchanges. If you think about, it is amazing it took so long from the Affordable Care Act’s inception and implementation to address the fallout from allowing household family members to be within the definition of those eligible for exchange purchase because of unaffordability of employer offered family plan health insurance. In short, those opposing the fix maintain that the drafters meant those offered employer sponsored insurance that exceeds roughly 9.4 percent of their income for a family plan should seek publicly funded insurance, charity, or go without.
Missouri State of Mind 