Daily Policy Digest
Health Issues
| How Academic Detailing Could Limit Access to Pharmaceuticals Drug companies more than doubled their spending on detailing -- the practice of pharmaceutical companies marketing directly to prescribing physicians -- even when adjusted for inflation, from 1989 to 2008... |
| Costs of Many Preventive Medical Exams Vary as Much as 700 Percent A new report shows costs vary as much as 700 percent for some preventive examinations... |
| Health Reform in the Supreme Court: A Guide to the Issues A historically large total of six hours of oral arguments were allocated to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act challenge... |
| The Individual Mandate: Ineffective, Overreaching, Unsustainable, Unconstitutional and Unnecessary The individual mandate is unprecedented in its subjugation of the individual and sets a dangerous precedent for future government policies... |
| More U.S. Employers Tie Health Insurance to Medical Tests The number of employers embracing programs that tie the medical premiums paid by employees to their performance on certain tests of health inched up from 49 percent in 2010 to 54 percent last year... |
| Premium Support in Medicare A fully implemented competitive bidding system would reduce federal spending on Medicare by about 5.6 percent through 2020... |
| The Cliff's Notes Version of Republican Health Reform Under Representative Paul Ryan's budget plan, Medicare beneficiaries would be given a subsidy for the purchase of private plans, rather than having unlimited services provided to them directly... |
| Like the United States, Europe Wrestles With Health Care The National Health Service currently costs the United Kingdom more than $158 billion a year... |
| Effort to Pay Hospitals Based on Quality Didn't Cut Death Rates A new study casts doubt on a central premise of the health law's effort to rework the financial incentives for hospitals with the aim of saving money while improving patient care... |
| Long-Term Care Insurance Policy Costs Rising Long-term care insurance policies are now 6 percent to 17 percent higher than in 2011... |
