Bad Science and Drug Price Caps: Orkambi and New York Medicaid
Despite some notable improvements to the healthcare system over the last few years, American families and workers still struggle with annual cost increases that, on average, outpace wage growth and annual medical inflation rates. The COVID pandemic and the ongoing...
Unheard Voices: How ICER and its QALY standard fail to incorporate the needs and perspectives of patients
In the summer of 2019, the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) hosted a public meeting to discuss its value assessments of new treatments for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. For patient advocates and others who follow ICER, the events of that day have...
Bad Science: How the use of QALYs creates biased and unreliable outcomes for patients
There are many reasons for patients and advocates to be concerned about organizations – including the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) – that use the Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY), and their growing influence over insurance coverage for new drugs...
Fundamentally Flawed: Why ICER seems designed to put the interests of insurers before the needs of patients
Many patients, advocates, and caregivers have heard troubling stories about the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER). They have heard about patients who were denied access to vital treatments because ICER determined the drugs were not cost-effective. They...
President-Elect Biden, Refocus Our Health Care System on Patients
President-elect Biden has a unique opportunity to refocus our health care system on patients in ways we have never seen before. The COVID-19 pandemic presents our greatest challenge and perhaps our greatest opportunity to solve long-standing and emergent health...
The high cost of the Most Favored Nation Executive Order
As we enter the final stretch of the 2020 election season, many of us may be reviewing the candidates’ stances on issues of not only personal, but also national, importance as we consider the choices before us. High on this list for many Americans is access to...
The Impossible QALY
The recent Health Affairs blog Who is sowing seeds of confusion about the QALY? fails to acknowledge the most fundamental problem with the Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY): the QALY is a mathematically impossible construct. Debates of the merits and scope of QALY...
MORNING CONSULT: Cost-Effectiveness in Health Care Is Racist
Recent protests against police brutality have forced the country to face the role our institutions play in perpetuating racism. As with law enforcement, we must hold our health care system accountable for discrimination and the effect it has on health outcomes....
OPINION: Patients Should Fear Partnership Between the FDA and Anti-Research “Watchdog”
FDA regulators have approved more than 600 new medicines since the turn of the century. And more treatments are on the way. Scientists are currently developing more than 7,000 experimental drugs. Original article at NewtonDailyNews.com
Health Affairs: Getting Value Right: The Case For Indirect Benefits
According to the most recent estimates from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Office of the Actuary, health care spending is projected to reach almost 20 percent of gross domestic product by 2027. Although national health expenditures have steadily...