Republican legislators nationwide continue to invoke updated versions of “Don’t Tread On Me” and rugged individualism to constrain medical experts they regard as embodiments of government overreach. The Supreme Court has been sympathetic and has endangered us all.
Category Archive: As I See It
GoodRx promotes itself as a company that allows you to compare drug prices and find coupons at over 60,000 pharmacies across the country, but actually, most pharmacists hate it. When they say compare prescription drug prices, they mean the cost of a prescription if you aren’t using insurance. And advertising? Uh, no.
The estimated number of annual deaths attributable to obesity among U.S. adults is approximately 280,000 based on H.R.s from all subjects and 325,000 based on H.R.s from only nonsmokers and never-smokers. As the N.Y. Times recently reported, estimates of the medical cost of adult obesity in the United States (U.S.) range from $147 billion to nearly $210 billion per year. Most of the spending is generated from treating obesity-related diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, among others. And we continue to ignore the dangers largely.
Yes, there will be changes in healthcare in the coming years but put away the thoughts that telehealth and wearable devices will revolutionize healthcare. More and more patients demand a level of service they want with the increased costs of health insurance premiums. Here are things I believe are more realistic.
The demand quickly exceeded supply after the FDA approved once-weekly semaglutide injections. Semaglutide’s study results were enough to warrant plenty of hype for obesity treatment. The drug got a PR boost from Marc Andreessen, who called semaglutide a “silver bullet” and “miracle drug” for suppressing appetite. Unfortunately, the hype is going to exceed reality.
With days to go before Christmas, Americans are sick and tired of being sick and tired. Of reworking plans to adapt to the latest virus risks. Of searching for at-home tests and not finding them. Of wondering whether, after two years of avoiding Covid-19, or surviving it, or getting vaccinated and maybe even boosted, Omicron is the variant they inevitably catch. (N.Y. Times). Will this affect healthcare?
The public has been told that pharma needs money to develop new drugs, but unfortunately, that’s a huge lie. As biopharmadive recently, “some of the biggest pharmaceutical companies, sitting on large and growing sums of cash, are funneling those funds into major share buyback programs and acquisitions of smaller biotech companies.
WHAT’S HAPPENING: In the Build Back Better bill, Democrats are actually proposing limiting insulin prices to $35 a month but Republicans can’t have any of that. PhRMA spent pharma’s money well and bought some politicians while people who need insulin are suffering.