RealClearHealth Articles

Drug shortages are forcing patients, physicians, and hospitals to scramble. More than 300 medicines are in short supply across the United States. Shortages can be a matter of life and death. Generic chemotherapy drugs that treat ovarian, breast, and bladder cancer are currently in scant supply, leading doctors to ration them.  Occasional shortages in all kinds of industries are inevitable, but these are different. For one, U.S. drug scarcity has grown steadily worse for five years. Further, it's driven by a faulty drug marketplace and exacerbated by...

Losing a loved one is always a difficult experience, but for friends and families of those living with Alzheimer’s the loss is particularly prolonged and difficult. Five years ago, my mother passed away after a 10-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease. When she was diagnosed in 2008, there were no definitive diagnosis tools available to her. All too quickly, we went through the stages of the disease: memory loss, fear and hallucinations, loss of speech, nightmares, and a physical deterioration that eventually saw her bedbound and unable to swallow food and liquids. Sadly, this...

The Inflation Reduction Act is threatening research and development for medications urgently needed to meet complex health challenges American seniors are enduring. The new law – signed by President Biden last year without a single congressional Republican vote – contains a misleadingly labeled scheme known as the Drug Price Negotiation Program. It hands the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) free rein to force drug manufacturers into sham Medicare price “negotiations.”  As it turns...

U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) calls his healthcare reform bill “the world’s greatest healthcare plan.” That’s a bold statement, but his plan represents a strong and workable alternative which purports to give individual Americans more direct control over their healthcare. This proposed legislation maintains certain well-received aspects of Obamacare while abolishing all health insurance purchase mandates. It’s no secret that America’s healthcare system is broken. Americans spend, on average, $5,000 a year to pay ever-increasing healthcare costs. The...

Scientists are undeterrable optimists, always on the cusp of game-changing discoveries that often prove elusive. But that hope is turning into a cavalcade of breakthroughs as revolutionary advances in both technology and ways to make those resources available to researchers to finally crack the code on a wide range of deadly and debilitating illnesses. News reports that long focused on promising new research are giving way to stories about effective new treatments for obesity, Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) and Alzheimer’s disease. Then, of course, there was the use of mRNA...

The Biden administration’s much-heralded effort to promote distribution of buprenorphine may not be a game changer in our battle to subdue the opioid crisis. This new campaign resembles yet another social experiment in our national clash with addiction, especially when coupled with so-called harm reduction policies that promote drug abuse. Buprenorphine is a narcotic drug that is marketed under the brand name Subutex. Suboxone is the brand name of a drug that combines buprenorphine and the overdose reversal drug naloxone. Physicians long needed a special waiver to write buprenorphine...

The American healthcare system is at a critical point. Specifically, a wave of lower-cost biosimilars for the world’s best-selling drug Humira will launch this summer and may determine the future affordability of prescription drug prices in the U.S. If successful, these biosimilars could increase patient access to life-saving treatments and save patients and the healthcare system more than $5 billion dollars per year. Biosimilars are FDA-approved lower-cost, safe and effective treatments that mirror biologic medicines. Biosimilars treat chronic and debilitating conditions like cancer,...

The official end of the COVID-19 public health emergency has kicked off a nationwide "unwinding" of coverage that had previously been renewing automatically. This includes pandemic-era Medicaid dental coverage which had been used by almost 14 million Americans, including over 2.3 million people in my native California. Good oral health is one of the surprise factors in overall human health. Taking care of your teeth reduces inflammation, decay, and gum disease, which themselves are linked to heart, organ, and pregnancy issues. That’s partially why in 2022 California lawmakers...

A seemingly minor provision in last year's Inflation Reduction Act could make it harder for marginalized patients to access the medicines their doctors have prescribed. It could also prevent the future development of cutting-edge, convenient treatments for many diseases that disproportionately impact communities of color. The Inflation Reduction Act allows the government to lower prices for certain medications. But it doesn't treat all drugs equally. For "small-molecule" drugs that usually come in pill form, price caps kick in after 9 years. But a larger molecule class of medicines called...

Most policymakers looking to widen patient access to prescription drugs have zeroed in on price setting as a panacea, as evidenced by the passage of a “negotiation” process in the Inflation Reduction Act last August. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is currently implementing this process, and our industry has been vocal in our ask that the process put an accurate value on medicines and preserve the access patients need to important treatments. While CMS undertakes this daunting task, some scholars are engaging in a startlingly short-sighted push to...

It’s not that hard anymore in a state legislature to get a bill across the finish line that will legalize or at least decriminalize marijuana use. But outside the West Coast, few states are even thinking of legalizing cocaine, heroin, or other hard drugs.  Not that long ago, marijuana legislation was dead on arrival in most state capitals, so it’s possible Overton’s window will shift on these other drugs too. But it’s fair to ask why marijuana and none of the others.  The argument against marijuana even in recent years was that alcohol could be used in...

Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) manage the cost of drugs by establishing formularies and negotiating discounts from drug companies. They also tell a pharmacist to collect the right co-pay from the person getting the prescription according to their insurance plan.   They are one of many intermediaries that make money from moving drugs around in the U.S. With PBM consolidation and growing drug cost sharing, the role of the intermediary is in question. Policymakers have made efforts to reduce PBMs’ power and to increase the transparency of their drug management. With the...

In 1984, Congress ensured access to cost-saving generic medications through protections and incentives within the watershed Hatch-Waxman framework. It was a win for patients who gained access to more affordable medicines, transforming the health of millions through low-cost generic medications. In the last decade, this important legislation saved our healthcare system over $2.4 trillion. In 2021 alone, generic and biosimilar drugs drove $373 billion in savings to the system. Today, those benefits are at risk due to the Expanding Access to Low-Cost Generics Act, which the Senate HELP Committee...

During the years of my medical career when I treated patients (always in hospitals), I was one of those rushed doctors who focused on efficiently formulating and implementing diagnostic and treatment plans, rather than on the patient’s emotional needs.  The latter are especially important in end-of-life care, which is the focus of a wonderful project at UCLA Health in Los Angeles. The “3 Wishes Program” is a palliative care initiative in which clinicians inquire about and implement final wishes for patients who are expected to die imminently. As their mission statement...

At a recent meeting of health care advocates in Washington, I had the privilege of welcoming Brett Giroir, MD, who discussed his new book, “Memoir of a Pandemic: Fighting COVID from the Front Lines to the White House.” He emphasized that the biggest successes of the COVID pandemic response occurred in the areas where the public and private sectors worked together. Dr. Giroir served on the front lines during the battle against Covid, and was such a critical player that former Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar called him his “Indispensable Man.” During the...

Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) are companies that work with health insurance plans to administer prescription drug benefits, but they could be predatorily increasing the price you pay for your medication. Although Congress is currently considering several bills to improve oversight and accountability of PBMs’ controversial behaviors, lawmakers should go even further and ensure that patients benefit most from these efforts. Most targeted is the PBM practice of spread pricing in how they are reimbursed for purchased drugs, but they’ve developed several questionable ways to extract...

Although the worst phase of the pandemic appears to be fading, the U.S. still faces a critical shortage of healthcare workers, especially in rural areas. Despite being home to over 20% of the U.S. population, less than 10% of physicians practice in rural areas, causing this already devastating shortage to disproportionately impact rural Americans. One solution to this challenge is remarkably simple: allow more foreign-trained doctors to enter the workforce through expedited H1B visas. The H1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows U.S. employers to temporarily hire foreign workers in...

More than 7 million US citizens depend on insulin to live, but more than 16 percent of Americans, are rationing their dosages, putting them at risk of death, and hospitalization. Jennifer Feighner, M.D., an Oklahoma hospitalist, admits patients weekly because they cannot afford their insulin, which has risen 10-fold in price since it debuted in 1996. And it turns out a substantial portion of these cost increases is landing at shadowy Swiss financial entities, rather than the pockets of customers thanks to Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs). Desperate patients correctly sense that greed is...

People should be told upfront what they will be charged for medical services. So why do so many Americans suffer sticker shock when the bill arrives? The main problem is that America’s health care markets are highly concentrated. This limits consumer choice, as well as plan and provider competition. Thankfully, policies to promote greater health care price transparency are garnering rare bipartisan support in Washington. The Biden administration has already embraced the Trump administration’s groundbreaking hospital and health insurance transparency initiatives. The House Energy...