03.13.24
More than half of Oregonians are living with at least one chronic health condition. One in four adults has a disability, and around 20,000 people receive a cancer diagnosis each year. Right now, our state is making critical drug pricing decisions that could make it harder for these patients to access the care they need. And it’s doing so without even giving them a seat at the table.02.18.22
Governments around the world have withheld access to life-changing medications for people with cystic fibrosis (CF) for years in the name of being hawkish on drug pricing. These countries allow bureaucrats to dictate which drugs are “worth it” but do so based on demonstrably flawed calculations of value. Patient communities must hold them accountable; their bad math and delay tactics cost lives and health.11.23.21
In November, 2021, Morning Consult ran a poll, conducted biannually, on behalf of Partnership to Improve Patient Care, focusing on the use of cost-effectiveness assessments to determine the value of coverage and treatment costs. As in previous years, the survey found that Americans want patients and their doctors in charge of health care decision making and are opposed to the use of cost assessments such as Quality-Adjusted Life Year (QALY). Today, PIPC Chairman Tony Coelho published an opinion…11.22.21
Effective treatment for people with some chronic diseases and disabilities is being denied as policy makers and insurers, trying to lower drug costs, keep looking to easy and simplistic formulas that are overtly discriminatory to determine what the treatments are worth, and who is worth treating.10.19.21
Few issues inspire more bipartisan concern than the rising cost of health care in the United States. To address this challenge, we must recognize that it is rooted in a simple fact: The overwhelming share of our health spending, 71 percent, goes toward care to help people living with multiple chronic conditions. Understanding this fact fundamentally shifts the paradigm in how to approach America’s health care challenges. We can create an affordable, high-quality health care system…09.14.21
Over a decade ago, I founded the Partnership to Improve Patient Care with a basic principle: Patients are best served when they are informed and empowered to decide which care options are best for them; they are poorly served when policymakers in Washington dictate which options are best.03.31.21
Healthcare costs seem to be a constant discussion point both in Washington and in our state capitals. Policymakers are on a quest for a silver bullet that they can trumpet as a win to constituents, but this debate is complex, and nuanced; and will have enormous ramifications for American patients, like my daughter, Marissa, who lives with sickle cell disease and who has a new lease on life from innovative treatments.02.26.21
The drug pricing debate continues to rage on, both at the federal level – look to H.R. 3, seen in the House in 2019 that imported foreign pricing models, which a recent Congressional Budget Office report acknowledges relied on the Quality-Adjusted Life Year to score savings – and in the states, like in my home state of Massachusetts, where our Health Policy Commission has signed a contract with the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review to develop a…
