Joe Paduda did an outstanding job with this week’s Health Wonk Review – head over and check it out, and I promise you’ll learn something new. Some of my favorites in this edition are from Harold Pollack and David Cutler, Brad Wright, and Roy Poses.
Harold and David have a really interesting conversation about healthcare costs and whether “doing the right thing” can be a profitable course of action in healthcare. You can listen to it or read it, and there’s also a part 2 and part 3.
Brad’s article is about the diskynect (made that one up myself!) between perceptions of “Obamacare” and public opinion on the various provisions of Obamacare. Senator Mitch McConnell – a fierce opponent of the ACA (Obamacare) – happens to hail from Kentucky, a state where Obamacare implementation has been wildly successful thanks to a very supportive governor and an excellent state-run exchange (Kynect). Be sure to watch the video at the end of Anthony’s article. My guess is that Senator McConnell will start to back off from his anti-ACA views as the election draws nearer, but who knows… maybe he’ll continue to think that Kynect and Obamacare are not the same thing?
Roy Poses brings his usual outstanding investigative journalism to the new Hepatitis C drug, Sovaldi. The drug is being heralded as a miracle cure, but it’s got an eye-popping price tag of $1000 per pill. All of the fuss seems to be over the price, but Roy brings our attention to the fact that the Hepatitis C drug Sovaldi itself is probably being dramatically over-hyped. It may not be that much better than the current standards of care, and the claims that it has few side effects appear to be false as well. So not only are patients and insurance companies being charged astronomical amounts for Sovaldi, but that money might not be buying much either.
