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Though the United States urgently needs new treatments for common illnesses such as heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, the nation’s system for drug approval discourages innovation and investment, especially for our most pressing public health challenges. In this paper, we find that the main culprit is the high cost of Phase III clinical trials, which are required for FDA approval of most drugs. … [Read more...] about Avik Roy: Stifling New Cures: The True Cost of Lengthy Clinical Drug Trials

There may not be a consensus in the nation's capital on how to control the cost of health care, but businesses and their employees are not sitting around waiting for clarity. They are voting with their wallets for one approach that's already available: Account-based health insurance plans, which offer lower premiums in exchange for high deductibles. Consumer-directed health insurance is a … [Read more...] about Reuters: Consumer-directed U.S. health insurance surges

In March, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a new studyon employee migration out of job-based plans and into ObamaCare’s state exchanges. The effect of ObamaCare on employer-based insurance has been a hotly debated topic ever since the law was enacted in March 2010. Several independent analysts predict that “dumping” into the exchanges will occur at a much higher rate than CBO assumed … [Read more...] about Jim Capretta: CBO Confirms It: ObamaCare Creates an Unstable Disequilibrium in Insurance Subsidies

Lost in all the publicity surrounding the two-year anniversary of ObamaCare and the Supreme Court arguments regarding same was an interesting study revealing once again how the 2,700-page law has fallen short. The annual Towers Watson survey of health plans, released last month, revealed how the law will harm millions of Americans this year: Higher Costs: Costs per employee will rise by $682 … [Read more...] about Freedom on Call: Survey Shows How ObamaCare is Making Things Worse

Are we all health care federalists now?  No more so than when we once were "all Keynesians now," in the words of President Richard Nixon, and Milton Friedman, over 40 years ago. Nevertheless, leading members of both political parties have tried to duck under their leaky umbrellas of rhetorical federalism when facing the monsoon of challenges posed by Obamacare. Republican presidential … [Read more...] about Tom Miller: Fleshing out health care federalism

Despite claims of a gender gap around President Obama's health care law, it turns out some moms are raising Cain over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Cafe Mom, the online meeting place for 9 million moms a month, reports that complaints from moms citing the law's new and impending provisions include rates having already doubled, higher premiums pricing families out of the … [Read more...] about Tom Miller: ‘Grand experiment’ of health care law already hits families

For all the talk about the Affordable Care Act's mandate to purchase insurance, you might think that the mandate is the linchpin of the entire law. It isn't, at least from the standpoint of whether the insurance market will collapse without it. Even with the mandate, the ACA is likely to cause widespread and unnecessary disruption that will drive up the cost of insurance for the very people that … [Read more...] about Joe Antos: The Individual Mandate Won’t Save Obamacare

Sometimes even the government cannot spend money that it does not have. That’s the simple truth behind the new study by Charles Blahous, a public trustee for Medicare and Social Security. Blahous finds that the Affordable Care Act is expected to increase the federal deficit by at least $346 billion between now and 2021, and the price tag might be as high as $527 billion. That’s a far cry from … [Read more...] about Joe Antos: No, Obamacare really doesn’t add up