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Health Affairs Blog: The Cost of A Cure: Medicare’s Role in Treating Hepatitis C
This blog post discusses Sovaldi (sofosbuvir), an oral drug recently approved by the FDA for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C, and the potential impact of this long-awaited cure on Medicare spending and Part D premiums.
Read PostAn Opportunity Amid the VA Problems
This was published as a Wall Street Journal Think Tank column on May 30, 2014. Gen. Eric Shinseki resigned when it became clear that the problems in the VA health-care system were systemic, not one-off acts of a few bad apples. No administration wants another problem, especially with veterans who have served our country and who matter politically,…
Column Read PostWhat’s Driving the GOP Health Plan
This was published as a Wall Street Journal Think Tank column on May 30, 2014. Conservative House Republicans are pushing for a vote on a GOP health-care plan, presumably to appeal to their base, to give GOP candidates health reform ideas to talk about on the campaign trail and to show that…
Column Read PostAvoiding the Wrong Lessons From the VA and HealthCare.gov Problems
This was published as a Wall Street Journal Think Tank column on May 27, 2014. Problems with the launch of HealthCare.gov and with veterans hospitals allegedly concealing long waits for care feed a narrative that government doesn’t work. But many government programs, including Medicare and Social Security, work well. And there are…
Column Read PostIn Health Care, Sometimes It’s Provider Choice vs. Price
Drew Altman, in The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, examines the tradeoff between choice of doctors and hospitals and price when choosing a narrow network.
Column Read PostThe Next Big Health-Care Issue
Drew Altman, in The Wall Street Journal‘s Think Tank, writes that the next big concern for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will be how much premiums increase in exchanges for 2015. He discusses the factors to focus on to put this issue in perspective when states report premium increases.
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