- Continuing from part 1
- The cost of medicine
- Expensive to research
- Some are expensive/difficult to produce
- Pharmacy benefit managers
- Third-party payer problems
- Many countries’ regulations limit costs. This leads to higher prices in places that don’t
- Add that regulation, less medicines as costs of research is too high to research many
- Reduce the cost of bringing to market through FDA could mean less safety in medicines
- Require higher prices elsewhere and limits availability elsewhere
- Better medicine company/academic/government coordination
- Comparative effectiveness research
- Improvements in public health
- Federal/State coordination
- Public health service
- Tackling large-long term problems during normal times.
- Tackle emergencies as they arise, such as the COVID-19 pandemic
- Price Transparency and Fee-for-service
- Fee-for-service consistently seems to raise costs
- A patient cannot predict their costs
- Hospitals and doctor’s offices can’t tell you up front what things will cost
- Insurance companies have agreements and hold the cards
- Solutions:
- Require transparent prices for the whole treatment
- Allow for other models such as subscription or fee-for-treatment
- Make this information publicly accessible in a standardized format
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Continuing our discussion from part 1, healthcare reform is a perennial topic because it touches everyone. We talk about the various ways that healthcare is delivered and paid for. We also look at the cost drivers.