Posts Tagged ‘health economics’

Cause and Effect, Waist Circumference and Health Costs

September 17, 2023 — OMG. How can we possibly cope with the costs of treating obesity with these expensive new obesity meds? This question seems to be on the lips of many who pay for health plans. But a new study in Nature Communications turns that question on its head. How can we afford to continue withholding effective treatment for […]

The Other Side Effect of Obesity Meds: Economic Disruption

September 12, 2023 — People are beginning to discover a major side effect of advanced meds for obesity that is not gastrointestinal – it’s economic disruption. Retailers, food makers, and participants in the huge business of health systems are all just starting to wrap their heads around the disruptive potential of more accessible and effective obesity treatment. Already, the […]

Preventing Heart Attacks, Strokes, and Deaths by Treating Obesity

August 21, 2023 — How much might the application of new insights from the SELECT study of treating obesity do for preventing heart attacks, strokes, and deaths. A first pass at answering this question appeared in Cardiovascular Drugs and Therapy last week. Nathan Wong, Hridhay Karthikeyan, and Wenjun Fan estimated the potential for semaglutide treatment to lower cardiovascular disease […]

High U.S. Drug Prices, High Obesity Rates, Twisted Economics

August 19, 2023 — The intersection of high U.S. drug prices with its high obesity rates is creating some unusual economics. Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) and the Peterson Center on Healthcare released an analysis this week that brings this into sharp focus. The analysis tells us that published prices for GLP-1 medicines used for obesity and diabetes are the […]

Pricing Childhood Obesity While Discounting the Future

July 4, 2023 — JAMA Pediatrics has a pair of new papers today on the cost of childhood obesity. One of them adds up the medical expenses incurred by youth aged 2 to 19. The other editorializes about determining the value of interventions to manage weight. Both of them focus on pricing childhood obesity in the present while discounting […]

Grasping Obesity Care Costs and Consequences

June 10, 2023 — Will new obesity medicines bankrupt health systems? This question, recently posed by Arya Sharma, is on the minds of many health economists and policy makers. Sharma predicts that costs will fall, systems of care will evolve, and eventually, the current “hand-wringing” will give way to scenarios that are not so bleak. But what about the […]

Reporting Inflated Costs for Obesity Meds

June 2, 2023 — Reporters are writing a lot about the unaffordable cost of new obesity medicines like semaglutide. They’re doing a lot of really solid reporting. But unfortunately, they are also pushing out a false narrative and just about everyone else is coming along for the ride. Time and time again we see journalists reporting inflated costs for […]

Greed versus Health and Obesity Care

May 28, 2023 — “Money makes the world go around.” Joel Grey and Liza Minnelli explained this in Cabaret. But sorting it out in healthcare – and specifically in obesity care right now – is quite a challenge. A lot of money is in play and so the tension between greed, health, and obesity care is painfully obvious. The […]

Drug Prices? Not My Fault, Say PBMs and Pharma

May 12, 2023 — Don’t look at me! That’s basically how it went at a U.S. Senate hearing Wednesday. Top executives from PBMs (pharmacy benefit managers) and the three pharma companies selling insulin testified to suggest they’re doing everything they possibly can to keep drug prices low. PBMs point the finger at pharma. Pharma executives return the favor. Lilly […]

Ways of Paying for Innovation in Obesity Care

May 4, 2023 — How can we possibly afford paying for all of the innovation that’s coming in obesity care? This is hardly an academic question. It’s a practical one that flickers in the minds of policymakers who balk at finding ways to make effective treatment for obesity more accessible to the people with great medical needs for it. […]