Posts Tagged ‘health economics’

Missing the Human Dimension of Obesity

September 17, 2022 — Yesterday, the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review conducted an impressive public hearing on the effectiveness and value of obesity medicines. ICER deserves credit for developing a complex and remarkably transparent model for objectively evaluating this. However, caution is necessary. This model is sufficiently complex to obscure two important facts about obesity and its treatment. […]

Putting the Best Meds Within Reach for Everyone

September 9, 2022 — Be careful what you wish for, says the wisdom of the ages. It’s all about unintended consequences. Right now, policymakers all over the political spectrum are wishing to solve the problem of drug pricing in the U.S. The simple fact is that drug pricing in the U.S. puts the best, most innovative drugs out of […]

When Is Obesity Care Worth It?

August 2, 2022 — At what cost can we decide that obesity care is worth the money? Until now, the answer has largely been to refuse considering this question. But as the cost of untreated obesity adds up, it’s becoming impossible to dodge the question anymore and an increasing number of serious analyses are underway. The Institute for Clinical […]

ECO2022: The Burden of Neglecting Obesity Care

May 3, 2022 — One of the most interesting obesity conferences of the year is getting started this week. ECO2022 brings together a nice mix of science and policy with a balance that’s refreshing. So it’s fitting that the opening story is all about the burden of neglecting clinical care for obesity. In this case, the headline research from […]

Still Looking for the Health Effect of SSB Taxes

March 28, 2022 — A new study in Health Economics reminds us we’re still looking for evidence for the health effect of sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxes. It hasn’t shown up yet. But we’re still waiting hopefully. This latest study comes from John Cawley, Michael Daly, and Rebecca Thornton. They estimated the effect of an SSB Tax in Mauritius on […]

Bringing Clarity to the Safety of a Gastric Sleeve

October 7, 2021 — Well-controlled data for surgical procedures is hard to come by. This is especially true for bariatric surgery, where strong feelings come into play and thus, people aren’t willing to accept random assignments to a surgical procedure. So a new study in JAMA Surgery that gives us clarity about the safety of gastric sleeve operations is […]

What Does It Mean to Be Dead Last in Healthcare?

August 6, 2021 — It is a jarring headline. U.S. health systems cost the most and perform the worst in comparison to ten other wealthy countries. In fact, the comparison is not even close. So what does it mean to be dead last in healthcare? Norway, the Netherlands, and Australia have the top performing health systems. The list also […]

Sorting Out the Cost of a Broken Food System

July 24, 2021 — America has some of the cheapest food in the world. Out of pocket, we spend less for food than people in any other country in the world. Food beckons us to eat everywhere we turn. But the actual cost of cheap food can be quite high. A new report from the Rockefeller Foundation tells us […]

If Wegovy Is a “Game Changer,” What Comes Next?

June 8, 2021 — The mantra for the Wegovy brand of semaglutide just approved by FDA for obesity is clear enough – game changer. Great. Obesity is not a game, but health plans treat it like a 19th century game of hot potato: “Jack’s alive, and likely to live If he dies in your hand, you’ve a forfeit to […]

Bariatric Surgery Could Save the NHS Money

December 8, 2020 — What we have here is a bit of a love-hate story. In the midst of the COVID pandemic, Britain’s NHS has received an outpouring of love. But for folks living with obesity in the UK, it’s a little harder to find some of that love. Our own research suggests that some of the strongest weight […]