Health Care Costs

Avastin is one of the most widely prescribed cancer drugs in the world, but it might not work, the New York Times reports. The drug, made by Genentech, brings in about $2.3 billion a year in the US alone, but recent trials have shown that though the drug shrinks tumors in sufferers of colon, breast, and lung cancer, it offers little extension of life. More »

If you’re in need of high-priced surgery, your insurance company might have a plane ticket for you. Insurers are starting to warm to “medical tourism” for the same reason uninsured Americans are: Surgery is significantly cheaper overseas. At least 150,000 Americans go abroad for medical procedures every year; insurance typically covers just a handful, but the number is rising rapidly, MSNBC reports. More »

Doctors aren’t using electronic health records, though they lead to better care, a study reports. Why? The costs are prohibitive, especially for small private practices. E-records do bring savings—but for insurers and hospitals, not doctors who invest in them. The government is experimenting with financial incentives for doctors to switch over, the New York Times notes. More »

Health care fraud is rampant, especially in South Florida and the LA area, and surprisingly easy to pull off, reports the Washington Post. The 11-digit annual price tag could be smaller if investigators focused more on the fact that Medicare, for example, is "highly vulnerable" to scam artists and less on billing irregularities and unorthodox treatments, experts say. More »

Senators from both sides of the aisle are pushing doctors away from their prescription pads and towards electronic prescribing, the Chicago Tribune reports. Politicians and lobbyists hope the new system will cut down on mis-filled prescriptions and harmful, but avoidable, drug interactions. More »

Sen. Ted Kennedy returned to his Massachusetts home today, a week after undergoing a chancy surgery to remove part of a malignant brain tumor, WBZ-TV reports. The Democrat's plane landed at a Cape Cod airport around 11:30 this morning, the Boston Globe adds; Kennedy, 76, told reporters it was “good to be home." More »

The lives of millions of children  may be saved by a new technique for producing a malaria drug at a 10th of the cost of current treatments, making it accessible the world's most impoverished people, reports the Independent .  The technique involves inserting a dozen synthetic genes into yeast cells, then fermenting them, with sugar, in giant vats, to produce the active ingredient, artemisinin. More »

The cost of providing health insurance to US workers is rising so fast it can't be passed along either to workers or customers, a new study reported in the Los Angeles Times finds. Manufacturers now spend, on average, $2.38 per worker per hour—more than twice as much as their foreign competitors—adding about $1,500 to the price of a new car. More »

Even Americans with health insurance are ducking the doctor these days as health costs rise and the economy stays queasy, the New York Times reports. Family premiums have doubled in recent years, and out-of-pocket costs have gone up, too: “It just keeps eating into people’s income,” said a utility worker in Tucson whose medical bills have risen by about $4,000 a year. More »

A long-suffering bill outlawing genetic discrimination by health insurers and in the workplace sailed through the House today, and President Bush has pledged to sign it into law, Reuters reports. The bill, forms of which have kicked around Washington for 13 years, forbids insurers from denying coverage based on genetic tests, and employers from using genetic information in job decisions. More »

John McCain unveiled a new health care plan today, urging a larger role for the government while denouncing universal coverage, the St. Petersburg Times reports. The presumptive GOP nominee wants state nonprofit risk pools that would help those without coverage or unable to pay for it. He said, “I won't create another entitlement program that Washington will let get out of control.” More »

Health-insurance worries have gotten so serious they're pushing some Americans up the aisle, the Los Angeles Times reports. In a new survey, 7% of people said they or somebody in their household had married in the last year to get health benefits. The survey also found that health-care worries trumped concerns over housing costs, food prices, and credit card debt. More »

Hacking through the forest of reporting on the presidential candidates' health care plans, Glamour blogger Megan Carpentier weighs in. Writing "as someone born with a birth defect who has been known to get sick," she bluntly begins, "I know enough about my own health insurance situation over the last decade to be able to say with absolute certainty that our health insurance system in this country sucks."  More »

Pricey prescription drugs are getting pricier, and, the New York Times reports, insurance companies are asking patients to shoulder more of the burden. Insurers are quietly phasing out traditional drug plans, which charge a fixed co-pay of $20 or $30 to fill a prescription, in favor of so-called Tier 4 plans, which squeeze patients who need certain expensive drugs for as much as a third of their cost—which can run to thousands of dollars a month. More »

Nonprofit hospitals are making more money than for-profit hospitals, and that has many critics wondering why they get such sweet tax breaks, the Wall Street Journal reports. Seventy-seven percent of nonprofits are making money, with at least 25 pulling in more than $250 million a year. Many are spending that money on new facilities and executive pay, rather than charity care. More »

India is a top destination for uninsured Americans needing major surgery, the Chicago Tribune reports, with prices up to 85% lower than US rates. Last year, India welcomed 150,000 medical tourists, the Chicago Tribune reports—and now, HMOs want a piece of those savings. “Employers may soon follow in the footsteps of individuals,” a recent American Medical Association report concluded. More »

Hillary Clinton has proposed putting a cap on premiums in her universal health care plan, limiting them to between 5% and 10% of family income, the New York Times reports. The average cost of a family policy bought by an individual last year was $5,799, or 10% of median income, but some ranged up to 16%. More »

Legislators and advocates are disputing a key element of Hillary Clinton's stump speech: her description of her role in creating children’s health care legislation passed in 1997. The then-first lady often calls SCHIP an initiative “I helped to start,” the Boston Globe reports, but the White House lobbied against it at first, and some insiders are steaming over ads saying she "helped create" the program. More »

The number of hip and knee replacements performed in the US will explode in the next several decades—knee operations surging fivefold and hips doubling—as aging baby boomers opt to stay out of wheelchairs, the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons estimates. The pricetag will reach $65 billion in less than a decade, most of it borne by Medicare and Medicaid, reports Time magazine. More »

Oregonians are flocking to sign up for a state-sponsored lottery with a high-stakes prize: health insurance. The state will begin drawing names this week to award health insurance plans to uninsured residents, the AP reports. More than 83,000 have signed up since January to have a shot at about 3,000 openings. More »