The Health Care Blog

PHARMA: John Mack on the Pharma Elephant in the FDA's front room

John Mack has an excellent article in his Pharma Marketing Blog called FDA Advisory Panels: Elephants in the Room. I'm glad he wrote this so I don't have to. The news is that 10 of the 29 panelists had active...

POLICY: Disappointing Presidential silence about illicit drugs reveals bankrupt policy ideas

Not that anyone can be in the least surprised, but it's clear from the tapes secretly recorded by one of his henchmen that in 1999 Bush privately admitted to both taking marijuana and cocaine in his period of "youthful indiscretion"....

BLOGS AND BLOGGING: Teething troubles

There's been a little bit of teething problems this week, and that with a bunch of other stuff going on with me means that not much happened here today. Two quick notes. 1) If you have any suggestions about font...

POLICY: Firing smokers? Who's next?

One of my favorite non-health care policy organizations, the Drug Policy Alliance, has a flash animation out about an insurance company that fired four smokers for possibly smoking in their free time. The company allegedly believes that it's OK to...

POLICY/POLITICS: Fast Times at NIH by John Pluenneke

An internal review at the National Institutes of Health has cleared many of the NIH researchers the agency had earlier accused of violating conflict of interest rules, the Washington Post reports. NIH director Elias Zerhouni asked for sweeping restrictions on...

POLICY: More on the realities of the crisis of uninsurance, by Anonymous

There's been quite a fuss about the recent study showing that bankruptcy is frequently caused by high health care bills, or at least by the inability of those who are sick to return to work and pay off those bills....

BLOGS AND BLOGGING: Grand Rounds is up

A particularly feisty Grand Rounds is up today hosted by the not-quite-mad libertarians over at Catallarchy. A great job by Trent McBride. One day I'll be brave enough to host one of these things myself!

BLOGS AND BLOGGING: THCB technologically reborn

So after suffering through Blogger's growing pains, seeing it acquired by Google and waiting patiently for it to catch up with the rest of the market in blogging software, I've given up. It's disappointing that, even with all the money...

TECHNOLOGY: Informatics position at Highmark

Those of us who spend too much time whining about why this or that health plan can't get their IT and customer service together now have a chance to do something about it. Highmark, one of the nation's biggest and...

PHARMA: Celebrex can remain on the market

And to add to yesterday's post (which Blogger prevented from getting up there till most of you had gone home, so it's really today's post) the FDA panel this morning ruled that Celebrex can stay on the market, although they...

PHARMA: The FDA, the new safety board and the Cox-2 debacle--an opportunity seemingly being lost

None of this is quite as timely as it would have been 24 hours ago, but it's worth giving my take on the new developments at FDA, and with the Cox-2s. The news is that a new board within the...

BLOGS: Blogger boggered

Blogger was very unwell yesterday. I'll be back with more morning PST on the 17th.

PHARMA/POLICY: The outsider the FDA needs is the consummate insider, with comment from Blunter

Two days before the latest hearings on Vioxx and Celebrex, with a stand-up Republican Senator all but accusing the FDA management of fraud, Bush names the new head of the FDA. And who gets the gig? None other than the...

TECHNOLOGY: HIMSS press release mania

I've always noticed that the first day of HIMSS is the biggest each year for press releases in health care IT. But this year I thought that I'd actually go and cull all of them. So here is all those...

BLOGS/TECHNOLOGY: HIMSS staying in the 20th century

Today is the first day of the annual HIMSS conference. I should be there, as it's the main meeting and greeting place for all health care IT. In the past I've been there because my company (either a consulting firm...

QUALITY: Alternative approaches to diabetes, by Pamela E. Mack

Now and again, THCB stands back and takes a look at actual medical care delivery. Today we have a new contributor, Pamela E. Mack, who explains some of the difficulties she has had being a very involved patient with diabetes,...

POLICY: Individual insurance market . . . . . still sucks

There's a new CMWF study on the individual insurance market. I won't belabor the point as I've done many times before. Less than 7% of Americans are in it, and just because I'm one of them is no real reason...

PHARMA/POLICY: Deja vu all over again at FDA. But so blatant and so soon! by Blunter

Blunter is back with more concerns about whether the FDA Is whitewashing away its problems. Chuck Grassley this morning probably agrees with him, considering that he yesterday accused the FDA of interfering with Canada Health's decision over withdrawing Adderall for...

POLITICS: Do you remember Social Security on the campaign trail?

No you probably don't. And this is why. While Social Security reform/privitization/dismantlement has become the biggest policy issue of the 2nd term, now that the word is out and people understand what the Administration's goal is, the impact is hitting...

POLICY/QUALITY: Triage at Abu Ghraib

In case you missed it, a pretty balanced article on the real challenges of delivering medical care or at least triage at Abu Ghraib.

POLICY: Employers in California: ahead of the curve?

A quickie today. A Harris survey from the CHCF on California employers' health benefit offerings shows that California employers are ahead of the nation in getting out of paying health benefits and probably also ahead of the nation in realizing...

POLICY: Harris finds that the nation's health leaders are mostly out of ideas

Harris Interactive is out with a survey of the people attending a recent health care conference in DC which was attended by a who's who of health care notables. Unsurprisingly, there don't seem to be too many new ideas. Forty...

PHARMA: More guidance from the top of big pharma

I was more than a little cynical about a speech from Fred Hassan of Schering a while back in which he suggested that everyone should put more money into their retirement accounts so that he could have more money in...

HEALTH PLANS: Calling the top to HMO stocks, again

Not wanting to sound like a broken record, but it's been more than a year now since I've thought health plan stocks (and I include the PBMs in this category) were well over-extended. Luckily I haven't had my money where...

TECHNOLOGY: The EMR installation, a medical blogger case study

While I spend far too much time on THCB arguing with Sydney Smith at Medpundit, her blog remains fascinating. At the moment she's putting in a EMR into her small office practice. Now she's not the first physician blogger to...

PBMs: Caremark article questions the role of the PBM

I'm not a great believer in the effectiveness of PBMs to hold down drug prices. My evidence is that since PBMs have become important drug prices and the share of health spent on them have gone through the roof. Of...

POLICY/POLITICS: Leavitt lays out his Medicaid stall and changes his tune

Not two weeks ago Mike Leavitt had no idea what to do about Medicaid. And he certainly had no idea at all about any possibility of a move to block grants. No siree, not a clue, not a whiff of...

POLICY: For wonks only, Medicare 101 and Medicare Part D explained

In case you need to know more about Medicare as a whole and Medicare drug coverage, there are two new excellent web based presentations from Traci Neuman at the Kaiser Family Foundation. They are Medicare 101 and an overview of...

TECHNOLOGY/POLICY: Medpundit on Frist's flight of fantasy

Over at Medpundit Sydney Smith takes a hillarious rip at Bill Frist's vision for the IT interconnected health care future. And she's wrong in one of her takeaway points and right in another. She's wrong that IT and interconnected EMRs...

POLICY: More scenarios about the future of the system from The Industry Veteran

Yesterday I left you hanging with three scenarios as to the future of the system; muddling through; complete collapse leading to government takeover; and system self-reform. The Industry Veteran thinks that I'm on the right track but that I need...