Author: Sally Pipes

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July 29, 2021 Coronavirus

During the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, the most vocal proponents of aggressive lockdowns often framed the issue as a trade-off between personal freedom on the one hand and public health on the other. Stay-at-home orders may have prevented some people at the margin from congregating and spreading the virus. But they also convinced lots of people to forgo routine medical care, including screening for diseases like cancer. That care forgone may have dire public health consequences of its own. Two-thirds of...

July 19, 2021 Coronavirus

Two months, one week, and five days. That's how much time has passed since Pfizer and BioNTech filed for approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for their Covid-19 vaccine. The agency has not hinted when that decision might be coming. Moderna formally asked the FDA for approval of its vaccine seven weeks ago. There's been no word on when the agency will complete its review. Experts say the FDA will likely grant the applications "priority review." Translating from the bureaucrat-ese, that's within six months of...

July 18, 2021 Industry Trends

Millions of people have canceled doctor’s appointments and postponed elective surgeries over the past 18 months. But now that the pandemic has largely subsided, many patients feel it’s once again safe to seek care. A Gallup poll conducted in May found that nearly 17% of Americans had gone to a hospital, doctor’s office, or treatment center in the previous 24 hours, up from just 6% the year before. Whether patients actually receive the care they’re seeking, though, depends entirely on where they...

July 9, 2021 Blog, Innovation, Policy Proposals

It’s time for your annual physical. You make an appointment with your doctor and mark the date on your calendar. But when the day arrives, you don’t set aside two to three hours or wait for a nurse to call your name in a sterile doctor’s office. You log onto your laptop from the comfort of your living room. The process takes less than 30 minutes. For many Americans, this was a reality amid the pandemic, when lots of care was delivered...

July 5, 2021 Blog, Coronavirus, Policy Proposals

America’s vaccination campaign is stalling. In late June, pharmacists and other providers were administering roughly 800,000 shots a day — down 80 percent from a peak of more than 4.6 million in mid April. Because of this precipitous decline, the Biden administration recently admitted it would miss its self-imposed goal of vaccinating at least 70 percent of American adults by Independence Day. So far, only 66 percent have gotten the jab. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) deserve much of...

June 22, 2021 Policy Proposals

The Kaiser Family Foundation recently surveyed more than 300 companies with more than 5,000 employees — and found that 83% believed that “a greater government role in providing coverage and containing costs would be better for their business.” They’re gravely mistaken. A health care system that features even more government control than the status quo would mean higher taxes and bigger recruitment challenges for companies — not to mention lower-quality care for their employees. Government could tighten its grip on our health...

June 22, 2021 Industry Trends

Demand for doctors is far outstripping supply. The United States will face a shortage of up to 124,000 physicians by 2034, according to projections out this month from the Association of American Medical Colleges. Already, many Americans are struggling to get the care they need. About 35% of patients had trouble finding a doctor in the past several years, according to a 2019 survey. That's up from 25% in 2015. This physician shortage disproportionately affects Americans in rural and historically neglected urban areas. Medical schools are taking...

May 28, 2021 Coronavirus-Alternate2

The Food and Drug Administration recently approved two over-the-counter, at-home rapid coronavirus tests. Harvard epidemiologist Dr. Michael Mina called this development “a major advance.” He’s right. But the FDA should have reached this milestone months ago. Regulators dawdled, and thousands of people died. Public health experts have been calling for at-home COVID-19 tests since the early days of the pandemic. With more testing, more people would know they had the virus, stayed home, and slowed the virus’s spread. For much of the past...

May 28, 2021 Blog, Innovation

This week, lawmakers in the House and Senate introduced bills that could preserve access to telehealth for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries beyond the pandemic. The House measure would allow Medicare beneficiaries to continue receiving “audio-only” remote care — that is, by phone. The Senate bill would direct the federal government to come up with a list of telehealth services that state Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program should cover. This sustained enthusiasm for telehealth is great for patients. State and federal officials relaxed...

May 19, 2021 Industry Trends

There's dissension within House Democrats' ranks. Last week, no fewer than 10 House Democrats urged Speaker Nancy Pelosi to abandon H.R. 3, as the legislation is known, in favor of a more bipartisan approach that can "preserve our invaluable innovation ecosystem." Slapping new taxes and price controls on prescription drugs, as H.R. 3 would, has always been a bad idea — one that is guaranteed to undermine research into new drugs and vaccines. But it's borderline reckless to do so right as...

May 16, 2021 Coronavirus-Alternate2

Medicare for All just won’t die. More than 100 House Democrats have signed onto new legislation that, if passed, would outlaw all private insurance and put all Americans on a federally run insurance plan within two years. The bill’s chief sponsor, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., says Medicare for All is the “solution” to the covid-19 crisis and will improve access to quality care in the long run. Health care is a human right, she says. She could hardly be more wrong. A...

May 14, 2021 Industry Trends

Last year was the first year in which physicians working in private practice accounted for fewer than half of all practicing doctors, according to a new new report from the American Medical Association. Many of these formerly independent doctors went to work for big healthcare systems. That finding may sound obscure. Why should patients care whether a doctor draws his or her paycheck from a hospital or a private practice he or she owns? But the corporatization of medicine could be bad news for...

May 13, 2021 Coronavirus - Alternate

President Biden recently backed a World Trade Organization proposal to waive intellectual property protections on COVID-19 vaccines and therapies — a move the Trump administration rejected just a few months ago. The White House’s decision is a catastrophe. The waiver will do nothing to increase access to vaccines. It will, however, undermine the system of intellectual property protections that made these breakthrough vaccines possible. Patients today and well into the future will suffer, as investors think twice about funding risky efforts to research and develop therapies...

May 10, 2021 Coronavirus

Don't throw those masks away just yet. Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) relaxed mask-wearing guidance for those who have been fully vaccinated. But only outside. And only in settings that aren't crowded. However, the CDC could've issued much of this new guidance months ago. Epidemiologists have known since last summer that it's nearly impossible to contract the virus outdoors, even for an unvaccinated person. Waiting to ease mask restrictions is part and parcel of a doomsday mentality...

April 26, 2021 Coronavirus

Several European countries just instituted another round of lockdowns amid a new wave of Covid-19 cases. This turn of events is sobering but puzzling. Europe seemed to have Covid-19 under control a few months ago, at least compared to the United States. What happened? The countries' vaccination rates offer an explanation. Europe has inoculated far fewer people than the United States. So while Americans may enjoy some semblance of normalcy by summer, Europeans may face dark days ahead. Unfortunately, European countries can only blame themselves for their...

April 21, 2021 Coronavirus-Alternate2

It seems obvious that a rapid, widespread vaccination campaign offers our nation the best chance of bringing the COVID-19 pandemic to a swift end. That observation is apparently lost on federal public health officials. Last week, the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration told healthcare providers to stop administering Johnson & Johnson's one-dose COVID-19 vaccine over concerns that the shot could cause blood clots in rare cases. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of National Institute of...

April 15, 2021 Policy Proposals

Lawmakers in Colorado are trying to open their state's borders to prescription drugs from abroad. In 2019, they green-lit imports from Canada. They're still working on a plan to implement that policy that can garner federal approval. Then last week, legislators approved a bill that would allow Coloradans to import prescription drugs from other countries in addition to Canada, assuming the feds give the okay. More than a dozen states are making similar moves to permit drug importation. The professed goal of these efforts is to...

April 7, 2021 Coronavirus

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recently expressed a sense of "impending doom" regarding the pandemic. Her fear is that, unless Americans keep abiding by strict Covid-19 protocols like mask-wearing, social distancing, and forgoing travel, a new surge in cases and deaths could be on the horizon. "I so badly want to be done," Walensky said. "So I'm asking you to just hold on a little longer." Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and...

March 22, 2021 Coronavirus

President Joe Biden recently toured a Pfizer plant in Kalamazoo, Mich., where workers are churning out millions of lifesaving COVID-19 vaccine doses. During his remarks, he mentioned that in mid-February he had “toured the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institutes of Health . . . [where] I met world-class doctors, scientists, and researchers who were critical for discovering the vaccines in record time.” Frankly, the president is giving the government too much credit. While federal grants and purchase agreements certainly helped...

March 15, 2021 Coronavirus-Alternate2

Andrew I. Fillat and Henry I. Miller "Science, at its core, is a social phenomenon." This observation, from Alondra Nelson, the newly appointed deputy director of President Biden's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), certainly qualifies for a prominent place in the Pantheon of Inane Statements. The core of science, in fact, is the scientific method—posing and testing hypotheses; carefully gathering, examining, and generating experimental evidence; and finally, synthesizing all the available information into logical conclusions. Dr. Nelson's assertion is inauspicious, but perhaps...