America’s broken third-party healthcare payment system prioritizes government and insurance companies as the largest payers, leaving patients with higher out-of-pocket costs, greater exposure to healthcare financial risk, and reduced access to care - finds the latest paper in the Coverage Denied series released today by the Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the nonpartisan Pacific Research Institute. Click here to read the brief “The healthcare marketplace should prioritize the needs of patients, but our broken third-party payment system caters to insurers...
READ THE REPORT The problem of drug affordability is caused by the perverse incentives created by the third-party payer system that have disempowered patients in favor of insurers and other supply-chain intermediaries. The insurance flaws have created pricing systems that inequitably transfer a disproportionate share of drug costs on to patients. This arrangement inappropriately imposes a drug affordability problem on patients who require expensive medicines. The insurance flaws also incent benefit design policies that create additional affordability burdens and unnecessarily increase...
Watch PRI’s Wayne Winegarden, director of our Center for Medical Economics and Innovation, discuss efforts by the Federal Trade Commission to considering ordering large pharmacy benefits managers to study the competitive impact of contractual provisions, reimbursement adjustments, and other practices affecting drug prices on Scripps National News. https://youtu.be/DQsjKM44ScQ...
Listen to Dr. Wayne Winegarden, director of PRI’s Center for Medical Economics and Innovation, discuss his recent 340B hospital study on AM 1590, KWBG Radio in Boone, IA. [audio mp3="https://medecon.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Wayne-Winegarden-PRI-340B-Study-012522.mp3"][/audio]...
BY WAYNE WINEGARDEN AND CELINE BOOKIN Part 1 of the Coverage Denied series documented how distortions in the U.S. healthcare system turned the important financial risk management service of health insurance into a barrier to care and an important driver of health care inflation. The insurance industry’s adverse impact on costs is ironic given its current focus on implementing cost control measures. Unfortunately, the problems of increasing obstacles to care and decreasing health care affordability are the expected outcomes from the current...
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So-called 340B hospitals whose mission is to help the vulnerable are more profitable and provide less charity care, finds a new brief released today by the Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the nonpartisan Pacific Research Institute, a California-based, free-market think tank....
Policies that promote biosimilar competition have the potential to save U.S. patients up to $5.8 billion collectively if biosimilars to Humira and Enbrel grow in market share, finds a new brief released today by the Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the nonpartisan Pacific Research Institute, a California-based, free-market think tank. Click to download “Generating Drug Savings Through Competition” “The significant savings potential that patients and taxpayers alike would realize from introducing biosimilars to Humira and Enbrel to the U.S. market...
Addressing the ongoing problems with the U.S. health insurance system, the Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the nonpartisan Pacific Research Institute today announced the release of the first paper in the Coverage Denied series, which will analyze and propose reforms to fix the problems in the current system that threaten patient health outcomes and often lead to huge financial risks for patients facing unexpected or chronic health care challenges. Click to download the first paper in PRI’s Coverage Denied...
Today, the Pacific Research Institute published an issue brief revealing overwhelming public disapproval for Medicare reforms that Congress is considering as part of its $3.5 trillion spending bill. Click here to read the full issue brief, "Drug Pricing Proposals Threaten America's Most Vulnerable Patients." "It's a relief that Americans oppose Congress's drug pricing proposals once voters learn the true consequences of these misguided reforms," said Sally C. Pipes, the brief's co-author and PRI president, CEO, and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health...
DOWLOAD THE PDF In October 2019, the Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the Pacific Research Institute released its second study documenting the savings potential enabled by biosimilars. Biosimilars are medicines manufactured in, or derived from, biological sources that are developed to be similar to FDA-approved reference products. Biosimilars are approved to compete in nine biologic drug classes in the U.S. and are available in seven of these drug classes currently. Since 2018, biosimilars’ market share has grown appreciably, see Figure...
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Watch Dr. Wayne Winegarden, director of PRI’s Center for Medical Economics and Innovation, discuss how the Biden plan to lower prescription drug costs is disappointing and would lead to less access and higher costs for patients with Scripps National News. https://youtu.be/IeokdBjtjqk...
Listen to PRI President, CEO, and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy Sally C. Pipes provide insight on how the full approval Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine might increase vaccinations and affect vaccine mandates on Real News with Rick Outzen on WCOA-AM in Pensacola, FL. ...
Watch Dr. Wayne Winegarden, director of PRI’s Center for Medical Economics and Innovation, discuss his recent study showing how a two-part drug pricing system would ensure prices more accurately reflect how patients value drugs with Scripps National News. The report aired on 60 television stations in 42 markets across the country reaching 31% of U.S. TV households. https://youtu.be/AK1CIGa-w5c...
Establishing a two-part drug pricing system quantifying separate values for a drug’s innovation and production would create an efficient market and a more accurate reflection of how patients value a drug compared to those produced by centralized organizations, argues a new report released today by the Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the Pacific Research Institute. Click to download “Establishing a Two-Part Drug Pricing System to Promote Value-Based Pricing and Innovation” “Some policymakers assume that only a centralized agency can determine...
The Pioneer Institute and Pacific Research Institute hosted an educational webinar on the importance of protecting treatment access, innovation, and equity as Washington addresses drug pricing reforms on July 19, 2021. Pioneer Institute, PRI, and special guests explored the current policy landscape on treatment value and access and how policy proposals that lean on the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, or ICER, and similar approaches could impact certain patients. William “Bill” Smith, PhD, Visiting Fellow in Life Sciences, Pioneer...
Dr. Henry Miller, PRI senior fellow in health care studies, joins PRI's "Next Round" podcast with an update on the pandemic, the progress of vaccine distribution, and his perspective on the CDC’s pause on the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. https://youtu.be/sMwlbxAjrNE...
Watch PRI's Dr. Wayne Winegarden discuss the importance of improving competitions for biosimilars to increase access to these high value medications for more patients on two "Bending the Cost Curve" panel discussions hosted by State of Reform. https://youtu.be/oJTD34j-E-Y https://youtu.be/hu8sWIn3u_A...