Blog and News

Welcome to D4PC "Morning Rounds", your daily review of healthcare news and information from Washington, DC and around the nation. These briefings will keep you up to date on recent developments and our effort to replace the PPACA with patient-centered reforms that protect the doctor-patient relationship and preserve individual freedom of choice.  

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According to PharmaTimes Online, Britain's National Institutes of Health are denying lupus patients access to the first new drug for this disease in 50 years. PharmaTimes reports NIH "concluded that Benlysta (belimumab) could not be considered a cost-effective use of NHS resources for patients with active autoantibody positive systemic lupus erythematosus with a high degree of disease activity despite standard therapy." 

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Last week, D4PC published information that a group of doctors had called for an ending to certain cancer screenings and treatments finding that they were not worth their costs (see here). As D4PC noted, this would certainly raise concerns about whether ending these tests would be in the best interest of patients. A recent study will undoubtedly fuel the concerns over whether ending these tests is in the best interests of patients. The latest study found that the U.S. spent more on health care for cancer patients compared to other developed countries but that there is a noticeably better outcome for patients in the U.S. 

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Welcome to D4PC "Morning Rounds", your daily review of healthcare news and information from Washington, DC and around the nation. These briefings will keep you up to date on recent developments and our effort to replace the PPACA with patient-centered reforms that protect the doctor-patient relationship and preserve individual freedom of choice.  

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Private healthcare insurance plans have grown a whopping 400 percent in a decade...

Long queues are one of the main complaints for consumers of Sweden's public healthcare services, with patients sometimes forced to wait as much as fifteen times longer for treatment compared to private options... 

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The American Thinker has a new article written by Scott Kirwin that deconstructs a recent Health Affairs study (written by Sherry Glied and Miriam Laugesen) that compared physician pay in the United States to that of doctors in other countries.  In short, the study reaches the conclusion that doctors are "overpaid." Kirwin notes that the study was written in part by Sherry Gilead who is currently working in the Obama Administration.  

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The London Telegraph is reporting that the United Kingdom will be dismantling the national health information technology ("Health IT") system even sooner than originally announced.  The top-down system, which has failed to deliver as "originally conceived" and also failed to meet the needs of local health providers, has, according to the Telegraph proven "unworkable."  Implementation of the system has also seen cost increases and missed deadlines.  Scrapping the system could cost taxpayers as much as £3 billion ($4.65 billion). 

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BBC Health News writes that: "The lives of thousands of non-cardiac NHS emergency surgery patients are being risked by poor care and delays in treatment, leading surgeons say." The reason is the lack of available technology (like scans) and poor post-op critical care. 

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The Wall Street Journal reports that the Greek debt crisis has lead to very negative consequences for patients, including those who need life savings drugs.  Since the beginning of 2010, the Greek government has only paid for approximately one-third of the drugs that have been dispenses in state-owned hospitals. 

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