Pharmaceuticals
Generic drugmakers can live with a speedier FDA | The Wall Street JournalRather than a bonanza, a faster Food and Drug Administration would be a double-edged sword for battered generic drug stocks. Fortunately, there are some glimmers of hope for investors in the sector.
As drug costs soar, people delay or skip cancer treatments | Kaiser Health News
Hundreds of thousands of cancer patients are delaying care, cutting their pills in half or skipping drug treatment entirely, a Kaiser Health News examination shows.
Stung by surging prices, hospital pharmacies cut back on pricey drugs | STAT
Facing annual spikes in pharmaceutical costs, major hospitals nationwide are curtailing use of expensive drugs and rejecting new additions to their formularies, sometimes triggering tense debates with clinicians who want to offer cutting-edge medications to their patients.
Safety, quality and clinical practice
Cutting Planned Parenthood would increase Medicaid births, CBO says | The New York TimesCutting off federal funding for Planned Parenthood — a longstanding conservative goal that is included in the Republican bill to replace the Affordable Care Act — would reduce access to birth control for many women and result in thousands of additional Medicaid births, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Nonprofit hospitals focused more on community needs under the ACA. That may change. | The Washington Post
For the past six years, Mardi Chadwick has run a violence prevention program at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The program’s goal is to address broader, community-based health issues and social problems that make people ill or expose them to injury. In Chadwick’s view, this endeavor has made a big difference in neighborhoods. But its profile in administrators’ eyes got a boost from an Affordable Care Act provision that requires nonprofit hospitals to conduct tri¬ennial assessments of local health needs and devise strategies to address them. Falling short triggers a financial penalty.