Study: High List Prices and Deep Discounts for Prescription Drugs Hurt Poor and Sick Patients

A new Pioneer Institute study illustrates how the current system of drug pricing and discounts leads to patients with challenging diseases being charged huge out-of-pocket sums to keep other premiums low, effectively imposing financial penalties on the sick to protect the healthy and wealthy.

Out-of-Pocket Pirates: Spotlight on Accumulator & Maximizer Programs

A new white paper, "Out-of-Pocket Pirates: Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) and the Confiscation of Copayment Assistance Programs," examines how the way these programs are implemented is having negative impacts on patients living with serious diseases.

As COVID-19 Emergencies Ease, Some Progress on Telehealth Rules

A new report from Reason Foundation, Cicero Institute and Pioneer Institute rates every state’s telehealth policy for patient access and ease of providing virtual care. The report highlights telehealth policy best practices for states.

First-of-Its-Kind Interactive Mapping Tool Reveals Extent of For-Profit Entities Benefitting from the 340B Drug Pricing Program

Today, Pioneer Institute released a first-of-its-kind, 50-state mapping tool and database highlighting the troubling way in which hospitals and covered entities leverage unlimited pharmacy contracts under the 340B Drug Pricing Program.

Shopping Hospital Value: Price Transparency Mandate Brings Market Forces to Medicine

Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi talks with Pioneer Institute's senior healthcare fellow Barbara Anthony about her recently released paper, Massachusetts Hospitals: Uneven Compliance with New Federal Price Transparency Law, and how price transparency can empower consumers to shop for better value and encourage hospitals to offer more competitive costs.

Survey Finds Spotty Compliance Among Hospitals with Federal Price Transparency Law

A 2019 federal law requires hospitals to make prices for 300 shoppable services available online in a “consumer-friendly format,” but a Pioneer Institute survey of 19 hospitals finds that information on discounted cash prices—the price most likely to be charged to consumers paying out of pocket—was unavailable at seven of those hospitals.

Right To Save: Paying Healthcare Consumers To Shop For Value

This week on Hubwonk, host Joe Selvaggi talks with healthcare policy expert Josh Archambault about the findings from his Cicero Institute report, The Right to Save: The Next Generation of Price Transparency. He outlines how to incentivize healthcare consumers to utilize price information to reduce out-of-pocket costs, and lower healthcare costs for everyone.

Is CHIA’s Drug Cost Data Reliable?

Earlier this year, the Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA) released its Annual Report on the Performance of the Massachusetts Health Care System for 2020.  The Massachusetts Legislature relies on CHIA data when considering bills to regulate drug costs and prices. The advocacy group Health Care for All reported that CHIA data showed prescription drug spending grew by 7.7 percent in 2020, more than twice the benchmark - but the most reliable data on prescription drugs indicates that spending in 2020 was essentially flat. 

Is this PBM tactic blocking healthcare access?

Utilization Management (UM) was originally a strategy designed to improve the safety, quality, and cost-effectiveness of physician prescribing. However, UM has grown exponentially over the last decade, becoming more a tactic for Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) to manage costs to benefit their bottom line.

Drug Price Control: Bad Medicine for Healthcare and Region

Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi talks with Dr. Bill Smith, Director of Pioneer Institute’s Life Sciences Initiative, about the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act on long-term health costs. They discuss the bill's unintended consequences, potential effect on the region’s vibrant pharmaceutical research and development sector, and what citizens can do about it.

The Realities Behind US Healthcare Spending

Healthcare policy is an all-encompassing term. It plays a role in every individual’s life; how it is curated, developed, and maintained has a significant long-term impact on the quality of life of any given community. It is critical that policymakers consistently adapt and amend healthcare policies in the ever-changing global pricing and affordability environment while providing funding support for optimal quality of care.

Healthcare dominates the job market.

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Healthcare and social assistance are among the most important…

Drug Cost Disruption: Direct Generic Access Can Save Consumers Billions

Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi talks with Dr. Hussain Lalani about his recently published research on the potential for more than $3 billion in savings were Medicare to use Mark Cuban’s new direct-to-consumer drug company to purchase generics.
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Healthcare Employs More on Cape Cod Than Any Other Sector

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Despite being a major tourist destination, the largest employment sector on Cape Cod is not related to tourism: it is healthcare!

Doctors With Borders: Curing Shortages With International Lifeline

This week on Hubwonk, host Joe Selvaggi talks with Cicero Institute’s Jonathan Wolfson about the growing doctor shortage and the potential to alleviate the crisis by tapping the global supply of well-trained physicians eager to find safety and freedom in the US.

Pharmacy Benefit Profiteers: Distortions and Costs of Half-Trillion Dollar Drug Middlemen

Hubwonk Host Joe Selvaggi talks with ALVA10 Chief Executive Hannah Mamuszka and Dr. Blake Long about the perverse incentives imposed by Pharmacy Benefit Managers adding nearly $500 billion to U.S. drug costs.

Exploiting Charity Drugs: Hospital Program Earns Billions But Forgets Mission

Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi talks with Pioneer Institute’s Dr. Bill Smith about his recently released paper entitled, "340B Drug Discounts, An Increasingly Dysfunctional Federal Program," which analyzes the evolution of a well-intentioned program to offer discounted drugs to the uninsured from a benefit that had helped charitable hospitals to one that has exploded to generate billions in profits while serving fewer uninsured.

Massachusetts Hospitals Pull Back on Charity Care as Revenue from Federal 340B Drug Discount Program Explodes

Over the past decade, the revenue for hospitals generated by the federal 340B drug discount program, initially intended to serve low-income, uninsured populations, has exploded even while a number of important Massachusetts hospitals have reduced the level of charity care they provide, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute. The Pioneer Institute study, “340B Drug Discounts: An Increasingly Dysfunctional Program,” notes that nationwide, 340B drug sales rose from $9 billion in 2014 to $38 billion in 2020.

Successful Aging Support: Reimagining Effective and Affordable Long-Term Care Solutions

Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi talks with Brookings Institution Senior Fellow and healthcare policy expert Stuart Butler about the challenge of building long-term care systems and institutions that will support Americans as they age, without depleting assets and bankrupting the social safety net. 

Pandemic Dead Reckoning: Unseen Casualties of Public Health Interventions

Hubwonk host Host Joe Selvaggi talks with Pioneer Institute’s Senior Fellow Dr. Bill Smith about new evidence that during the past two years of the pandemic, there were as many unseen excess deaths from non-Covid-related diseases as seen from Covid. They discuss the need for public health leaders to pivot their messaging to address this hidden mortality.

Why the jump in non-COVID deaths?

The Wall Street Journal echoes our warning about the rise of non-COVID-related deaths.

Olympic-Scale Doctor Shortage: Tapping International Talent

Host Joe Selvaggi talks with Pioneer Institute's Senior Healthcare Policy Fellow Josh Archambault about the shortage of doctors in the U.S. and the potential for licensing reform to attract medical expertise from around the world to reduce future healthcare shortages and provide incentives for immigrating professionals to work in underserved communities.

How did COVID impact Massachusetts’ long-term care facilities?

Pioneer Institute has filed a Public Records Act request related to COVID's impact on Massachusetts’ long-term care facilities because the Institute believes this is a matter of obvious importance, both on principle (the public has a right to know the facts), and for purposes of evaluating – and where possible improving – public policy. 

Massachusetts Telehealth Report Card: Are We Embracing Disruption for Better Quality of Care?

Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi talks with Pioneer Senior Fellow in Healthcare Josh Archambault about his newest research paper, produced with the Cicero Institute and the Reason Foundation, on states' success in implementing telehealth to improve healthcare outcomes. They discuss how Massachusetts has used remote medicine to better reach patients and serve their needs.

Am I Contagious? Divining Covid’s Community Conundrum

Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi talks with Alva10 CEO and precision medicine expert Hannah Mamuszka about which tests are best for determining who is contagious and the implications for the CDC’s new isolation recommendations.

Face Masks Lifted: Scientists Weigh In With Comprehensive Efficacy Studies

Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi talks with Harvard Medical School professor, Dr. Jonathan Darrow, about the observations of his recent paper, Evidence for Community Cloth Face Masking to Limit the Spread of SARS-CoV-2: A Critical Review, in which he examines the range, quality, and scientific observations of mask wearing efficacy studies.

Building Healthcare Bigger: New Bill Is Good Medicine or Ill-Designed Cost Shift

This week on Hubwonk, host Joe Selvaggi talks with Josh Archambault, Pioneer Institute’s Senior Fellow in Healthcare, about the healthcare provisions in the pending Build Back Better Act and their likely impact on the coverage and cost to Americans in the wake of Covid-19.

The Promise and Challenges of Rare Cancer Treatments

Dr. William Smith, Pioneer Institute's Visiting Fellow in Life Sciences, spoke about the challenges and opportunities for rare cancer treatments, in a video interview produced by Rare Cancers, a patient group based in Australia, for the November 26th CAN Forum. 

COVID’s Unintended Victims: Traditional Diseases Overlooked at the Public’s Peril

This week on Hubwonk, host Joe Selvaggi talks with Pioneer Institute’s Visiting Fellow in Life Sciences, Dr. Bill Smith, about his newest research paper, “An “Impending Tsunami” in Mortality from Traditional Diseases,” which sounds the alarm that the public health community’s focus on COVID-19 has caused many to avoid seeking medical attention for other illnesses. As a result, more Americans are dying from fear of COVID than from the disease itself.

Vaccine Development Renaissance: Pandemic Brings Niche Industry into Mainstream

This week on Hubwonk, host Joe Selvaggi talks with virologist, Dr. Peter Kolchinsky, about the explosion of vaccine technologies and innovations brought into the spotlight by the massive investment to fight the pandemic, and dives deeply into the exciting promise of vaccines to combat an ever-widening range of disease.