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Centenarians say a long life is all about staying connected

The key to longevity isn’t about taking vitamins or consuming health care or yogurt…it’s staying connected to family, friends, and world events.   That news comes to us from the third Evercare 100 @ 100 Survey which details ultra-seniors’ views on politics and the good life. Evercare surveyed in-depth 100 centenarians. Collectively, their views challenge stereotypes of the oldest Americans alive today. There are 84,000 of them, according to the U.S. Bureau of the Census. For example, 19% of centenarians use cell phones, 7% email, and 3% online date. Google is a boon to looking for old, lost friends.  

 

As prescription drug sales decline, mail order grows

Globally, prescription drug sales grew 6.1% between 2006 and 2007. In the U.S., Rx sales grew 3.8% in the same period. This is the weakest U.S. sales rate for prescription drugs since 1996.   These stats come to you from IMSHealth, whose annual U.S. Pharmaceutical Market Performance Review found over a 50% drop in Rx sales growth from the 8% rate reached in 2006.   The backstory to what’s slowing drug sales is a good-news/bad-news mix. The flood of many popular blockbuster drugs going off-patent means that generics spending is up. Now, 2 in every 3 prescribed drugs is a

 

It’s tough to be a governor: managing the health care lab

The National Governors Association (NGA) is meeting in Philadelphia this week, where my City of Brotherly and Sisterly Love is witnessing some sobering discussions about health care.   On the one hand, Bill Clinton called in his opening keynote speech for the states to be laboratories of democracy.   But how much health-democracy can each governor afford when balancing their budget in the face of declining revenues? According to the NGA’s 2008 Fiscal Survey of the States (published June 2008), not a whole lot.   Medicaid covers comprehensive and long-term care for over 62 million low-income Americans. Costs are shared

 

In the health system popularity contest, the U.S. loses

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 10 July 2008 in Global Health, Health Quality, Health reform, Public health

In this season’s Health System Idol contest, the U.S. loses to most other developed countries. One in three Americans would like to “completely rebuild” the U.S. health system, according to The Harris Poll conducted in ten nations.   And another 50% believe that, “fundamental changes are needed to make it work better.”   Harris also measured ‘unpopularity’ with another metric: asking whether, “the system works pretty well and only minor changes are necessary.” Adding this yin to the other yang, the mash-up is still the same: the U.S. plays last fiddle to the rest of the world’s health system orchestra.

 

Health care inflation: thoughts on PwC’s health cost forecast for 2009

2009 will see health cost inflation of nearly 10%, according to PricewaterhouseCooper’s (PwC’s) report, Behind the Numbers: Medical Cost Trends for 2009. Medical inflation ran about 10% in 2007, as well.   PwC says that since the mid-1960s, the biggest jumps in the percentage of GDP allocated to health care in the U.S. happen during and leading up to recessions. Thus, health care becomes more of a burden for both the private sector (employers and consumers) and for the government (public sector).   Underneath this double-digit increase are both cautionary and hopeful trends:   The recession: PwC notes that if

 

The CBO dissects health cost growth: it’s not all about aging

Growth in spending on Medicare and Medicaid is a function of (1) the aging of the population and (2) trends in the cost of health care. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has published an issue brief, Accounting for Sources of Projected Growth in Federal Spending on Medicare and Medicaid, which finds that health care cost growth per beneficiary relative to GDP growth will be a greater driver of health spending than the aging of the population.   The bottom-line: over half of the growth in federal spending on Medicare and Medicaid is attributable to health care costs per person growing

 

Mother-Power online

4 in 5 moms go online at least once a month, according to My Mommy’s Online. The report is based on 2007 data from Simmons Consumer Research Survey published by eMarketer. “Being a parent makes going online almost a necessity,” according to eMarketer. 40% of all women who go online in the US are mothers with kids under 18. There are 35 million of them (including me). Intriguingly, virtually all women who are pregnant (94%) use the Internet, and half of the mothers surveyed use the Internet more since having a child. What do Moms do online? 94% visit portals

 

Stress through the ages (or, it’s good to be 65)

Younger people are way more stressed out than people over 65, according to a poll sponsored by the American Psychological Association.   HarrisInteractive has published data in its latest Healthcare Newsletter titled, “Adults Over 65 Experience Far Less Stress Than Adults in All Other Age Groups.” These findings are part of a deeper dive into the APA’s report published in October 2007, Stress in America. The highest levels of stress in America are in the 35-49 age cohort, followed by people aged 25-34.   6 in 10 people aged 35-49 say they are concerned about the level of stress in their

 

Health, the New Status Symbol

We’d rather be healthy than wealthy, according to a new survey from Manning Selvage & Lee (MS&L), the PR firm that’s part of the global communications company, Publicis. MS&L polled Americans’ beliefs on health and self-esteem. Three-quarters (72%) of Americans say that being physically healthy is a symbol of personal success. 91% of Americans said they’d rather be described ads “healthy” than “wealthy.” 71% said they’d rather be seen as someone who “looks really healthy” vs. someone who’s nicely “put together or well-dressed.” These will be glad tidings for MS&L’s client base. MS&L serves a global health clientele which includes

 

Market Justice vs. Social Justice in Health Care – Our National Identity Crisis

An outstanding commentary in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association succinctly traces the history of U.S. health care in the context of “market justice.” Peter Budetti, MD, PhD, who teaches health policy at the University of Oklahoma, observes, “Fragmented and struggling to come to terms with externally imposed pressures, medicine is losing both its political force and moral compass.” Those so-called externally imposed pressures come from stakeholders behaving according to their own self-interest in the health market: employers, physicians, hospitals, suppliers, insurers, public officials, and of course, consumers. Dr. Budetti concludes that, “Market justice may have outlived its

 

Health Populi’s Tea Leaves for 2008

I “leave” you for the year with some great, good, and less-than-sanguine expectations for health care in 2008. These are views filtered through my lens on the health care world: the new consumer, health information technology, globalization, politics, and health economics.  Health politics shares the stage with Iraq. Health care is second only to Iraq as the issue that Americans most want the 2008 presidential candidates to talk about, according to the latest Kaiser Health Tracking Poll. Several candidates have responded to the public’s interest with significant health care reform proposals. But major health reform – such as universal access

 

Hearts and the hospital bill – and the role of health IT

The annual national hospital bill may reach $1 trillion by 2008. This forecast is brought to you in a new report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Hospital charges in 2005 totalled $873 billion in 2005, nearly doubling in ten years. The hospital bill was covered primarily by three payor segments: Medicare, which paid nearly one-half of the total hospital bill; private insurance, covering nearly one-third; and Medicaid, at 14% of the total. What are we spending money on in hospitals? Putting aside pregnancy/childbirth and infant care, the top three conditions are heart-related: coronary artery disease ($46

 

The true costs of cigarettes = $222 a pack, and the Rolling Stone ad

A pack of cigarettes ranges in price from a low of $3.35 in South Carolina to a high of $6.45 in New Jersey. But the real personal costs of cigarettes — per pack smoked — are 66 times greater (in the case of that smoking South Carolinian). The analysis can be found in a new working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research. W. Kip Viscusi and Joni Hersch calculate this cost in terms of personal health risks: for a man, each pack of cigarettes smoked reduces the value of his life by $222; for a woman, each pack

 

Health Care IT by way of Hollywood and Hip-Hop

The double-barreled news of Dennis Quaids’ twins receiving heparin doses 1,000x the prescribed dose while receiving medical treatment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, coupled with the tragic death of Kanye West’s mother following cosmetic surgery, focuses this health care paparazzi’s lens squarely on the role of information technology in health care. The Cedars-Sinai Chief Medical Officer has termed the Quaid event a “preventable error.” Donda West’s doctor has been described by the likes of People magazine and the Los Angeles Times as a clinician with at least 2 DUI’s and an assortment of malpractice suits — as well as a recommendation

 

Love thy kidneys; a sobering 2020 forecast

It’s Renal Week, the education meeting of the American Nephrology Society. The latest research on that under-appreciated organ, the kidney, is being presented by the best minds focused on nephrology. The critical headline from the meeting is that, in 2020, there will be a huge rise in the incidence and prevalence of end-stage renal disease (ESRD). The number of Americans wil ESRD in 2020 is expected to be 785,000, an increase of more than 60% from 2005.   The key factor driving the growth of kidney disease is diabetes, in part driven by obesity projections and the aging of baby

 

Target marketing: no pink guns left behind?

In 2004, 20% of homicides were directly associated with intimate partner conflict (i.e., one in which an intimate partner killed another partner). Intimate partner violence resulting in death was most common among victims aged 40-44 years. Murder is the leading cause of death for pregnant women, according to the National Organization of Women. The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, spends about $43 million a year on ways to reduce deaths and injuries from drowning, poisoning, suicide, industrial accidents, house fires and domestic violence. Of that sum, only $2.3 million

 

The cost of health illiteracy = 47 million uninsured

The annual financial burden of health illiteracy costs between $106 and $238 billion. This is enough money to cover the 47 million uninsured people in America.   That metric, and many other insights, were published this week in an important new report called, Low Health Literacy: Implications for National Health Policy. The report was written by Dr. John Vernon, a professor of finance at the University of Connecticut, and three colleagues from the University of Central Florida, George Washington University, and an executive from Pfizer. This research was sponsored by Pfizer, which has been promoting health literacy as part of

 

Purchasing Pink

Pink is all around.    It’s October 1st. The annual proliferation of pink products promoting breast cancer awareness pervades purchasers’ prospective pickings. This year, there are lots of cosmetics to choose from, along with a Filofax, a vacuum cleaner, kitchen appliances, an iPod and various accessories to dress it up, foods, a Swiss army knife, and a set of pink knitting needles. Prevention Magazine online has several suggestions for “Beauty that Gives Back,” cosmetic companies offering products with some percentage of proceeds going to a variety of breast cancer charities. For example, La Mer Skin Creme can be purchased for

 

Hammers, nails and health spending – regional variations in the U.S.

There is more money spent on health care for each citizen of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania than for a citizen in Utah, Arizona or Nevada. In fact, per capita health spending was 59% lower in Utah than Massachusetts in 2004. The latest state-by-state spending variations are highlighted in Health Affairs’ web-exclusive feature. Welcome to the statistical phenomenon in health care known as “regional variation.” The guru-researcher of regional variation is John Wennberg, who has detailed these trends in fhe Dartmouth Atlas.   New regional health spending data were published in Health Affairs, which we health economists and policy wonks eagerly anticipate

 

Hypothermia is Cool!

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 14 September 2007 in Medical technology, Public health

I’ve been researching the topic of therapeutic hypothermia (TH) for cardiac arrest in the past couple of weeks on behalf of a client (we at THINK-Health work with the full range of stakeholders, which keeps our thinking fresh and the practice continually fascinating). So when Buffalo Bills player Kevin Everett received TH immediately following severe spinal cord injury on the football field, I closely followed his story. I have a dear cousin who became spinal cord injured due to a diving accident several years ago, and so the topic is of very personal interest to me. It is great news