How does hospital participation in a Medicare Advantage preferred network impact commercial reimbursement?

How does a hospital’s participation in a health plan’s Medicare Advantage (MA) provider network impact their commercial rates? Since many insurers offer both MA plans and commercial plans, there could be spillovers with respect to negotiating. How would MA network participation impact commercial rates? Marr et al. (2025) offers some hypotheses: On the one hand,…

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RFK Jr.’s Hearing With Senate HELP Committee: A Live Discussion

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on Wednesday about President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2026 Department of Health and Human Services budget request. That followed a morning hearing with the House Appropriations Committee. The sessions were the first time Kennedy appeared before Congress following the mass layoffs…

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Seriously, Aon, you think weight loss drugs save money?

By AL LEWIS Last month Aon, the major benefits consulting firm, released a “study” claiming: A significant opportunity to reduce healthcare costs for employers and enhance overall workforce health through a comprehensive obesity management program that includes GLP-1 medications. This, of course, is the opposite of what most researchers have shown.  And in the immortal…

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How do drug prices change before loss of exclusivity?

Typically, cost effectiveness analyses assume a constant price between drug approvals and loss of exclusivity. It is not clear, however, to what extent that assumption is valid, particularly after taking into account drug price discounts and rebates. A paper by Lin et al. (2024) uses 2007-2023 data on drug prices from SSR Health to answer…

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Luego de prometer atención médica universal, el gobernador de California debe reconsiderar la cobertura para inmigrantes

SACRAMENTO, California — El gobernador Gavin Newsom no esperaba enfrentarse a otra crisis sanitaria. En marzo, mientras el presidente Donald Trump y los republicanos del Congreso intensificaban el debate nacional sobre la posibilidad de recortar la atención médica para los estadounidenses pobres y con discapacidades, el gobernador demócrata tuvo que informar a los legisladores estatales…

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