Read today’s Kaiser Health News
In other news:
OECD Health Statistics An excellent periodic source for international healthcare data comparisons.
HHS backtracks on pledge to disclose new vaccine advisers’ conflicts of interest: The Department of Health and Human Services is sitting on information about new vaccine advisers’ conflicts of interest, and seemingly backtracking on its vow to make key disclosure documents public.
Agency officials previously said they would release ethics forms for seven new members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Kennedy abruptly cancels preventive care committee meeting: Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has abruptly canceled a meeting of a key expert panel that evaluates the nation’s preventive care recommendations, according to an email viewed by STAT. The email did not cite a reason.
The cancellation of the Thursday meeting of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force comes just a couple of weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the secretary’s authority over the panel, potentially paving the way for Kennedy to reject certain recommendations or reconstitute it.
About health insurance/insurers
Medicare QIOs Want to Maximize Their Digital Potential: Using CMS’ own guidance, the QIN-QIO community health activities of Civitas members over just the final two years (2022-24) of the most recent 5-year contract cycle generated $4.7 billion in Medicare savings across a multi-regional block of 11 states, primarily by reducing preventable ED visits, hospitalizations and 30-day hospital readmission rates.
About pharma
Trump floats 200 percent tariffs on pharmaceutical imports ‘very soon’: President Trump on Tuesday threatened to impose up to 200 percent tariffs on pharmaceutical products imported into the U.S. “very soon.”
“If they have to bring the pharmaceuticals into the country, the drugs and other things into the country, they’re going to be tariffed at a very, very high rate, like 200 percent,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting.
Leqembi's price needs to be cut at least 64% to be cost-effective in Japan: analysis: A new analysis suggests that the price of Eisai's Alzheimer's disease therapy Leqembi (lecanemab) needs to come down by at least 64% in Japan to meet cost-effectiveness thresholds. The assessment, published Wednesday, comes from the Center for Outcomes Research and Economic Evaluation for Health (C2H), an expert committee of the Central Social Insurance Medical Council, which is part of Japan's health ministry.
Comment: An interesting international example for evaluating cost-effectiveness of drugs.