Read today’s Kaiser Health News
In other news:
Draft ‘Make America Healthy Again’ report treads lightly on pesticides, processed foods: The Trump administration’s strategy to “Make America Healthy Again” will bypass aggressive action on farm-used pesticides or regulatory crackdowns on ultraprocessed foods, according to a draft document obtained by CNN.
The MAHA Commission, led by US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is set to release in the coming weeks its finalized recommendations for addressing chronic diseases among American children.
About health insurance/insurers
Employers expect 10% rise in healthcare costs for 2026: 4 notes: Employers are expecting a median healthcare cost increase of 10% in 2026, according to a survey from the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans.
Comment: Great summary of trends.
Is short-term health insurance back on the menu? Feds may allow more options: The U.S. Labor Department joined with the U.S. Treasury Department and the U.S Department of Health and Human Services to put out a statement Thursday that blesses use of "short-term, limited-duration insurance" policies that last more than three months.
About hospitals and healthcare systems
Complaints against hospitals grow 79% in 5 years: CMS: More than 14,500 complaints were lodged against hospitals in fiscal 2024, a 79% increase in complaints compared to fiscal 2019, according to a CMS report…
About pharma
Lilly, Superluminal ink $1.3B pact targeting hard-to-crack GPCRs: Eli Lilly will pay Superluminal Medicines up to $1.3 billion under a collaboration to discover and develop small-molecule drugs for cardiometabolic diseases and obesity.
The deal gives Lilly exclusive rights to compounds arising from the alliance, which focuses on undisclosed G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) targets, a class long considered challenging to drug. GPCRs play central roles in a range of biological processes, but their structural complexity has stymied past drug discovery efforts.
AstraZeneca launches at-home option for FluMist flu vaccine in US: As the number of drugmakers exploring direct-to-consumer (DTC) models in the US increases, AstraZeneca announced on Friday the launch of its at-home delivery service for the seasonal influenza vaccine FluMist. And while the majority of similar DTC initiatives aim to lower the price of drugs by eliminating middlemen in the supply chain, FluMist Home is designed to reverse the trend in declining flu vaccine rates, especially among younger people.
About healthcare IT
Understanding Model Drift and Its Impact on Health Care Policy: Model drift is when the performance of an initially accurate model degrades over time. Currently, model drift often goes unmeasured, and its impact is underappreciated…
…2 main types of model drift that have different causes and different policy implications. The first type, dataset drift, describes either a shift in the distribution of a model’s input variables or predictors (also known as feature drift) or the distribution of a model’s output variable or outcome of a model (also known as label drift). The second type, concept drift, describes a shift in the causal relationship between the model’s input and output variables (ie, how the predictors affect the outcome).
Comment: Read the entire article.
About healthcare personnel
States with the most, fewest licensed nurses FYI
Patient perception of physician attire: a systematic review update: This study demonstrates that physician attire consistently and significantly impacts patients’ perceptions of professionalism, trust and communication. The collective findings provide robust evidence that these perceptions are highly context-dependent, necessitating adaptable dress codes tailored to clinical environments and patient expectations to enhance trust and patient satisfaction.