The mission of Prognosis is to explore the nexus at which healthcare policy meets healthcare practice and how one affects the other. This blog makes readers more aware of the innovations taking place in healthcare delivery, financing and technology and the types of public policies that will encourage further progress.
Healthcare In Focus is a public education initiative of the HLC, created to promote a constructive dialogue about the state and future of American healthcare.
I just came across an interview last week in the Indianapolis Star with Eli Lilly and Company CEO John Lechleiter. It’s a q-and-a that is particularly interesting because Mr. Lechleiter shares his perspectives on, among other topics, the greatest challenges facing the pharmaceutical industry and the future of innovation in the United States.
I encourage Prognosis readers to check out the full article, but here are a few of Mr. Lechleiter’s illuminating quotes:
On progress against cancer…
“Many people who study the treatment of cancer today believe that, for some types of cancer, we may be able to keep patients sort of static. While the cancer may not be cured, it is not progressing, and the patient is able to do better for longer periods of time.”
On China as a marketplace…
“We see much evidence of progress…if we look at all the things that have been done within China to modernize the health system and healthcare delivery….We see China emerging as the second-leading pharmaceutical market probably by the end of this decade.”
On how the U.S. can remain a leader in innovation…
“We’re falling behind with respect to science and math aptitude among grade school, high school students. We also need to expand the number of visas…to non-U.S. citizens who want to stay in this country and work in these high-tech industries and startup companies. And we need sustained investment by the U.S. government in basic research.”
First, that government-imposed price controls are antithetical to genuine, consumer-focused health reform. The only way to achievable sustainable reform that improves health outcomes and contains cost is through medical innovation, developing new treatments, technologies and medications to keep people healthier and making healthcare more cost-effective.
The second truth is that the health reform process taking place right now will not follow a simple linear path. Regulators and lawmakers will face a number of forks in the road and will have to make decisions that will determine the ultimate course of reform and the way patients and health providers will be affected.
With those premises in mind, it’s becoming increasingly clear that health reform at the national level must avoid some of the paths being taken by the state of Massachusetts.
A Wall Street Journal op-ed piece this week by Joseph Rago points out that while the Bay State has succeeded in its goal of achieving an insured populations (not counting those who are gaming the system by buying insurance, keeping it long enough to avoid state penalities, and then dumping it), cost containment has not been accomplished. Consequently, state politicians are trying to force costs down through government controls.
Governor Deval Patrick’s insurance commissioner has rejected the vast majority of requested premium increases submitted by state insurers. These increases are deemed necessary to cover expected claims, with health costs rising at eight percent annually. With these artificial price caps in place, insurers are essentially being forced to sell their products at a financial loss.
A state appeals board has reversed many of these price controls, saying they ignored “economic realities” – “economic realities” being the fact that three major insurers are now under administrative oversight because of concerns about their financial viability.
And now, the governor wants to extend this rate review process to cover hospitals and physician groups, which could effectively impose the same price controls on providers that are currently undermining health insurers. Also, as Rago points out, the state is using its “determination of need” process to restrict the use of certain medical technologies.
At a time when our population needs improved access to insurance, a growing supply of healthcare providers and medical innovation that can achieve long-term quality improvements and cost reductions, government price controls take us farther away from all of those goals.
What we’re learning from the Massachusetts experience is that there are certain roads that deserve to be less traveled.
According to statistics released yesterday by the American Cancer Society, cancer death rates have continued what is now an almost two decade decline.
The Society tells us that, since 1991, cancer mortality rates among men have dropped 21 percent, while women’s rates have declined 12 percent since 1992.
This success can be attributed to a number of factors. Healthier lifestyles and a reduction in the number of people who smoke have certainly contributed. But so has the ability to detect the signs of disease earlier before it has had a chance to progress. And improvements in treatment have meant that a cancer diagnosis is, more often than in the past, not a death sentence.
The promise of health reform is that more people will have health coverage and, thus, have access to early diagnosis and treatment. The reality is that we need to make sure that coverage does indeed equal increased health access, and that we strengthen support for healthcare innovation so that the future will see more development of treatments and technologies that will eventually defeat this disease for good.
Over the last decade, medical science has made tremendous strides in conquering disease. Deaths from stroke, HIV, heart disease, prostate cancer and several other diseases have dropped significantly thanks to investments in research and strides in developing new treatments.
Alzheimer’s Disease, however, has been an illness that has, to date, defeated the best that modern medicine has thrown at it. From 2000 to 2006, deaths from Alzheimer’s actually increased by over 46 percent, making it the nation’s seventh leading cause of death.
There’s encouraging news, though, in a new approach that many of the nation’s drugmakers are taking toward this challenge.
Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, Sanofi-Aventis, Abbott Laboratories and GlaxoSmithKline are going to take the unusual step of pooling the data from the clinical trials they have performed in their respective efforts to find an effective treatment for Alzheimer’s. This means information from over 4,000 patients will now be in a single database accessible to all of the participating pharmaceutical companies as well as outside researchers.
The significance? Such a large database may shed more light on how Alzheimer’s progresses in patients and potentially enable the development of new studies. As Food and Drug Administration Deputy Commissioner Joshua Sharfstein said, this is the “kind of collaboration that does represent a major shift in thinking about how to accelerate drug development.”
Kudos to the involved pharmaceutical companies for taking a creative step that may bring us closer to treatment for a disease that is affecting millions of individuals and families.
Whenever I speak to members of Congress or high-ranking officials from federal departments and agencies, I always encourage them to escape from the confines of Washington, DC and gather their own eyewitness accounts of what’s happening in American healthcare. While policy may be written in the nation’s capital, healthcare innovation is taking place every day in hospitals and clinics as well as facilities where lifesaving medicines and medical devices are being created. It’s important for policymakers to be aware of the new breakthroughs happening in healthcare as they are drafting new laws and regulations.
That’s why I applaud Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for taking the time from her busy schedule to travel to Rochester, Minnesota and visit the Mayo Clinic this week. As you see from the video on this post, Secretary Sebelius received a comprehensive tour of the Clinic from Mayo CEO John Noseworthy and many of the facility’s outstanding physicians.
Mayo is one of the healthcare providers in the U.S. that is constantly staking out new ground on our nation’s most important healthcare priority, how to strengthen the quality of healthcare while increasing cost-efficiency as well. Kudos to Secretary Sebelius for seeking out real world demonstrations on how patients are benefiting from American medical innovation.
I just came across an interview last week in the Indianapolis Star with Eli Lilly and Company CEO John Lechleiter. It’s a q-and-a that is particularly interesting because Mr. Lechleiter shares his perspectives on, among other topics, the greatest challenges facing the pharmaceutical industry and the future of innovation in the United States.
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