- Price Spikes Drove Employer-Based Health Care Spending in 2016Modern Healthcare by Shelby Livingston — Employer-sponsored health care spending rose to its highest point in 2016 even though patients sought less health care. The culprit? Rising health care prices, according to the latest annual report by the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI). "Working Americans are using the same or less healthcare and are paying more and more for it every year," HCCI President Niall Brennan said. Spending per person in 2016 grew 4.6 percent to $5,407 over 2015. In 2015, spending grew 4.1 percent over the prior year. Healthcare spending per person has grown cumulatively by 15 percent over the entire study period of 2012 to 2016, according to the report released Tuesday.
- The Drug Industry's Two Big Trade Groups Set a New Record for Lobbying in 2017 STAT by Rebecca Robbins — The two big groups that lobby on behalf of drug companies set a new record for their collective spending in the first year of the Trump administration. Shelling out a combined sum of nearly $35 million to lobby the federal government in 2017, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and the Biotechnology Innovation Organization upped their expenditures at a time when the sweeping tax overhaul was on the line and fears of a crackdown on drug pricing were top of mind. Remarkably, however, the record-setting spending push came in spite of the fact that neither group took a position on the biggest health policy story of the year, the long and steady Republican quest to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.