Friday Five: Top 5 healthcare business news items from the MCOL Weekend edition

Every business day, MCOL posts feature stories making news on the business of health care. Here are five we think are particularly important for this week:

Trade secrets case involving Atul Gawande’s company raises a key question: Who counts as a threat? 

Before last month, David W. Smith was a midlevel executive at the sprawling health services company Optum. He’d never met the company’s CEO, according to a sworn affidavit, or cracked into a senior leadership team that includes about 200 people. He was basically a strategy consultant.

Stat News

Friday, January 25, 2019

Drug-Pricing Policies Find New Momentum As ‘A 2020 Thing’ 

The next presidential primary contests are more than a year away. But presumed candidates are already trying to stake a claim to one of health care’s hot-button concerns: surging prescription drug prices.

Kaiser Health News

Friday, January 25, 2019

More Americans Lack Health Insurance, New Survey Finds 

The number of Americans without health insurance jumped to its highest level in four years, new figures show, a trend that pits Democrats who say the White House is sabotaging the Affordable Care Act against Republicans who blame high premiums under the law for locking people out of coverage.

Wall Street Journal

Thursday, January 24, 2019

Trump calls for cracking down on surprise medical bills 

President Trump on Wednesday spoke out against surprise medical bills that patients often cannot afford, highlighting an issue that has received bipartisan concern in Congress.

The Hill

Thursday, January 24, 2019

U.S. insulin costs per patient nearly doubled from 2012 to 2016: study 

The cost of insulin for treating type 1 diabetes in the United States nearly doubled over a five-year period, underscoring a national outcry over rising drug prices, according to a new analysis shared with Reuters.

Reuters

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

These and more weekly news items on the business of healthcare are featured in the MCOL Weekend edition, along with the MCOL Tidbits, and more, for MCOL Premium level members.