As the nation's opioid crisis deepened over the last decade, drug makers and distributors worked to deflect attention from their own roles in creating widespread addiction, according to lawyers for hundreds of cities, counties, tribes and other entities suing key pharmaceutical industry players.
Hospitals, doctors and medical device companies have successfully lobbied Medicare to abandon a proposed 30% cut in payments for certain surgeries involving heart pumps.
The Cadillac tax is a 40% tax on the most generous employer-provided health insurance plans — those that cost more than $11,200 per year for an individual policy or $30,150 for family coverage. It was a tax on employers and was supposed to take effect in 2018, but Congress has delayed implementation twice.
Day Kimball Healthcare is exploring a partnership with a California-based, for-profit company that owns three Connecticut hospitals and has been cited for lapses in treatment across several of its facilities. The deal with Prospect Medical Holdings, Inc. is still in progress, Day Kimball President and CEO Anne Diamond said Tuesday. The agreement is expected to be finalized this fall and the partnership could take months to go into effect.
The University of Louisville is in talks with the state for potential help in buying the flailing downtown Jewish Hospital and other affiliated Louisville health practices. A spokesman with the University confirmed a Courier Journal report of the existence of a draft document laying out the plan.
The drug business can feel like a go-kart race, with big pharmaceutical giants and biotech startups knocking against each other as they scramble to be the first to market with the next big blockbuster. Plenty of hot drug development races are on this summer.