Random charts - Medicare & PBMs

Source: MEDICARE PART D: Use of Pharmacy Benefit Managers and Efforts to Manage Drug Expenditures and Utilization (78-pg GAO PDF)

 

"What GAO Found: Medicare Part D plan sponsors used pharmacy benefit managers (PBM) to provide 74 percent of drug benefit management services and performed the remaining 26 percent of services themselves in 2016—the most recent year of data at the time of our analysis. Plan sponsors are private entities that operate drug plans; PBMs are organizations that help manage drug benefits. Rebates and other price concessions—discounts generally paid by manufacturers to Part D plan sponsors and PBMs after the sale of a drug at the pharmacy—grew faster than Part D expenditures from 2014 through 2016. Specifically, gross expenditures (the amount paid to pharmacies by plan sponsors, or by the PBM on the sponsor’s behalf, and by the beneficiary) increased 20 percent, to $145.1 billion. During this period, rebates and other price concessions increased 66 percent, to $29 billion—20 percent of 2016 gross expenditures. Consequently, net expenditures (gross expenditures less rebates and other price concessions) increased only 13 percent, to $116.1 billion..."

Random charts - cost-shifting

 

 

 

Source: Cost Shift Analysis Report January 2019 (70-pg PDF) 

"Conclusion: This report reviews the health care cost landscape in Colorado and introduces new research by the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing that analyzes the reasons behind rising hospital costs, which comprise the largest portion of health care spend.119This report focuses on the cost shift to commercial payers.120The Department concludes that while the 2009 Colorado Health Care Affordability Act (CHCAA) -and subsequent 2017 Colorado Healthcare Affordability and Sustainability Enterprise (CHASE) Act, and the federal 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) led to increased Medicaid payments to hospitals, fewer uninsured, less bad debt and less charity-care write-of f for hospitals, these policies did not result in a reduction in hospital cost shift to other payers to cover the cost of uncompensated care as expected. Instead, prices continue to rise for non-governmental payers while hospital costs and margins also rise..."

Random charts - world threats

 

 

Source: Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community (28-page PDF)

Random charts - trust

 

 

Source: How's Life? 2017: Measuring Well-Being

Random charts - internet freedom

 

 

Source: Manipulating Social Media to Undermine Democracy

"Governments around the world have dramatically increased their efforts to manipulate information on social media over the past year. The Chinese and Russian regimes pioneered the use of surreptitious methods to distort online discussions and suppress dissent more than a decade ago, but the practice has since gone global. Such state-led interventions present a major threat to the notion of the internet as a liberating technology. 

Online content manipulation contributed to a seventh consecutive year of overall decline in internet freedom, along with a rise in disruptions to mobile internet service and increases in physical and technical attacks on human rights defenders and independent media. 

Nearly half of the 65 countries assessed in Freedom on the Net 2017 experienced declines during the coverage period, while just 13 made gains, most of them minor. Less than one-quarter of users reside in countries where the internet is designated Free, meaning there are no major obstacles to access, onerous restrictions on content, or serious violations of user rights in the form of unchecked surveillance or unjust repercussions for legitimate speech."

Random charts - regulation

Source: Regulatory Overload: Assessing the Regulatory Burden on Health Systems, Hospitals and Post-acute Care Providers (33-pg AHA PDF)

Random charts - female leaders

 

Source: Number of women leaders around the world has grown, but they’re still a small group

Random charts - Congress

 

 

Source: The changing face of Congress in 5 charts

"The current Congress is the most racially and ethnically diverse ever... The share of women in Congress has reached an all-time high... While Congress remains overwhelmingly Christian, the share of Catholics has grown while the share of Protestants has declined..."

Random charts - views of govt

Source: 6 key takeaways about how Americans view their government

Random chart - malware

Source: Computerised espionage: The spy who hacked me

Random picture - govt employee pay

Source: Three Charts Showing How White Males Hold the Highest-Paid Federal Jobs

Random charts - SWAT

 

 

 

Source: War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing (98-pg PDF)

Random charts - govt subsidies

Source: The Biggest Beneficiaries of the Ex-Im Bank

Random chart - phone subsidies

Source: Reforming the FCC’s Low-Income Phone Subsidies 

"... The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) subsidizes phone service for low-income households, funded by the universal service charge assessed on all consumers’ phone bills. The cost of this program ballooned from $819 million in 2008 to $2.19 billion in 2012..."

Random chart - nutrition labels

Source: Food Labeling: Revision of the Nutrition and Supplement Facts Labels

Random charts - child health

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Time to Act: Investing in the Health of Our Children and Communities. Recommendations From the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Commission to Build a Healthier America (120-pg PDF)

"In 2008, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) convened the Commission to Build a Healthier Americato help us find better ways to improve the health of our nation. In their search for solutions, the Commissioners found that there is much more to health than health care and that where we live, learn, work, and play profoundly influence our health..."

Their recommendations? 

"Recommendation 1: Make investing in America’s youngest children a high priority. This will require a significant shift in spending priorities and major new initiatives to ensure that families and communities build a strong foundation in the early years for a lifetime of good health. 

Recommendation 2: Fundamentally change how we revitalize neighborhoods, fully integrating health into community development. 

Recommendation 3: The nation must take a much more health-focused approach to health care financing and delivery. Broaden the mindset, mission, and incentives for health professionals and health care institutions beyond treating illness to helping people lead healthy lives."

Read it!

Great quotes - sycophancy

"...We’re not really concerned about you, Barack, but God forbid some other guy’s in the office five years from now and there’s another 9/11”

- Richard Clarke,  former White House counter-terrorism adviser, who served on President Obama's NSA review panel....

The article 'Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying' traces the evolution (on the subject of security and surveillance) of Senator Obama to President Obama... 

Going by the quotes from close and trusted folks such as Axelrod and Plouffe it appears that all it took to move Obama's position 180 degrees was a bogus plot against him, "more information"(myriad threats in his daily intelligence briefings), and a strong element of CYA ("...On the other hand, Mr. Obama was acutely aware of the risks of being seen as handcuffing the security agencies. “Whatever reforms he makes, you can be sure if there’s another incident — and the odds are there will be in our history — there’ll be someone on CNN within seconds saying if the president hadn’t hamstrung the intelligence community, this wouldn’t have happened,” Mr. Axelrod said...") 

Oh, and he also "... trusts himself to use these powers more than he did the Bush administration.” Clearly a man of deep conviction:

'

Random charts - ALPR

Source: Automated License Plate Recognition Systems: Policy and Operational Guidance for Law Enforcement

The "Good ID" - an update

Two blog entries 'Could the "Good ID" be better?' Part I and Part II reacted to the FDA's Draft Guidance for Industry on the global unique device identification database (GUDID), which was issued September 24, 2013. Well, the Association for Healthcare Resource & Materials Management (AHRMM) of the American Hospital Association has now commented on this as well...

Random charts - govt. regulation

Source: U.S. Views of Gov't Regulation Still Politically Polarized