About pharma
Mallinckrodt files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy: “Opioid claims against the company are to be channeled into one or more trusts which would receive $1.6 billion in structured payments. The company also agreed to pay $260 million over seven years to settle claims it knowingly underpaid Medicaid for Acthar.
In the bankruptcy filing, Mallinckrodt listed both assets and liabilities in the range of $1 billion to $10 billion.
The company will continue to operate as normal as it restructures for bankruptcy.”
Health officials scrambling to produce Trump's ‘last-minute’ drug cards by Election Day:”Caught by surprise by President Donald Trump’s promise to deliver drug-discount cards to seniors, health officials are scrambling to get the nearly $8 billion plan done by Election Day, according to five officials and draft documents obtained by POLITICO.”
About health insurance
Trends in Subsidized and Unsubsidized Enrollment [for ACA Exchange Plans]: Among the findings in this report from CMS:
“From plan years 2016 to 2019, unsubsidized enrollment declined by 2.8 million people, representing a 45 percent drop nationally. At the state level, the percentage change in unsubsidized enrollment over this period ranged from a 4 percent drop in Rhode Island to a 90 percent drop in Iowa.
The most recent year of enrollment data shows that average monthly enrollment across the individual market nationally decreased by 3 percent between 2018 and 2019.”
Fewer Medicare Advantage plans scored high quality ratings :”Of the 400 Advantage plans with prescription drug coverage that received a rating, roughly 49% earned four stars or higher on a scale of one to five stars, with five being the highest. For 2020 plans, 52% scored four stars or more.” This data is on number of plans as opposed to numbers who enroll in high quality plans (see October 9’s health insurance section).
About the public’s health
The Sweden Myth— How did the country outperform everybody on COVID-19? That's easy -- it didn't: The headline speaks for itself but the article has specifics.
Coronavirus survives for almost a month on cash and phones, study finds: “Australian agency says pathogen stays infectious for ‘significantly longer’ on smooth surfaces.”
Two Black university leaders urged their campuses to join a Covid-19 vaccine trial. The backlash was swift: “The episode illustrates the challenges historically Black colleges and universities face as they seek to leverage their legacies of trust within African American communities to bolster lagging Black enrollment in Covid-19 vaccine clinical trials. Their recruitment efforts will need to overcome the deep-seated suspicions many Black Americans hold toward medical researchers, pharmaceutical companies, and the government that stem from long-standing racial injustices perpetrated by those institutions.
Now, as the four HBCU medical colleges prepare to host Covid-19 vaccine trials on their campuses, there’s hope their efforts will have more success.”