THE ECONOMIC RAMIFICATIONS OF CURES
along to Medicare beneficiaries who don ’ t have hepatitis C , in the form of higher deductibles and maximum outof-pocket costs , said Jack Hoadley , a research professor in the Health Policy Institute at Georgetown University .
For example , next year the standard drug deductible in the program — the amount a patient has to spend before coverage kicks in — will increase to $ 360 from $ 320 .
The out-of-pocket maximum , at which catastrophic coverage begins , is also going up to $ 4,800 from $ 4,700 . Beyond that , insurance company premiums may also increase somewhat , though increases could be offset by changes in the use of other drugs . Rates have not yet been announced for 2016 .
Is There a Solution ? Unsustainable growth in medical spending has sparked interest in the question of whether prevention saves money and could be the answer to the health care crisis . But the question misses the point . What should matter ( for both prevention and treatment services ) is value – the health benefit per dollar invested .
An option of longstanding interest is prevention – interventions that prevent or delay the occurrence of the very diseases that drive these costs . There are three kinds of prevention .
Primary prevention can be accomplished by modifying unhealthy behaviors ( e . g ., smoking , physical inactivity ), which cause many diseases and account for 38
‘ next year the standard drug deductible in the program — the amount a patient has to spend before coverage kicks in — will increase to $ 360 from $ 320 ’
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