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Recent policy and other initiatives aim to reduce spending on prescription drugs. At the federal level, the Inflation Reduction Act targets reductions in drug spending in Medicare through price negotiation, capping out-of-pocket spending by patients, and requiring drug manufacturers to pay rebates when prices rise faster than inflation. At the state level, there are initiatives to increase drug pr...

Biologic drugs represent advances in medical research and treatment but are a major driver of drug spending in the United States. Spending on biologics increased by 50% between 2014 and 2018 in the U.S. even though just 2% of Americans used them. Biosimilars, clinically equivalent, lower-cost versions of original biologic drugs, analogous to generic versions of brand name "small molecule" drugs, c...

Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV are medications that reduce an individual's chances of contracting HIV. The CDC estimates that 1.2 million people are at risk of HIV infection and may benefit from a PrEP prescription. We analyzed health insurance claims for 55 million Americans with employer-sponsored insurance in order to examine utilization and spending on these drugs between 2016 and 202...

Total spending on drugs includes spending on prescription drugs (typically oral medications prescribed by a physician, picked up by a patient at a local pharmacy, and taken at home) and administered drugs (typically injected or infused under the supervision of a health care professional either in an outpatient facility or physician office). In HCCI's Health Care Cost and Utilization Repo...

HCCI's President and CEO Niall Brennan was quoted in a Kaiser Health News article on the CMS Transparency in Coverage Final Rule.  From the article:  " 'If the information is presented to consumers so they realize they are paying a higher price without the benefit of the rebates, you'll get a lot of angry consumers,' said Niall Brennan, CEO of the Health Care Cost Ins...

 HCCI's research with iFHP on international comparisons of health care prices was cited in an article in The New York Times on COVID-19 test prices.  From the article:  "How can a simple coronavirus test cost $100 in one lab and 2,200 percent more in another? It comes back to a fundamental fact about the American health care system: The government does not regulate health care price...

Per-Person Health Care Spending Grew 18% from 2014 to 2018, Driven Mostly by Prices After remaining stable for several years, utilization increased slightly in 2018 Access the report here. WASHINGTON D.C. — Average employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) spending rose to $5,892 per person in 2018, according to the Health Care Cost Institute's annual Health Care Cost and Utilization Report, which analyz...

HCCI's work with iFHP on international comparisons of health care prices was featured in a New York Times article.   In the U.S., an Angioplasty Costs $32,000. Elsewhere? Maybe $6,400. - The New York Times Enter some description here... https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/27/upshot/expensive-health-care-world-comparison.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

HCCI's work with iFHP on international comparisons of health care price was featured in a Vox article.   America’s health care costs problem, explained in 4 charts - Vox America’s health care prices problem, in four charts. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/12/17/21024614/us-health-care-costs-medical-prices

The International Federation of Health Plans (iFHP), a CEO network of the global health insurance industry based in London, in partnership with the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) in the United States, and iFHP member companies in eight countries, today published the latest International Comparison of Health Prices Report. The report compares the median prices paid by a sample of private he...

We previously published two blogs discussing trends in out-of-pocket spending on insulin products. First, we presented data illustrating how average monthly out-of-pocket spending in 2017 varied considerably by month, particularly for individuals enrolled in consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs) that carry higher deductibles. Second, we examined the relationship between increasing point-of-sale p...

Earlier this week we presented data on out-of-pocket spending on insulin during each month in 2017. In that blog, we showed that enrollees in employer-sponsored health insurance paid more out-of-pocket for insulin products at the beginning of the calendar year. We examined the relationship between increasing point-of-sale prices for insulin and higher out-of-pocket spending in January for a subset...

People who get health insurance through their jobs pay more than twice as much for insulin at the beginning of the year than they do at the end of the year, on average. New analysis of HCCI data shows that, nationally, in January 2017, average out-of-pocket spending on insulin was $105. This spending declined every month throughout the calendar year, likely as enrollees met their annual deductible...

Spending per person in employer-sponsored plans reaches all-time high of $6,335 Health care spending for the average New Yorker with employer-sponsored health insurance is increasing faster in New York State than the rest of the country, according to a new analysis released today by the New York State Health Foundation (NYSHealth) and the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI). Per-person spending grew...

HCCI's research on rising insulin list prices was recently cited by The New York Times in its reporting on Express Scripts' new plan to offer a $25 cap for month insulin. From the article: "Consumers whose drug benefits are managed by Express Scripts could see their out-of-pocket costs for insulin limited to $25 a month under a plan announced on Wednesday. The move is aimed at addressing rising an...

Watch the Webinar HCCI recently held a webinar to discuss the 2017 Annual Health Care Cost and Utilization Report.    Download PDF File Here

The 2017 Health Care Cost and Utilization Report shows that spending per privately insured person grew by 4.2 percent, the second year in a row of spending growth over four percent. Price increases were the primary driver. The report covers the period 2013 through 2017 and includes claims data from four national insurance companies: Aetna, Humana, Kaiser Permanente, and UnitedH...

 HCCI's recent report on trends in rising insulin prices received additional media coverage in the last week in outlets including NBC, CBS, CNN, The New York Times, The Hill, U.S. News & World Report, and USA Today.  From CNN: "Congress and the Trump administration continue to push for a drug pricing plan and were given more ammunition Tuesday in the form of a report documenting...

​HCCI's latest research on rising insulin prices was recently featured in Reuters. HCCI's report detailed both use and price trends of insulin used by those with type 1 diabetes from 2012 to 2016. Per Reuters article: "A person with type 1 diabetes incurred annual insulin costs of $5,705, on average, in 2016. The average cost was roughly half that at $2,864 per patient in 2012, according to a...

We used health care claims data to investigate trends in total health care spending on individuals with type 1 diabetes between 2012 and 2016. We found a rapid increase in total health care spending, driven primarily by gross spending on insulin that doubled over the period. During that time insulin use rose only modestly. While the composition of insulins used shifted, the price of all types of i...

ABSTRACT Using a national sample of health care claims data from the Health Care Cost Institute, we found that total spending per capita (not including premiums) on health services for enrollees in employer-sponsored insurance plans increased by 44 percent from 2007 through 2016 (average annual growth of 4.1 percent). Spending increased across all major categories of health services, although the ...

The 2016 Health Care Cost and Utilization Report shows that spending per privately insured person grew by 4.6 percent, faster than in previous years. Price increases were the primary driver. The report covers the period 2012 through 2016 and includes claims data from four national insurance companies: Aetna, Humana, Kaiser Permanente, and UnitedHealthcare.​  The data in the report can al...

In a recent issue brief, HCCI found that the already high cost of care for people with multiple sclerosis (MS) rose dramatically over the past several years. The primary driver was the increasing cost of a small group of prescription drugs called Disease Modifying Therapies (DMTs). To illustrate the role prescription drug prices play in driving overall health care spending for people with MS, we d...

By: John Gregory  Between 2009 and 2015, spending on patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) greatly increased, with disease modifying therapies (DMTs) accounting for 82 percent of that increase as prices jumped every year and use slightly declined. The report from the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) examined claims for people with MS from 2009 to 2015 covered by individual market, employer-s...

This issue brief investigates how the cost of prescription drugs affects the total cost of care for people with multiple sclerosis (MS). It decomposes total health care spending by category, specifically separating out spending on specialty drugs used to treat MS, called Disease Modifying Therapies (DMTs). The issue brief subsequently examines whether changes in spending on DMTs are due to changes...