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Opinion By Jenn McNary
February 26, 2021 at 5:00 am ET
The drug pricing debate continues to rage on, both at the federal level – look to H.R. 3, seen in the House in 2019 that imported foreign pricing models, which a recent Congressional Budget Office report acknowledges relied on the Quality-Adjusted Life Year to score savings – and in the states, like in my home state of Massachusetts, where our Health Policy Commission has signed a contract with the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review to develop a framework to determine the “value” a drug. What perplexes me about this debate is that though there is messaging about “helping patients,” patients are consulted by policymakers or the press.
Monday, February 8, 2021
On January 1, 2021, Governor Charlie Baker signed an omnibus healthcare law entitled “An Act promoting a resilient health care system that puts patients first,” which is aimed at addressing pressing healthcare issues in Massachusetts, many of which have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The act addresses a wide variety of healthcare issues, such as surprise billing, advanced practitioner scope of practice, telehealth, mental health parity and healthcare accessibility. Governor Baker initially proposed several of these measures in late 2019 in “An Act to improve health care by investing in value.” While the January 2021 act incorporates many of the core concepts from the 2019 proposal, in some cases these concepts were substantially modified and new provisions (specifically, those related to addressing the COVID-19 pandemic) were introduced into the final version of the act. Key features of the act are summarized below.
OVERVIEW
On January 1, 2021, Governor Charlie Baker signed an omnibus healthcare law entitled “An Act promoting a resilient health care system that puts patients first,” which is aimed at addressing pressing healthcare issues in Massachusetts, many of which have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
IN DEPTH
The act addresses a wide variety of healthcare issues, such as surprise billing, advanced practitioner scope of practice, telehealth, mental health parity and healthcare accessibility. Governor Baker initially proposed several of these measures in late 2019 in “An Act to improve health care by investing in value.” While the January 2021 act incorporates many of the core concepts from the 2019 proposal, in some cases these concepts were substantially modified and new provisions (specifically, those related to addressing the COVID-19 pandemic) were introduced into the final version of the act. Key features of the act are summarized below.