RSS Feed MenuThe Manhattan Institute reminds us of this study of the Veterans Administration by Frank Lichtenberg of Columbia University and the National Bureau of Economic Research.
The VA saves money by using older drugs rather than the newest available.
Only 38% of the drugs approved in the 1990s, and 19% of the drugs approved by the FDA since 2000, are on the VA National Formulary. Only 22% (17) of the 77 priority-review drugs approved since 1997 are on the 2005 National Formulary.
The drugs used in the VA health system from 1999 to 2002 were older than the drugs used in the rest of the U.S. health-care system. For example, the percentages of VA and non-VA prescriptions for drugs less than five years old were 5.6% and 8.6%, respectively, and the percentages for drugs less than fifteen years old were 31.4% and 39.0%.
This choice saves money. But it also shortens lives.
This paper estimates the impact of the use of new drugs on longevity, based on annual data on Medicaid drug use and mortality by state, disease, and year, for all fifty states during the period 1991-2001. These estimates imply that increased use of older drugs in the VA system, as a result of the Formulary, has reduced mean age at death of its patients by 0.17 years, or 2.04 months; the value of this reduction in longevity may be nearly $25,000 per person.
Moreover, demographic data published by the VA indicate that the life expectancy of veterans increased substantially before the National Formulary was introduced (during 1991-97) but did not increase, and may even have declined, after it was introduced (1997-2002).
Veterans today. Everybody else tomorrow?
balconesfault // Jul 22, 2009 at 11:15 pm
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2669876
Do New Drugs Increase Life Expectancy? A Critique of a Manhattan Institute Paper
Dean Baker, PhD (Center for Economic and Policy Research) and
Adriane Fugh-Berman, MD (Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Georgetown University Medical Center)
A recent study published by the Manhattan Institute “Why Has Longevity Increased More in Some States than in Others? The Role of Medical Innovation and Other Factors,” purported to show that the more rapid adoption of new drugs has substantial benefits in the form of increased life expectancy, higher productivity and lower non-drug health care expenditures. This study has been cited as evidence supporting the more rapid acceptance of new drugs in Medicaid, Medicare, and other public programs and has helped to shape public debate on the value of new drugs. This analysis questions the key conclusions of the study. It points out that the key statistical regressions appear to be misspecified, since they show anomalies such as a negative correlation between income growth and life expectancy and find no relationship between education and productivity growth. Methodological flaws addressed include lack of adjustment for infant mortality rates; inadequate proxy measures of health status; lack of adjustment for ages of individuals and other sociodemographic factors; inherent problems with the definition of drug age, or ‘vintage;’ and the failure to consider reverse causation as an obvious explanation for several findings. The Manhattan Institute study does not provide reliable evidence for favoring adoption of newer drugs in either public or private health care programs.
ottovbvs // Jul 23, 2009 at 7:27 am
……..Manhattan institute “research” is usually polemics
sinz54 // Jul 23, 2009 at 9:49 am
In my case, drugs and treatments developed in the last decade have saved my life.
That ends the discussion, unless there are some liberals here who want to suggest that the nation is better off without me.
Veterans Today. Everybody Else Tomorrow? « Speaking My Mind // Jul 23, 2009 at 10:58 am
[...] Today. Everybody Else Tomorrow? Jump to Comments An Interesting article by New Majority. I’m not sure if I’m more afraid that they won’t find the cost savings they [...]