Armed to the teeth with apps and wearable devices and New Year's zeal, Americans still appear to be turning to methods of old in a battle to lose a few pounds.
Driving the news: "The main players – WW International (formerly Weight Watchers International), Nutrisystem, Jenny Craig and Medifast – grew 18.1 percent to $3.11 billion in 2018," USA Today reports.
State and local Democrats are embracing a bigger role for public insurance programs — or at least, they want to be seen as embracing a bigger role for public insurance programs.
Driving the news: New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio put together an extensive media rollout yesterday for what he billed as a revolutionary plan to “guarantee health care for every New Yorker,” through a locally run public option.
Now that the Democrats have taken control of the House, their "Medicare for All" proposals are going to get hearings and scrutiny. One feature of Bernie Sanders' version that hasn't gotten a lot of attention yet, but it will: the plan has no deductibles or other forms of patient cost-sharing.
Why it matters: In a country where so many Americans are bedeviled by medical bills, especially people who are sick and use a lot of medical care, this would be a big deal. It would actually make our system more generous than any of the other developed nations that Democrats like to cite as models for our own.
Abbott Laboratories collects about 10% of its estimated $30 billion in annual revenue from China, and the health care conglomerate, known for its medical devices and infant formula, has no concerns about its Chinese business in light of Apple's relatively dismal fourth-quarter projections.
What they're saying: "We're not $1,400 iPhones," Abbott CFO Brian Yoor said at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. "Health care is a very sticky, very good place to be."
Two factors contribute to rising drug costs — price increases for existing drugs, and new drugs coming to market with high price tags.
The big picture: Each of those factors affects different parts of the market, according to a study published in the latest issue of Health Affairs. New products largely drive the cost increases for generics and specialty drugs, the study found, but price hikes on existing treatments drive the rising cost of brand-name drugs.
Newly seated California Gov. Gavin Newsom came out of the gate yesterday with an ambitious health care plan that would, per the Los Angeles Times, impose an individual mandate and expand insurance subsidies to more middle-income people.
Why it matters: California is a traditional leader on health policy, and finding out what's politically possible there will be a good sign of where Democrats might want to turn in other states, or if they regain unified control of Washington at some point. So far, New Jersey is leading the pack among blue states hoping to rebuild a version of the Affordable Care Act similar to what existed before the Trump administration, yet it hasn't necessarily seen great results.
As the nation's opioid crisis rages on, the majority of the two biggest killers — heroin and fentanyl — illegally enter the U.S. from other countries, enmeshing the opioid epidemic with the highly politicized fight over border security.
Between the lines: Building a wall wouldn't do much to stop opioid smuggling through legal ports of entry, but there's a more bipartisan effort under way to improve interdiction capacity at the border.
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