Benefits and Costs of Newer Drugs: An UpdateFrank Lichtenberg
NBER Working Paper No. 8996 We update and extend our previous study of the effect of drug age -- years since FDA approval -- on total medical expenditure, in several respects. The estimates indicate that, in the entire population, a reduction in the age of drugs utilized reduces non-drug expenditure 7.2 times as much as it increases drug expenditure. In the Medicare population, a reduction in the age of drugs utilized reduces non-drug expenditure by all payers 8.3 times as much as it increases drug expenditure; it reduces Medicare non-drug expenditure 6.0 times as much as it increases drug expenditure. About two-thirds of the non-drug Medicare cost reduction is due to reduced hospital costs. The remaining third is approximately evenly divided between reduced Medicare home health care cost and reduced Medicare office-visit cost. We also found that the mean age of drugs used by Medicare enrollees with private Rx insurance is about 9% lower than the mean age of drugs used by Medicare enrollees without either private or public Rx insurance. An NBER digest for this paper is available. The NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health provides summaries of publications like this.
You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email. Published: Frank R. Lichtenberg, 2007. "Benefits and costs of newer drugs: an update," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(4-5), pages 485-490. This paper is available as PDF (67 K) or via email.
|

Contact Us








