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The Republican frontrunner's plan did not say how some of its proposals would be paid for in the federal budget, and parts of it were at odds were previous statements in support of requiring coverage for pre-existing conditions.

What we're reading, March 3, 2016: additional funding for the opioid abuse bill was shot down in the Senate; Donald Trump releases his plan to replace Obamacare; and Christine Cassel, MD, discusses designing a new medical school.

Study finds no statistically significant duration in the use of mechanical ventilation for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease who took acetazolamide, but there was a clinically significant difference.

The Diabetes Telehealth Network has a goal of enrolling 200 patients and providing remote care for 18 months. Results from the first 100 patients show not a single readmission; the project found 18 cases of diabetic retinopathy that would have otherwise been missed.

Two studies presented at the recently concluded 2016 Quality Care Symposium, hosted by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, proved that hospital-based palliative care programs achieve their proposed objectives.

Primary care physicians correctly estimate medication adherence of their Medicare patients only half of the time and usually overestimate adherence rates, according to a new study.

Imbruvica, developed by Janssen for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia who are unsuitable to receive chemo-immunotherapy, has been rejected by UK’s National Institute of Health and Care Excellence.

What we're reading, March 2, 2016: FDA commissioner pledges stronger efforts to develop harder-to-abuse painkillers; Olympus Corp. agrees to largest settlement for violating anti-kickback laws; and the Supreme Court hears Texas abortion case with just 8 members on the bench.

Major health information technology (IT) developers and the government are coming together to improve the flow of health information.

The authors said the incidence rates in type 1 diabetes compared with type 2 show that insulin treatment is not to blame for increased cancer rates.

The pharmaceutical industry needs to rethink its approach to packaging cancer drugs into a one-size vial to avoid drug wastage and save over $1.7 billion in 2016.

What we're reading, March 1, 2016: physicians greet Merck's new hepatitis C drug with caution; 20% of Puerto Ricans could be infected with the Zika virus in 2016; and nearly $3 billion wasted in cancer medicines.

The report found that in 2013 the price for the average therapy rose 9.4%, while inflation only rose 1.5%. Social Security benefit increases are pegged to overall inflation, not drug prices.

The event saw participation by patient advocacy groups, health economists, health policy researchers, and patient advocacy groups-the primary interest of the participants was to identify the healthcare-associated economic hardships faced by patients and their caregivers across therapeutic areas and discuss potential solutions that could help alleviate some of this burden.

As the health insurance markets continue to evolve, CMS today released the final rule to set standards for plans and the health insurance marketplaces.

CMS said Iowa had made substantial progress since December 2015, but its approval letter laid out several conditions to protect beneficiaries.

New research indicates that spending is relatively higher when care is initiated in the hospital outpatient department setting compared with the physician's office or an ambulatory surgical center.

What we're reading, February 29, 2016: hospital readmission declines tied to Obamacare program; Medicare negotiating powers may not have a large impact; and Aetna is on board with Affordable Care Act exchanges again.

The results at 2 years show that aflibercept, marketed as Eylea, have benefits over bevacizumab for patients who start treatment with vision of 20/50 or worse.

Research led by investigators at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center has concluded that adjuvant chemotherapy improved survival compared with patients who received adjuvant chemoradiation in pancreatic cancer.

New research found nearly all highly ranked regional hospitals to be in network with at least one marketplace plan in both 2015 and 2016.

A large Hollywood hospital was hit with a catastrophe straight out of its own Hollywood movie last month, when a malware attack on its internal network led to a system-wide shutdown. The attack is part of a growing pandemic hitting health systems.

While survey results show that belief in the importance of comparative effectiveness research is largely solid, its impact is yet to be realized or acknowledged by stakeholders in the United States.

The top stories in managed care this week include findings on cancer survival disparities, CVS Health claimed drug spending growth slowed in 2015, and Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey's OMNIA plan is interfering with existing patient-centered medical homes.

As millions of patients nationwide increasingly gain access to clinicians’ notes, explicit e-mail invitations to review notes may be an important link in fostering patient engagement and patient-doctor communication, according to a new study.

Women hospitalized with coronary artery disease are less likely to receive optimal care at discharge compared with men and African Americans have an elevated risk of mortality compared with white patients, study finds.

GAO found that the first challenge to improving hospital safety can be getting good data about one's own institution.

Mann spent $1 billion of his own money to bring Afrezza to market. The Los Angeles Times reported he died in Las Vegas.

Pay-for-performance (P4P) programs have the potential to improve overall quality of care and the prevalence of these programs has increased in the last 15 years. Here are 5 things to know about P4P and how it can impact healthcare in the move to value-based care.

What we're reading, February 26, 2016: drug makers are facing pressure to calculate the cost of extending a patient's life; a look at how addiction is viewed and treated in the US; and staving off the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease.