Caremark, CVS Deal Draws Closer
Nashville, TN -- Caremark Rx, Inc. and
CVS are closer to sealing their merger deal. Caremark has mailed supplemental
disclosures regarding shareholder appraisal rights and the structure of fees
to its financial advisors. A shareholder vote is to follow, due to a decision
by the Delaware Court of Chancery not to enjoin the CVS/Caremark merger.
Caremark said the merger offers "shareholders significant near-term value, as
well as long-term strategic and financial benefits."
Harris Poll Tracks Some Disturbing Health Trends
Rochester, NY -- A Harris Poll
tracking U.S. adults' health risks and healthy and unhealthy behaviors has
uncovered more bad news than good. The good news is that seat belt use in the
front seats of cars continues to increase, and smoking has declined.
Unfortunately, these findings were offset by the news smoking is relatively
modest and has not changed significantly in the last 10 years. Some of the
decrease in smoking is due to bans on smoking in offices and public spaces.
More disturbingly, the findings also revealed that obesity continues to rise
dramatically. On average, from 1983 to 1985, 59% of adults 25 and older were
overweight, and from 2006 to 2007, 81% were overweight. The researchers
estimate that more than 80 million American adults are now obese, with no
reason to believe that this number will not continue to increase.
Study Shows Higher Drug Co-Pays Lead to Less
Adherence
Ann Arbor, Mich. -- According to a
study from Thomson Medstat, which was published in the American Journal of
Managed Care, patients who face higher out-of-pocket expenses for
cholesterol-lowering drugs are less likely to take their medication and more
likely to end up in the emergency room or a hospital bed. The study found that
patients who adhered to their drug regimens had higher prescription drug
expenditures, but because they had fewer emergency episodes, their total
health care costs were not significantly different from non-adherent patients.
According to the researchers, a $10 increase in co-payment was associated with
an 8.9% and an 11.9% decrease in the probability of adherence for new and
long-term users of statin drugs, respectively.
Credit Card Debt Linked to Medical Expenses
New York -- Based on data from a
national survey of low- and middle-income households with credit card debt,
those who identified medical expenses as a factor in their credit card
balances had much higher credit card debt than those who did not. The study
uncovered that Americans with insurance increasingly find themselves to be
paying unmanageable out-of-pocket expenses for health care, without assets or
income safety nets to cover the extra, and often significant, costs. The
survey was conducted by the public policy groups Demos and the Access Project.
Among the medically indebted, young adults between the ages of 19 and 34 had
the highest level of average credit card debt ($13,303) of any age group.
Credit card debt levels of medically indebted young adults were also
considerably higher than those of non-medically indebted young adults.
