The FEHBlog forgot to mention two items in last night’s post:

• Yesterday, Express Scripts, the large prescription drug manager, released its 2012 Drug Trend report which found that for the first time in 20 years the level of spending on traditional / small molecule prescription drugs decreased in 2012 compared to 2011 largely due to an explosion of brand name to generic conversions in block buster drugs like Lipitor. However, the level of spending on specialty / large molecule drugs continues to increase in part because there is still no regulatory pathway to generic or biosimilar versions of these specialty drugs. The European Union created such a pathway about ten years ago. The ACA gave the FDA the greenlight to create such a pathway here. Almost three years later, no such pathway has been established. 
• The Labor Department has created an ACA self-compliance tool for health plans. The tool illustrates the delightful complexity of the ACA.