“It’s the prices, stupid,” Uwe E. Reinhardt and authors famously wrote in their 2003 article describing the cause of high health care spending in the United States.1 Since then, multiple large analyses have confirmed that the prices of labor and goods, including pharmaceuticals and administrative costs, more so than differences in utilization, are the primary drivers of high health care spending.2,3
Bits of good news for NIH flickered consistently over the past week.
