“DO TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES MAKE COST ESCALATION INEVITABLE?”

Health care spending has risen faster than gross domestic product for decades, in part due to advanced medical technologies. Patient advocates and policymakers are particularly concerned about gene therapies, which offer breakthrough results in many cases, but at extraordinary costs. We will explore recent analyses that quantify the expected increase in use of genome therapy in coming years and the corresponding costs. We will discuss characteristics of the U.S. health care system that contribute to these rising costs, as well as alternative payment methods for costly therapeutics that are being explored by public and private payers.

Biography

Vivian Ho, is the James A. Baker III Institute Chair in Health Economics, a professor in the Department of Economics at Rice University, and a professor in the Department of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. Ho’s research examines the effects of economic incentives and regulations on the quality and costs of health care. Her research is widely published in economics, medical and health services research journals. Ho’s research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the American Cancer Society. In 2020, Ho was elected as a member of the National Academy of Medicine. She has served on the board of Scientific Counselors for the National Center for Health Statistics, as well as on the NIH Health Services, Outcomes and Delivery study section. She is also a founding board member of the American Society for Health Economists and a board member for Community Health Choice. Ho received her A.B. in economics from Harvard University, a graduate diploma in economics from The Australian National University and a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University.