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New postings and analysis from Health Affairs, the leading journal of health policy. Health Affairs publishes new research each week online at www.healthaffairs.org. For more information, contact Chris Fleming at 301-347-3944.

Health Affairs Focuses On Mental Health
Available May 9 at www.healthaffairs.org

The May/June issue of Health Affairs, to be released May 9, is a thematic volume entitled "Mental Health: Progress And Pitfalls." Articles in the issue, funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, address topics such as trends in community services for the mentally ill; how the structure of the new Part D Medicare drug benefit is likely to affect the mentally ill; and how requiring parity in mental health care coverage would affect costs.


Study: Price Cuts Expand Coverage In Individual Market Only Modestly
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/hlthaff.25.w226

Premium subsidies have only modest effects on overall participation in the individual health insurance market, RAND Corporation senior economist Susan Marquis and coauthors report in a Health Affairs Web Exclusive published May 2. Based on their analysis of the California individual market, Marquis and coauthors argue that attacking nonprice barriers, especially the difficulty of obtaining information, could increase individual market participation as much as, if not more than, price subsidies.


Innovator Biologics Will Need Nonpatent Protection Against Generics, Says Study
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/25/2/394

If Congress extends a Hatch-Waxman-type framework to biologics, Bruce Manheim and coauthors write in the March/April Health Affairs, the complex nature of these protein products is likely to mean that a generic biologic manufacturer will be required to show only that its product is sufficiently similar to the innovator product, not identical to it as a generic drugmaker must demonstrate. A generic biologic might meet this similarity requirement without infringing on the innovator patent, which is why Congress should establish a twelve-year period of nonpatent market exclusivity for innovator biologics, the authors argue.

Print editions of Health Affairs may be ordered for $35 each from Health Affairs' Customer Service at 301-347-3900 or online at www.healthaffairs.org/1330_issue.php.


ABOUT HEALTH AFFAIRS:

Health Affairs, published by Project HOPE, is the leading journal of health policy. The peer-reviewed journal appears bimonthly in print with additional online-only papers published weekly as Health Affairs Web Exclusives at www.healthaffairs.org. The full text of each Health Affairs Web Exclusive is available free of charge to all Web site visitors for a two-week period following posting, after which it switches to pay-per-view for nonsubscribers. The abstracts of all articles are free in perpetuity. Web Exclusives are supported in part by a grant from the Commonwealth Fund.

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