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.