As Senate Finance Committee Convenes on Healthcare Costs, First Do No Harm
As the United States Senate Finance Committee convenes today for a meeting entitled "The Rising Cost of Health Care: Considering Meaningful Solutions for All Americans," the enduring adage of medical care applies: Do no harm.
Specifically, as we've detailed at CFIF, we must especially avoid potentially catastrophic ideas like drug price controls (whether through so-called "Most Favored Nation" (MFN) programs or any other) and violations of patent and intellectual property (IP) protections in which the United States leads the world. Indeed, our more free-market approach explains why America leads the world in lifesaving healthcare innovation, accounting for an astonishing two-thirds of all new drugs introduced to the world each year:
The reasons that MFN schemes would only exacerbate…[more]
As with December 7 and September 11, that calendar date remains salient in American memory, particularly for anyone who recalls exactly where they were in 1963 upon learning of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
In addition to solemn remembrance, however, November 22 also brings an annual tide of mindless conspiracy theories that corrode our collective remembrance. Six decades after the assassination, more than twice as many Americans believe in a conspiracy than the reality that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. (Fortunately, younger Americans actually appear…