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]
This month, The Wall Street Journal celebrated its 130th anniversary by republishing salient articles spanning that period, including this retrospectively illuminating report from February 2, 1978:
A climatic disaster, triggered by the continued burning of oil and coal, could result in the submergence of much of Florida, Holland and other low-lying areas in the next 50 years, an Ohio State University scientist predicted… “I contend that a major disaster – a rapid five-meter rise in sea level caused by deglaciation of West Antarctica – may be imminent or in…