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]
If the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of association means anything at all, it should mean the freedom not to associate. If we respect freedom of speech, Americans should reject any compulsion whatsoever in political speech. And if the government is going to force you to do something, it better have an awfully good reason for it.
Freedom of speech and association are at the core of Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, which challenges public-employee unions’ right to collect “agency shop fees” for collective bargaining purposes. Rebecca Friedrichs, an…