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]
Stop me if you've heard this before. It's a tragically recurring tale.
As an economic bubble gradually forms, everything appears to be going well. The tech sector. The housing sector. Healthcare. Then inevitably, the bubble becomes unsustainable, and bursts. A recession often ensues. Somehow everyone seems surprised, as if things were going to be different this time. We thought we had figured it out after the last bubble. Hadn't new laws been passed and new bureaucracies created to prevent this from happening again?
Terrified…