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]
On Friday, the Democratic Party unveiled its 2016 national platform, promising to put "a middle-class life within the reach of more Americans." Unfortunately, the party's proposals will do the opposite. They will slow economic growth, prevent millions of people from advancing up the economic ladder and hold back their children, too.
Democrats claim America's gravest problem is extreme inequality. That misses the target. Americans who are stuck on the bottom rungs of the ladder are justifiably angry. Not because the rich have more, but because the system seems rigged to prevent them from…