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]
Unable to defend their governance with citation to substantive achievement, liberals frequently resort to comparing Barack Obama’s approval rating with Ronald Reagan’s at this point in his tenure.
Unfortunately for Obama, such comparisons are inapposite. They begin to highlight the two presidents’ differing trajectories, as well as the healthy optimism engendered by Reagan versus the destructive pessimism Obama sows.
If one focuses narrowly upon Gallup approval snapshots, Obama’s August 2010 rating of 43% does compare slightly favorably to Reagan’s 41%…