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]
From time immemorial, Congress has drawn citizens' wrath by habitually taking the easy or popular route instead of the right or courageous path.
So when Congress pursues the proper but politically riskier course, we should collectively take note and applaud it.
Last week provided such an occasion when Congress utilized the Congressional Review Act (CRA), which was enacted in 1996 as part of the Contract with America, to overturn a defective "privacy" regulation imposed by the Obama Administration's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on a narrow party-line vote last…