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]
When most Americans think of the Federal Reserve, to the extent that they do at all, they naturally associate it with its primary role of stabilizing our currency through regulation of the nation’s money supply.
And even on that task, the Fed’s performance record is debatable, to put it charitably.
Given its spotty record in accomplishing its primary job, it would strike most Americans as bizarre to learn that the Fed might consider expanding its role in American life by entering the realm of real-time payment networks between people and financial institutions, a job the…