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]
It may come as a surprise to many, but the United States imposes the developed world's highest corporate tax rate, with a combined federal and state average of 39.1%.
Exacerbating matters, our corporate tax code is a hopelessly complex and convoluted one. Among other defects, the U.S. code taxes not only domestic earnings, but overseas earnings as well, creating what Miles D. White of Abbott Laboratories describes as “a double whammy.” As a result, domestic companies facing withering global competition increasingly must reincorporate overseas in order to survive. …