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 Chief Justice John Roberts changed his vote – and his reasoning – to uphold ObamaCare in NFIB v. Sebelius (2012), he drew the ire of many conservatives. His most vocal critics were the four Supreme Court justices whose majority opinion became the dissent after Roberts jumped ship.
The quartet of Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito was angry that Roberts decided to modify ObamaCare instead of striking down its deficient parts as unconstitutional, and for good reason. “The Court today decides to save a statute Congress did not write,” argued the dissenters. Sometime…