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]
If you're working in an office or eating in a restaurant and someone 30 feet away exhales tiny particles of coronavirus, those particles can drift across the room and infect you. Picture cigarette smoke wafting across a room. Same thing. The precautions agencies like the World Health Organization and the federal CDC are telling you to take against this virus aren't good enough. Social distancing – placing desks and restaurant tables six feet apart – and washing your hands won't protect you from this airborne virus.
That's not fear-mongering. It's science. New research from…