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]
Barack Obama had an open microphone and time to kill at Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, a scenario only slightly less distressing than learning that a serial arsonist is on the loose. What resulted was grandiose even by the standards of this endlessly self-referential chief executive: 65 minutes of blather punctuated by 75 personal pronouns (yes, you read that right – the president referred to himself more than once per minute).
This was the leader of the free world using the chamber of the House of Representatives to stage the beginning of his reelection campaign. How…