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 would be one helluva entertaining spectacle to watch liberals do back flips with budget numbers if the consequences weren’t so serious. Not even Cirque de Soleil performers are so acrobatic and adept at shape-shifting pyrotechnics. The left’s latest gambit is to claim that federal domestic discretionary spending, in context, is not extravagant, and indeed that an apples-to-apples comparison shows it hasn’t even risen in the past decade.
The claim is laughable.
Brian Beutler of Talking Points Memo publicized this assertion on July 4, providing service as an amanuensis…