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]
Try this thought experiment: You are sitting on a pile of cash or cash-equivalents. You are worried about the overall economy, and particularly about your nation’s debt. Inflation is almost nonexistent right now, but you know the most common way for nations to pay off debt is to inflate their currency. Your cash, therefore, may lose value – and it sure as heck won’t grow appreciably, even in the highest-yield CD you can find, because right now interest rates are negligible. In fact, the central bank’s official interest rates are, for all intents and purposes, zero. Big banks…