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]
Modern liberalism is a faith defined by the belief that reality is whatever the state says it is. Thus has President Barack Obama often stated his intention to make “clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.” Over time, the American public has become so anesthetized to this sort of rhetoric that it has assumed an air of plausibility. But Obama may as well have pronounced his intention to make Porsches America’s most affordable cars. Presidential fiat cannot rewrite the rules of economics.
The marquee example of this principle is the centerpiece…