Health Care Innovation
Drug Pricing
ISSUE BRIEF: ICER Analyses Are Flawed, Undervalue Life-Saving Medicines, and Are Biased Toward Price Controls
A commonly-used analysis to determine a medicine’s value is based on flawed methodologies that would diminish innovation and access, finds a new report released today by the nonpartisan Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the Pacific Research Institute. “Cost effectiveness reports may provide precise estimates, but there is no ...
Wayne H Winegarden
March 17, 2021
Commentary
Frivolous Patent Litigation Threatens The Technology Revolution
Patent trolls have been a plague on innovators for too long. Patent trolls are entities that obtain patents (sometimes obscure patents) for the sole purpose of threatening or filing lawsuits in court and then using the prospect of costly litigation to extort unwarranted payouts from an innovative company. The risks ...
Wayne Winegarden
March 4, 2021
Commentary
President Biden’s Bipartisan Opportunity to Reduce Patients’ Drug Costs
BY ROBERT POPOVIAN & WAYNE WINEGARDEN President Joe Biden should take advantage of a bipartisan opportunity to meaningfully reduce patients’ out-of-pocket spending on biopharmaceuticals. Seizing this opportunity requires the president to recognize that the drug cost problem exists because the current system inappropriately shifts too much of its expenditures to patients. Consider that ...
Pacific Research Institute
March 1, 2021
Health Care
Healthcare Policy During COVID-19 – Sacramento Policy Conference
This podcast is a recording of the health care panel discussion at PRI’s virtual Sacramento Policy Conference. Our All-Star panelists include Sally Pipes, PRI President, CEO, and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy; Wayne Winegarden, PRI senior fellow in business and economics and director of PRI’s Center for ...
Pacific Research Institute
February 22, 2021
Commentary
Biden’s health care plans – this is what Americans can expect from Democrats
Last week, President Joe Biden signed executive orders that will re-open ObamaCare’s insurance exchanges from Feb. 15 through May 15 and direct federal agencies to re-examine some of the health care rules enacted by the Trump administration. There’s a limit to what Biden can accomplish by executive action. But with narrow control of Congress, there’s still plenty ...
Sally C. Pipes
February 1, 2021
Blog
It’s the Payment System
Effectively addressing the drug affordability problem requires an understanding of its causes. Toward this end, the rhetoric of Matt Eyles, the president and chief executive of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), is unhelpful. According to Eyles, “Americans are being hurt by out-of-control drug prices, which are set and fully controlled ...
Wayne Winegarden
January 19, 2021
Commentary
Biden officials threaten to jumpstart single-payer health care systems
Move over, Bidencare. Single-payer health care could be coming to the United States. President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, is a longtime supporter of Medicare for All. If confirmed, he’ll have the power to approve waivers that would allow states ...
Sally C. Pipes
January 14, 2021
California
A Single-Payer Healthcare System Would Have Made the Pandemic Worse
The intended-to-scare-readers headline said “California hospitals discuss rationing care as virus surges.” And it should frighten anyone who saw it. Though not necessarily for the reason the headline writer had in mind. The alarmist string of words topped a Dec. 21 Associated Press story, which warned that “overwhelmed hospitals” in ...
Kerry Jackson
January 4, 2021
Drug Pricing
NEW BRIEF: Tearing Down Drug ‘Rebate Walls’ Would Save Patients, Improve Health Care Outcomes
Tearing down drug “rebate walls” that increase patient costs and block access to cheaper and often more effective medications would increase competition, lower out-of-pocket costs, and improve health outcomes, finds a new brief released today by the Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the nonpartisan Pacific Research Institute. Click ...
Wayne Winegarden
December 9, 2020
Commentary
For HHS post Biden taps ObamaCare’s lead defender – don’t expect him to be a moderate
President-elect Joe Biden announced Monday that he plans to nominate California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to be his Secretary of Health and Human Services. It’s a conventional, if unexpected, pick. The Washington rumor mill had New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo as the front-runners to lead HHS until ...
Sally C. Pipes
December 8, 2020
ISSUE BRIEF: ICER Analyses Are Flawed, Undervalue Life-Saving Medicines, and Are Biased Toward Price Controls
A commonly-used analysis to determine a medicine’s value is based on flawed methodologies that would diminish innovation and access, finds a new report released today by the nonpartisan Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the Pacific Research Institute. “Cost effectiveness reports may provide precise estimates, but there is no ...
Frivolous Patent Litigation Threatens The Technology Revolution
Patent trolls have been a plague on innovators for too long. Patent trolls are entities that obtain patents (sometimes obscure patents) for the sole purpose of threatening or filing lawsuits in court and then using the prospect of costly litigation to extort unwarranted payouts from an innovative company. The risks ...
President Biden’s Bipartisan Opportunity to Reduce Patients’ Drug Costs
BY ROBERT POPOVIAN & WAYNE WINEGARDEN President Joe Biden should take advantage of a bipartisan opportunity to meaningfully reduce patients’ out-of-pocket spending on biopharmaceuticals. Seizing this opportunity requires the president to recognize that the drug cost problem exists because the current system inappropriately shifts too much of its expenditures to patients. Consider that ...
Healthcare Policy During COVID-19 – Sacramento Policy Conference
This podcast is a recording of the health care panel discussion at PRI’s virtual Sacramento Policy Conference. Our All-Star panelists include Sally Pipes, PRI President, CEO, and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy; Wayne Winegarden, PRI senior fellow in business and economics and director of PRI’s Center for ...
Biden’s health care plans – this is what Americans can expect from Democrats
Last week, President Joe Biden signed executive orders that will re-open ObamaCare’s insurance exchanges from Feb. 15 through May 15 and direct federal agencies to re-examine some of the health care rules enacted by the Trump administration. There’s a limit to what Biden can accomplish by executive action. But with narrow control of Congress, there’s still plenty ...
It’s the Payment System
Effectively addressing the drug affordability problem requires an understanding of its causes. Toward this end, the rhetoric of Matt Eyles, the president and chief executive of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), is unhelpful. According to Eyles, “Americans are being hurt by out-of-control drug prices, which are set and fully controlled ...
Biden officials threaten to jumpstart single-payer health care systems
Move over, Bidencare. Single-payer health care could be coming to the United States. President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, is a longtime supporter of Medicare for All. If confirmed, he’ll have the power to approve waivers that would allow states ...
A Single-Payer Healthcare System Would Have Made the Pandemic Worse
The intended-to-scare-readers headline said “California hospitals discuss rationing care as virus surges.” And it should frighten anyone who saw it. Though not necessarily for the reason the headline writer had in mind. The alarmist string of words topped a Dec. 21 Associated Press story, which warned that “overwhelmed hospitals” in ...
NEW BRIEF: Tearing Down Drug ‘Rebate Walls’ Would Save Patients, Improve Health Care Outcomes
Tearing down drug “rebate walls” that increase patient costs and block access to cheaper and often more effective medications would increase competition, lower out-of-pocket costs, and improve health outcomes, finds a new brief released today by the Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the nonpartisan Pacific Research Institute. Click ...
For HHS post Biden taps ObamaCare’s lead defender – don’t expect him to be a moderate
President-elect Joe Biden announced Monday that he plans to nominate California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to be his Secretary of Health and Human Services. It’s a conventional, if unexpected, pick. The Washington rumor mill had New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo as the front-runners to lead HHS until ...