Health Care
Commentary
Middlemen Are Ripping Off State Medicaid Programs
Kentucky’s Democratic attorney general just launched an investigation to determine if middlemen in the prescription drug supply chain are ripping off the state’s Medicaid program. He’s almost certainly onto something. These middlemen, known as pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, administer drug benefit plans for Medicaid, Medicare Part D, and private insurers. In theory, ...
Sally C. Pipes
March 27, 2019
Health Care
Read Sally Pipes in Kaiser Health News Story on Federal Judge Blocking Medicaid Work Requirements
Federal Judge Again Blocks Medicaid Work Requirements By Phil Galewitz For a second time in nine months, the same federal judge has struck down the Trump administration’s plan to force some Medicaid recipients to work to maintain benefits. The ruling Wednesday by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg blocks Kentuckyfrom implementing the ...
Pacific Research Institute
March 27, 2019
Business & Economics
Wayne Winegarden Medical Device Tax Study Cited in Fox News Opinion Article
Health care costs will rise unless Congress blocks harmful tax By Ross Marchand The American people – and just about all our elected officials – frequently and justifiably complain about the high cost of health care. But unless Congress acts, a tax increase on medical devices will take effect Jan. 1 ...
Pacific Research Institute
March 20, 2019
Commentary
Keep counterfeit drugs out of Florida
Florida’s House budget panel this week greenlit a bill that would allow the state to buy drugs from Canada. Lawmakers are poised to debate a companion bill in the Senate in the coming weeks. If the bill becomes law, officials would almost certainly need permission from the U.S. Department of Health ...
Sally C. Pipes
March 20, 2019
Commentary
A $44,000 Surgery Can Cost Just $16,000 Somewhere Else for One Reason: Competition
A hip replacement in Maine can run north of $44,000. Down the coast in Boston, it’s a different story. There, the same procedure costs just more than $16,000, a fraction of the price. Knee surgeries follow the same pattern. They cost up to $13,500 in Maine, but as little as $3,900 ...
Sally C. Pipes
March 20, 2019
Commentary
Here’s a prescription for mid-sized businesses providing workers with health care
Small businesses and large corporations have been spared some of Obamacare’s most burdensome regulations. Small firms are exempt from the employer mandate requiring them to offer coverage. Large ones don’t have to adhere to the law’s essential health benefits mandates. Mid-sized businesses haven’t been so lucky. These firms, which typically ...
Sally C. Pipes
March 19, 2019
California
March 18 – Free-Market Solutions to California’s Health Care Challenges
In part 1 of a special 4-part series on how free-market ideas can build new, diverse coalitions in California, PRI’s Sally Pipes, Wayne Winegarden, and Henry Miller discuss how proposals like single-payer health care and new mandates on prescription drugs would hurt innovation and how market-based policies can better address ...
Pacific Research Institute
March 18, 2019
Commentary
Medicare for All Won’t Result in Better Health Outcomes
New Jersey Senator Cory Booker claims Medicare for All would “save lives.” Vermont’s own Senator Bernie Sanders promises it would end “the disgrace of tens of thousands of Americans dying every year from preventable deaths.” But a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research finds little evidence to support those assertions. The authors examined ...
Sally C. Pipes
March 18, 2019
Commentary
Desperately Seeking a Reformer to Head the FDA
Federal regulation affects our lives every day in more ways than we realize. The Food and Drug Administration alone regulates products that account for more than a trillion dollars annually—25 cents of every consumer dollar; and the average cost (including out-of-pocket expenses and opportunity costs) to bring a new drug ...
Henry Miller, M.S., M.D.
March 14, 2019
Agriculture
America’s Citrus Fruits Are Being Decimated By An Incurable Disease — We Need GM Science to Save Them
Farmers in the major U.S. citrus-producing regions—Florida, California, Texas and Arizona, in particular—are facing a plague of epic proportions. Oranges and a range of other citrus fruits are being decimated by an incurable disease, a lethal, bacterial infection known as “citrus greening”—or Huanglongbing. It is spread by a tiny insect, ...
Henry Miller, M.S., M.D.
March 12, 2019
Middlemen Are Ripping Off State Medicaid Programs
Kentucky’s Democratic attorney general just launched an investigation to determine if middlemen in the prescription drug supply chain are ripping off the state’s Medicaid program. He’s almost certainly onto something. These middlemen, known as pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, administer drug benefit plans for Medicaid, Medicare Part D, and private insurers. In theory, ...
Read Sally Pipes in Kaiser Health News Story on Federal Judge Blocking Medicaid Work Requirements
Federal Judge Again Blocks Medicaid Work Requirements By Phil Galewitz For a second time in nine months, the same federal judge has struck down the Trump administration’s plan to force some Medicaid recipients to work to maintain benefits. The ruling Wednesday by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg blocks Kentuckyfrom implementing the ...
Wayne Winegarden Medical Device Tax Study Cited in Fox News Opinion Article
Health care costs will rise unless Congress blocks harmful tax By Ross Marchand The American people – and just about all our elected officials – frequently and justifiably complain about the high cost of health care. But unless Congress acts, a tax increase on medical devices will take effect Jan. 1 ...
Keep counterfeit drugs out of Florida
Florida’s House budget panel this week greenlit a bill that would allow the state to buy drugs from Canada. Lawmakers are poised to debate a companion bill in the Senate in the coming weeks. If the bill becomes law, officials would almost certainly need permission from the U.S. Department of Health ...
A $44,000 Surgery Can Cost Just $16,000 Somewhere Else for One Reason: Competition
A hip replacement in Maine can run north of $44,000. Down the coast in Boston, it’s a different story. There, the same procedure costs just more than $16,000, a fraction of the price. Knee surgeries follow the same pattern. They cost up to $13,500 in Maine, but as little as $3,900 ...
Here’s a prescription for mid-sized businesses providing workers with health care
Small businesses and large corporations have been spared some of Obamacare’s most burdensome regulations. Small firms are exempt from the employer mandate requiring them to offer coverage. Large ones don’t have to adhere to the law’s essential health benefits mandates. Mid-sized businesses haven’t been so lucky. These firms, which typically ...
March 18 – Free-Market Solutions to California’s Health Care Challenges
In part 1 of a special 4-part series on how free-market ideas can build new, diverse coalitions in California, PRI’s Sally Pipes, Wayne Winegarden, and Henry Miller discuss how proposals like single-payer health care and new mandates on prescription drugs would hurt innovation and how market-based policies can better address ...
Medicare for All Won’t Result in Better Health Outcomes
New Jersey Senator Cory Booker claims Medicare for All would “save lives.” Vermont’s own Senator Bernie Sanders promises it would end “the disgrace of tens of thousands of Americans dying every year from preventable deaths.” But a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research finds little evidence to support those assertions. The authors examined ...
Desperately Seeking a Reformer to Head the FDA
Federal regulation affects our lives every day in more ways than we realize. The Food and Drug Administration alone regulates products that account for more than a trillion dollars annually—25 cents of every consumer dollar; and the average cost (including out-of-pocket expenses and opportunity costs) to bring a new drug ...
America’s Citrus Fruits Are Being Decimated By An Incurable Disease — We Need GM Science to Save Them
Farmers in the major U.S. citrus-producing regions—Florida, California, Texas and Arizona, in particular—are facing a plague of epic proportions. Oranges and a range of other citrus fruits are being decimated by an incurable disease, a lethal, bacterial infection known as “citrus greening”—or Huanglongbing. It is spread by a tiny insect, ...