Health Care
Commentary
Omicron Is No Excuse to Prolong the Pandemic
Is the United States on the cusp of a new wave of COVID-19 devastation, thanks to the omicron variant? The Biden administration has banned travel to the United States from eight countries in southern Africa. Public officials nationwide are calling for vigilance and caution — and for people to get vaccinated or boosted. Omicron ...
Commentary
Charging the unvaccinated more for health care is a slippery slope
This month, Delta Airlines began levying a $200 monthly surcharge on unvaccinated employees enrolled in the company’s health plan for the financial “risk” they are supposedly imposing on the company. The airliner is not alone. A major health-care system in Louisiana plans to do the same for unvaccinated spouses on ...
Commentary
Swallowing the FDA red pill
Earlier this month, the Biden administration bought 10 million courses of Pfizer’s new COVID-19 pill, Paxlovid. Thanks to the Food and Drug Administration, however, it may be months before anyone can take it, as the agency hasn’t yet offered up a timetable for approving it. Its inaction will almost certainly result in ...
Commentary
Democrats’ Creative Accounting Can’t Hide Build Back Better’s True Cost
For weeks, President Joe Biden has insisted that the Democrats’ ‘Build Back Better’ spending bill would be “fully paid for.” The Congressional Budget Office begs to differ. In its newly released analysis of the bill, the CBO projects that ‘Build Back Better’ will increase the deficit by $367 billion over ...
Commentary
The FDA’s Dysfunction Is A Public Health Crisis Of Its Own
Earlier this month, President Biden tapped Dr. Robert Califf to lead the Food and Drug Administration. The agency had been operating without a Senate-approved commissioner for almost a year. In my last column, I detailed how the FDA’s failures reviewing and approving tests for COVID-19 have prolonged the pandemic. This week, we have a ...
Commentary
Misguided Govt Policies Mean Employer-Based Coverage Costs Soar
The cost of employer-based health insurance continues to reach new heights. According to a report out this month from the Kaiser Family Foundation, premiums for a family health plan have risen 47% since 2011, and during that same period, employee earnings rose by 31%, while overall inflation ticked up just 19%. What’s ...
Blog
Could Mark Cuban’s new pharmaceutical venture be a slam dunk?
By Wayne Winegarden and Celine Bookin Billionaire investor Mark Cuban’s pharmaceutical company, the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company, is hoping to disrupt the pharmaceutical benefit management (PBM) industry with a new venture that seeks to address some of the most criticized practices of the industry. These include PBMs pocketing rather ...
Commentary
Federal government misses opportunity with unlawful private sector vaccine mandates
Earlier this month, the Biden administration mandated that employees at businesses with more than 100 workers be vaccinated or undergo weekly COVID-19 testing starting at the beginning of next year. Just two days later, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit halted the order in response to a ...
Blog
Inflation, Drug Price Controls, and President Biden’s Build Back Better Program
Inflation is worrying Americans, and for good reason. The latest inflation report, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) released on November 10th, showed that prices were 6.2 percent higher in October 2021 compared to October 2020. More troubling, this was the fifth month in a row where the annual growth in ...
Featured
NEW BRIEF: 340B Hospitals More Profitable, Provide Less Charity Care, Receive Unwarranted Subsidies
So-called 340B hospitals whose mission is to help the vulnerable are more profitable and provide less charity care, finds a new brief released today by the Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the nonpartisan Pacific Research Institute, a California-based, free-market think tank. Click to download “Profiting from 340B” “The ...
Omicron Is No Excuse to Prolong the Pandemic
Is the United States on the cusp of a new wave of COVID-19 devastation, thanks to the omicron variant? The Biden administration has banned travel to the United States from eight countries in southern Africa. Public officials nationwide are calling for vigilance and caution — and for people to get vaccinated or boosted. Omicron ...
Charging the unvaccinated more for health care is a slippery slope
This month, Delta Airlines began levying a $200 monthly surcharge on unvaccinated employees enrolled in the company’s health plan for the financial “risk” they are supposedly imposing on the company. The airliner is not alone. A major health-care system in Louisiana plans to do the same for unvaccinated spouses on ...
Swallowing the FDA red pill
Earlier this month, the Biden administration bought 10 million courses of Pfizer’s new COVID-19 pill, Paxlovid. Thanks to the Food and Drug Administration, however, it may be months before anyone can take it, as the agency hasn’t yet offered up a timetable for approving it. Its inaction will almost certainly result in ...
Democrats’ Creative Accounting Can’t Hide Build Back Better’s True Cost
For weeks, President Joe Biden has insisted that the Democrats’ ‘Build Back Better’ spending bill would be “fully paid for.” The Congressional Budget Office begs to differ. In its newly released analysis of the bill, the CBO projects that ‘Build Back Better’ will increase the deficit by $367 billion over ...
The FDA’s Dysfunction Is A Public Health Crisis Of Its Own
Earlier this month, President Biden tapped Dr. Robert Califf to lead the Food and Drug Administration. The agency had been operating without a Senate-approved commissioner for almost a year. In my last column, I detailed how the FDA’s failures reviewing and approving tests for COVID-19 have prolonged the pandemic. This week, we have a ...
Misguided Govt Policies Mean Employer-Based Coverage Costs Soar
The cost of employer-based health insurance continues to reach new heights. According to a report out this month from the Kaiser Family Foundation, premiums for a family health plan have risen 47% since 2011, and during that same period, employee earnings rose by 31%, while overall inflation ticked up just 19%. What’s ...
Could Mark Cuban’s new pharmaceutical venture be a slam dunk?
By Wayne Winegarden and Celine Bookin Billionaire investor Mark Cuban’s pharmaceutical company, the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company, is hoping to disrupt the pharmaceutical benefit management (PBM) industry with a new venture that seeks to address some of the most criticized practices of the industry. These include PBMs pocketing rather ...
Federal government misses opportunity with unlawful private sector vaccine mandates
Earlier this month, the Biden administration mandated that employees at businesses with more than 100 workers be vaccinated or undergo weekly COVID-19 testing starting at the beginning of next year. Just two days later, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit halted the order in response to a ...
Inflation, Drug Price Controls, and President Biden’s Build Back Better Program
Inflation is worrying Americans, and for good reason. The latest inflation report, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) released on November 10th, showed that prices were 6.2 percent higher in October 2021 compared to October 2020. More troubling, this was the fifth month in a row where the annual growth in ...
NEW BRIEF: 340B Hospitals More Profitable, Provide Less Charity Care, Receive Unwarranted Subsidies
So-called 340B hospitals whose mission is to help the vulnerable are more profitable and provide less charity care, finds a new brief released today by the Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the nonpartisan Pacific Research Institute, a California-based, free-market think tank. Click to download “Profiting from 340B” “The ...
