Commentary
Climate Change
Fossil Fuel Lawsuits Are A Tax On Consumers
Announcing the state’s lawsuit against energy producers, California AG Rob Bonta claimed it is time to make energy companies pay for “the harm they have caused.” It is one of more than thirty such lawsuits around the country. As I have argued here, here, and here, these lawsuits are not heroic efforts to safeguard the ...
Commentary
Medicaid’s Mission Creep Is Hurting the Poor and Disabled
What do air conditioners, mini fridges, and air purifiers have in common? According to Medicaid authorities in Oregon, they’re all forms of health care. Across the country, state Medicaid programs are suffering from a serious case of mission creep. Officials are trying to use Medicaid dollars to pay for everything ...
Commentary
Read the latest on drug pricing
Insulin Prices Fall, Democrats Respond With Denial
For years, the left’s campaign to dictate the price of prescription drugs has focused on one medicine above all others — insulin. The hormone was discovered more than a century ago by Canadian doctor Frederick Banting and his medical student Charles Best. They famously sold their patent to the University of ...
Business & Economics
Instead Of The CHIPS Act Congress Should Address Patent Troll Abuse
President Biden and Democratic Party leaders are trying to take credit for seeding the next generation of innovations in the information technology sector. Crowing about their latest industrial policy, the CHIPS and Science Act, Senator Schumer stated that “the federal government [is] taking back the reins, putting money where its mouth is ...
Commentary
Read the latest on CA health care policy
California rues healthcare minimum wage increase
A minimum wage hike for healthcare workers in California was supposed to take effect this Saturday. But over the past week, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) and his Democratic allies have worked feverishly on legislation to postpone it. California Democrats haven’t suddenly become free-market acolytes. They’re worried that the wage increase, which may cost the state $4 billion this ...
Commentary
Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act Unravels Medicare Part D
In May, Medicare bureaucrats released new guidance that details how they’ll conduct the drug pricing “negotiations” authorized by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. They’re mostly maintaining the policies in last year’s inaugural round of price setting—which means the quality of seniors’ Medicare Part D coverage will continue to deteriorate. When President Biden ...
Commentary
Don’t Import British Methods For Rationing Access To Drugs
Earlier this year, European authorities recommended approval of tofersen, a new drug that treats a rare genetic form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. That decision came nearly a year after American regulators granted the drug accelerated approval. Patients with that rare form of ALS in England aren’t so lucky. The National Institute for ...
Commentary
End Rampant Fraud in Federal Health Programs
The facts are astonishing: an estimated $1 billion a year in fraudulent payments, untold thousands of ineligible beneficiaries, and a public agency that refuses to conduct an audit. Welcome to the $60 billion-a-year Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, which provides insurance coverage for more than 8 million federal workers and their ...
Commentary
Mandating dental coverage will drive up the cost of insurance
The Biden administration finalized a rule last month allowing states to mandate that most individual and small-group health plans, including those for sale on Obamacare‘s exchanges, cover adult dental services. Mandating coverage of dental benefits may be politically appealing. But it will end up leaving a bitter taste in people’s mouths. Mandates cost money. Implementing ...
Commentary
Read the latest on drug pricing
Inflation Reduction Act Will Destroy Drug Access
Last month at a White House event, President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., took a victory lap for supposedly having “beat Big Pharma” through drug-pricing provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act. Beaming with pride, they hailed new powers for Medicare to “negotiate” drug prices as a historic achievement. But their self-congratulation rests ...
Fossil Fuel Lawsuits Are A Tax On Consumers
Announcing the state’s lawsuit against energy producers, California AG Rob Bonta claimed it is time to make energy companies pay for “the harm they have caused.” It is one of more than thirty such lawsuits around the country. As I have argued here, here, and here, these lawsuits are not heroic efforts to safeguard the ...
Medicaid’s Mission Creep Is Hurting the Poor and Disabled
What do air conditioners, mini fridges, and air purifiers have in common? According to Medicaid authorities in Oregon, they’re all forms of health care. Across the country, state Medicaid programs are suffering from a serious case of mission creep. Officials are trying to use Medicaid dollars to pay for everything ...
Read the latest on drug pricing
Insulin Prices Fall, Democrats Respond With Denial
For years, the left’s campaign to dictate the price of prescription drugs has focused on one medicine above all others — insulin. The hormone was discovered more than a century ago by Canadian doctor Frederick Banting and his medical student Charles Best. They famously sold their patent to the University of ...
Instead Of The CHIPS Act Congress Should Address Patent Troll Abuse
President Biden and Democratic Party leaders are trying to take credit for seeding the next generation of innovations in the information technology sector. Crowing about their latest industrial policy, the CHIPS and Science Act, Senator Schumer stated that “the federal government [is] taking back the reins, putting money where its mouth is ...
Read the latest on CA health care policy
California rues healthcare minimum wage increase
A minimum wage hike for healthcare workers in California was supposed to take effect this Saturday. But over the past week, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) and his Democratic allies have worked feverishly on legislation to postpone it. California Democrats haven’t suddenly become free-market acolytes. They’re worried that the wage increase, which may cost the state $4 billion this ...
Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act Unravels Medicare Part D
In May, Medicare bureaucrats released new guidance that details how they’ll conduct the drug pricing “negotiations” authorized by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. They’re mostly maintaining the policies in last year’s inaugural round of price setting—which means the quality of seniors’ Medicare Part D coverage will continue to deteriorate. When President Biden ...
Don’t Import British Methods For Rationing Access To Drugs
Earlier this year, European authorities recommended approval of tofersen, a new drug that treats a rare genetic form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. That decision came nearly a year after American regulators granted the drug accelerated approval. Patients with that rare form of ALS in England aren’t so lucky. The National Institute for ...
End Rampant Fraud in Federal Health Programs
The facts are astonishing: an estimated $1 billion a year in fraudulent payments, untold thousands of ineligible beneficiaries, and a public agency that refuses to conduct an audit. Welcome to the $60 billion-a-year Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, which provides insurance coverage for more than 8 million federal workers and their ...
Mandating dental coverage will drive up the cost of insurance
The Biden administration finalized a rule last month allowing states to mandate that most individual and small-group health plans, including those for sale on Obamacare‘s exchanges, cover adult dental services. Mandating coverage of dental benefits may be politically appealing. But it will end up leaving a bitter taste in people’s mouths. Mandates cost money. Implementing ...
Read the latest on drug pricing
Inflation Reduction Act Will Destroy Drug Access
Last month at a White House event, President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., took a victory lap for supposedly having “beat Big Pharma” through drug-pricing provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act. Beaming with pride, they hailed new powers for Medicare to “negotiate” drug prices as a historic achievement. But their self-congratulation rests ...
