Commentary
California
Can California afford costly climate change programs in a grim budget year?
It was not supposed to be this way. In the throes of last year’s budget turmoil, California’s spending plan at that time was supposed to bring stability. Yet here we are. Another May Revision, another budget deficit — this time for $12 billion. While Gov. Gavin Newsom is right — ...
Commentary
Potential Tariffs Will Harm Patients In The Name Of Protecting Them
Two months ago, the Commerce Department launched an investigation into whether pharmaceutical imports pose a threat to national security (i.e., a Section 232 investigation). Not only are the investigation’s accusations groundless, implementing the proposed remedy – more tariffs – will create the very problems that the investigation hopes to avoid. ...
Commentary
Away With Provider Taxes
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently published a rule targeting “provider taxes,” a financing gimmick states use to harvest extra Medicaid dollars from the federal government. Good on the Trump administration. Over the last decade and a half, states have exploited provider taxes and other financing loopholes to ...
Commentary
Tying U.S. Drug Prices To Foreign Markets Risks Innovation And Lives
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump signed what he called “one of the most consequential Executive Orders in our Country’s history.” The order is essentially an updated version of his administration’s 2020 “Most Favored Nation” policy. It directs pharmaceutical companies to tie the U.S. prices of their drugs to the ...
Commentary
Trump’s ‘Most Favored Nation’ Drug Plan Doesn’t Favor Americans
Last week, President Donald Trump revived one of the most ill-conceived health policy ideas of his first term. Via a new executive order, he’s directed his administration to deliver “most-favored-nation prescription drug pricing to American patients.” The idea is to bring other developed countries’ lower drug prices to the United ...
Commentary
Colorado Gov. Polis’ new ‘study’ is a waste of time
The drive for single-payer health care won’t die. Gov. Jared Polis just signed legislation to spend $400,000 on a new “study” of how to bring government-run health care to the state. It’s a colossal waste of time and money. Decades of evidence from Canada and the United Kingdom show that ...
Commentary
Threatened With Legal Action, State Makes U-Turn on Electric Truck Mandates
Pressured by legal action from seventeen states that would have been impacted, California has agreed to not just drop enforcement of its electric truck mandate, but to repeal it entirely. Following the governor’s 2020 executive order that banned the sales of new internal-combustion engine cars in 2035, the state Air ...
Commentary
Trump Should Support Effective Drug Policy Reforms Not The MFN Gimmick
The Trump Administration has announced its desire to impose price controls on drugs – officially called a most favored nation (MFN) policy. Essentially, the policy sets the price for the targeted drugs at the lowest price in other industrialized countries. The president’s justification for the MFN is simple: Americans are ...
Commentary
Why sunblock in the U.S. is so much worse than in the E.U.
One in five Americans will develop skin cancer by age 70. Yet regulators in the United States have not approved sunscreens that can more effectively prevent the disease. Such safetyism makes little sense. Americans receive more diagnoses for skin cancer than for all other forms of cancer combined. It’s long ...
Commentary
Republicans are right to reform Medicaid
House Republicans held the mark-up last week for their reconciliation package, which includes several significant reforms to Medicaid, the federal-state entitlement that provides health benefits to roughly one in five Americans. The package is not perfect. But it would restore some measure of fiscal sanity to the program by, among ...
Can California afford costly climate change programs in a grim budget year?
It was not supposed to be this way. In the throes of last year’s budget turmoil, California’s spending plan at that time was supposed to bring stability. Yet here we are. Another May Revision, another budget deficit — this time for $12 billion. While Gov. Gavin Newsom is right — ...
Potential Tariffs Will Harm Patients In The Name Of Protecting Them
Two months ago, the Commerce Department launched an investigation into whether pharmaceutical imports pose a threat to national security (i.e., a Section 232 investigation). Not only are the investigation’s accusations groundless, implementing the proposed remedy – more tariffs – will create the very problems that the investigation hopes to avoid. ...
Away With Provider Taxes
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently published a rule targeting “provider taxes,” a financing gimmick states use to harvest extra Medicaid dollars from the federal government. Good on the Trump administration. Over the last decade and a half, states have exploited provider taxes and other financing loopholes to ...
Tying U.S. Drug Prices To Foreign Markets Risks Innovation And Lives
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump signed what he called “one of the most consequential Executive Orders in our Country’s history.” The order is essentially an updated version of his administration’s 2020 “Most Favored Nation” policy. It directs pharmaceutical companies to tie the U.S. prices of their drugs to the ...
Trump’s ‘Most Favored Nation’ Drug Plan Doesn’t Favor Americans
Last week, President Donald Trump revived one of the most ill-conceived health policy ideas of his first term. Via a new executive order, he’s directed his administration to deliver “most-favored-nation prescription drug pricing to American patients.” The idea is to bring other developed countries’ lower drug prices to the United ...
Colorado Gov. Polis’ new ‘study’ is a waste of time
The drive for single-payer health care won’t die. Gov. Jared Polis just signed legislation to spend $400,000 on a new “study” of how to bring government-run health care to the state. It’s a colossal waste of time and money. Decades of evidence from Canada and the United Kingdom show that ...
Threatened With Legal Action, State Makes U-Turn on Electric Truck Mandates
Pressured by legal action from seventeen states that would have been impacted, California has agreed to not just drop enforcement of its electric truck mandate, but to repeal it entirely. Following the governor’s 2020 executive order that banned the sales of new internal-combustion engine cars in 2035, the state Air ...
Trump Should Support Effective Drug Policy Reforms Not The MFN Gimmick
The Trump Administration has announced its desire to impose price controls on drugs – officially called a most favored nation (MFN) policy. Essentially, the policy sets the price for the targeted drugs at the lowest price in other industrialized countries. The president’s justification for the MFN is simple: Americans are ...
Why sunblock in the U.S. is so much worse than in the E.U.
One in five Americans will develop skin cancer by age 70. Yet regulators in the United States have not approved sunscreens that can more effectively prevent the disease. Such safetyism makes little sense. Americans receive more diagnoses for skin cancer than for all other forms of cancer combined. It’s long ...
Republicans are right to reform Medicaid
House Republicans held the mark-up last week for their reconciliation package, which includes several significant reforms to Medicaid, the federal-state entitlement that provides health benefits to roughly one in five Americans. The package is not perfect. But it would restore some measure of fiscal sanity to the program by, among ...
