Health Care
Commentary
The ‘Medicare-For-All’ Delusion
As Congress looks for ways to bring down the cost of insurance, a growing number of Democrats are pushing to get rid of insurance altogether and make the federal government the sole funder of health care in this country. Several progressive Senate candidates have put Medicare for All at the ...
Sally C. Pipes
January 26, 2026
Commentary
Proposed patent tax offers a dangerous ‘solution’ to a non-existent problem
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick believes taxpayers are getting short-changed by America’s patent system. Last year, he argued that the federal government should be entitled to 50% of the revenue universities earn from licensing the patented discoveries they’ve made with help from federally funded research grants. Lutnick is deeply mistaken. ...
Sally C. Pipes
January 26, 2026
Commentary
No Accountability as Insurers Profit From Public Programs
Executives from the nation’s largest health insurers are set to testify before Congress soon in a hearing on healthcare affordability. It’s about time. From Medicare Advantage to Obamacare exchanges to prescription drug benefits, insurers have been extracting ever-greater amounts of public funds while passing costs and risk on to patients ...
Sally C. Pipes
January 22, 2026
Commentary
Red tape is strangling rural health care. It’s time to cut it
Rural America is running out of doctors. According to a new report from the Commonwealth Fund, 43 million Americans now live in rural communities facing a shortage of primary care providers. This shortage isn’t new. It’s been reality for rural America for decades. And it helps explain why patients there ...
Sally C. Pipes
January 22, 2026
Commentary
Alexis Wilkins Interview Of Sally Pipes
PRI’s Sally Pipes discusses health care policy and the threat of single payer with podcast host Alexis Wilkins. Listen to the entire podcast here.
Sally C. Pipes
January 22, 2026
Drug Prices
New Issue Brief: Biopharma Drug Makers Are Not the Most Profitable Players in Health Care
A new issue brief released by the Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the nonpartisan Pacific Research Institute finds that innovative drug manufacturers earn some of the lowest risk-adjusted returns in the U.S. health care system, despite making the largest investments in research and development. The findings challenge the ...
Pacific Research Institute
January 21, 2026
Commentary
Enhanced Obamacare subsidies are gone. They deserve to stay that way
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) took to the chamber’s floor last week to voice his opposition to legislation that would extend the pandemic-era enhanced premium subsidies for Obamacare plans for three years. Unfortunately, his wise counsel fell on deaf ears, as all Democrats and 17 Republicans ...
Sally C. Pipes
January 20, 2026
Drug Prices
PRI Files Amicus Brief in Major Supreme Court Case That Could Upend Future Medical Innovation Nationwide
SACRAMENTO – California-based free market think tank the Pacific Research Institute announced today that it has filed an amicus curiae brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear two cases challenging the federal government’s new prescription drug pricing program enacted under the Inflation Reduction Act. The cases, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ...
Pacific Research Institute
January 16, 2026
Commentary
Congress Must Prioritize Patients, Not Insurers, In Renewed Healthcare Debate
Congress has returned to Washington. Democrats are renewing their call to extend COVID-era health insurance subsidies to shield people from hefty premium increases. Just last week, some Republicans in the House joined them to pass a bill that extends these subsidies—putting the question squarely before the Senate. That approach would ...
Sally C. Pipes
January 13, 2026
Commentary
California should embrace competition to promote better health insurance
Following a depressingly familiar pattern, California is once again undermining health care competition in the vain hope that less competition will lead to lower prices. It won’t. In its latest anti-competitive actions, starting Jan. 1, California’s Department of Health Care Services will be limiting competition for plans (called Medi-Medi plans) ...
Wayne H Winegarden
December 31, 2025
The ‘Medicare-For-All’ Delusion
As Congress looks for ways to bring down the cost of insurance, a growing number of Democrats are pushing to get rid of insurance altogether and make the federal government the sole funder of health care in this country. Several progressive Senate candidates have put Medicare for All at the ...
Proposed patent tax offers a dangerous ‘solution’ to a non-existent problem
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick believes taxpayers are getting short-changed by America’s patent system. Last year, he argued that the federal government should be entitled to 50% of the revenue universities earn from licensing the patented discoveries they’ve made with help from federally funded research grants. Lutnick is deeply mistaken. ...
No Accountability as Insurers Profit From Public Programs
Executives from the nation’s largest health insurers are set to testify before Congress soon in a hearing on healthcare affordability. It’s about time. From Medicare Advantage to Obamacare exchanges to prescription drug benefits, insurers have been extracting ever-greater amounts of public funds while passing costs and risk on to patients ...
Red tape is strangling rural health care. It’s time to cut it
Rural America is running out of doctors. According to a new report from the Commonwealth Fund, 43 million Americans now live in rural communities facing a shortage of primary care providers. This shortage isn’t new. It’s been reality for rural America for decades. And it helps explain why patients there ...
Alexis Wilkins Interview Of Sally Pipes
PRI’s Sally Pipes discusses health care policy and the threat of single payer with podcast host Alexis Wilkins. Listen to the entire podcast here.
New Issue Brief: Biopharma Drug Makers Are Not the Most Profitable Players in Health Care
A new issue brief released by the Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the nonpartisan Pacific Research Institute finds that innovative drug manufacturers earn some of the lowest risk-adjusted returns in the U.S. health care system, despite making the largest investments in research and development. The findings challenge the ...
Enhanced Obamacare subsidies are gone. They deserve to stay that way
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) took to the chamber’s floor last week to voice his opposition to legislation that would extend the pandemic-era enhanced premium subsidies for Obamacare plans for three years. Unfortunately, his wise counsel fell on deaf ears, as all Democrats and 17 Republicans ...
PRI Files Amicus Brief in Major Supreme Court Case That Could Upend Future Medical Innovation Nationwide
SACRAMENTO – California-based free market think tank the Pacific Research Institute announced today that it has filed an amicus curiae brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear two cases challenging the federal government’s new prescription drug pricing program enacted under the Inflation Reduction Act. The cases, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ...
Congress Must Prioritize Patients, Not Insurers, In Renewed Healthcare Debate
Congress has returned to Washington. Democrats are renewing their call to extend COVID-era health insurance subsidies to shield people from hefty premium increases. Just last week, some Republicans in the House joined them to pass a bill that extends these subsidies—putting the question squarely before the Senate. That approach would ...
California should embrace competition to promote better health insurance
Following a depressingly familiar pattern, California is once again undermining health care competition in the vain hope that less competition will lead to lower prices. It won’t. In its latest anti-competitive actions, starting Jan. 1, California’s Department of Health Care Services will be limiting competition for plans (called Medi-Medi plans) ...
