Drug Pricing
Commentary
In the rush to hold insurers to account, don’t forget about hospitals
When asked to account for the skyrocketing cost of health coverage before two House committees last Thursday, the chief executives of five of America’s largest health insurance companies pointed fingers. Don’t look at us, they said. Look at hospitals and drugmakers. Read the op-ed here.
Sally C. Pipes
February 3, 2026
Commentary
Open, Competitive Market Will Make Trump’s Health Plan Great
President Trump’s recently released Great Healthcare Plan offers several welcome reforms. It endeavors to put patients first by fostering greater price transparency and taking steps to lower health insurance premiums. Its approach to prescription drug policy is a bit more mixed. Read the op-ed here.
Sally C. Pipes
January 30, 2026
Commentary
CMS Officials Are Undermining Trump’s Push For Affordable Drugs
Officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services just undermined President Trump’s efforts to make prescription drugs more affordable. Earlier this week, CMS announced the next 15 medicines that will face price caps under Medicare’s Drug Price “Negotiation” Program, a core component of the Inflation Reduction Act signed into ...
Sally C. Pipes
January 30, 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
Blog
How can we make drugs more affordable without sacrificing future cures?
How can we make drugs more affordable without sacrificing future cures? To a large extent, the current system works fairly well already to make most of the drugs that Americans take affordable. And that’s because of our robust generics market. Around 90% of prescriptions filled each year are for generics ...
Sally C. Pipes
December 31, 2025
Commentary
Terrible Effects of Medicare Price Controls Are Here
Medicare will impose price controls on prescription drugs for the first time when the calendar flips to January. Even before those controls formally take effect, the damage is already being done. The scheme has begun to hollow out America’s biomedical research ecosystem. Patients will pay the price — in the ...
Sally C. Pipes
December 26, 2025
Blog
Do price controls affect which drugs patients have access to and how soon?
Do price controls affect which drugs patients have access to and how soon? They absolutely do. Just look at the situation in Europe. For years, drug companies have been choosing to withhold certain medicines from European markets rather than accept the price constraints imposed by governments there. As a result, ...
Sally C. Pipes
December 24, 2025
Blog
How do price controls damage innovation?
What role do intellectual property laws play in encouraging innovation? They are absolutely essential. IP protections like patents reward those who succeed in creating new medicines and ushering them through the regulatory approval process. They do this by guaranteeing that the IP rights holder behind a new drug will have ...
Sally C. Pipes
December 17, 2025
Commentary
The real story behind Trump’s GLP-1 price cut: Markets still rule
President Donald Trump just announced deals with drugmakers Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk that will yield lower prices for GLP-1 weight-loss drugs dispensed through Medicare and Medicaid. Both firms have also agreed to sell the drugs at lower prices on Trump’s yet-to-be-developed online marketplace for prescription drugs, TrumpRx. Lilly and ...
Sally C. Pipes
December 15, 2025
In the rush to hold insurers to account, don’t forget about hospitals
When asked to account for the skyrocketing cost of health coverage before two House committees last Thursday, the chief executives of five of America’s largest health insurance companies pointed fingers. Don’t look at us, they said. Look at hospitals and drugmakers. Read the op-ed here.
Open, Competitive Market Will Make Trump’s Health Plan Great
President Trump’s recently released Great Healthcare Plan offers several welcome reforms. It endeavors to put patients first by fostering greater price transparency and taking steps to lower health insurance premiums. Its approach to prescription drug policy is a bit more mixed. Read the op-ed here.
CMS Officials Are Undermining Trump’s Push For Affordable Drugs
Officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services just undermined President Trump’s efforts to make prescription drugs more affordable. Earlier this week, CMS announced the next 15 medicines that will face price caps under Medicare’s Drug Price “Negotiation” Program, a core component of the Inflation Reduction Act signed into ...
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 ...
How can we make drugs more affordable without sacrificing future cures?
How can we make drugs more affordable without sacrificing future cures? To a large extent, the current system works fairly well already to make most of the drugs that Americans take affordable. And that’s because of our robust generics market. Around 90% of prescriptions filled each year are for generics ...
Terrible Effects of Medicare Price Controls Are Here
Medicare will impose price controls on prescription drugs for the first time when the calendar flips to January. Even before those controls formally take effect, the damage is already being done. The scheme has begun to hollow out America’s biomedical research ecosystem. Patients will pay the price — in the ...
Do price controls affect which drugs patients have access to and how soon?
Do price controls affect which drugs patients have access to and how soon? They absolutely do. Just look at the situation in Europe. For years, drug companies have been choosing to withhold certain medicines from European markets rather than accept the price constraints imposed by governments there. As a result, ...
How do price controls damage innovation?
What role do intellectual property laws play in encouraging innovation? They are absolutely essential. IP protections like patents reward those who succeed in creating new medicines and ushering them through the regulatory approval process. They do this by guaranteeing that the IP rights holder behind a new drug will have ...
The real story behind Trump’s GLP-1 price cut: Markets still rule
President Donald Trump just announced deals with drugmakers Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk that will yield lower prices for GLP-1 weight-loss drugs dispensed through Medicare and Medicaid. Both firms have also agreed to sell the drugs at lower prices on Trump’s yet-to-be-developed online marketplace for prescription drugs, TrumpRx. Lilly and ...
