Health Care
Commentary
‘Soak the Rich’ Won’t Rescue Calif. Healthcare
A group of unions in California has proposed a new plan for paying for healthcare — soak the rich. That’s the idea behind the Billionaire Tax Act, a 2026 ballot initiative that would impose a 5% tax on the state’s billionaires in order to raise money for healthcare programs and ...
Sally C. Pipes
December 2, 2025
Health Care
Sally Pipes – On the Health Care Debate in Washington
This week, PRI President, CEO and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy Sally Pipes is back to discuss the debate over extending the expanded Obamacare subsidies that was at the heart of the recent government shutdown. She also discusses the market-based reforms that conservatives in Congress should be ...
Pacific Research Institute
December 1, 2025
Commentary
Competition, not price controls, just slashed GLP-1 prices
Novo Nordisk just announced price cuts for Ozempic and Wegovy, whose list prices as recently as last year were around $1,000 a month. Patients buying directly from the manufacturer will be able to pay as little as $349 for a monthly dose of these medicines. The company has also dropped ...
Sally C. Pipes
December 1, 2025
Commentary
From Obamacare To Credit Cards, Price Controls Don’t Work
The House of Representatives just passed a resolution condemning the “horrors of socialism” by a 285 to 98 margin. All the no votes were cast by Democrats indicating that a majority of the members from the left side of the aisle fail to recognize socialism’s overwhelming failures. Thus, despite the ...
Wayne H Winegarden
November 25, 2025
Commentary
A Healthy Dose Of Competition Sends Weight-Loss Drug Prices Plummeting
Prices for GLP-1 weight-loss medications are dropping fast. Last week, Novo Nordisk—maker of Ozempic and Wegovy—announced it would cut prices for monthly supplies of both drugs to as low as $349 for existing patients buying directly. For new customers, the price will fall to just $199 a month for the ...
Sally C. Pipes
November 24, 2025
Commentary
Trump got shots because he knows vaccines work
The cold and flu and COVID season is here. Millions of Americans are weighing when and whether to get their shots. It’s an appropriate time to reflect on the power of vaccination and how many lives new shots have saved in recent years. As Senators Bill Cassidy and John Barrasso ...
Sally C. Pipes
November 24, 2025
Commentary
Trump Has a Subsidy Alternative, We Should Take it Seriously
In a social media post earlier this month, President Trump laid out his own alternative to the enhanced Obamacare subsidies that fueled the record-breaking 43-day government shutdown. “I am recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies in order ...
Sally C. Pipes
November 20, 2025
Commentary
Congress Should Embrace Competition To Promote Affordability
Joining the Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives is now taking up the problem of skyrocketing healthcare costs. Democrats have proposed extending the expanded subsidies for the Affordable Care Act (aka, Obamacare or ACA), but this will not address the problem of rising costs. Promoting greater healthcare affordability requires reforms ...
Wayne H Winegarden
November 20, 2025
Commentary
PBMs’ Evolving Business Model Continues To Raise Costs On Patients
The conclusion of the longest government shutdown in history and rising political acrimony rightly receives a great deal of attention but this focus makes it easy to overlook areas where beneficial legislation is politically possible. The broad political agreement that it is necessary to reform how pharmacy benefit managers (PBM) ...
Wayne H Winegarden
November 19, 2025
Commentary
GOP must hold its ground on enhanced subsidies — now more than ever
There are many things to like about the deal that ended the government shutdown last week. Most importantly, it reopens the government without committing taxpayers to tens of billions of dollars in new spending on COVID-era enhanced premium subsidies for coverage sold through Obamacare’s exchanges. But the battle over these ...
Sally C. Pipes
November 17, 2025
‘Soak the Rich’ Won’t Rescue Calif. Healthcare
A group of unions in California has proposed a new plan for paying for healthcare — soak the rich. That’s the idea behind the Billionaire Tax Act, a 2026 ballot initiative that would impose a 5% tax on the state’s billionaires in order to raise money for healthcare programs and ...
Sally Pipes – On the Health Care Debate in Washington
This week, PRI President, CEO and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy Sally Pipes is back to discuss the debate over extending the expanded Obamacare subsidies that was at the heart of the recent government shutdown. She also discusses the market-based reforms that conservatives in Congress should be ...
Competition, not price controls, just slashed GLP-1 prices
Novo Nordisk just announced price cuts for Ozempic and Wegovy, whose list prices as recently as last year were around $1,000 a month. Patients buying directly from the manufacturer will be able to pay as little as $349 for a monthly dose of these medicines. The company has also dropped ...
From Obamacare To Credit Cards, Price Controls Don’t Work
The House of Representatives just passed a resolution condemning the “horrors of socialism” by a 285 to 98 margin. All the no votes were cast by Democrats indicating that a majority of the members from the left side of the aisle fail to recognize socialism’s overwhelming failures. Thus, despite the ...
A Healthy Dose Of Competition Sends Weight-Loss Drug Prices Plummeting
Prices for GLP-1 weight-loss medications are dropping fast. Last week, Novo Nordisk—maker of Ozempic and Wegovy—announced it would cut prices for monthly supplies of both drugs to as low as $349 for existing patients buying directly. For new customers, the price will fall to just $199 a month for the ...
Trump got shots because he knows vaccines work
The cold and flu and COVID season is here. Millions of Americans are weighing when and whether to get their shots. It’s an appropriate time to reflect on the power of vaccination and how many lives new shots have saved in recent years. As Senators Bill Cassidy and John Barrasso ...
Trump Has a Subsidy Alternative, We Should Take it Seriously
In a social media post earlier this month, President Trump laid out his own alternative to the enhanced Obamacare subsidies that fueled the record-breaking 43-day government shutdown. “I am recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies in order ...
Congress Should Embrace Competition To Promote Affordability
Joining the Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives is now taking up the problem of skyrocketing healthcare costs. Democrats have proposed extending the expanded subsidies for the Affordable Care Act (aka, Obamacare or ACA), but this will not address the problem of rising costs. Promoting greater healthcare affordability requires reforms ...
PBMs’ Evolving Business Model Continues To Raise Costs On Patients
The conclusion of the longest government shutdown in history and rising political acrimony rightly receives a great deal of attention but this focus makes it easy to overlook areas where beneficial legislation is politically possible. The broad political agreement that it is necessary to reform how pharmacy benefit managers (PBM) ...
GOP must hold its ground on enhanced subsidies — now more than ever
There are many things to like about the deal that ended the government shutdown last week. Most importantly, it reopens the government without committing taxpayers to tens of billions of dollars in new spending on COVID-era enhanced premium subsidies for coverage sold through Obamacare’s exchanges. But the battle over these ...