Health Care
Commentary
Let’s talk about medical debt
A federal judge this month tossed out a Biden-era rule that would have wiped medical debt from consumers’ credit reports. The decision is a victory for borrowers and lenders alike. The now-defunct rule could have ended up hurting the very low-income individuals it was meant to help. Read the entire ...
Sally C. Pipes
July 29, 2025
Drug Innovation
New PRI Brief Warns Trump Drug Price Control Policies Would Lead U.S. Down the Path to European-Style Socialism
SACRAMENTO – The Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the Pacific Research Institute – a nonpartisan, California-based, free market think tank – today released a new issue brief warning that efforts by the Trump administration and some Republicans in Congress to embrace and expand the government price controls on ...
Sally Pipes and Wayne Winegarden
July 25, 2025
Blog
The U.S. Drug System Strikes a Reasonable Balance Between Incentivizing Innovation and Promoting Competition
The government explicitly grants innovators temporary market exclusivity to provide an opportunity for groundbreaking pharmaceutical companies to recover the costs of capital associated with developing novel treatments. This was one of the express purposes of past federal reform legislation, such as the Hatch-Waxman Act signed in 1984 and the Biologics ...
Wayne Winegarden
July 23, 2025
Commentary
Trump Must Shut Down Counterfeit Weight-Loss Drugs
Americans looking to lose weight are increasingly turning to the internet. And they’re being duped. Telehealth startups and fly-by-night pharmacies are peddling what look like cheap, convenient versions of blockbuster drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. But many of these offerings are neither authentic nor safe. They’re “compounded” copies — knockoffs ...
Sally C. Pipes
July 22, 2025
Commentary
Greater Price Transparency Will Improve Affordability
Inefficiencies plague our current healthcare system. Politicians are quick to blame these problems on the market and subsequently advocate for ever greater government control. But government programs, which are already major players in the healthcare market, provide lousy insurance for patients and undermine the viability of doctors and hospitals. Expanding ...
Wayne H Winegarden
July 22, 2025
Commentary
Private Efforts Not Public Committees Will Generate Healthcare Savings
Passed as part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) was allocated $10 billion in 2011 for the first decade of its existence. It has been allocated hundreds of millions more since. The purpose of the program is to create payment models that ...
Wayne H Winegarden
July 21, 2025
Commentary
The Big Beautiful Bill Fixes One Drug Problem—But Highlights An Even Bigger One
Buried within the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law July 4, is a provision that could improve or even save the lives of the 30 million Americans suffering from rare diseases. That provision is the Orphan Cures Act, which exempts certain drugs that treat ...
Sally C. Pipes
July 21, 2025
Commentary
One Big Beautiful Bill: A Fiscal Lifeline for Medicaid, Taxpayers
The “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act (OBBBA) signed into law by President Donald Trump on July 4 is set to help pull America’s healthcare system back from the brink of fiscal disaster. Read the entire op-ed here.
Sally C. Pipes
July 16, 2025
Blog
Read part 1 of a 3 part series on drug pricing
Conspiracies Aside, Drug Company Profits Are Average
Recently, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) held its first of three listening sessions on the pharmaceutical market. The goal was to discuss reforms that will improve drug affordability by increasing “generic and biosimilar availability” and promoting “competition”. Achieving these goals is essential. The flaw of the first listening session is ...
Wayne Winegarden
July 16, 2025
Commentary
The Culprit Impeding Drug Competition Is Not Who The Feds Expected
The Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice recently kicked off a series of listening sessions to examine barriers to competition in the drug industry. The title of the first session—”Anticompetitive Conduct by Pharmaceutical Companies”—made it seem that regulators would chiefly investigate biotech firms. Yet by the end, panelists ...
Sally C. Pipes
July 14, 2025
Let’s talk about medical debt
A federal judge this month tossed out a Biden-era rule that would have wiped medical debt from consumers’ credit reports. The decision is a victory for borrowers and lenders alike. The now-defunct rule could have ended up hurting the very low-income individuals it was meant to help. Read the entire ...
New PRI Brief Warns Trump Drug Price Control Policies Would Lead U.S. Down the Path to European-Style Socialism
SACRAMENTO – The Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the Pacific Research Institute – a nonpartisan, California-based, free market think tank – today released a new issue brief warning that efforts by the Trump administration and some Republicans in Congress to embrace and expand the government price controls on ...
The U.S. Drug System Strikes a Reasonable Balance Between Incentivizing Innovation and Promoting Competition
The government explicitly grants innovators temporary market exclusivity to provide an opportunity for groundbreaking pharmaceutical companies to recover the costs of capital associated with developing novel treatments. This was one of the express purposes of past federal reform legislation, such as the Hatch-Waxman Act signed in 1984 and the Biologics ...
Trump Must Shut Down Counterfeit Weight-Loss Drugs
Americans looking to lose weight are increasingly turning to the internet. And they’re being duped. Telehealth startups and fly-by-night pharmacies are peddling what look like cheap, convenient versions of blockbuster drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. But many of these offerings are neither authentic nor safe. They’re “compounded” copies — knockoffs ...
Greater Price Transparency Will Improve Affordability
Inefficiencies plague our current healthcare system. Politicians are quick to blame these problems on the market and subsequently advocate for ever greater government control. But government programs, which are already major players in the healthcare market, provide lousy insurance for patients and undermine the viability of doctors and hospitals. Expanding ...
Private Efforts Not Public Committees Will Generate Healthcare Savings
Passed as part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) was allocated $10 billion in 2011 for the first decade of its existence. It has been allocated hundreds of millions more since. The purpose of the program is to create payment models that ...
The Big Beautiful Bill Fixes One Drug Problem—But Highlights An Even Bigger One
Buried within the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law July 4, is a provision that could improve or even save the lives of the 30 million Americans suffering from rare diseases. That provision is the Orphan Cures Act, which exempts certain drugs that treat ...
One Big Beautiful Bill: A Fiscal Lifeline for Medicaid, Taxpayers
The “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act (OBBBA) signed into law by President Donald Trump on July 4 is set to help pull America’s healthcare system back from the brink of fiscal disaster. Read the entire op-ed here.
Read part 1 of a 3 part series on drug pricing
Conspiracies Aside, Drug Company Profits Are Average
Recently, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) held its first of three listening sessions on the pharmaceutical market. The goal was to discuss reforms that will improve drug affordability by increasing “generic and biosimilar availability” and promoting “competition”. Achieving these goals is essential. The flaw of the first listening session is ...
The Culprit Impeding Drug Competition Is Not Who The Feds Expected
The Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice recently kicked off a series of listening sessions to examine barriers to competition in the drug industry. The title of the first session—”Anticompetitive Conduct by Pharmaceutical Companies”—made it seem that regulators would chiefly investigate biotech firms. Yet by the end, panelists ...