Health Care
Commentary
What’s So Scary About Medicare Reform?
One of the biggest questions surrounding Senate Republicans’ version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act concerns the fate of Medicare. Earlier this month, GOP lawmakers were reportedly considering reforms aimed at reducing waste, fraud and abuse in the entitlement as a way to deliver savings for taxpayers. But as ...
Sally C. Pipes
June 20, 2025
Commentary
A Real and Present Threat to Alzheimer’s Patients
It’s a quintessential government outcome. A program intended to increase access to promising medical innovations is actually preventing Medicare beneficiaries from receiving FDA-approved treatments. Medicare’s “coverage with evidence development” (CED) was never authorized by Congress. Instead, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services created the program in 2005 by leveraging ...
Wayne H Winegarden
June 18, 2025
Commentary
Don’t believe the CBO’s spin on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act
In a recent letter to top Democrats, the Congressional Budget Office claimed that the Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act would kick millions of people off their health insurance. That warning is misleading. Millions of people are improperly enrolled in Medicaid and taxpayer-subsidized plans through Obamacare’s exchanges. Republicans are rightly ...
Sally C. Pipes
June 18, 2025
Blog
The 340B Discounts Hospitals Receive Will Often Exceed Total Drug Prices in Europe
Table 1: PBM Fees and Rebates Can Exceed International Prescription Medicine Prices by As Much As 900% I previously highlighted how estimated rebates and fees PBMs receive for 10 commonly used brand medicines far exceed the total prices of those medicines in eight OECD countries (see Table 1). For example, ...
Wayne Winegarden
June 16, 2025
Drug Importation
Listen to Sally Pipes on “Free the Economy” podcast
Listen to PRI President, CEO, and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy Sally C. Pipes discuss her new book The World’s Medicine Chest (Encounter Books) on the Free the Economy podcast from the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Click here to listen
Pacific Research Institute
June 13, 2025
Health Care
New Study: Medicare’s Price Controls Are Fueling America’s Growing Doctor Shortage
The Pacific Research Institute’s Center for Medical Economics and Innovation today released a new issue brief warning that continued federal underpayment of doctors is fueling a looming healthcare crisis by accelerating the nation’s physician shortage and undermining access to care. Written by PRI senior fellow in business and economics and ...
Wayne H Winegarden
June 11, 2025
Commentary
This Groundbreaking Insurance Reform Is Buried In The One Big, Beautiful Bill
The legislative package would codify and expand Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements, which the first Trump administration introduced in 2019. ICHRAs allow employers to give workers untaxed dollars, which they can use to purchase health insurance on the individual market. In many ways, ICHRAs are the health insurance equivalent of retirement accounts to ...
Sally C. Pipes
June 9, 2025
Drug Pricing
D.C.’s Embrace of Price Controls Bad News for Patients
President Trump announced his intention last month to peg U.S. drug prices to those that foreign governments have set within their borders. The very same day, federal officials said they’d reveal in February 2026 a list of 15 drugs subject to price controls through Medicare’s Part B outpatient benefit and ...
Sally C. Pipes
June 6, 2025
Blog
Read the latest on the push for single-payer health care
What’s Wrong With Single-Payer? Ask Vermont.
In 2011, Vermont created Green Mountain Care, “a publicly financed health care program designed to contain costs and to provide comprehensive, affordable, high-quality health care coverage for all Vermont residents.” But the initiative didn’t last long. Estimates suggested the program would cost between $1.6 and $2.5 billion in just its ...
Sally C. Pipes
June 3, 2025
Commentary
America Shouldn’t Buy Into Single-Payer Mirage
Will the seventh time be the charm? Sen. Bernie Sanders sure hopes so. Vermont’s senior senator just introduced his latest bid to install Medicare for All in the United States. In seven of the last eight Congresses, dating back to 2011, he’s offered legislation to launch a government takeover of ...
Sally C. Pipes
May 30, 2025
What’s So Scary About Medicare Reform?
One of the biggest questions surrounding Senate Republicans’ version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act concerns the fate of Medicare. Earlier this month, GOP lawmakers were reportedly considering reforms aimed at reducing waste, fraud and abuse in the entitlement as a way to deliver savings for taxpayers. But as ...
A Real and Present Threat to Alzheimer’s Patients
It’s a quintessential government outcome. A program intended to increase access to promising medical innovations is actually preventing Medicare beneficiaries from receiving FDA-approved treatments. Medicare’s “coverage with evidence development” (CED) was never authorized by Congress. Instead, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services created the program in 2005 by leveraging ...
Don’t believe the CBO’s spin on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act
In a recent letter to top Democrats, the Congressional Budget Office claimed that the Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act would kick millions of people off their health insurance. That warning is misleading. Millions of people are improperly enrolled in Medicaid and taxpayer-subsidized plans through Obamacare’s exchanges. Republicans are rightly ...
The 340B Discounts Hospitals Receive Will Often Exceed Total Drug Prices in Europe
Table 1: PBM Fees and Rebates Can Exceed International Prescription Medicine Prices by As Much As 900% I previously highlighted how estimated rebates and fees PBMs receive for 10 commonly used brand medicines far exceed the total prices of those medicines in eight OECD countries (see Table 1). For example, ...
Listen to Sally Pipes on “Free the Economy” podcast
Listen to PRI President, CEO, and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy Sally C. Pipes discuss her new book The World’s Medicine Chest (Encounter Books) on the Free the Economy podcast from the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Click here to listen
New Study: Medicare’s Price Controls Are Fueling America’s Growing Doctor Shortage
The Pacific Research Institute’s Center for Medical Economics and Innovation today released a new issue brief warning that continued federal underpayment of doctors is fueling a looming healthcare crisis by accelerating the nation’s physician shortage and undermining access to care. Written by PRI senior fellow in business and economics and ...
This Groundbreaking Insurance Reform Is Buried In The One Big, Beautiful Bill
The legislative package would codify and expand Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements, which the first Trump administration introduced in 2019. ICHRAs allow employers to give workers untaxed dollars, which they can use to purchase health insurance on the individual market. In many ways, ICHRAs are the health insurance equivalent of retirement accounts to ...
D.C.’s Embrace of Price Controls Bad News for Patients
President Trump announced his intention last month to peg U.S. drug prices to those that foreign governments have set within their borders. The very same day, federal officials said they’d reveal in February 2026 a list of 15 drugs subject to price controls through Medicare’s Part B outpatient benefit and ...
Read the latest on the push for single-payer health care
What’s Wrong With Single-Payer? Ask Vermont.
In 2011, Vermont created Green Mountain Care, “a publicly financed health care program designed to contain costs and to provide comprehensive, affordable, high-quality health care coverage for all Vermont residents.” But the initiative didn’t last long. Estimates suggested the program would cost between $1.6 and $2.5 billion in just its ...
America Shouldn’t Buy Into Single-Payer Mirage
Will the seventh time be the charm? Sen. Bernie Sanders sure hopes so. Vermont’s senior senator just introduced his latest bid to install Medicare for All in the United States. In seven of the last eight Congresses, dating back to 2011, he’s offered legislation to launch a government takeover of ...