Health Care
Blog
Read part 3 of a series on drug pricing
Regulations, Not Anticompetitive Actions, Are Obstructing Drug Competition
The flaws driving up costs across the broader health care landscape are also driving up the costs for innovative drugs. After all, pharmaceuticals are an integral component used in combination with the broader healthcare system. As a result, spending on medicines both influences and is influenced by the spending on ...
Commentary
America Doesn’t Have Enough Doctors. Medicare Is Making That Worse.
The United States is facing a shortage of 37,000 physicians, according to the latest research from the Association of American Medical Colleges. That deficit will more than double to 86,000 doctors by 2036. Medicare’s chronically low reimbursement rates deserve at least part of the blame. According to the American Medical ...
Commentary
How Price Controls Make a Healthy Drug Market Sick
The unspoken assumption behind the prescription drug price controls at the heart of the Democrats’ August 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is that the pharmaceutical market is broken. According to this view, drugmakers have the power to charge whatever they want. Only a sweeping system of government price-setting can put ...
Commentary
Medicare Turns 60 This Month: It’s Time for an Intervention
On July 30, Medicare will mark its 60th birthday. Like many 60-year-olds, it’s in the throes of a midlife crisis. But unlike a harmless convertible purchase or spontaneous trip to Paris, this one midlife crisis threatens the nation’s fiscal health — and the well-being of future retirees. Read the entire ...
Commentary
Thank Obamacare for America’s insurance fraud boom
The number of Americans enrolled in marketplace plans either fraudulently or improperly reached 6.4 million in 2025 — an increase of more than one-quarter, according to an analysis published last month by the Paragon Health Institute. All of this wrongdoing will cost American taxpayers an estimated $27 billion this year. ...
Commentary
Feds right to curtail California’s Medicaid scam
On Independence Day, President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is projected to reduce enrollment in Medicaid programs throughout the country, including Medi-Cal in California. But Californians should cheer, not jeer, these coverage “losses.” The law will primarily disenroll people who should have never been covered by ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
Read part 3 of a series on drug pricing
Regulations, Not Anticompetitive Actions, Are Obstructing Drug Competition
The flaws driving up costs across the broader health care landscape are also driving up the costs for innovative drugs. After all, pharmaceuticals are an integral component used in combination with the broader healthcare system. As a result, spending on medicines both influences and is influenced by the spending on ...
America Doesn’t Have Enough Doctors. Medicare Is Making That Worse.
The United States is facing a shortage of 37,000 physicians, according to the latest research from the Association of American Medical Colleges. That deficit will more than double to 86,000 doctors by 2036. Medicare’s chronically low reimbursement rates deserve at least part of the blame. According to the American Medical ...
How Price Controls Make a Healthy Drug Market Sick
The unspoken assumption behind the prescription drug price controls at the heart of the Democrats’ August 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is that the pharmaceutical market is broken. According to this view, drugmakers have the power to charge whatever they want. Only a sweeping system of government price-setting can put ...
Medicare Turns 60 This Month: It’s Time for an Intervention
On July 30, Medicare will mark its 60th birthday. Like many 60-year-olds, it’s in the throes of a midlife crisis. But unlike a harmless convertible purchase or spontaneous trip to Paris, this one midlife crisis threatens the nation’s fiscal health — and the well-being of future retirees. Read the entire ...
Thank Obamacare for America’s insurance fraud boom
The number of Americans enrolled in marketplace plans either fraudulently or improperly reached 6.4 million in 2025 — an increase of more than one-quarter, according to an analysis published last month by the Paragon Health Institute. All of this wrongdoing will cost American taxpayers an estimated $27 billion this year. ...
Feds right to curtail California’s Medicaid scam
On Independence Day, President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is projected to reduce enrollment in Medicaid programs throughout the country, including Medi-Cal in California. But Californians should cheer, not jeer, these coverage “losses.” The law will primarily disenroll people who should have never been covered by ...
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 ...
