Kirby’s guest is Sally C. Pipes-she is President, CEO, and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy at the Pacific Research Institute, a San Francisco-based think tank founded in 1979. Prior to becoming president of PRI in 1991, she was assistant director of the...
Private pharmaceutical companies and the National Institutes of Health have outdone themselves. Thanks to the funding provided by the NIH, a Phase 1 clinical trial for a COVID-19 vaccine is underway. In separate efforts, Inovio, Sanofi, Vaxart, GlaxoSmithKline, and Johnson & Johnson are all developing potential vaccines. In...
As scientists race to develop vaccines and treatments for COVID-19, Democrats in Congress have renewed their push for price controls on drugs designed to protect us from the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, along with other illnesses. The Democrats claim many Americans will only be able to...
A proposed fix for surprise medical bills may end up on the cutting-room floor as negotiations over the multi trillion-dollar economic stimulus package wrap up on Capitol Hill. Last week, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., were trying to get their plan,...
Optimism is in short supply as the coronavirus pandemic grows deadlier by the day. COVID-19 has taken thousands of lives around the world and upended nearly every aspect of daily life. But there is at least one bright spot in this global public health emergency. That's...
As the coronavirus pandemic wreaks more and more medical and social havoc worldwide, we need to recall the observation of The Great One—no, not Dr. Tony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health—the other one, hockey player Wayne Gretzky, who said, “I skate to where...
President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law a decade ago on March 23, 2010, promising an era of affordable healthcare. Instead, for the past decade, insurance premiums have skyrocketed while coverage options have declined. Clearly, this anniversary is no cause for celebration. Proponents of Obamacare point to increased...
Ten years ago, President Barack Obama signed his eponymous healthcare reform package into law. What does the nation have to show for a decade of Obamacare? Nothing worth celebrating. Nearly every major provision of the Affordable Care Act has proven a failure. And yet, the Democrats'...
For most of us, the coronavirus pandemic is an ordeal we’re slogging our way through. However, some are seizing the opportunity to appeal for support for the health care schemes that have failed other nations. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, for one, has gone as far as...
When Senate Bill 1 was passed and signed into law in 2017, Californians were told the tax hikes it authorized were good for them. The revenues were to be dedicated to repairing the state’s lousy roads. Yet there have been numerous accountability and transparency questions about...