PRI's Focus on Health Care

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Drug Pricing Reforms Should Expand Choice, Not Government Control

The Hill | Wayne Winegarden
March 14, 2022

The claim that prices are lower, and quality is higher, when consumers have more choices is typically uncontroversial. Yet, for some reason this basic economic logic is lost when it comes to purchasing the medicines that patients need to live long, healthy lives. In the case of the drug market, intermediaries (whether they are insurers, government or employer payers, or pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs)) claim they can ensure better prices on medicines by restricting patients’ choices.

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States are eyeing a public option through rose-colored glasses

Forbes | Sally Pipes
March 14, 2022

The Affordable Care Act will notch its 12th birthday later this month. To get the measure through Congress and to President Obama’s desk for his signature, Democrats had to cut one of progressives’ signature proposals—a public health insurance option.

But the public option didn’t die all those years ago. President Biden campaigned on the idea during his run for the White House, in contrast to his rival Sen. Bernie Sanders’s proposal for Medicare for All.

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Study Echineacea on Your Own Dime

City Journal | Henry Miller
March 7, 2022

There’s another reason to spend research funds wisely. International research and development is highly competitive, and China is currently the world’s second-biggest spender on R&D ([link removed]) —at $468 billion, versus the U.S. investment of $582 billion in 2018, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

We need to support basic research at a level sufficient to prevent America’s scientists and businesses from becoming also-rans in the technological fields that will keep the U.S. economy competitive. Doing so will require us to be more discerning about our research priorities. We can ill afford to fund projects simply because they are politically correct or a sop to lesser disciplines.

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Biden's Drug Pricing Theatrics, Schemes Mislead

Newsmax | Sally Pipes
March 10, 2022

If Biden wants to help people afford the medicines they need, he should focus his energy on reining in pharmacy benefit managers PBMs and insurers who knowingly fleece patients by keeping their out-of-pocket drug costs artificially high.

A new system of drug price controls will only let these middlemen off the hook while destroying market incentives for drug innovation. That’s an outcome that no American should applaud.

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