What’s New

To our knowledge, the Goodman Institute is the only public policy think tank that has called for the complete inversion of the Food Pyramid, and we first did it under the Biden administration. In his latest post, John Goodman reviews the food wars – going back more than 160 years – and concludes that on this issue RFK Jr. appears to have the better argument.

• See John Goodman on the Food Wars
• See Greg Rehmke on Did the government Make us Fat?
• See Greg Rehmke on RFK Jr. May Be right About Something

Pete Sessions and John Goodman give details on how Trump’s approach to health reform might work. People would be able to buy insurance that meets their needs. If a medical need arises that is not covered by their chosen plan but is covered by Obamacare plans, people would be able to switch to a silver plan in the exchange. Roth Health Savings Accounts could be used for all primary care and other out-of-pocket costs. Money not spent could be withdrawn for other purposes with no taxes or penalties. More.

Where you find the most woke thinking in America you also find the most vocal and visible display of antisemitism – especially on college campuses…. What makes woke woke is the tendency to pick out a single characteristic (such as skin color) and make that the defining characteristic of everyone’s identity. Implicitly, the defining characteristic is more important to determining identity than all other characteristics combined. More.

Whenever there is head-to-head competition to meet the same needs, markets routinely outperform government. For that reason, in Part I and Part II I argued that we should rely on the private marketplace to meet all the health care and health insurance needs it can meet. The role of government should be restricted to meeting only important needs that the market leaves unmet.

Here is the final suggestion:

Rule 3: Eliminate public policies that give people perverse incentives to raise costs and reduce quality.

Today, multiple special interests are shaping our health care system. Fortunately, there are opportunities to defy the special interests and enact sensible reforms if we follow three simple rules. In Part I, I discussed:

Rule 1: Let the private marketplace meet all the health care needs it can meet, leaving to government any important needs that are left unmet.

Here is the follow-up:

Rule II: Apply Rule I to the health insurance marketplace.

How can we resolve the impasse in Congress over health care spending? Bipartisanship should be possible as long as we follow three simple rules. Here is the first one:

Rule 1: Let the private marketplace meet all the needs it can meet, leaving to government any important needs that are left unmet.

Novo Nordisk’s  list price for the weight loss drug Wegovy, for example, is $1,349.02 for a four week pack. The list price for Ozempic is $1,000. But in order to gain access to the Medicare market, the company has agreed to sell both drugs for $245 plus a patient co-pay of $50. Even more interesting is Trump’s push for direct-to-consumer sales. Novo Nordisk has agreed to sell its weight loss drugs for a cash price of $350. Eli Lilly has agreed to sell its weight loss drugs, Zepbound and Orforglipron, for a cash price of $346. More.

A lot of doctors and some conservatives don’t like Medicare Advantage. And there are definitely some bad actors. However, this is the only place in the health care system where we could see the emergence of market-based developments that right-of-center folks like. But before we can institute free market reforms, we need to set the record straight on what is actually happening in that market. That is the point of my latest post at Forbes.