What’s New
What Both Parties are Missing on Health Reform
As Congress revisits health reform, much of the debate overlooks the structural issues driving high premiums and limited choice. This virtual policy discussion brings together leading health policy experts to examine market-based reforms that could meaningfully lower costs and improve access—without expanding bureaucracy. View the virtual Health Policy Event hosted by the Goodman Institute and the Market Institute on Youtube.
Goodman on Health Policy
Why both parties missed an opportunity to reform Medicaid. Why they missed an opportunity to reform the Obamacare exchanges. Why partisanship is the biggest obstacle to sensible health reform.
Watch Dr. Goodman’s talk to the Public Affairs Luncheon Club in Dallas.
What We Should Be Eating
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.
Trump’s Health Reform
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 Money not spent could be withdrawn for other purposes with no taxes or penalties.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.
How “Woke” Thinking Leads to Antisemitism
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.
Resolving the Health Policy Impasse in Congress, Part III
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.
Resolving the Health Policy Impasse in Congress, Part II
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.
Resolving the Health Policy Impasse in Congress, Part I
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.
What Trump Gets Right About TrumpRx
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.
Medicare Advantage
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.