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Health Care

September 5, 2023

Conservative Health Care Reforms Ready to Go (Audio: Podcast)

Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner joins IPI's Merrill Matthews to discuss various conservative health care reform proposals that, if passed, would provide people with more insurance-coverage options and patients with more freedom to choose the care that's best for them.

August 7, 2023

A New (?) Conservative Blueprint for Healthcare Reform (Audio: Podcast)

IPI Resident Scholar and healthcare policy expert Dr. Merrill Matthews explains a new-ish effort on the part of some conservative policy experts, which sound to IPI President Tom Giovanetti an awfully lot like the same sound healthcare policies conservatives have been pushing for the last two decades.

 

July 17, 2023

If Obamacare Is so Great, Why Limit Other Options? (Audio: Podcast)

IPI Resident Scholar Dr. Merrill Matthews explains “bridge” or “gap” short term health insurance policies, which have functioned as less costly alternatives to Obamacare for many people. But progressives don’t actually like Americans to have choice, IPI President Tom Giovanetti reminds us, and that’s why the Biden administration announced steps last week to severely limit access to what they characterize as “junk” insurance policies. But if Obamacare is so great, why be worried about people choosing alternatives? Because, for one thing, Obamacare ain’t all that great. And for another thing, progressives don’t really believe in consumer choice. Free market economic proposals, by contrast, start with an assumption of consumer choice.

June 10, 2023

The Feds Make Drug Companies an Offer they Can't Refuse (Audio: Podcast)

The dishonestly named “Inflation Reduction Act” creates an explicit price controls mechanism for prescription drugs under Medicare. This unravels the market protection mechanism in the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit known as the nonintervention clause. IPI Resident Scholar Dr. Merrill Matthews explains how these price controls will be harmful to prescription drug innovation, and the constitutional grounds on which a legal challenge by Merck might be successful. With IPI President Tom Giovanetti.

May 26, 2023

Reconsidering Drug Pricing (Audio: Podcast)

by Merrill Matthews, Dr. Robert Popovian

Prescription drug issues are back on the Washington's front-burner. IPI Resident Scholar Merrill Matthews talks with Dr. Robert Popovian about his new paper, which highlights how recent developments—including insulin pricing, PBMs, the Inflation Reduction Act and Medicaid—are moving the drug companies to reconsider how they price their products. 

April 24, 2023

IPI Policy Basics: What Is Intellectual Property, Why Is it Important, and Why Is it Controversial? (Audio: Podcast)

In recognition of World IP Day, the Institute for Policy Innovation, an accredited Non-Governmental Organization affiliated with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), discusses the importance of intellectual property protection. With IPI Senior Research Fellow Bartlett Cleland and IPI Resident Scholar Dr. Merrill Matthews.

April 24, 2023

How the Biden Administration is Putting Prescription Drug Innovation at Risk (Audio: Podcast)

IPI Resident Scholar Dr. Merrill Matthews, who has spent significant time researching and understanding prescription drug and health care innovation, describes how the Biden administration is abusing the “march in rights” permitted under the Bayh-Dole legislation in order to supposedly reduce prescription drug prices. He then explains how the Biden administration is also in danger of allowing the international TRIPs waiver provisions to further weaken patent protection. IPI Senior Research Fellow Bartlett Cleland relates these issues to the same kinds of tech transfer issues encountered in the tech industry, and IPI President Tom Giovanetti interjects thoughts of questionable value.

April 13, 2023

Is Texas Falling for the Importation of Drugs from Canada? (Audio: Podcast)

This week HB25, which would create and fund a new agency in Texas that would coordinate the importation of prescription drugs from Canada, sailed through the Texas House of Representatives. IPI President Tom Giovanetti is surprised that this tired and failed idea has caught the eyes of Texas legislators, but IPI Resident Scholar Dr. Merrill Matthews has the receipts. Based on his years of research and study of importation, Dr. Matthews explains why this idea is likely a waste of time and effort for the Texas Legislature.

March 24, 2023

If the Government Cut Medicare Fraud, It Wouldn't Have to Cut Medicare (Audio: Podcast)

IPI’s Resident Scholar Dr. Merrill Matthews shares some of his observations and research about how federal entitlement programs like Medicare tolerate rates of fraud that are much higher than fraud rates in the public sector, and if Medicare had been able to prevent $100 billion in fraud PER YEAR, it might not be in the fix it’s in today. And IPI President Tom Giovanetti rants about how you can’t expect private sector level performance from government, since the incentives in government are 180 degrees opposed to the incentives in the private sector. Oh, and “pay and chase” makes an appearance, too.

February 2, 2023

The Public Health-ization of Policy (Audio: Podcast)

IPI President Tom Giovanetti wonders how the Biden administration knows it can schedule the cancellation of the federal Covid-19 emergency order in May, since that’s now how emergencies work. If you already know when it’s going to be over, it’s not an emergency. This prompts a discussion about the use of emergency orders by executive branch officers at both the state and federal levels to advance policy goals that can’t be achieved through legislation, and the likely need for legislatures to rein in the emergency powers of their executives. With IPI Resident Scholar Dr. Merrill Matthews.

Total Records: 268