Author: Pacific Research Institute

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April 10, 2020 Coronavirus

As Americans endure the privations necessary to “flatten the curve” of new cases of coronavirus COVID-19, we wish that our leaders could manage even a fraction of the comity and tolerance exhibited every day by ordinary people throughout this country. Sadly, we see too much of the opposite. Putting aside the machinations of politicians, there seems to be a widespread need to blame any misstep, or even uncertainty, on somebody or something. The ubiquitousness of social media and the internet drives the...

April 6, 2020 Blog, Coronavirus, Multimedia, Radio

PRI Senior Fellow in Health Care Studies Dr. Henry Miller joins PRI's Next Round podcast with an update on the fight against the coronavirus. He offers much-needed perspective on what public health officials are doing to “flatten the curve,” efforts to find vaccines and treatments, the efforts of other countries to contain the virus, when we can expect to get back to business as usual, and whether we should expect more viruses like these going forward. https://youtu.be/1FlElnaB3Ps...

April 6, 2020 Blog, Coronavirus

The federal government’s efforts to combat the ongoing coronavirus pandemic illustrate why we shouldn’t put our full trust in government to find a cure. After all, they badly botched the testing, costing valuable time in identifying new cases and limiting its spread. Fortunately, private-sector innovators are leading where government has underwhelmed, conducting speedy research and development into potentially life-saving cures, while providing critical support in other areas where government action was lacking. The first version of test kits from the Centers for...

April 2, 2020 Blog, Coronavirus

Title: COVID-19 Pandemic Delaying Treatments of Hematologic Cancers By: John Schieszer Institutional restrictions due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic are taking a large toll on patients with hematologic cancers. Some medical centers have canceled treatments and all centers have altered their policies and procedures. Starting in March, elective and semielective surgical procedures at most hospitals throughout the United States were put on hold, and uncertainty remains regarding when these procedures will start up again. . . . . . Because there is...

March 24, 2020 Price and Costs

SAN FRANCISCO – As prescription drug pricing and accessibility has become a greater topic of discussion during the current coronavirus pandemic, a new series of animated videos launched today by the Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the Pacific Research Institute aims to guide Americans through the “drug pricing maze”. The new series will educate viewers on how the current drug pricing system is fueled by misguided policies that drive up costs, and how free-market reforms would steer us toward...

March 2, 2020 Blog, Coronavirus, Industry Trends

Title: As U.S. Sees COVID-19 Infections Spike, Some Worry About 'Grave Errors' By Adam Smith In the beginning, the few reports of a newly discovered virus seemed inconsequential and distant. The coronavirus was causing pneumonia in scores of people, but those patients were in a faraway province of China, Hubei, that most outside that nation had never heard of. “There is no evidence that the new virus is readily spread by humans, which would make it particularly dangerous, and it has not been...

March 2, 2020 Blog, Coronavirus, Policy Proposals

The Green New Dealers want us to think we have to either live more austere lives under coercive government policies or destroy the planet. Opponents of their plan, the theory goes, are willing to sacrifice the environment for short-term financial prosperity for the elite few. Nothing could be further from the truth. Meeting Americans’ needs, especially those of the neediest, requires free markets that can realize and reward the benefits of technological innovations, big and small. Big innovations are those such as the...

February 26, 2020 Blog, Coronavirus, Industry Trends, Issues

CDC warns on coronavirus in US: Should you start to worry? By Madeline Farber, Fox News Federal health officials this week warned that community spread of the novel coronavirus in the U.S. is seemingly inevitable, with one Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) official saying it’s no longer “a question of if, but when, and how many people in this country will have severe illness.” In the same vein, officials have maintained that the immediate threat to the public remains low. So how worried should you be?...

February 24, 2020 Blog, Coronavirus, Issues

WHO says coronavirus ‘absolutely’ has potential for pandemic status as Italy, Iran brace for surge By: Alexandria Hein Health officials stressed on Monday that while Iran and Italy have reported a surge in coronavirus cases over the last several days and raced to cancel public events, the outbreak, which originated in China, has not yet met the criteria for a pandemic, although it “absolutely” has the potential to get there. “Using the term pandemic now, it doesn’t fit the facts, but it may...

February 10, 2020 Blog, Coronavirus, Industry Trends, Issues

Business impact widens as China fights to get infections under control By: Anjalee Khemlani, Yahoo! Finance Feb. 7, 2020 China’s deadly coronavirus outbreak continues to threaten multi-national companies, as a range of businesses from leisure to retail suffer from the outbreak’s after-effects. The number of confirmed cases in the country surged past 31,000 Friday, well beyond three times the number of cases last week. While the number of new cases daily have dipped slightly, World Health Organization officials said on Friday the organization’s not...

February 6, 2020 Coronavirus, Innovation, Issues, Multimedia, Radio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so744sbVJ_E Dr. Henry Miller, senior fellow with PRI’s Center for Medical Economics and Innovation, joins PRI's "Next Round" podcast to discuss the Wuhan Coronavirus. We explore a wide variety of topics related to this public health crisis, including how people get the illness and how it is being treated, how the Chinese and U.S. governments are working to combat it, the prospects for the rapid development of a vaccine, how social media disinformation is fueling the crisis, and how concerned Americans...

January 30, 2020 Blog, Issues, Price and Costs

Trump administration officials keep searching for solutions to rising prescription drug prices, which are increasing faster than inflation. “Drug makers and companies are not living up to their commitments on pricing. Not being fair to the consumer, or to our Country!” President Donald Trump tweeted last year. However, it’s hard to know what “fair” prices are. After all, pharmaceutical research and development is expensive and high risk. Bringing a drug to market may take 10 or more years and costs, on average, more than $2.5...

January 23, 2020 Policy Proposals, Price and Costs

Drug supply chain, pricing system reforms will slash healthcare costs, says PRI By Jeff Lagasse As the Trump administration pushes for price caps and government controls to address prescription drug prices, a new issue brief released by the Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the Pacific Research Institute contends that reforming the complex drug supply chain and ending the current drug pricing system that overcharges patients – along with systemwide reforms – are what's needed to lower America's healthcare costs. Many proposals have been...