Fickleness Is Not Heroism

By Konstantin Yuganov @Adobe Stock

Scrutinizing Medicaid

Due to “unexpected delays in billions of dollars of supplemental Medicaid payments, some hospitals across the country are forced to cut costs, including laying off staff and pausing payments to medical suppliers”, reports the WSJ.

The continued delay of the state-directed payments “accelerates our need to figure something out really fast,” said Darryl Wolfe, CEO of Olympic Medical Center. Wolfe is exploring possible partnerships with other health organizations.

There is a way Republicans can lower drug costs; Kimberley Strassel reminds readers in the WSJ.” The real Republican cop-out would be running from hard reforms, choosing instead to bilk dollars from an easy political target while currying favor with the mainstream press and the left.” To lower costs, Strassel advises, they need to follow proven and productive ways:

• Reform Medicare payment practices.
• Double down on competition, including with Medicare Advantage.
• Inject more price transparency.
• Fix the regulatory system.

As KS notes, these reforms require more backbone and more work—they aren’t as easy as the Harris-Sanders promise of government-provided “free” everything. Reforms would have the merit of working.

Fickleness Is Not Heroism 

Ms. Strassel writes of Trump’s “Team Anonymous,” which reminds the GOP that it needs the courage to “fight” pharma. That’s hilarious, scoffs Ms. Strassel. Who is kidding whom about attempting to brand fecklessness as heroism? As though a Washington that routinely screws up industries accidentally is more than able to crush the pharmaceutical industry with purpose.

The real Republican cop-out would be running from hard reforms, choosing instead to bilk dollars from an easy political target while currying favor with the mainstream press and the left.

Don’t Kick the Can Down the Street

Congressional Republicans aren’t yet biting for the price-control bait. House Speaker Mike Johnson admits to not being “a fan.” Other House conservatives correctly label it as a political attempt to dodge necessary Medicaid reform. But others, predictably eager to remain part of the White House brass, claim to be open to it.

Blessed with a free market, the US is on the cusp of a bio-tech revolution:

• precision medicine
• cancer vaccines, cell and gene therapies
• transplant advances
• early screening technologies

Reforms aren’t as easy as the Harris-Sanders promise of government-provided “free” everything. Unlike free everything, they do have the merit of working.

With the right kind of bold reforms, continues a hopeful Ms. Strassel, the Trump administration “could make that cusp a reality, to be remembered as the White House that facilitated a new life-sciences golden age.”