OPINION:
The Times’ insightful section on Medicare back in March highlights the fact that under the current Congress, “patient access under the Medicare program is being threatened” (“Vulnerable patients will suffer most with congressional inaction,” Web, March 23). Because Democratic spending schemes are based on theories untethered from reality and human motivation, they hurt the poor.
For example, the Build Back Better boondoggle tries to reduce drug prices by making it harder for pharmaceutical companies to profit from their own innovations. But Dr. Tomas Philipson, University of Chicago economist and former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, estimates that through 2039, under this measure research and development spending would fall by over 18 %, resulting in 135 fewer new drugs and a loss of 330 million life years in the U.S.
Former White House adviser Brian Blase of the Paragon Health Institute finds that the bill would punish conservative states by redirecting federal aid from fiscally responsible safety-net hospitals, “ultimately failing low-income individuals and the uninsured.”
American Enterprise Institute Scholar Kirsten Axelsen reports that Build Back Better cuts would result in roughly 550 fewer HIV clinical trials in the next 14 years.
The data-based poor forecasts go on.
Americans want to help the poor, but Build Back Better and other leftist plans actually hurt the poor by ignoring fundamental human motivation and economics. Conservatives offer solid solutions, such as the Health Care Choices 2020, that help the poor by providing fiscally responsible and sustainable safety nets, encouraging innovation and putting patients and doctors back in charge of health care.
JONATHAN IMBODY
Glen Allen, Va.
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