As the May 18 deadline for negotiating a modernized North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) looms, negotiators should consider closely how intellectual property (IP) rights will be treated between the countries involved. According to the Global Innovation Policy Center’s (GIPC) 2018 International IP Index, which measures 50 countries against 40 IP indicators, the U.S. ranked […]
The President has already made some good policy decisions and has offered other proposals that will help to lower drug costs.
You may recall a March 5, WasteWatcher blog, “New FDA Report on BPA: It is Still Safe,” which discussed a pre-peer review draft study released by the National Toxicology Program (NTP) on bisphenol A (BPA), a compound used to produce plastic products and epoxy resins used in food and beverage can linings. The study, two-years […]
This prudent decision will send a strong message to other state legislatures across the country not to pursue similar legislation.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, is bringing many changes in the healthcare space and few are as subtly transformative as the rapid increase in cross-industry consolidation. A record breaking 115 mergers and acquisitions among hospitals and health systems occurred in 2017, an increase of 13 percent from 2016. These mega-deals can […]
April 11, 2018 U.S. House of Representatives Washington, D.C. 20515 Dear Representative, You will soon vote on H. J. Res. 2, an amendment to the Constitution requiring that the federal budget be balanced. On behalf of the more than one million members and supporters of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW), I urge […]
On February 15, 2018, 18 Democratic members of Congress sent a letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar, asking him to use his authority under 28 U.S.C. §1498 to issue a compulsory license on patents for drugs that treat hepatitis C. In other words, they are demanding that the government steal a […]
On April 11, 2018, Virginia legislators will return to Richmond for a special session in which they will aim to finish work on the Commonwealth’s budget. At center stage, yet again, is the issue of Medicaid expansion, still unresolved eight years after Obamacare became law. Medicaid is a deeply flawed program that was meant to […]
On November 28, 2017, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published a proposed rule that would revise Medicare Part D, the prescription drug program. The proposal dredges up the “any willing pharmacy” issue that would require any Part D plan sponsor, such as an insurer or a pharmacy benefit manager (PBM), to allow […]
Countless investigations over the past decade have exposed a systemic cancer of mismanagement, neglect, and failure at the VA.
