RealClearHealth Articles

As of late last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recorded more than 1,600 measles cases, the most in three decades. These cases stemmed from 43 reported outbreaks, a sharp increase from just 16 in 2024. Over 200 patients have been hospitalized and three have died.The human toll of these outbreaks is significant -- especially given that measles is entirely preventable when vaccination rates remain near the 95% threshold needed for herd immunity.But beyond the devastating health consequences, the spread of measles creates an economic burden for...

President Trump just announced 100% tariffs on branded or patented pharmaceutical products -- unless a company has broken ground on a domestic manufacturing facility. The White House has claimed that imported pharmaceuticals pose a national security risk, echoing the rationale for its tariffs on steel and aluminum. But pharmaceuticals aren't like these other tariffs -- they're not commodities. And many of the medicines that could face tariffs come from Switzerland, Britain, Japan, South Korea, and other key allies, not adversaries. If imports are disrupted, shortages could hit almost...

A rump group of Senate Democrats is providing the votes needed to bring the Schumer Shutdown to an end. Those who backed the Senate minority leader will likely see this as treason, ending a gambit that was playing out to the Democrats’ advantage. Or against Donald J. Trump, which, as they see it, are the same things. They’re not, but that no longer matters. Still, President Donald J. Trump, by using the “Bully Pulpit” to expose the abundant fraud and waste throughout Medicaid, could have taken the wind out of the shutdown’s sails in its first few...

Whenever headlines announce a significant merger or acquisition in the consumer products space, particularly when health and wellness products are involved, speculation arises about the implications for the public. Those concerns make perfect sense, as people are justified in wanting to know whether corporate consolidation might affect the quality, safety, or availability of the products they rely on every day. While the scrutiny of mergers and acquisitions is reasonable, it’s important to separate fact from fiction when it comes to product safety, availability, and...

My company GreenMet secures critical minerals and their supply chains. For companies - and the country. That work inspires me, because I believe strong supply chains are essential guarantors of our national security. I view our nation’s veterans as no less crucial to our national security supply chain. Our ability to recruit active-duty military personnel is directly affected by how we treat these men and women after their service. Simply put: Our nation’s security is compromised if our veterans don’t receive excellent health care. Our elected officials in Washington, DC are...

From 2003 to 2025, 146 rural hospitals closed or stopped providing the type of general, acute-care, inpatient services which we view as the core service of hospitals.  And most of that is because these rural hospitals are hemorrhaging money, especially for Medicaid patients with whom most rural hospitals lose money.  And this rural health crisis extends beyond hospital services: whether it is lack of behavioral health services (where more than half of rural counties lack a single psychiatrist or psychologist), lack of primary care physicians (again, with 65% of rural areas with a...

A common refrain from Trump supporters is that everything he is doing is common sense. And there is no doubt that at some level they are correct. Taking aggressive measures to lower crime? Yeah, that is common sense. Taking aggressive measures to strengthen the US economy? Yeah, feels like something that the President should do. Fixing broken markets like the pharmaceutical industry? Of course that sounds like common sense. In fact, it is amazing that these issues haven’t been handled in the past, instead of the many cases in which the left’s policies actually made them worse. So,...

Gov. Kathy Hochul talks a big game about making New York affordable. Pressers. Slick websites. Big speeches about “fighting for your family.” Sounds great—until you look at what Albany is doing to families with boys battling Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).  Behind closed doors, her Medicaid Drug Utilization Review Board, which is supposed to evaluate and recommend how to handle high-cost breakthrough medicines, just voted to pause coverage of Elevidys, the first gene therapy for Duchenne. If the Health Commissioner signs off, most Medicaid kids are...

Populism makes sense as a political strategy – as we can see from Momdani’s win in NY, but there are smart versions and dumb versions of populism. And, while many of the most popular ideas make sense from an avowed Socialist, we are seeing these solutions now on both sides of this political aisle. For instance, President Trump has taken ownership of some businesses and forced others to act against their best interests. Now he is creating a separate business to compete with the free market—TrumpRx—while also forcing price controls in this market. Trump hasn’t done...

The U.S. leads the world in developing biomedical innovations, but it often falls short in delivering them to patients. The FDA approved the first PCSK9 inhibitor to treat cardiovascular disease in 2015; today less than 1% of eligible patients receive them. It’s a similar story with CAR-T therapy to treat blood cancers, first approved in 2017; today less than 20% of eligible patients receive them. Everyone from federal research agencies to new biomedical startups are rushing to capitalize on the new capabilities that AI brings to R&D. But unless we fix the...

For more than a month, Democrats in Congress have attempted to manufacture a health care policy crisis to justify a politically motivated government shutdown. Their price for agreeing to reopen the government? $1.5 trillion in additional government health care spending. President Trump has successfully called their bluff – and offered an inspiring alternative vision. Republicans are following the President’s example. They’re not giving in to the Democrats’ health care demands, which will only exacerbate the very real health care affordability crisis...

The Trump Administration’s efforts to lower prescription drug prices has resulted in progress on a new approach to getting brand name drug manufacturers to announce price reductions in connection with direct-to-consumer avenues for Americans to access some of their products. Selling to direct-to-consumer has been characterized by some as a way to work around consumers’ pharmacy benefits – the reality is that America’s pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) stand ready to support the Administration’s work to foster more options for patients and consumers by...

In the past decade, independent drugstores have been vanishing, especially in low-income, minority, and rural communities, in part due to pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) having rigged the system in favor of their own pharmacies. By steering patients to in-house pharmacies and squeezing independent pharmacies with hidden fees, PBMs are driving local pharmacies out of business. This loss of competition hits vulnerable communities hardest—places already facing healthcare deserts—and patients deserve a solution. PBMs sit between insurers, drug manufacturers, and pharmacies. Many...

When evaluating an advocacy group’s views on public policy, it helps to consider the source. In the case of AARP, that means scrutinizing the sizable conflicts of interest that compromise the organization’s policy positions. Even as it lobbies for a permanent extension of enhanced Obamacare subsidies to make insurance “affordable,” AARP funds that lobbying by making health coverage less affordable for its own members. A glance at AARP’s most recent financial statements shows a glaring conflict. Last year, the organization received $9.1...

News headlines usually make problems seem worse than they are. News outlets gain eyeballs believing “if it bleeds, it leads.” However, the warning that “20 million face health insurance sticker shock” is fact, not hyperbole. If anything, it understates the real issue: that the ACA cannot work, that it is making healthcare worse not better, and should be repealed. Democrats seek to justify their ransom demands to stop the shutdown, by claiming that Americans must be protected from 30 percent  increases in the cost of ACA health insurance premiums by...

Senate Democrats are demanding an extension of expanded Affordable Care Act subsidies in return for reopening the government. Reports suggest Republicans will compromise on this issue before the boosted Covid-19-era payments expire at year's end. Yet more subsidies won't address the underlying healthcare cost crisis. In fact, they risk making it worse by insulating insurers from market discipline. Since 2000, hospital and health insurance costs have increased by 257% and 342%, respectively, around three times faster than overall inflation. Without addressing these runaway...

Operation Warp Speed stands as one of President Trump's most transformative achievements—a bold demonstration of American leadership that launched a medical revolution and positioned America as the global leader in the most promising medical field of the 21st century. Yet this extraordinary achievement now faces an existential threat. U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has branded the technology President Trump once championed as "dangerous" and has slashed federal funding for future mRNA research. While it’s fair to question how public health...

We have been witnessing lunacy. Senate Democrats repeatedly voted against a short-term, “clean” resolution to reopen the federal government because they insist, amidst massive deficits and dangerous debt, on adding another $1.5 trillion in total federal spending. Among other items on their wish list, such as Medicaid eligibility for illegal aliens - House and Senate Democrats want to make the expansion of  temporary Covid-era emergency taxpayer subsidies for Obamacare insurance premiums permanent. The Covid pandemic is over, folks. Recall that ...

America’s rural health care system is in crisis and has been for a long time. Hospitals are closing, doctors are leaving, and patients are driving hours just to get basic care. The $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Fund in the One Big Beautiful Bill is a rare and overdue opportunity to do something about it. But we’ve seen too many government programs hijacked by well-connected interests or squandered through short-sighted implementation. If we’re not careful, this fund will become just another bailout—a temporary fix that fails to address the underlying...