‘Right to Try’ Is a Win for Patient Rights and President Trump
The Hill cited the Competitive Enterprise Institute on the overwhelming cost of compliance which taxes the American economy and in this case limits pharmaceutical ingenuity or ease of access for potentially life-saving medicine.
The passage of RTT legislation represents an important win for patients who desire more freedom and greater control over their health-care decisions. It also is an important symbolic success for President Trump, who has made regulatory reform a centerpiece of his agenda.
The president came into office with a keen sense that excessive regulation was contributing to our slow growth rate and other economic woes, a view shared by many. He has made extraordinary progress in rolling back regulatory fiats.
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The costs of regulatory compliance are steep. A 2016 study by the Competitive Enterprise Institute estimated this burden at 1.885 trillion dollars, more than revenues collected by annual individual and corporate income taxes combined, and equivalent to a tax of 15,000 dollars per household per year.
We all want assurances that everything possible has been done to guard us against harm or loss, and to believe we are safe. However, when we rely on regulation to protect us, the reality is not that simple. Regulation inherently requires tradeoffs between costs and benefits, possible advantages versus potential harms.
Overregulation manifests as reduced innovation, stagnant wages, and lost jobs. In health care it can at times also mean lost lives. Overregulation is why your doctor may spend more time looking at her computer screen than looking at you. It is in part why individual health insurance is no longer affordable for millions of people. It also plays a substantial role in the uniquely high prices of many therapeutic drugs.
