For over three decades, CEI has advocated health care reforms that put more power in the hands of consumers to choose their health providers, treatment protocols, and scope of insurance coverage. We have advocated reform of the Food and Drug Administration’s drug and device approval process to allow for greater flexibility and patient choice. And in 2013, CEI organized the court challenges to Obamacare’s exchange subsidies that concluded with the Supreme Court’s King v. Burwell decision.
Healthcare Issue Areas
Featured Posts
Blog
New FDA lab tests rule could bankrupt small labs
Yesterday the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that on May 6 it will promulgate a rule under its authority to regulate medical devices.
National Review
The Return of the Cadillac Tax?
Like the phoenix, a key piece of the Affordable Care Act has risen from the ashes, resurrected, believe it or not, by the Republican Study Committee…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: Paying for organs with Pete Jaworski
In this week’s episode we cover the future of AI and employment, why we shouldn’t trust Chinese economic statistics, and how the…
Search Posts
New York Post
The numbers prove Cuomo’s lockdowns hurt NYers on EVERY metric — while Florida flourished
What a difference a few years make. In 2020, the mainstream media lauded Gov. Andrew Cuomo for his strong but compassionate COVID-19 leadership. He won a…
Fox News
DeSantis’s Florida beats Newsom’s California, again. Here’s the comparison
The COVID-19 pandemic elicited unprecedented government interventions into American life. Yet, the stringency and duration of government measures varied considerably across the U.S. …
Study
Freedom Wins
ABOUT THE AUTHORS Joel M. Zinberg, M.D., J.D. is the Director the Public Health and American Well-Being Initiative at Paragon Health Institute, and a senior…
Blog
Fauci Failure to Acknowledge Limited Vaccine Protection Undermines Faith in Government Advice
In a recent article Dr. Anthony Fauci acknowledged that, from the beginning of the pandemic, there was good reason to believe that vaccines against…
Regulatory Transparency Project
AUDIO: Explainer Episode 48 – The FDA & the Practice of Medicine: Possible Regulation of Off-Label Prescriptions
Senior Fellow Joel Zinberg joins the Regulatory Transparency Project to discuss possibly regulation of off-label prescriptions: On December 29, 2022, President Biden signed the Consolidated Appropriations…
Citation
FDA’s Medical Interference, Time for ESG Antitrust Action and other commentary
Libertarian: FDA’s Medical Interference The Wall Street Journal quoted Joel Zinberg on FDA banning practices: “Secreted within the 2023 omnibus appropriations bill,” notes Joel…
Wall Street Journal
The FDA Wants to Interfere in the Practice of Medicine
Secreted within the 2023 omnibus appropriations bill—4,155 pages, spending $1.7 trillion—is a 19-line section that could change the way medicine is practiced. Physicians routinely prescribe…
City Journal
PODCAST: The Last Gasp of Pandemic Restrictions?
Senior Fellow Joel Zinberg joins Brian Anderson at City Journal to discuss the “tripledemic” of Covid, flu and RSV, the relationship of public health and…
Blog
Omnibus Bill Throws More Money at CDC, Does Not Reform It
Congress has passed the $1.7 trillion fiscal 2023 omnibus appropriations bill. The 4,155-page legislation, which covers everything from agriculture to veterans, includes a section…
City Journal
Ignore the “Tripledemic” Hype
Winter is back, and so are warnings from “experts” for Americans to don masks. A resurgence of influenza (flu) and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)—respiratory illnesses…
National Review
Senate, Forget about Rolling Back the Government Takeover of Health Care
Elections have consequences. Republicans’ failure to capture the U.S. Senate means that the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions — known as the HELP…
City Journal
End the Vaccine Mandates
One year ago, the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued an interim final rule requiring 15 types of health-care facilities that…
The New York Post
Biden Wastes Billions on COVID Boosters No One Wants
When it comes to wasting money, the Biden administration has few peers. Earlier in the year, Team Biden re-purposed billions of dollars to buy 170…
The New York Post
Team Biden’s Extending the COVID Emergency Again — to Expand the Welfare State
It’s official. Despite President Biden’s recent admission that the pandemic is over, his team will extend the COVID-19 public health emergency through at least April…
The New York Post
Team Biden’s Latest Welfare Expansion: Medicaid Payments for Housing, Food, even Furniture
Co-authored by Dr. Joel Zinberg and Gary Alexander The latest front in the Biden administration’s crusade to bypass the congressional appropriations process and expand the…
National Review
The CDC’s Premature Childhood-Vaccine Decision
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has proven once again how tone-deaf it is. The CDC’s independent Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted 15–0…
Wall Street Journal
The Bivalent Booster Boondoggle
The public-health bureaucracy is adopting yet another excessive vaccination policy. On Oct. 12 the Food and Drug Administration authorized bivalent Covid-19 boosters from …
Wall Street Journal
The Bivalent Booster Boondoggle
The public-health bureaucracy is adopting yet another excessive vaccination policy. On Oct. 12 the Food and Drug Administration authorized bivalent Covid-19 boosters from …
Blog
One Year on, FDA Sodium Guidance Still Wanting
It is the one year anniversary of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Guidance for Industry setting out goals to reduce sodium content in…
New York Post
California Makes it Illegal for Doctors to Disagree with Politicians
Conformity of thought is now required whether it is online, on college campuses, or, if you are in California, in a physician-patient relationship. PayPal recently…
News Release
Court Rules Against Vaccine/Mask Mandates Imposed by Federal Agency
Today, a federal judge in Louisiana ruled the federal government cannot require Head Start program teachers, staff and volunteers be vaccinated against COVID-19 nor that…
New York Post
It seems clear Dems pressured the FDA to delay the COVID vaccine to hurt Trump
For every week we didn’t have a COVID-19 vaccine, more people died, more children were kept out of school, and more damage was done to…
News Release
Judge Rules Illumina-Grail Merger is Legal Despite FTC Antitrust Accusations
In a decision reached today, an administrative judge ruled that a proposed merger between Illumnia and Grail can proceed after ruling against a move…
City Journal
A Pox By Any Other Name
Anyone wondering why medical authorities seem so ineffectual need look no further than their newfound obsession with renaming the monkeypox virus and the disease it…
National Review
Monkeypox Outbreak Leveling Off, No Thanks to Government
Something that apparently surprised government bureaucrats and left-wing commentators but is, in fact, completely predictable is happening: The growth in new monkeypox cases is leveling off…
The New York Post
Key to CDC reform is undoing mission creep — and tossing woke programs
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky has finally admitted what has been obvious to most observers for 2½ years: The agency has been…
C-SPAN
Video: Senior Fellow Joel Zinberg Joins C-SPAN to Discuss Senate Democratic Health Care and Prescription Drug Proposals
Senior Fellow Joel Zinberg joined the Washington Journal to discuss Senate Democratic Health Care and Prescription Drug Proposals. Click here to read more.
City Journal
No More Masks
Covid-19 cases are on the rise again in the United States. Even President Biden is infected. But the biggest danger is not the virus—the now-dominant…
National Review
Regulators’ Misguided Crackdown on Nicotine Products and Their Makers
Federal agencies must really love black markets. Last week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a plan to limit nicotine in cigarettes and …
Blog
The FTC vs. the Right to a Fair Trial
The Food and Drug Administration recently proposed capping the nicotine in cigarettes, which will encourage many smokers to smoke more to get the same nicotine…
Blog
FDA’s Juul Ban Part of Deadly War on Nicotine
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today announced that it denied the application of Juul Labs, maker of the Juul e-cigarette, to market its…
The City Journal
Better Late Than Never?
The federal requirement for a negative Covid-19 test prior to flying into the U.S. and the New York City toddler-mask mandate have both just ended.
Wall Street Journal
A Permanent Pandemic Means a Huge Medicaid Expansion
Covid is now endemic, yet the Biden administration keeps extending the public-health emergency. Its goal is to preserve the expansion of the welfare state through…
New York Post
How the FDA bungled the nation’s baby-formula supply
Infant formula provides the sole source of nutrition for infants who are not being breast fed and often supplements breast milk for those who are.
Blog
Banning Menthol Cigarettes Will Do Nothing to Promote Racial Justice
Public support for the War on Drugs has never been lower, due in no small part to increased awareness about the devastation drug criminalization…
New York Post
Billions in COVID relief haven’t been spent … but Biden still demands more!
That great sloshing sound you hear is the tens of billions of dollars of unspent COVID-19 relief funds slopping around federal, state and local government…
Inside Sources
Point: There’s No Evidence That Masks Work
Joe Biden proclaimed, “Wearing masks is not a political statement, it is a scientific imperative.” He was wrong. There is little evidence supporting generalized use of masks.
The New York Post
Studies Prove that Most Politicians and Experts Handled COVID Terribly
During the 2020 election, multiple public health “experts” claimed President Trump had “blood on his hands” and was responsible for “preventable” loss of life. They…
The Federalist Society
AUDIO: CEI’s Joel Zinberg Joins the Federalist Society to Discuss Mask Mandates
Senior Fellow Joel Zinberg joined The Federalist Society to discuss the CDC’s mask mandate and examine the strategy behind the Department of Justice’s decision to…
The Regulatory Transparency Project
AUDIO: Joel Zinberg Joins the Regulatory Transparency Project to Discuss CDC Mask Mandates
Senior Fellow Joel Zinberg joined the Regulatory Transparency Project to discuss the CDC travel mask ruling and more: Click here to read more.
National Review
Breathing Easier: End of the Mask Mandate?
There was almost an audible sigh of relief nationwide following Monday’s ruling by a federal district-court judge in Florida vacating the Centers for…
City Journal
A Breath of Fresh Air
In the latest of a long line of judicial rebukes to the Biden administration’s expansive view of administrative-agency power, a federal district court in Florida…
Blog
New Inflation Numbers Show Folly of Price Controls
Today’s release of inflation numbers by the Bureau of Labor Statistics confirms that the loudest voices in favor of price controls are usually the…
National Review
New York’s Child-Masking Madness
One of the more curious storylines playing out in the early days of Eric Adams’s tenure as mayor of New York City is his stance…
City Journal
Obamacare’s Hollow Celebration
Last week, Barack Obama joined President Biden at the White House to mark the 12th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, also known…
C-SPAN
VIDEO: Senior Fellow Joel Zinberg Joins C-Span to Discuss the ACA and more
Senior Fellow Joel Zinberg joins C-Span to discuss the Affordable Care Act and the future of healthcare: Click here to read more.
Blog
Affordable Care Act Anniversary Gives Little Reason to Celebrate
President Obama is joining President Biden at the White House to commemorate the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare. But there is…
Blog
CEI Joins Coalition Urging FDA Not to Ban Synthetic Nicotine
This week CEI joined a coalition of groups urging Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Robert Califf not to prohibit synthetic nicotine (read the…
New York Post
Mayor Adams Wants the Tots to Stay Masked Up, Instead of Listening to Science
Mayor Adams and his new health commissioner, Dr. Ashwin Vasan, have decided to extend the city’s school mask mandate for children under 5. This makes…
Letters
CEI Joins Coalition Letter on FDA Ban on Synthetic Nicotine
Dear Commissioner Califf, We write to you in opposition to a new regulation signed into law by Congress that will effectively ban vapor products that…