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
Op-Eds
Reform Obamacare, Don’t Just Extend It
Obamacare must be reformed, not just extended, as the House recently voted to do. Intended as a program to help people gain insurance coverage, it…
Freedom Works Radio
Jeremy Nighohossian, Competitive Enterprise Institute “Trump Healthcare Plan a Mixed Bag”: Freedom Works Radio Show
Freedom Works Radio show interviews CEI’s expert on healthcare Listen to Freedom Works Radio…
NewsTalkSTL
NewsTalkSTL: Jeremy Nighohossian of Competitive Enterprise Institute 1-19-2026
Search Posts
Blog
This week in ridiculous regulations: soybean standards and pain medication limits
The FTC issued its new draft merger guidelines. Meanwhile, agencies issued new regulations ranging from milk marketing to Postal Service snitches. On to the…
New York Post
Memo to critics: Only folks who don’t qualify will lose their Medicaid
Medicaid advocates are demanding the federal government to stop states from removing people from the program after 25 states and the District of Columbia dropped…
City Journal
Lab Leak: Likely
Three previously unreleased State Department cables, obtained by the public-health group U.S. Right to Know through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, confirm…
Washington Examiner
The Biden administration shouldn’t waste more taxpayer dollars on COVID vaccines
A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee recently voted to recommend updating the COVID-19 vaccine. But important questions remain: When…
Letters
CEI Joins Coalition Letter Supporting Efforts to Stop Tobacco Prohibitions in Ag Approps Bill
Chairwoman Granger and Ranking Member DeLauro, The undersigned organizations representing millions of consumers and taxpayers support Sections 768 and 769 of the Fiscal Year 2024…
National Review
Pharmaceuticals: Marching into Trouble
The National Institutes of Health recently rejected a request by private petitioners to exercise “march-in rights” under the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act to control the…
City Journal
Nature’s Vaccine
Public-health officials in the U.S., unlike their counterparts elsewhere, have steadfastly focused on Covid-19 vaccines in fighting the pandemic, acting as if natural immunity following…
Washington Examiner
Under Walensky, the CDC has destroyed public trust in its credibility
The White House announced last week that Dr. Rochelle Walensky will be leaving her post as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She…
Wall Street Journal
Don’t Let Unspent Covid Funds Become Slush Funds
The House has passed the Limit, Save, Grow Act, which would raise the debt limit for a year in exchange for deficit-relief measures. One of…
National Review
No, Lockdown States Did Not Do Better
Many politicians, public-health figures, and media pundits continue to insist that the Covid lockdowns were a success and represent a blueprint for future pandemic responses. Illinois…
City Journal
Roll It Back
Medicaid, the federal-state entitlement for the poor, now provides health insurance to more than one in four Americans. Enrollments surged after the Affordable Care Act…
City Journal
Politically Correct Medical Scholarship Doesn’t Help Blacks
A recent article in the British Medical Journal, “Inequities in surgical outcomes by race and sex in the United States,” is important—not…
National Review
Was the U.S. furtively funding the lab research that unleashed Covid-19?
Slowly but surely, new cracks are appearing in the wall of silence denying Chinese culpability in causing the nearly 7 million deaths attributed to…
Blog
Covid Lockdowns Did Not Improve Outcomes: Lessons from Florida and California
My Competitive Enterprise Institute colleague Dr. Joel Zinberg is the co-author of a new report, published by the Paragon Health Institute titled “Freedom Wins:…
The Center Square
Fauci takes heat after casting doubt on efficacy of COVID vaccines
CEI’s Joel Zinberg is cited in The Center Square on COVID vaccines: Joel Zinberg, a Competitive Enterprise Institute senior fellow, blasted Fauci for pushing for…
The Washington Journal
VIDEO: Joel Zinberg Joins the Washington Journal
Dr. Joel Zinberg joins the Washington Journal to discuss the efficacy of COVID lockdowns and government restrictions as they relate to public health and take…
The Washington Journal
Video: Dr. Joel Zinberg Joins the Washington Journal to Discuss COVID Lockdowns
Dr. Joel Zinberg joins the Washington Journal to discuss the efficacy of COVID lockdowns and government restrictions as they relate to public health and take…
National Review
Fauci Changes His Public Tune on Covid Vaccines
Dr. Anthony Fauci has finally acknowledged that there had always been good scientific reasons to believe that vaccines against the respiratory…
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…
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.
