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
State Directed Payments redistribute money across states and supercharged growth
Differences in states’ use of SDPs cause an interstate redistribution of taxes as well. Because states are setting different levels of SDPs, spending varies…
Blog
How State Directed Payments turned Medicaid into an interstate transfer scheme
Medicaid’s financing rules have long allowed states to expand spending while shifting much of the cost to federal taxpayers. One of the most important…
Blog
Medicaid financing gimmickry – before and after the One Big Beautiful Bill
Medicaid was created in 1965 as a joint federal-state health insurance program for low-income individuals which targeted families with dependent children, the elderly, and…
Search Posts
News Release
CEI leads coalition calling on Congress to repeal drug price control provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and a coalition 43 conservative and free market groups sent a letter to Congress today calling for…
Letters
Coalition Letter to End IRA Prescription Drug Price Controls
October 31, 2023 Dear Members of Congress, When the Inflation Reduction Act was passed and signed into law a year ago, the…
Blog
This week in ridiculous regulations: Blood donations to mortality tables
Poland voted its nationalist-populist government out of power. The US House of Representatives remained without a speaker, but with a lot of drama. Agencies…
City Journal
Equity vs. Evidence
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force—a volunteer panel of national experts in prevention and evidence-based medicine that makes recommendations for clinical preventive services such…
National Review
Restricting Pharmacy Benefit Managers Could Decrease Competition and Increase Drug Costs
Congress is considering multiple bills that aim to restrict the ability of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) to negotiate discounts and rebates and to require the…
PCMA
Just the Facts: Research and Analysis Finds Anti-PBM Legislation Does Not Lower Prescription Drug Costs for Patients
PCMA cites CEI’s Joel Zinberg anti PBM legislation: “This policy would significantly change drug pricing and utilization and shift billions of dollars annually…
Wall Street Journal
Court to FDA: Stop Playing Doctor
The Food and Drug Administration regulates pharmaceuticals, but it has no business playing doctor and giving you medical advice. That’s the message of a…
News Release
Congressional Efforts to Regulate PBMs Risk Higher Drug Costs, Worse Health Outcomes for Patients
Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) are private businesses that developed in the free market to manage prescription drug benefits for health insurance plan sponsors. Nearly…
Study
A Free Market Solution for Drug Distribution
Executive summary This paper describes and explains the function of Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) in the American health care economy. PBMs are private…
New York Post
Djokovic can compete in the US Open again — after Biden finally ended his unscientific travel ban
The US Open tennis tournament has begun in Queens, and one of the world’s best players will finally be allowed to compete again.
New York Post
Don’t believe doomsayers — new COVID outbreak is mild, and masks don’t help
COVID-19 cases are expected to rise this fall as new variants become more prevalent. And, as unfortunately expected, it’s already triggered demands…
Fox News
New report reveals how CDC can be ready for the next pandemic
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a new director, Dr. Mandy Cohen. Her predecessor, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, acknowledged CDC…
Citation
Dr. Joel Zinberg discusses his report on refocusing and reforming the CDC after COVID-19 on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal
CEI Senior Fellow Joel Zinberg joined Washington Journal on August 11, 2023 to discuss new study from CEI and Paragon Health Institute which…
News Release
New Study from CEI and Paragon Health Institute finds CDC shortcomings and recommends key reforms
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and the Paragon Health Institute published a new paper today by CEI senior fellow and director…
Study
Unauthorized and Unprepared: Refocusing the CDC after COVID-19
Executive Summary What This Paper Covers The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the nation’s preeminent public health agency, has acknowledged that it failed…
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…
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…
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,…
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:…
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…
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…
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…
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.
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…
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.
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 …
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
