Pacific Research Institute
Sally Pipes is president, CEO and a fellow in healthcare policy at the Pacific Research Institute. She is the author of Miracle Cure: How to Solve America's Health-Care Crisis and Why Canada Isn’t the Answer and The Way Out of Obamacare.
Pipes served as a healthcare advisor to Rudy Giuliani's 2008 presidential campaign
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It's now or never for a divided Republican Party The White House says President Trump will "watch and take names" as House Speaker Paul Ryan tries to unite the GOP to "repeal and replace" Obamacare. Meantime, polls show more than half the public's opposed to adding some 24 million people to the ranks of the uninsured. The House is scheduled to vote later today, and we look at the consequences one way or the other. Will the President blame the Speaker if the bill fails? If it passes the House, what's its chance in the Senate? There's a lot at stake — including the health of America's healthcare system.
Polarization Poisons Healthcare Debate Healthcare is one of the issues citied as most important by potential voters of both parties. Presidential candidates all trumpet their plans. But Democrats and Republicans sound as if they're in different worlds. One side advocates "universal healthcare" while the other warns against "government interference" and "socialized medicine." In last night's Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had a nasty exchange about whose healthcare plan covers the most people. In his campaign, Republican Mitt Romney has moved away from a comprehensive healthcare plan he signed while Governor of Massachusetts. Comparisons between the US and British medical systems made by Rudy Giuliani in radio ads about his battle with prostate cancer have been attacked as inaccurate. Are candidates' plans as different as they sound? When the election finally is over, what are the chances of bridging the gap? Will necessary compromise fall victim to political polarization on Capitol Hill?
Replacing Obamacare: Now you see it… now you don’t As the Senate deliberates replacing Obmacare, health coverage for millions of people is at stake. There've been no public hearings, and a draft measure won't be made public. Is the House version so unpopular that that Senate is hiding a version that looks much the same?
Is the threat from Russia missing from the Russia meddling probe? There's much being made about the Trump administration's possible ties with Russia. But the bottom line is Russia's effort to influence American democracy. Do the President and his aides care enough to take action before voters go back to the polls?
Who's to blame for the opioid crisis? Some of the lawyers who took on Big Tobacco are now going after Big Pharma. It’s all about the deadly epidemic of opioid use. Are the drug companies to blame? What about the users? Later, on today’s Talking Point: making sense of Britain’s upset election.
Trump's 'America First' goes missing abroad In the Middle East, President Trump is changing some policies of the Obama Administration—and reversing his own campaign attacks on Islam as a religion that "hates us." We hear about his visit to Saudi Arabia and what's at stake for the rest of his foreign excursion.