Robert Goldberg is a health care policy analyst and writer who contributed to The Weekly Standard from 1999 to 2016. His articles focused extensively on health care policy, Medicare reform, and pharmaceutical regulation, often critiquing Democratic health care proposals and advocating for market-oriented solutions. He is affiliated with the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest.
For decades, Democrats and Republicans have had very different positions on drug prices. Democrats, led by Hillary Clinton portrayed drug companies—like other profitable industries—as greedy profiteers whose prices should be cut by having government 'negotiate' drug prices as they do in Europe,…
There are many remarkable episodes in this compelling autobiography of Israel Meir Lau, the former chief rabbi of Israel. One in particular captures Lau’s character and shapes his future. Lulek (as he was called) was 5 years old in 1942 when he saw his father, Moshe, also a rabbi, beaten and…
Mitch Daniels is probably the only governor with his workout schedule posted on the Internet. Indiana's chief executive has always exercised, but when Mitch (as almost everyone in the Hoosier state calls him) started to address the state's health care problems he discovered that it was the 16th…
John McCain's proposal for health care reform is more than a plan for making health care more affordable and for controlling costs through deregulation and market competition. It is also an attempt to restore independence and human dignity to patients. Both of his potential opponents in the fall…
Michael J. Fox made headlines for Democrats in the recent election campaign by promoting federal funding of embryonic stem cell research that the actor deems critical to finding a cure for Parkinson's Disease. Unbeknownst to him, his message was part of a massive bait-and-switch. That's because the…
NOW THAT THE DEMOCRATS CONTROL THE SENATE, price controls are back on the legislative agenda. Western electricity producers are first in line, and pharmaceutical firms are sure to be next. Democrats will likely use the issue of adding a drug benefit to Medicare (the federal health insurance program…
BY URGING PRICE CONTROLS on prescription drugs, killing Medicare reform, and then proposing a universal drug benefit for senior citizens, congressional Democrats and the Clinton administration have launched a war against drug companies that they hope will help them regain control of Congress and…
BILL BRADLEY'S PROPOSAL for replacing Medicaid with tax credits for the private purchase of health insurance drew a furious attack from A1 Gore, but it deserves a closer look. Tax credits have two substantial advantages as an approach to health coverage: They break the arbitrary link between…
In Baby and Child Care, Dr. Benjamin Spock complained of parents who "transmit their excessive competitiveness to their children. An extreme example is the attempt to teach reading to two-year-olds and, in general, to create 'superkids.'"
IF REPUBLICANS ARE SERIOUS about wanting to protect health care consumers, they should revive the campaign for medical savings accounts. Rather than joining the Democrats' push to let people sue their HMOs, Republicans should insist that MSAs be part of any Patients' Bill of Rights.
AS THE WHITE HOUSE GEARS UP to promote Bill Clinton's universal prescription-drug benefit for the elderly, it seems to have learned a thing or two from its historic health-care defeat of 1994. Like that earlier plan, Clinton's promise to pay for the prescription drugs of older Americans will put…
WHY ARE THE WHITE HOUSE and congressional Democrats afraid of reforming Medicare? Three months ago, when the co-chairmen of the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare produced a plan for saving Medicare, the White House instructed Clinton appointees to the commission to vote…
BEFORE AL GORE became the father of the Internet, he invented a toll-free number for enrolling children in government-provided health insurance. Last month, at a press conference with the first lady, the vice president unveiled the number, which parents can call to get information on Medicaid and…
EVER SINCE PRESIDENT CLINTON proposed adding a prescription-drug entitlement to Medicare in his State of the Union speech, drug coverage for the elderly has been the number-one health issue for Democrats. The Democrats on the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare are pushing for…