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Manhattan Institute Submits Amicus Brief to SCOTUS in Case Challenging USPSTF Appointments

"A group of insurers challenged the [U.S. Preventive Services Task Force's] coverage mandates as invalid because its members were not constitutionally appointed as 'officers of the United States' under Article II's Appointments Clause.... The case is now before the Supreme Court, where MI has filed a brief supporting the challengers that explains the original meaning of superior and inferior officers for purposes of the Appointments Clause and overall political accountability." [Braidwood Mgmt, Inc. v. Becerra, No. 23-10326 (5th Cir. Jun. 21, 2024; cert. pet. granted Jan. 10, 2025)]

Manhattan Institute Testimony to the Senate HELP Committee on the Cost of Prescription Drugs: How the Delivery System Affects What Patients Pay (PDF)

"Broadly speaking, robust generic competition, along with the advent of large and sophisticated payers, has kept the relative share of health care costs attributable to medicines broadly stable, even as new medicines have become a cornerstone of treatment for acute and chronic illness. However, there are real challenges facing the health care system today, specifically for patients with serious chronic illnesses who are facing high coinsurance or deductibles largely for what are called 'specialty' medicines, and that challenge needs to be addressed."

Rethinking Retirement: A Four-Pillar Framework for Security and Sustainability

"Since the 1990s, our retirement system has been based on three pillars: government benefits, pensions from employers, and additional private saving. This report redefines each pillar for the modern labor force and financial markets -- and it proposes adding a fourth.... As part of the second pillar, 401(k)s could provide retirees with stable income. Yet this option remains rare because of regulatory hurdles.... Reimagining the retirement system requires adding a fourth pillar: working into retirement.... [R]ight now, obstacles -- on both the supply and demand side -- prevent many older Americans from working at all, even if they would like to do so."

Let Workers Choose: A Better Approach to Workplace Health Insurance

"In theory, [ICHRAs] should be an attractive option, since the cheapest individual market plans now cost, on average, 31% less than comparable employer-purchased health-insurance plans. But very few firms currently offer ICHRA funds because federal regulations prohibit giving individual workers a choice between group health insurance and ICHRA.... [E]mployers should be allowed to offer workers a choice between both options, so long as their ICHRA contributions exceed minimum standards and their group plans conform to the same benefit requirements as those for the individual market."

New York's Soaring Pension Bills

"The latest Empire Center for Public Policy report on New York's soaring pension costs focuses on six-figure retiree payouts, which have now crossed the 3,000 mark. It's a telling sign of how public employees continue to collect benefits far greater than most private-sector workers -- at a huge cost to the taxpayers.... Many of the latest additions are Long Island police and firefighters (whose salaries are also well above the national and even state average)."

Inviolable -- or Not: The Legal Status of Retiree Medical Benefits for State and Local Employees

"Of the ten states reviewed herein, three -- Illinois, New York, and Pennsylvania -- provide significant protection for retiree medical benefits, either through explicit statutory provisions or through case law suggesting that retiree benefits vest for life in the absence of explicit language to the contrary; five states -- California, Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey, and Texas -- provide a moderate level of protection, with the specifics varying significantly from case to case; and two states -- Alabama and Ohio -- lack sufficient legal precedent to make any generalizations regarding the legal approach typically used."

State Waivers: A Federalist Rx for Obamacare Ills (PDF)

"Section 1332 of the ACA provides for 'state innovation waivers' that allow states to waive many elements of the law, including the individual mandate and the law's subsidy structure. If a waiver is granted, a state receives essentially a block grant of funding that it otherwise would have received through the waived element(s).... 1332 waivers alone cannot replace the ACA, but in tandem with parallel waiver provisions in the Medicaid program, they can help usher in a replacement that will rebalance state and federal government power."

Health Savings Accounts Under the ACA: Challenges and Opportunities for Consumer-Directed Health Plans

"Recent evidence suggests that high-deductible health plans in the employer market have played a significant role in moderating premium-cost increases over the last several years -- 'bending the curve' for employer health care spending. If HSA-eligible plans are structured correctly in ACA exchanges, such plans could play a similar role in the non-group market (as the number of enrollees with individual coverage grows quickly over the next few years)."

Best Practices for Public Pension Transparency

There are several steps, over and above what the Government Accounting Standards Board already requires, that [state and local] funds could take that would disclose their finances more fully. The recommendations lie in five areas[.]

The Promise and Perils of Public Options

"[Is] there a genuine case to be made for the ideal of the government providing goods and services alongside private alternatives? ... [Two] law professors ... argue that there is -- citing the postal service, public defense attorneys, and municipal golf courses as examples ... [T]heir argument for establishing or expanding various 'public options' in a number of policy areas is most convincing as a critique of voucher-based government spending."