“Most Favored Nation” proposal won’t favor American patients or New Jersey jobs

A new threat has suddenly emerged for American patients and New Jersey’s economy.  A proposal called “Most Favored Nation” (MFN) is being discussed by some policymakers in Washington.  While the intended goal is admirable – to lower healthcare costs – the actual result would be catastrophic for America’s patients, our national healthcare system, and New Jersey’s workforce and economy.

The basic idea of MFN is to take parts of socialized healthcare from other countries – potentially countries like Estonia, Mexico, Turkey, Costa Rica, and others – and try to fit them into America’s healthcare system.

This would be like putting gasoline into a diesel engine to make filling the tank less expensive.  The United States has the strongest, most robust, and most advanced healthcare system in the world.  While we read about the frightening problems with socialized medicine – problems like rationed care, months-long delays for surgeries, the challenges of getting doctor’s appointments, frequent shortages of medicine, government overreach in personal medical decisions – the problems of putting that European gasoline into an American diesel engine wouldn’t make the long haul cheaper, but rather make it much more likely that the whole thing breaks down.

America’s global leadership in medical innovation is unrivaled – the astonishing advances in cutting-edge treatments and the revolutionary cures for diseases that have plagued humans for hundreds of thousands of years are due to the extraordinary and robust innovation ecosystem that America has created and attracted.  New Jersey, known as the Medicine Chest of the World, is at the heart of that American ecosystem.

Over the past two decades alone, these life sciences companies have developed a cure for hepatitis C; a vaccine against cervical cancer; the first-ever treatment to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s; COVID-19 diagnostics, treatments, and vaccines; the first cell-based gene therapies that cure sickle cell disease; life-saving advances HIV/AIDS treatments; obesity medicines that are transforming heart disease, diabetes, and a host of other medical conditions – the list goes on.  New Jersey’s and America’s leadership continues in the fight to eradicate even more diseases and save lives around the world.

BUT – while America’s R&D ecosystem delivers those remarkable new treatments and cures upon which so many patients rely, and to which other countries so readily avail themselves, those same countries refuse to help fund these incredible discoveries and advances by artificially lowering the cost of those life-saving discoveries for their own citizens.  This failure to help shoulder the cost of advancing human health guarantees that Americans unfairly bear greater costs while other nations get a free ride.

Importing those socialized price controls into the United States will all but guarantee that the medical advances currently being pursued – for various cancers, rare diseases, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and so many others – will slow to a trickle, if not grind to a halt.  And the impacts on America’s and New Jersey’s economy – both of which are driven by these research and manufacturing industries – would be devastating.  With a “Most Favored Nation” policy, no nation would actually be favored – least of all America.  Patients would have less access to fewer medicines, our national and state economies would face significant job and economic losses, and new treatments and cures for many medical conditions and diseases would not be discovered.

Rather than policies that limit patient access, stifle innovation and hurt our national and state economies, we should negotiate strong trade policies that seek to force foreign countries to pay their fair share for the cutting-edge medical advances that America’s global leadership in the life sciences continues to provide the rest of the world every day.  By ending the free ride other countries get on the back of New Jersey’s and America’s contributions to global health and patients’ lives, we will defend patients, preserve America’s leadership in life sciences, protect American and New Jersey jobs, and force other countries to finally pay their fair share.