21-07-2025
- Health
- Wall Street Journal
Medicare and Medicaid Fail a Basic Scientific Test
Critics of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act claim that, because it would slow the growth of federal Medicaid spending from 4.5% to 2.7% annually, thousands will die. Yet evidence for this is wanting. If Medicaid were a drug, the federal government wouldn't approve it—and could penalize its salesmen with prison time for claiming it saves lives.
When President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare and Medicaid into law in 1965, he announced that one of the goals was 'to improve the health of all Americans.' Around the same time, Congress barred pharmaceutical companies from introducing or making health claims about new drugs absent 'substantial evidence' that 'the drug will have the effect it purports,' which the Food and Drug Administration defined as at least one, but usually two, successful randomized, controlled trials.
