Democrats Shoot for the Moon and Miss

On September 12, 1969, President John F. Kennedy delivered his famous moon landing speech, proclaiming that the United States had made “one giant leap” for mankind. Yesterday, exactly 60 years later, President Biden followed in JFK’s legacy by giving his own “moonshot speech.”

President Biden launched the “Cancer Moonshot” program in 2016 when he was vice president. The initiative’s goal was to reduce the cancer death rate by 50% over the next 25 years by engaging with healthcare providers, academic researchers, and the private sector. A key component of the plan is spending billions of dollars on research. When Biden prepared his remarks for his big “moonshot” speech, he seems to have forgotten that just a few weeks ago, he signed a law that will take us backward in the fight against cancer.

The Inflation Reduction Act’s regressive drug pricing measures will inevitably weaken the nation’s position as a leader in medical research and increase costs for many patients and taxpayers across the country. Specifically, the flawed spending package allows the federal government to harm America’s innovative healthcare sector by effectively imposing price controls on prescription drugs. Price controls will ultimately destroy private sector incentives for research and development (R&D), meaning fewer new cures—like those for cancer—will come to market. America’s taxpayers will continue to pay the price.

This reality directly contradicts the president’s narrative. R&D can’t be disincentivized while claiming cancer will be cured. In fact, the newly imposed price controls “cut the amount spent on cancer research by more than nine times as much as Biden’s ‘Cancer Moonshot’ initiative raises it,” according to Tomas J. Philipson, in his recent Newsweek op-ed.

With the administration’s policies significantly reducing the development of potential cancer cures, the Biden administration’s aim to cut the cancer mortality rate in half seems very much out of reach, if not a flat out lie. Democrats’ continued push toward big government will only set us back in the country’s efforts to cure cancer and save countless lives.