Week in Review: “Let’s get this DONE.”

January 20, 2018

With the push of a button, Vice President Mike Pence delivered a message on Thursday to his 5.49 million followers on Twitter, to the nation, and most importantly, to the U.S. Congress:

“Yesterday I met with @SGottliebFDA [FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb] on the importance of passing a Right to Try law. It’s about restoring hope and giving patients with life threatening diseases a fighting chance. Let’s get this DONE.”

Right To Try is legislation that allows terminally ill patients to access investigational treatments that have passed basic safety testing with the FDA, but are not yet available on pharmacy shelves. It’s an issue the vice president knows quite well.

Nearly three years ago, Pence, then governor of Indiana, signed his state’s version of Right to Try, making it one of the 38 states that have passed the legislation. Standing beside him at the signing ceremony was five-year-old Jordan McLinn, who wore a fireman’s hat and a great big smile, watching as the governor extended hope to so many—Jordan included.

The young boy, who has a form of muscular dystrophy, is like millions of Americans who suffer from terminal disease. Many spend years searching for a potential cure. Unfortunately, FDA red tape and government regulations restrict access to promising new treatments, even those that are being safely used in clinical trials. They wait as hope runs out.

But as the vice president tweeted, Right to Try can restore that hope.

In August, federal Right to Try legislation passed the U.S. Senate with unanimous support, but it’s still under consideration in the House, and a vote on the bill has yet to be set.

That’s why the vice president’s voice is so important—as is yours. You can join the fight by contacting your Member of Congress and urging them to support Right to Try. Learn more at righttotry.org/advocate.

Let’s get this DONE.

Liberty in the News

• Sixty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court heard NAACP v. Alabama, a landmark case that upheld the constitutional right to donate anonymously to nonprofit organizations. However, this right has recently come under renewed attack. In a new paper, Goldwater Institute Senior Attorney Matt Miller that looks at that crucial moment in the history and examines how its legacy informs the current debate.
• Medicaid was intended to be a safety net for the truly needy, not a trap for the able-bodied. Today, the program covers 1 in 6 Americans. New reforms can help restore integrity for the taxpayers who are footing the bill for these benefits, as Goldwater Institute Director of Healthcare Policy Naomi Lopez Bauman explains in a new article.
• Earmarks—a true hallmark of Washington waste—might be making a comeback, despite being banned from the U.S. House of Representatives since 2010. “The sin of earmarks is not just that they constitute more spending, but also that they grease the wheels of the legislative tracks to get unpopular bills passed,” Mattie Duppler writes in the National Review.