The Initiative on Enabling Choice and Competition in Healthcare

The dominant theory in economics for centuries in the Western world has been the free market system, yet the ability of competitive markets to provide quality care has been a central point of recent debate. Extensive government regulation, though well-intentioned, adversely affects the overall health of Americans, inhibits medical innovation, and demands enormous tax-payer investment. The Initiative on Enabling Choice and Competition in Healthcare delivers cutting edge research on the efficiencies of competitiveness in the healthcare sector to demonstrate that free market forces can and do work to provide innovative, equitable, and high-quality care.

Our Vision

To be the leading university-based research center in free-market healthcare, promoting choice and competition to ensure greater access to existing care and new innovations.

Our Mission

To conduct evidence-based research and analyses on market-based choice and competition in the healthcare sector to lead to better-informed policy recommendations.

Working Papers

The Impact of Biopharmaceutical Innovation on Health Care Spending

by jmanor | Aug 3, 2022 | White Papers

This paper reviews the evidence covering the impact of biopharmaceuticals on the level and growth of total health care costs. The primary source of spending in health care is on labor, such as doctors, nurses or assistants, which makes up over 70% of overall spending,...

The Value of Pharmacy Benefit Management

by susuguo | Jul 1, 2022 | White Papers

In theory, equilibrium profits for drug patent holders would not involve significant restraints on production and patient utilization if the market had a mechanism for two-part pricing (Oi 1971) or quantity commitments (Murphy, Snyder, and Topel 2014). In fact, patent...

Policy Brief: The Impact of Recent White House Proposals on Cancer Research

by jmanor | Jun 27, 2022 | White Papers

In February 2022, the Biden Administration aimed to reignite the Cancer Moonshot through its proposed federal budget and stated that one of its objectives is to reduce cancer mortality by 50% over the next 25 years. Currently, there is already a very large amount of...

« Older Entries

Next Entries »

How Chicago Economics is Helping End a Pandemic: Enabling Choice and Competition in Healthcare

Operation Warp Speed is a historic milestone for economic research on medical innovation that occurred over decades on the University of Chicago campus. Chicago’s research results, traditions, and emphasis were brought to the federal government in 2017 by several of its faculty and alumni. In the three years before COVID-19 came to the United States, that economic team showed the President of the United States how federal policy reforms were delivering real value to consumers by encouraging innovation in healthcare industries.

Read the full paper here.

Learn more about Operation Warp Speed:

In the Press

Are PBMs Good For Competition? A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Effects of Regulating Pharmacy Benefit Managers | Our Curious Amalgam | 10/2/23

by mheinl | Nov 20, 2023

"Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) are being called out for engaging in allegedly anticompetitive business practices that make prescription drugs...

The IRA’s Impact on Cancer Patients Is Worse than Predicted | RealClear Health | 10/24/2023

by mheinl | Oct 24, 2023

By Tomas Philipson October 24, 2023 More than one year ago, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into law. "His top legislative...

We Need More ‘Warp Speed’ Operations | WSJ | 10/6/23

by mheinl | Oct 6, 2023

Bureaucracy didn’t block Covid vaccines. Why should it stand in the way of treatments for cancer, diabetes and other diseases? by Casey B. Mulligan...

2024 ECCHC Supply-Side Economics in Healthcare Conference – Watch Now!

The 2024 ECCHC Supply-side Economics in Healthcare Conference convened both in-person and virtually on Friday, May 3. Watch the full conference, or individual presentations and learn more about the conference here!