Article • Dean Baker’s Beat the Press
Why Is Healthcare Expensive?
America’s healthcare system is outrageously expensive not because of Obamacare, but because of monopolies, admin waste, and doctor overpayment.
Intellectual Property
Article • Dean Baker’s Beat the Press
Weakening Patent Monopolies: The Most Effective Wealth Tax
Rather than relying on an unworkable wealth tax, we should reform markets and patent laws to stop billionaires from amassing vast fortunes in the first place.
Article • Expose the Heist: Power and Policy in Unprecedented Times
The Art of the Underwhelming Drug Deal
Trump’s big deal with Pfizer to reduce drug prices won’t actually do much to reduce drug prices.
Article • Dean Baker’s Beat the Press
Drugs are Cheap, Patent Monopolies Make Them Expensive: Explaining to Today Explained
The TrumpRX plan ignores the true reason drugs cost so much: government-granted patent monopolies that let drug companies charge inflated prices.
Article • Dean Baker’s Beat the Press
Patent Monopolies Are a Main Reason Science Is Broken: Why Can’t We Talk About Them?
Patent monopolies create massive financial incentives that corrupt biomedical research, yet media discussions of “broken science” often ignore this key issue.
Article • Dean Baker’s Beat the Press
Cheap Drugs Matter: Why Make Them Expensive with Patent Monopolies?
Patent monopolies inflate drug prices and encourage abuse, while public funding offers a safer, cheaper path to innovation.
Article • Dean Baker’s Beat the Press
Why Are the Abundance Boys Scared to Talk About Patent Monopolies?
While “abundance” advocates like Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson call for deregulation to spur growth, they overlook the largest regulatory obstacle of all: government-granted patent and copyright monopolies that inflate prices on drugs, software, and more.
Article • Dean Baker’s Beat the Press
Trump’s Chaos May Allow for New Thinking on Patent and Copyrights
It is important to understand that trade policy, patent and copyright monopolies are not the ‘free market’ — they are government policies that have benefited the rich.
Article • Dean Baker’s Beat the Press
Patents and the Abundance Agenda
Patent and copyright monopolies redistribute an enormous amount of income upward. We should be talking about them when we talk about an abundance agenda.
Article • Dean Baker’s Beat the Press
The NYT Version of the Big Lie: Technology Created Inequality
Unveiling the truth about inequality and technology. Learn how policy decisions, not technology, have driven the rise in inequality.
