Clifford F Porter MD PhD, is the Senior Fellow for Healthcare at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
Dr. Porter is a primary and urgent care physician, founding Texas Direct Medical Care, using the Direct Primary Care model. Dr. Porter joined the growing number of physicians leaving corporate and government healthcare working to reform medicine and restore freedom and control to both patients and physicians.
President Trump’s TrumpRx initiative is a game-changer in the fight to lower prescription drug prices for everyday Americans. For far too long, prescription medication costs have been obscenely high, not because of the true cost of research and manufacturing, but because of a tangled web of insurance plans, middlemen, and opaque price-setting that enriches gatekeepers...
Today, President Donald J. Trump called on Congress to enact his Great Healthcare Plan—a bold, pro-patient framework that will expand price transparency and empower individuals with greater control of their health care dollars. This plan represents a significant moment in the effort to make health care more affordable, understandable, and accountable to everyday Americans. For...
Put a finger down if you’ve ever 1) had surgery or another medical procedure 2) received unexpected or confusing bills for the service 3) tried to understand the healthcare system to no avail 4) given up and concluded it’s all a racket where everyone but the patient has control over cost and quality. If you...
Open Enrollment Season is upon us. It’s that time of year where employees, self-employed, businesses, and local governments start crunching numbers to see how much health insurance will cost next year—and, surprise of surprises, the answer is almost always “a lot more.” Worse yet, the Federal Budget impasse and Government shutdown over ACA healthcare subsidies...
The One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) has opened up opportunities for better medical care at a fraction of the cost. But now, opponents of healthcare reforms—people who want everyone to be on a singular government system—are using the government shutdown and false cries of “defunded Medicaid” to destroy the new options that the OBBB for...
The assassination of a good man for talking is a tragedy born from twisted thinking, in which violence is normalized and moralized, undermining our society and constitutional traditions. Ideological thinking has usurped recognition of our neighbor’s humanity, and the immoral has become moral in the name of ideologies and is a road to more civil...
“You can’t come in for your steroid injections without scheduling an extra appointment because your insurance isn’t paying us enough.” That’s what I was told at my most recent visit to an orthopedic surgeon I’ve seen for years. I expected relief from my pain, not a surprise medical bill—or as I learned later, “cost-shifting.” My...
Our health is being held hostage by high drug prices. We’ve all heard stories of people who’ve died because they can’t afford life-saving medication—stories like that of Cole Schmidtknecht, who couldn’t afford his asthma inhaler. Despite advancements in drug manufacturing, drug prices go up—and up, and up. President Trump highlighted how complex and convoluted the...