Robert Kennedy Jr. is the new Secretary of Health and Human Services. If you enjoy emotionally charged events, you might have found the Senate confirmation hearings regarding Kennedy\u2019s nomination compelling.<\/p>\n
Senator Elizabeth Warren, among others, criticized Kennedy<\/a> for his \u201cdangerous views.\u201d In his book Thinking Fast and Slow<\/em><\/a>, the late Nobel laureate in economics, Daniel Kahneman, cautions against emotionally charged declarations: \u201cIt is wise to take admissions of uncertainty seriously, but declarations of high confidence mainly tell you that an individual has constructed a coherent story in his mind, not necessarily that the story is true.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Kahneman explained that some make decisions involving risk by consulting their emotions: \u201cDo I like it? Do I hate it? How strongly do I feel about it?\u201d<\/p>\n The result is that \u201cthe answer to an easy question (How do I feel about it?) serves as an answer to a much harder question (What do I think about it?).\u201d During the Kennedy hearings, many feelings were displayed, but little thinking.\u00a0<\/p>\n If you lean towards a powerful government and prefer delegating important health choices to experts<\/a>, you may be at ease with emotional governance.\u00a0<\/p>\n Warren was confident of the \u201ccoherent story\u201d in her mind as she railed against Kennedy. She was concerned<\/a> that Kennedy would make lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies so easy that he\u2019d \u201cshut down access and manufacturing for vaccines for every one of us.\u201d She opined that \u201cVaccine manufacturers often operate on very slim profit margins. If they get sued repeatedly and successfully, they simply move out of the vaccine space.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Warren champions legislation<\/a> that one analyst says would result in \u201cwholesale expropriation of private enterprise.\u201d How ironic that Warren now wants to exempt some corporations from market forces.<\/p>\n In this essay, I won\u2019t try to settle the charged issue of vaccine safety. However, as an economist, I can identify market distortions resulting from corporations being exempt from market forces like liability.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n You may have seen the Hims & Hers Super Bowl ad<\/a> promoting their weight-loss medications. While the ad avoided naming specific drugs, its visuals showed injection pens<\/a> similar to those used for Novo Nordisk\u2019s popular Ozempic diabetes treatment.<\/p>\n