Just A Coincidence

In a bizarre coincidence, Megan McArdle is writing about how innovation in health care will suffer if we reform health care at the same time the Manhattan Institute is publishing a paper saying Obama will hurt health care innovation. So what is this Manhattan Institute?

Benjamin Zycher, Senior Fellow at Manhattan Institute's Center for Medical Progress,
opposes allowing the federal government to negotiate prices in the Medicare Part D prescription drug program, and argues that patients and their doctors should make their own decisions to choose drugs like Vioxx, rather than having the U.S. Food and Drug Administration decide on the basis of "bureaucratized ... scientific study."[9] The Manhattan Instititute issued a report by Frank Lichtenberg, a business professor at Columbia University, on the adverse effects of drug price negotiating in the Veterans Administration. Lichtenberg said that the VA National Formulary excludes many new drugs. Only 38% of drugs approved in the 1990s and 19% of the
drugs approved since 2000 are on the formulary. He also argues that the life expectancy of veterans "may have declined" as a result.[10]

Funding sources
The Manhattan Institute received $19,470,416 in grants from 1985-2005, from foundations such as the Koch Family Foundations, the John M. Olin Foundation, Inc., the Lynde and
Harry Bradley Foundation, the Scaife Foundations, and the Smith Richardson
Foundation. [11] The Manhattan Institute does not disclose its corporate funding, but the Capital Research Center listed its contributors as Bristol-Myers Squibb, Exxon Mobil, Chase Manhattan, Cigna, Sprint, Reliant Energy, Lincoln Financial Group Foundation, and Merill Lynch. [12]

Another funding source is the Searle Freedom Trust.

By the time he died on October 30, at the age of 81, [Daniel] Searle had become one of the largest donors to AEI in its history — and certainly the biggest in the organization’s last 20 years, during its period of preeminence.Searle died on a bird-shooting trip in Scotland. “He was an old-fashioned tough guy,” says Christopher DeMuth, the president of AEI. “He went out in just the style he had lived. Whatever he did, he did all the way.”His achievement as a donor to AEI would be enough to secure a meaningful legacy in philanthropy and public policy—but Searle’s bequest is far from complete. He leaves behind not only a record of generosity to AEI and like-minded groups, but also a foundation currently worth more than $100 million. Before long, the benefactor of Searle Freedom Trust will be spoken of in the same breath as the three great brand names of right-leaning philanthropy: Olin, Bradley, and Scaife. “His love of a free society will live on for many years to come,” says Gideon Searle, one of his sons and the new chairman of Searle Freedom Trust.
Dan Searle was born in Evanston, Ill., on May 6, 1926. He went to Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts, and then Yale University and Harvard Business School, finally graduating in 1952. He spent his entire business career at G.D. Searle and Company, a pharmaceutical firm started by his family. He rose to become its president in 1966, CEO in 1970, and finally chairman of the board in 1977—a position he kept until 1985, when the company was sold. Its best-known products included Dramamine, Metamucil, NutraSweet, and Enovid, the first oral contraceptive. As chairman, Searle’s most important decision probably involved the hiring of a new CEO who had just left the Ford administration. Donald Rumsfeld strengthened the company and developed a reputation for leadership that made him an attractive choice for a future president who needed a defense secretary.

I love the irony of a right-wing philanthropist making his money off of birth control, then using that money to fund people who fight against birth control education.

The Searle foundation also funds the Federalist society, The Heritage Foundation, The Cato Institute, AEI, and the Reason Foundation, which provided an internship to McArdle's fiance.

Bristol-Myers Squibb. G. D. Searle and Company pharmaceutical firm. That's who is funding the think tanks that are fighting national health care. Astra Zeneca sponsors Atlantic get-togethers, and Bradley made his money selling information to the health care industry.

And his minions also hired a hack who fights the little people on behalf of multi-millionaires and their corporations. They don't even have to tell her to do it. McArdle leaps eagerly to support her masters; the world's tallest lap dog.