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Medicare Advantage is on the hot seat.

High-profile critics like Don Berwick and Richard Gilfillan have called it the “Money Machine” in the pages of Health Affairs because of profit it has delivered to health system stakeholders.

Congressional inquiries have been launched into questionable Medicare Advantage marketing and clinical practices.

And some, like California Congressman Ro Khanna, have gone so far as to opine that Medicare Advantage plans should not be able to use the term “Medicare” to describe themselves, even introducing legislation to this effect.

And, yet, Medicare Advantage continues to grow apace with more than 30 million Americans—more than 50% of all people eligible for Medicare—choosing Medicare Advantage over traditional Medicare.

Why?

The answer is simple. The traditional Medicare program—which well-served generations of American—has failed to provide …

What is an orphan drug? It is one that will address a disease that negatively impacts only a few people. Why is the orphan drug perennially in the news? This is because it can be and is used to constitute a very serious complaint about free enterprise; it is one of the best sticks with which to beat up on laissez-faire capitalism. To wit, profit-seeking entrepreneurs have little or no incentive to engage in research and development to satisfy desperate potential customers. There are too few of them. The profits are simply not there. They lie elsewhere, in the direction of maladies suffered by millions of people, such as cancer, stroke, heart disease, kidney failure, etc. Solve those, or significantly reduce their severity, and you can write your own ticket. Save the lives of just a few patients? There’s no gold in them thar hills.

Is this a valid criticism of economic freedom? Does it constitute a legitimate critique of the free marketplace? In a word: No.

For one thing, new drugs or ameliorations are sometimes discovered accidentally. This was the case for penicillin, which has saved innumerable lives. Such a phenomenon is no respecter of numbers of patients to be made better, or profits to be earned. It functions more like a …