The Obama plan: more regulation, unsustainable spending.

The health reform plan put forth by Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) focuses on expanding insurance coverage and provides new subsidies to individuals, small businesses, and businesses experiencing catastrophic expenses. It greatly increases the federal regulation of private insurance but does not address the core economic incentives that drive health care spending.

Lessons from the Clinton plan: incremental market reform, not sweeping government control.

The Clinton health reform attempt in the mid-1990s and the U.S. experience since then suggest some clear lessons for the next U.

The emerging market dynamics of targeted therapeutics.

Targeted biotech drugs that attack specific biological molecules that cause disease are bringing new benefits even as they foment pricing dynamics that are very different from those of traditional drugs. Targeted drugs tend not to compete with each other even when treating closely related diseases, which makes them resistant to price controls. We can expect the supply of expensive new so-called biotech drugs to continue.

Opening Pandora's pillbox: using modern information tools to improve drug safety.

How the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) responds to criticism of its drug safety process will determine whether drug safety actually improves. Propping up the Office of Drug Safety with more bureaucratic prominence or adding new requirements to the preapproval process will add to the cost of drug development and not make drugs safer. New information tools can dramatically improve postmarketing surveillance and collection of data on safety.