Cato Institute

Background

The Cato Institute was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane. It is a nonprofit public policy research foundation headquartered in Washington, D.C. The institute is named for Cato's Letters, a series of libertarian pamphlets that helped lay the philosophical foundation for the American Revolution.

To maintain its independence, the Cato Institute accepts no government funding. Cato receives approximately 75% of its funding from individuals, with smaller amounts coming from foundations, corporations, and the sale of publications. Cato's 2005 revenues were more than $22.4 million, and it has approximately 95 full-time employees, 70 adjunct scholars, and 20 fellows, plus interns.

Publications Program

The Cato Institute undertakes an extensive publications program dealing with the complete spectrum of public policy issues. Books, monographs, briefing papers, and shorter studies are commissioned to examine issues in nearly every corner of the public policy debate. Policy forums and book forums are held regularly, as are major policy conferences, which Cato hosts throughout the year and from which papers are published thrice yearly in the Cato Journal. All these events are recorded and archived on Cato's Web site. Additionally, Cato has held major conferences in London, Moscow, Shanghai, and Mexico City. The institute also published the quarterly magazine, Regulation, and a bimonthly newsletter, Cato Policy Report. The institute recently launched the Cato@Liberty blog, where its scholars provide timely commentary on public affairs, and Cato Unbound, a monthly online magazine that engages the world's leading thinkers in the exchange of big-picture ideas.

Health Policy Studies

Cato scholars argue that individuals should be free to own and control their earnings, to engage in whatever exchanges of health-related goods and services they choose, and to engage in whatever behaviors they choose—provided they respect the equal rights of others. Cato scholars maintain that in a free and open society, the government should play no special role in health or medicine: In the absence of violence, theft, tortious injury, fraud, or breach of contract, introducing the government's power to coerce is unwarranted, immoral, and counterproductive.

For example, Cato scholars assert that federal and state governments deny individuals the freedom to choose whether to purchase health insurance and what type; deny the freedom to choose whether and how to provide charitable care; restrict patients' ability to choose their course of medical treatment; restrict free entry into the medical professions; prohibit the sale of human organs; and refuse to honor contracts limiting providers' liability for malpractice. These scholars argue that individuals have a fundamental right to self-determination in each of these areas, free from any coercive restraints.

Where advocates of government regulation of drugs and medical devices claim that such regulation protects the public from unsafe products, Cato scholars maintain that government has no constitutional or moral authority to prohibit a patient from using a medical treatment that imposes costs on no one but herself or himself. Moreover, the economic literature suggest that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) causes more morbidity and mortality than it prevents.

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