Wayne H Winegarden
Commentary
Starving Coal of Capital Puts the Power Grid at Risk
Winter Storm Fern was a warning. When temperatures plunged into the single digits and heavy snow blanketed much of the country, the electric grid faced a serious stress test. For years, I have cautioned that rising electricity demand and the premature retirement of dependable power plants were putting the U.S. ...
Business & Economics
With Tax Day around the corner, how are Trump’s tax policies impacting you?
April 15th is just around the corner. While we settle up our 2025 taxes, it is a good time to take stock of all the fiscal changes that have occurred. While some have been good, others were bad, and still others were simply ugly. The Good Starting with the good, ...
Commentary
Don’t undermine the system that incentivized GLP-1 development
A left-leaning pressure group recently sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asking his agency to rescind the patent rights earned by the developers of GLP-1 drugs. Some 12% of U.S. adults have taken these medications. Rescinding the patents is a dangerous idea that ...
Commentary
An anti-science FDA is a threat to our health and prosperity
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration supposedly “implements gold standard science.” Yet the agency appears to relish obstructing scientific progress. Earlier this month, Vinay Prasad, the director of FDA’s vaccine division, rejected Moderna’s application for a new mRNA flu vaccine for adults 50 and older on dubious grounds. The FDA ...
California
California needs budget restraint not double-digit spending increases
Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing a nearly 9% increase in total state spending for the upcoming fiscal year – that’s a $350 billion budget, more than $8,800 per Californian. Yet, for unions and progressive politicians, this enormous sum is too austere. They are calling on the state to backfill federal ...
Business & Economics
Competition Begets Better Banking Data Than Regulation
As it works to determine how to safeguard the sharing of and access to consumer financial data, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) faces a clear choice. It can allow market-based frameworks developed by the private sector to continue evolving, stepping in only where genuine gaps or abuses emerge. Or ...
California
If California is an economic powerhouse, then where are the jobs?
It’s a new year, a time for resolutions and fresh starts. Of course, only 9 percent of people who declare New year’s resolutions ultimately fulfill them. Most will give up before January ends. Such a dour outlook is a bit of a wet blanket, but it is apropos for California’s ...
Commentary
California should embrace competition to promote better health insurance
Following a depressingly familiar pattern, California is once again undermining health care competition in the vain hope that less competition will lead to lower prices. It won’t. In its latest anti-competitive actions, starting Jan. 1, California’s Department of Health Care Services will be limiting competition for plans (called Medi-Medi plans) ...
Commentary
Why reforming PBMs is the key to lowering drug costs
If lawmakers want to make pharmaceuticals more affordable, they should look past populist policies like price controls that will only make matters worse and set their sights on reforming the Pharmacy Benefit Manager market. PBMs manage the drug benefits for insurers and negotiate discounts with drug manufacturers. You probably use ...
Commentary
How Competition Drives Healthcare Innovation & Affordability
Making healthcare more affordable requires reforms that strengthen competitive markets, as I outlined in a recent Pacific Research Institute1 paper. Unfortunately, as we’re seeing in California and elsewhere, the trend in government is away from competition and toward fewer choices, hurting patients and increasing costs. When applied to other industries, ...
Starving Coal of Capital Puts the Power Grid at Risk
Winter Storm Fern was a warning. When temperatures plunged into the single digits and heavy snow blanketed much of the country, the electric grid faced a serious stress test. For years, I have cautioned that rising electricity demand and the premature retirement of dependable power plants were putting the U.S. ...
With Tax Day around the corner, how are Trump’s tax policies impacting you?
April 15th is just around the corner. While we settle up our 2025 taxes, it is a good time to take stock of all the fiscal changes that have occurred. While some have been good, others were bad, and still others were simply ugly. The Good Starting with the good, ...
Don’t undermine the system that incentivized GLP-1 development
A left-leaning pressure group recently sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asking his agency to rescind the patent rights earned by the developers of GLP-1 drugs. Some 12% of U.S. adults have taken these medications. Rescinding the patents is a dangerous idea that ...
An anti-science FDA is a threat to our health and prosperity
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration supposedly “implements gold standard science.” Yet the agency appears to relish obstructing scientific progress. Earlier this month, Vinay Prasad, the director of FDA’s vaccine division, rejected Moderna’s application for a new mRNA flu vaccine for adults 50 and older on dubious grounds. The FDA ...
California needs budget restraint not double-digit spending increases
Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing a nearly 9% increase in total state spending for the upcoming fiscal year – that’s a $350 billion budget, more than $8,800 per Californian. Yet, for unions and progressive politicians, this enormous sum is too austere. They are calling on the state to backfill federal ...
Competition Begets Better Banking Data Than Regulation
As it works to determine how to safeguard the sharing of and access to consumer financial data, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) faces a clear choice. It can allow market-based frameworks developed by the private sector to continue evolving, stepping in only where genuine gaps or abuses emerge. Or ...
If California is an economic powerhouse, then where are the jobs?
It’s a new year, a time for resolutions and fresh starts. Of course, only 9 percent of people who declare New year’s resolutions ultimately fulfill them. Most will give up before January ends. Such a dour outlook is a bit of a wet blanket, but it is apropos for California’s ...
California should embrace competition to promote better health insurance
Following a depressingly familiar pattern, California is once again undermining health care competition in the vain hope that less competition will lead to lower prices. It won’t. In its latest anti-competitive actions, starting Jan. 1, California’s Department of Health Care Services will be limiting competition for plans (called Medi-Medi plans) ...
Why reforming PBMs is the key to lowering drug costs
If lawmakers want to make pharmaceuticals more affordable, they should look past populist policies like price controls that will only make matters worse and set their sights on reforming the Pharmacy Benefit Manager market. PBMs manage the drug benefits for insurers and negotiate discounts with drug manufacturers. You probably use ...
How Competition Drives Healthcare Innovation & Affordability
Making healthcare more affordable requires reforms that strengthen competitive markets, as I outlined in a recent Pacific Research Institute1 paper. Unfortunately, as we’re seeing in California and elsewhere, the trend in government is away from competition and toward fewer choices, hurting patients and increasing costs. When applied to other industries, ...