California
Business & Economics
California Focus: Cautionary tale of 2 Bustamantes
California has recently cemented its reputation as the most politically correct state in the nation, and possibly the most humorless. Those with doubts on that score might compare the cases of Carlos Bustamante and Cruz Bustamante. U.S. Air Force veteran Carlos Bustamante is a city councilman in Santa Ana and ...
Business & Economics
Housing bill provision eyes $10 billion in tax revenue from online sellers
InternetRetailer.com, July 11,2008 In a move to raise close to $10 billion over the next several years in tax revenue to support federal housing assistance efforts, an amendment to a housing bill in the U.S. Senate requires payment card processors to provide information on Internet sellers to the Internal Revenue ...
California
California Schools: America’s Future
Note: PRI’s Director of Education Studies, Lance T. Izumi, is featured as a panel participant in this documentary chronicling the decline of California’s education system which is currently being shown on public television stations in Callifornia. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is scrambling to avoid $4.8 billion in potential cuts to ...
California
Healthy San Francisco Plan Finally Signs Up Some Hospitals
San Francisco’s tax-hiking and opaque pay-or-play business tax to fund its public health bureaucracy claims to have finally overcome one of the major criticisms that I had made of it. Namely, that it did nothing to improve the quality or delivery of health care to (previously) uninsured San Franciscans, because ...
Business & Economics
Big Brother Online
The bipartisan housing bill currently being debated in the Senate contains an unrelated amendment that will burden innovative Internet companies and threaten the civil liberties of every American. Without any discussion, Senators added a provision to H.R. 3221 (The American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008) requiring electronic ...
California
California’s Health Insurance Rescissions: Hospitals Get Their Pound of Flesh
Yesterday, I asked the quasi-rhetorical question: “Why did California’s campaign against Anthem Blue Cross collapse?”, addressing state regulators’ failure to collect a $1 million fine for Anthem Blue Cross’ allegedly illegal rescission of individuals’ policies. Well, it looks like it didn’t collapse: the hospitals have just wrangled over $11 million ...
California
Why Did California’s Campaign Against Anthem Blue Cross Collapse?
I have written a series of blog entries about California’s health care regulators attacking health plans for “rescission,” which the regulators have equated with “post-claims underwriting.” The former consists of revoking a policy because the beneficiary made a material misrepresentation about his health status on his application. The latter consists ...
Commentary
Hidden provision could endanger economy, civil liberties
As the Senate prepares to vote on the current housing legislation, I would like to bring to your attention a dangerous hidden provision that will burden several innovative Bay Area companies and threaten the civil liberties of all Americans. Senators Christopher Dodd and Richard Shelby quietly attached to H.R. 3221 ...
Business & Economics
Turning POTS into PANS
The California Public Utilities Commission on Tuesday proposed relaxing 13-year-old price caps on basic telephone service. Yielding to the demands of public interest groups, regulators currently force telecommunications companies to offer the cheapest basic rates in the nation. Yet, if artificially low prices are necessary to protect consumer welfare, why ...
Commentary
AB 32 is a breath of foul air for taxpayers, businesses
California is in the midst of economic turmoil. Headlines shout daily about the plummeting dollar and home values, disappearing jobs, soaring fuel and food costs, and a growing massive state budget deficit. Apparently oblivious to the strain on California households, some state legislators are trying to rush implementation of a ...
California Focus: Cautionary tale of 2 Bustamantes
California has recently cemented its reputation as the most politically correct state in the nation, and possibly the most humorless. Those with doubts on that score might compare the cases of Carlos Bustamante and Cruz Bustamante. U.S. Air Force veteran Carlos Bustamante is a city councilman in Santa Ana and ...
Housing bill provision eyes $10 billion in tax revenue from online sellers
InternetRetailer.com, July 11,2008 In a move to raise close to $10 billion over the next several years in tax revenue to support federal housing assistance efforts, an amendment to a housing bill in the U.S. Senate requires payment card processors to provide information on Internet sellers to the Internal Revenue ...
California Schools: America’s Future
Note: PRI’s Director of Education Studies, Lance T. Izumi, is featured as a panel participant in this documentary chronicling the decline of California’s education system which is currently being shown on public television stations in Callifornia. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is scrambling to avoid $4.8 billion in potential cuts to ...
Healthy San Francisco Plan Finally Signs Up Some Hospitals
San Francisco’s tax-hiking and opaque pay-or-play business tax to fund its public health bureaucracy claims to have finally overcome one of the major criticisms that I had made of it. Namely, that it did nothing to improve the quality or delivery of health care to (previously) uninsured San Franciscans, because ...
Big Brother Online
The bipartisan housing bill currently being debated in the Senate contains an unrelated amendment that will burden innovative Internet companies and threaten the civil liberties of every American. Without any discussion, Senators added a provision to H.R. 3221 (The American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008) requiring electronic ...
California’s Health Insurance Rescissions: Hospitals Get Their Pound of Flesh
Yesterday, I asked the quasi-rhetorical question: “Why did California’s campaign against Anthem Blue Cross collapse?”, addressing state regulators’ failure to collect a $1 million fine for Anthem Blue Cross’ allegedly illegal rescission of individuals’ policies. Well, it looks like it didn’t collapse: the hospitals have just wrangled over $11 million ...
Why Did California’s Campaign Against Anthem Blue Cross Collapse?
I have written a series of blog entries about California’s health care regulators attacking health plans for “rescission,” which the regulators have equated with “post-claims underwriting.” The former consists of revoking a policy because the beneficiary made a material misrepresentation about his health status on his application. The latter consists ...
Hidden provision could endanger economy, civil liberties
As the Senate prepares to vote on the current housing legislation, I would like to bring to your attention a dangerous hidden provision that will burden several innovative Bay Area companies and threaten the civil liberties of all Americans. Senators Christopher Dodd and Richard Shelby quietly attached to H.R. 3221 ...
Turning POTS into PANS
The California Public Utilities Commission on Tuesday proposed relaxing 13-year-old price caps on basic telephone service. Yielding to the demands of public interest groups, regulators currently force telecommunications companies to offer the cheapest basic rates in the nation. Yet, if artificially low prices are necessary to protect consumer welfare, why ...
AB 32 is a breath of foul air for taxpayers, businesses
California is in the midst of economic turmoil. Headlines shout daily about the plummeting dollar and home values, disappearing jobs, soaring fuel and food costs, and a growing massive state budget deficit. Apparently oblivious to the strain on California households, some state legislators are trying to rush implementation of a ...
