Poverty
Agriculture
California global warming law choking food processors
As California’s unemployment rate hovers above 12 percent, even the state’s Democratic leaders – notorious for regulating, taxing and complaining about California’s business community – are talking about jobs. They are championing the occasional job expansion in Silicon Valley (i.e., a new Dell research and development center) and proposing their ...
Health Care
The Census, ObamaCare and the Uninsured
The Wall Street Journal The U.S. Census Bureau has released its latest estimates on poverty, income and health-insurance coverage. Strikingly, the official poverty rate is the highest it’s been in 50 years. As one might expect, the number of Americans without health insurance also roseto 49.9 million, an increase of ...
Commentary
Congress Should Apply Clinton-era Reform to Medicare
A successful welfare reform from the 1990s offers a model to reform a currently out-of-control program many Americans assume to be an entitlement, but which is actually welfare. The program is Medicaid, which should be easier to fix, politically, than the so-called entitlements of Social Security and Medicare. The politicians ...
Commentary
Will Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance Survive Obamacare?
Reports from consulting firms dont normally make national news. Then again, most such reports dont predict the downfall of the American health care system. Earlier this month, the consulting group McKinsey projected that tens of millions of Americans could find themselves without the health coverage they now get through their ...
Business & Economics
Higher taxes will not make California a better state
Gov. Jerry Brown’s recent talk to the California State Association of Counties was more meandering and disjointed than usual, but the governor stuck to his talking points: Unless California voters approve tax extensions, they must get used to greatly diminished public services. Without at least the tax extensions, he said, ...
Commentary
Medicaid is easier to fix than entitlement programs
Congress remains gridlocked on many important issues but not every politician is afraid to challenge the unsustainable growth of Medicaid. Consider S. 1031, by Sen. Tom Coburn. This measure would increase local control over Medicaid spending and improve the incentives that have led politicians to trap ever more low-income citizens ...
Health Care
Why Medicaid Should Be Easier to Fix than Entitlement Programs
Congress remains gridlocked on many important issues but not every politician is afraid to challenge the unsustainable growth of Medicaid. Consider S. 1031, by U.S. Senator Tom Coburn. This measure would increase local control over Medicaid spending and improve the incentives that have led politicians to trap ever more low-income ...
Commentary
New Health Care Law Cripples State Budgets
America’s fiscal crisis is about to explode. In 2010 state budget deficits reached an all-time high of $191 billion. Former New York Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch has predicted that state deficits could reach a staggering $500 billion this year when the stimulus funds propping up state budgets run out in ...
Health Care
In the Nick of Time: Rhode Island’s Medicaid Waiver Shows How States Can Save Their Budgets from Obamacare’s Assault
Key Points On the last day of the Bush Administration, Rhode Island won a federal waiver to reduce federal control and increase patient choice in the states Medicaid program. In 18 months following the waiver, Rhode Islands Medicaid spending was almost one-third less than budgeted: $2.7 billion versus $3.8 billion. ...
Health Care
Medi-Cal Long-Term Care: Safety Net or Hammock?
San Francisco—The continuous expansion of Medi-Cal long-term care benefits could cause a financial catastrophe in California according to a new report by the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a California-based think tank, in cooperation with the Center for Long-Term Care Reform. Medi-Cal Long-Term Care: Safety Net or Hammock?, by Stephen A. ...
California global warming law choking food processors
As California’s unemployment rate hovers above 12 percent, even the state’s Democratic leaders – notorious for regulating, taxing and complaining about California’s business community – are talking about jobs. They are championing the occasional job expansion in Silicon Valley (i.e., a new Dell research and development center) and proposing their ...
The Census, ObamaCare and the Uninsured
The Wall Street Journal The U.S. Census Bureau has released its latest estimates on poverty, income and health-insurance coverage. Strikingly, the official poverty rate is the highest it’s been in 50 years. As one might expect, the number of Americans without health insurance also roseto 49.9 million, an increase of ...
Congress Should Apply Clinton-era Reform to Medicare
A successful welfare reform from the 1990s offers a model to reform a currently out-of-control program many Americans assume to be an entitlement, but which is actually welfare. The program is Medicaid, which should be easier to fix, politically, than the so-called entitlements of Social Security and Medicare. The politicians ...
Will Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance Survive Obamacare?
Reports from consulting firms dont normally make national news. Then again, most such reports dont predict the downfall of the American health care system. Earlier this month, the consulting group McKinsey projected that tens of millions of Americans could find themselves without the health coverage they now get through their ...
Higher taxes will not make California a better state
Gov. Jerry Brown’s recent talk to the California State Association of Counties was more meandering and disjointed than usual, but the governor stuck to his talking points: Unless California voters approve tax extensions, they must get used to greatly diminished public services. Without at least the tax extensions, he said, ...
Medicaid is easier to fix than entitlement programs
Congress remains gridlocked on many important issues but not every politician is afraid to challenge the unsustainable growth of Medicaid. Consider S. 1031, by Sen. Tom Coburn. This measure would increase local control over Medicaid spending and improve the incentives that have led politicians to trap ever more low-income citizens ...
Why Medicaid Should Be Easier to Fix than Entitlement Programs
Congress remains gridlocked on many important issues but not every politician is afraid to challenge the unsustainable growth of Medicaid. Consider S. 1031, by U.S. Senator Tom Coburn. This measure would increase local control over Medicaid spending and improve the incentives that have led politicians to trap ever more low-income ...
New Health Care Law Cripples State Budgets
America’s fiscal crisis is about to explode. In 2010 state budget deficits reached an all-time high of $191 billion. Former New York Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch has predicted that state deficits could reach a staggering $500 billion this year when the stimulus funds propping up state budgets run out in ...
In the Nick of Time: Rhode Island’s Medicaid Waiver Shows How States Can Save Their Budgets from Obamacare’s Assault
Key Points On the last day of the Bush Administration, Rhode Island won a federal waiver to reduce federal control and increase patient choice in the states Medicaid program. In 18 months following the waiver, Rhode Islands Medicaid spending was almost one-third less than budgeted: $2.7 billion versus $3.8 billion. ...
Medi-Cal Long-Term Care: Safety Net or Hammock?
San Francisco—The continuous expansion of Medi-Cal long-term care benefits could cause a financial catastrophe in California according to a new report by the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a California-based think tank, in cooperation with the Center for Long-Term Care Reform. Medi-Cal Long-Term Care: Safety Net or Hammock?, by Stephen A. ...
