Water
Business & Economics
Government Should Leave Sharing Economy Alone
Governments tend to target innovative industries that are too new to be regulated and single them out for punitive taxes and nasty abuse. As Art Laffer once put it, governments aren’t happy when business pioneers enjoy “success without the benevolent, guiding wisdom of” of the regulatory state. This was the ...
Agriculture
One State, Under Water
After a particularly soppy winter refilled California’s gasping reservoirs and swelled the Sierra Nevada snowpack—to 175 percent above its historical average, in some spots—grateful residents hailed the end of a dry spell that stretched back six years. Governor Jerry Brown has declared that the state’s drought is mostly over, though ...
Commentary
Withholding CSR Funds Could Push More Health Plans Out
If President Trump follows through with his suggestion that he might withhold subsidy payments to insurers as a way to force Democrats to the negotiating table, the move might have little effect on his political opponents but push struggling health plans out of the ACA marketplace. The president indicated in ...
California
California Single-Payer Bill Looks Backward, Instead Of Forward To A New Era Of Patient Choice
Here we go again. The California State Legislature is considering yet another bill to impose a so-called single-payer, government monopoly, health care system. This has long been an obsession of the California’s nurses unions, because a health system under total government control would suit the narrow interests of union leaders. ...
California
Devin Nunes Has 5 Big Ideas To Fix California
There are 120 legislators and eight elected statewide officials in Sacramento, but maybe the most sensible elected official in California lives much of the time in Washington, D.C. Or at least the one who’s making the most sensible proposals. Rep. Devin Nunes, who represents California’s 22nd District in Congress, encouraged ...
Commentary
Senators Sell Sorry Rx For What Ails Obamacare
Republicans won three elections — including one this past November — promising to repeal President Obama’s signature health law. Yet some GOP senators are proposing to replace Obama-care with … Obamacare. There’s no other way to describe the “replacement” plan offered by U.S. Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Susan Collins ...
Business & Economics
On Standing Rock, Politics Trumped Facts And Law
Last month, the Army Corps of Engineers, pursuant to political pressure, reversed its prior decision and denied the final permit needed to complete construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The pretext: that the pipeline company, after years of planning and reliance on the U.S. government’s decisions and representations to the ...
Health Care
Post-Election Top Policy Changes To Watch In 2017
While every new year brings change, with Donald Trump elected to become the next president and the U.S. House and Senate both having Republican majorities, managed healthcare executives will see more changes than usual in 2017—beginning with repealing and replacing most of the provisions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). ...
California
Trump Election Inspires New “Calexit” Movement
Forgive the understatement, but Donald Trump’s election didn’t go so well in some quarters. We’ve seen inconsolable weeping, bitter protests, riots that appear to be professionally orchestrated, and a flood of Internet assassination threats. It is discouraging that a democratic election produced such a spiteful reaction. Regrettably, California, where 62 ...
California
CAPITAL IDEAS: Reforming California’s Environmental Policies
The roots of California’s environmental regulations can be traced back to 1884. That’s the year a federal judge ordered miners to stop using water cannons to batter the Sierra hillsides to separate gold from the soil and rock, but also left behind a broken and ugly landscape.
Government Should Leave Sharing Economy Alone
Governments tend to target innovative industries that are too new to be regulated and single them out for punitive taxes and nasty abuse. As Art Laffer once put it, governments aren’t happy when business pioneers enjoy “success without the benevolent, guiding wisdom of” of the regulatory state. This was the ...
One State, Under Water
After a particularly soppy winter refilled California’s gasping reservoirs and swelled the Sierra Nevada snowpack—to 175 percent above its historical average, in some spots—grateful residents hailed the end of a dry spell that stretched back six years. Governor Jerry Brown has declared that the state’s drought is mostly over, though ...
Withholding CSR Funds Could Push More Health Plans Out
If President Trump follows through with his suggestion that he might withhold subsidy payments to insurers as a way to force Democrats to the negotiating table, the move might have little effect on his political opponents but push struggling health plans out of the ACA marketplace. The president indicated in ...
California Single-Payer Bill Looks Backward, Instead Of Forward To A New Era Of Patient Choice
Here we go again. The California State Legislature is considering yet another bill to impose a so-called single-payer, government monopoly, health care system. This has long been an obsession of the California’s nurses unions, because a health system under total government control would suit the narrow interests of union leaders. ...
Devin Nunes Has 5 Big Ideas To Fix California
There are 120 legislators and eight elected statewide officials in Sacramento, but maybe the most sensible elected official in California lives much of the time in Washington, D.C. Or at least the one who’s making the most sensible proposals. Rep. Devin Nunes, who represents California’s 22nd District in Congress, encouraged ...
Senators Sell Sorry Rx For What Ails Obamacare
Republicans won three elections — including one this past November — promising to repeal President Obama’s signature health law. Yet some GOP senators are proposing to replace Obama-care with … Obamacare. There’s no other way to describe the “replacement” plan offered by U.S. Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Susan Collins ...
On Standing Rock, Politics Trumped Facts And Law
Last month, the Army Corps of Engineers, pursuant to political pressure, reversed its prior decision and denied the final permit needed to complete construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The pretext: that the pipeline company, after years of planning and reliance on the U.S. government’s decisions and representations to the ...
Post-Election Top Policy Changes To Watch In 2017
While every new year brings change, with Donald Trump elected to become the next president and the U.S. House and Senate both having Republican majorities, managed healthcare executives will see more changes than usual in 2017—beginning with repealing and replacing most of the provisions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). ...
Trump Election Inspires New “Calexit” Movement
Forgive the understatement, but Donald Trump’s election didn’t go so well in some quarters. We’ve seen inconsolable weeping, bitter protests, riots that appear to be professionally orchestrated, and a flood of Internet assassination threats. It is discouraging that a democratic election produced such a spiteful reaction. Regrettably, California, where 62 ...
CAPITAL IDEAS: Reforming California’s Environmental Policies
The roots of California’s environmental regulations can be traced back to 1884. That’s the year a federal judge ordered miners to stop using water cannons to batter the Sierra hillsides to separate gold from the soil and rock, but also left behind a broken and ugly landscape.
