Commentary
Commentary
Delay Of Obamacare’s Employer Mandate Exacerbates An Already Bad Situation
Last month, the Obama Administration proclaimed itself a friend of American business by announcing a one-year delay, until 2015, of the employer mandate the provision of its signature health reform law that requires businesses with 50 or more full-time employees to provide health insurance. We have listened to your ...
Commentary
Is Obamacare paving the way for single-payer system?
Suffering from illness or injury? Good thing youre not British. U.K. police recently investigated the deaths of 300 patients at one hospital. The suspected cause? Neglect. No wonder average waiting times for accident and emergency patients have hit a nine-year high. That could never happen in America, right? On ...
Commentary
Hospital Networks Reject Obamacare Initiative
Nine major hospital networks just decided they’d had enough of being “Pioneers” for ObamaCare. They withdrew from the health reform law’s Pioneer Accountable Care Organization (ACO) initiative, which launched in January 2012 with 32 health systems participating. These ACOs are supposed to integrate doctors, hospitals and other providers into one ...
Commentary
Government Mandates Don’t Lower Health Care Costs
Free lunches are often the most expensive meals. And yet, when it comes to the nations health care system, the federal government blindly offers free lunch buffets in lieu of policies that would actually address the core problems of the nations health care system. An example of this free lunch ...
Commentary
Medicaid proven to be a failure
State legislators across the country are wrestling with whether to expand Medicaid, with the bulk of the funding to come from the federal government, thanks to Obamacare. Thus far, a substantial number of states have rebuffed the feds’ offer – or are leaning that way. They’re right to do so. ...
Agriculture
Today’s Energy Crisis: Too Much, Not Too Little, Fossil Fuel
Back in April 1977, President Carter warned that “the oil and natural gas we rely on for 75% of our energy are running out.” In response to the perceived energy supply shortages, he wanted to limit the annual growth in overall U.S. energy usage, force American consumers to lower their ...
Commentary
Bend The Healthcare Cost Curve Downward By Letting Healthcare Costs Rise
Earlier this year, a team of researchers in Europe decided to examine the relationship between cutting-edge technology and healthcare costs. Some wonks complain that expensive new medical technologies and therapies some of which deliver only marginal improvements to patient health are key drivers of health spending. But when ...
Business & Economics
Uncle Sam’s Phantom Loan Revenues
You may have heard that lawmakers in Washington struck a deal last week to preserve the current low student-loan rates for at least another year. You may not have heard that for fiscal year 2013 the federal government booked $32 million in revenuesprofits, if it were a private entityfor every ...
California
Bay Area growth: Why not spread out into rural land instead of building in cities?
The last two centuries have brought unprecedented urbanization around the world. Large cities have become the norm by meeting the aspirations of new residents. Cities are primarily economic organisms and are justified only by improving the lives of their residents, by facilitating higher discretionary incomes and reducing poverty. However, in ...
Commentary
If no changes, no Medicare
Medicare has two more years to live than previously thought. The program’s trustees recently estimated that the “depletion date for the trust fund is 2026, two years later than was shown in last year’s report.” But that conclusion is less a vote of confidence than a two-year stay of execution. ...
Delay Of Obamacare’s Employer Mandate Exacerbates An Already Bad Situation
Last month, the Obama Administration proclaimed itself a friend of American business by announcing a one-year delay, until 2015, of the employer mandate the provision of its signature health reform law that requires businesses with 50 or more full-time employees to provide health insurance. We have listened to your ...
Is Obamacare paving the way for single-payer system?
Suffering from illness or injury? Good thing youre not British. U.K. police recently investigated the deaths of 300 patients at one hospital. The suspected cause? Neglect. No wonder average waiting times for accident and emergency patients have hit a nine-year high. That could never happen in America, right? On ...
Hospital Networks Reject Obamacare Initiative
Nine major hospital networks just decided they’d had enough of being “Pioneers” for ObamaCare. They withdrew from the health reform law’s Pioneer Accountable Care Organization (ACO) initiative, which launched in January 2012 with 32 health systems participating. These ACOs are supposed to integrate doctors, hospitals and other providers into one ...
Government Mandates Don’t Lower Health Care Costs
Free lunches are often the most expensive meals. And yet, when it comes to the nations health care system, the federal government blindly offers free lunch buffets in lieu of policies that would actually address the core problems of the nations health care system. An example of this free lunch ...
Medicaid proven to be a failure
State legislators across the country are wrestling with whether to expand Medicaid, with the bulk of the funding to come from the federal government, thanks to Obamacare. Thus far, a substantial number of states have rebuffed the feds’ offer – or are leaning that way. They’re right to do so. ...
Today’s Energy Crisis: Too Much, Not Too Little, Fossil Fuel
Back in April 1977, President Carter warned that “the oil and natural gas we rely on for 75% of our energy are running out.” In response to the perceived energy supply shortages, he wanted to limit the annual growth in overall U.S. energy usage, force American consumers to lower their ...
Bend The Healthcare Cost Curve Downward By Letting Healthcare Costs Rise
Earlier this year, a team of researchers in Europe decided to examine the relationship between cutting-edge technology and healthcare costs. Some wonks complain that expensive new medical technologies and therapies some of which deliver only marginal improvements to patient health are key drivers of health spending. But when ...
Uncle Sam’s Phantom Loan Revenues
You may have heard that lawmakers in Washington struck a deal last week to preserve the current low student-loan rates for at least another year. You may not have heard that for fiscal year 2013 the federal government booked $32 million in revenuesprofits, if it were a private entityfor every ...
Bay Area growth: Why not spread out into rural land instead of building in cities?
The last two centuries have brought unprecedented urbanization around the world. Large cities have become the norm by meeting the aspirations of new residents. Cities are primarily economic organisms and are justified only by improving the lives of their residents, by facilitating higher discretionary incomes and reducing poverty. However, in ...
If no changes, no Medicare
Medicare has two more years to live than previously thought. The program’s trustees recently estimated that the “depletion date for the trust fund is 2026, two years later than was shown in last year’s report.” But that conclusion is less a vote of confidence than a two-year stay of execution. ...
