Commentary
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. ...
Commentary
Still time to repeal Obamacare
On July 2, the Obama administration announced that it would delay implementation of the Affordable Care Act’s “employer mandate” until 2015. This much-bemoaned provision will require businesses with at least 50 employees who work 30 hours or more a week to provide health insurance to all full-timers. Employers that fail ...
Commentary
For Small Business Owners, The Obamacare Reality Bites
More than 40 percent of small businesses have frozen hiring because of Obamacare, according to a new poll from Gallup. A fifth have actually cut their workforces as a direct result of the healthcare reform law. Thats not exactly the future President Obama forecast in 2009, when he told an ...
Commentary
Organized Labor And Business: The Latest Strange Bedfellows To Unite Against Obamacare
Obamacare is proving the old axiom that politics makes strange bedfellows. Organized labor and the business community are the latest unlikely pair to unite in opposition to the healthcare reform law. Both groups are discovering that Obamacare will substantially increase the cost of providing health benefits to the detriment ...
Commentary
Beware of a Forestry Standard Monopoly
Before any policy is changed, the potential economic consequences that they can cause should be considered. The Community Reinvestment Act and other affordable housing regulations, for instance, were supposed to increase loan availability to under-served communities. Unintentionally, these regulations played an important role in creating the housing boom and bust ...
Commentary
Obamacare’s exchanges are on a collision course with reality
Obamacares health insurance exchanges are supposed to enroll millions of Americans in just a few months. That may come as a surprise to them, according to a new poll. More than three-quarters of Americans know little or nothing about the state-based exchanges, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. They wont ...
Commentary
Creating Better Forestry Certification Programs through Competition
It is basic Economics 101. Competitive markets create better outcomes than monopolists. Monopolists restrict supply and charge higher prices. Dynamically, monopolists face fewer incentives to create new products or improve how their products are made. In fact, creating new technologies or processes could undermine a monopolists current market dominance. What ...
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. ...
Still time to repeal Obamacare
On July 2, the Obama administration announced that it would delay implementation of the Affordable Care Act’s “employer mandate” until 2015. This much-bemoaned provision will require businesses with at least 50 employees who work 30 hours or more a week to provide health insurance to all full-timers. Employers that fail ...
For Small Business Owners, The Obamacare Reality Bites
More than 40 percent of small businesses have frozen hiring because of Obamacare, according to a new poll from Gallup. A fifth have actually cut their workforces as a direct result of the healthcare reform law. Thats not exactly the future President Obama forecast in 2009, when he told an ...
Organized Labor And Business: The Latest Strange Bedfellows To Unite Against Obamacare
Obamacare is proving the old axiom that politics makes strange bedfellows. Organized labor and the business community are the latest unlikely pair to unite in opposition to the healthcare reform law. Both groups are discovering that Obamacare will substantially increase the cost of providing health benefits to the detriment ...
Beware of a Forestry Standard Monopoly
Before any policy is changed, the potential economic consequences that they can cause should be considered. The Community Reinvestment Act and other affordable housing regulations, for instance, were supposed to increase loan availability to under-served communities. Unintentionally, these regulations played an important role in creating the housing boom and bust ...
Obamacare’s exchanges are on a collision course with reality
Obamacares health insurance exchanges are supposed to enroll millions of Americans in just a few months. That may come as a surprise to them, according to a new poll. More than three-quarters of Americans know little or nothing about the state-based exchanges, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. They wont ...
Creating Better Forestry Certification Programs through Competition
It is basic Economics 101. Competitive markets create better outcomes than monopolists. Monopolists restrict supply and charge higher prices. Dynamically, monopolists face fewer incentives to create new products or improve how their products are made. In fact, creating new technologies or processes could undermine a monopolists current market dominance. What ...
