Commentary
Commentary
Washington’s Medicaid Reform Could Benefit Every State in the US
Its a short law with big potential: SB 5596, signed by Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire at the end of May, is only three pages long. Nevertheless, it puts Washington state on a path to Medicaid solvency and sets an example for California and the nation. Remarkably, the law, sponsored by ...
Commentary
Leavitt: Most States Won’t Have Exchanges By Deadline
My readers have known this since April 8. Read more here.
Commentary
Medicaid Mess-up
Last week, government officials discovered that up to 3 million middle-class Americans with annual incomes as high as $64,000 could qualify for Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor, thanks to Obamacare. Medicares chief actuary, Richard Foster, summed the situation up nicely: [T]hat just doesnt make ...
Business & Economics
California Amazon Tax Will Kill 25,000 Small Businesses
With the California legislature having just passed a flawed budget full of accounting tricks, budget gimmicks and money grabs, one area of small business is about to be taxed right out of business – just so that the state can fill a budget hole instead of making necessary and substantive ...
Commentary
Price Caps Will Only Cap Availability of Insurance
Earlier this month, the California Assembly voted to give the state insurance commissioner the power to reject health insurance rate hikes that he deemed excessive. The state senate must now take up the measure, known as AB 52. A week later, AB 52 effectively went national. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) ...
Commentary
Education theft versus pension theft: lessons for California
In Ohio and Connecticut, two African-American single mothers have been charged with “stealing education” for enrolling their children in a school district where they didn’t live. California can learn from these cases, but must proceed with caution. Tonya McDowell used the address of a baby sitter to register her 6-year-old ...
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
Virtual School Plan Praised
A virtual school would give students in rural and low-performing schools access to honors, enrichment and remediation courses, improving achievement and graduation rates at a lower cost than traditional classroom instruction, according to a report by the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy. Virtual schools offer other advantages over bricks-and-mortar ...
Business & Economics
New consumer bureau will be a bust – guaranteed
In July, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) formally begins operations. Republicans oppose President Obama’s top choice, Elizabeth Warren, to head the new bureau, which should not have been created in the first place. The CFPB will drive up prices, but won’t actually protect consumers. Consider first the sheer implausibility ...
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 ...
Washington’s Medicaid Reform Could Benefit Every State in the US
Its a short law with big potential: SB 5596, signed by Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire at the end of May, is only three pages long. Nevertheless, it puts Washington state on a path to Medicaid solvency and sets an example for California and the nation. Remarkably, the law, sponsored by ...
Leavitt: Most States Won’t Have Exchanges By Deadline
My readers have known this since April 8. Read more here.
Medicaid Mess-up
Last week, government officials discovered that up to 3 million middle-class Americans with annual incomes as high as $64,000 could qualify for Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor, thanks to Obamacare. Medicares chief actuary, Richard Foster, summed the situation up nicely: [T]hat just doesnt make ...
California Amazon Tax Will Kill 25,000 Small Businesses
With the California legislature having just passed a flawed budget full of accounting tricks, budget gimmicks and money grabs, one area of small business is about to be taxed right out of business – just so that the state can fill a budget hole instead of making necessary and substantive ...
Price Caps Will Only Cap Availability of Insurance
Earlier this month, the California Assembly voted to give the state insurance commissioner the power to reject health insurance rate hikes that he deemed excessive. The state senate must now take up the measure, known as AB 52. A week later, AB 52 effectively went national. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) ...
Education theft versus pension theft: lessons for California
In Ohio and Connecticut, two African-American single mothers have been charged with “stealing education” for enrolling their children in a school district where they didn’t live. California can learn from these cases, but must proceed with caution. Tonya McDowell used the address of a baby sitter to register her 6-year-old ...
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 ...
Virtual School Plan Praised
A virtual school would give students in rural and low-performing schools access to honors, enrichment and remediation courses, improving achievement and graduation rates at a lower cost than traditional classroom instruction, according to a report by the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy. Virtual schools offer other advantages over bricks-and-mortar ...
New consumer bureau will be a bust – guaranteed
In July, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) formally begins operations. Republicans oppose President Obama’s top choice, Elizabeth Warren, to head the new bureau, which should not have been created in the first place. The CFPB will drive up prices, but won’t actually protect consumers. Consider first the sheer implausibility ...
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 ...
