Commentary

Business & Economics

Big Government and Health-Care Stocks: A Happy Marriage?

Please read the entire column at Forbes.com: The Apothecary.
Commentary

Follow the State’s Lead to Better Medicaid

By any objective measure, Medicaid is a failure. It provides substandard care at an ever increasing cost to taxpayers. When a Republican Congress and a Democrat president worked together to end another failing program – welfare as we knew it — we achieved something rare in public policy: success. We ...
Business & Economics

Educated Legislators, Bad Economy

California has the most educated legislators, according to a recent Chronicle of Higher Education study. Those stellar academic credentials, unfortunately, have not lifted the state from its economic malaise. California’s unemployment rate, as of May, is nearly 12 percent, higher than every state in the bottom five of the study. ...
Business & Economics

Small-Business Health Care Tax Credits Are having a Miniscule Impact

The Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council recently surveyed 304 small business owners about how satisfied they were with the new healthcare reform law’s tax credits. Nearly 90% had not applied for the credits. Some had no idea they existed, others were deemed ineligible, and more than a fifth found that ...
Commentary

Washington’s Medicaid Reform Could Benefit Every State in the US

It’s 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. Medicare’s chief actuary, Richard Foster, summed the situation up nicely: “[T]hat just doesn’t 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 ...
Business & Economics

Big Government and Health-Care Stocks: A Happy Marriage?

Please read the entire column at Forbes.com: The Apothecary.
Commentary

Follow the State’s Lead to Better Medicaid

By any objective measure, Medicaid is a failure. It provides substandard care at an ever increasing cost to taxpayers. When a Republican Congress and a Democrat president worked together to end another failing program – welfare as we knew it — we achieved something rare in public policy: success. We ...
Business & Economics

Educated Legislators, Bad Economy

California has the most educated legislators, according to a recent Chronicle of Higher Education study. Those stellar academic credentials, unfortunately, have not lifted the state from its economic malaise. California’s unemployment rate, as of May, is nearly 12 percent, higher than every state in the bottom five of the study. ...
Business & Economics

Small-Business Health Care Tax Credits Are having a Miniscule Impact

The Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council recently surveyed 304 small business owners about how satisfied they were with the new healthcare reform law’s tax credits. Nearly 90% had not applied for the credits. Some had no idea they existed, others were deemed ineligible, and more than a fifth found that ...
Commentary

Washington’s Medicaid Reform Could Benefit Every State in the US

It’s 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. Medicare’s chief actuary, Richard Foster, summed the situation up nicely: “[T]hat just doesn’t 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 ...
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