Commentary
Business & Economics
Is Brown dodging pension reform?
At a League of California Cities event in Sacramento, Gov. Jerry Brown promised local officials struggling under the weight of pay and benefit costs that he would, indeed, put forward pension-reform proposals in the coming weeks. Yet I see little evidence so far that the new governor is interested in ...
Business & Economics
The Acting Governor
As Arnold Schwarzenegger stepped down as governor of California, he could behold two dispiriting sights: a state struggling with structural budget deficits, just as it had struggled when he marched into office as a conquering action hero, and an approval rate just 1 point higher than his disgraced and recalled ...
Commentary
Choosy about right to choose
Jan. 22 marks the 38th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, which guaranteed a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion. On this date annually, both sides of the abortion controversy confront each other over one of America’s most contentious issues. Liberal Democrats vigorously defend ...
Commentary
Health exchanges a bad idea for Wisconsin
Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has joined the multistate legal challenge to the federal health reform law. The law has been unpopular with Badger State voters for some time; nearly 60% favored repeal in a Rasmussen poll taken just before the midterm elections. Fortunately, Wisconsin can help defeat this ...
Business & Economics
Brown targets corporate welfare
This really could be the beginning of the end for the state’s redevelopment agencies, those noxious, corporate-welfare-enabling entities that have wreaked havoc on property rights in California since the 1950s. The new governor’s budget plan would eliminate California’s 425 redevelopment agencies and divert the cash that now goes through them ...
Commentary
Lessons for California from National School Choice Week
National School Choice Week kicks off on January 23, and California should be leading the country in student-centered, parent-driven reform. In the Golden State, unfortunately, system-centered education prevails, and parents empowered to choose their children’s schools are the exception, not the rule. Last year, California adopted the “parent trigger.” If ...
Commentary
Repealing Obamacare Is Not “Symbolic,” But A Constitutional Duty
Back when Nancy Pelosi was speaker, the legacy media bemoaned the fact (as of last October) that the House had passed 420 bills that the Senate had not taken up. Journalists would never have dared label these bills “symbolic.” Rather, the problem was a “gap in productivity” between an energetic ...
Commentary
Why Retiring Baby Boomers Will find Medi-Cal a Bust on Long-Term Care
The new administration of Jerry Brown faces many challenges, including a tough one that will get worse on July 1, 2011. That’s when the federal funds that have propped up California’s troubled Medi-Cal system will disappear. That is bad news for retirees, including baby boomers, who in 2011 will be ...
Commentary
Insurance Brokers Should Reverse Their Position on Obamacare
Fair enough, many might say: The point of establishing this arbitrary accounting target was to ensure more cash flow to providers than to middlemen. This outcome leads to an unhealthy schadenfreude for me, because I’ve always thought brokers should have advocated strongly for individually owned health insurance, instead of the ...
Commentary
Hospitals lure doctors away from private practice
While making the case for his health reform package, President Obama argued that his proposal would make life easier for small-business owners. Unfortunately, Obamacare threatens to undermine a group of small-business owners that is perhaps more important than any other to his reform effort doctors in private practice. The ...
Is Brown dodging pension reform?
At a League of California Cities event in Sacramento, Gov. Jerry Brown promised local officials struggling under the weight of pay and benefit costs that he would, indeed, put forward pension-reform proposals in the coming weeks. Yet I see little evidence so far that the new governor is interested in ...
The Acting Governor
As Arnold Schwarzenegger stepped down as governor of California, he could behold two dispiriting sights: a state struggling with structural budget deficits, just as it had struggled when he marched into office as a conquering action hero, and an approval rate just 1 point higher than his disgraced and recalled ...
Choosy about right to choose
Jan. 22 marks the 38th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, which guaranteed a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion. On this date annually, both sides of the abortion controversy confront each other over one of America’s most contentious issues. Liberal Democrats vigorously defend ...
Health exchanges a bad idea for Wisconsin
Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has joined the multistate legal challenge to the federal health reform law. The law has been unpopular with Badger State voters for some time; nearly 60% favored repeal in a Rasmussen poll taken just before the midterm elections. Fortunately, Wisconsin can help defeat this ...
Brown targets corporate welfare
This really could be the beginning of the end for the state’s redevelopment agencies, those noxious, corporate-welfare-enabling entities that have wreaked havoc on property rights in California since the 1950s. The new governor’s budget plan would eliminate California’s 425 redevelopment agencies and divert the cash that now goes through them ...
Lessons for California from National School Choice Week
National School Choice Week kicks off on January 23, and California should be leading the country in student-centered, parent-driven reform. In the Golden State, unfortunately, system-centered education prevails, and parents empowered to choose their children’s schools are the exception, not the rule. Last year, California adopted the “parent trigger.” If ...
Repealing Obamacare Is Not “Symbolic,” But A Constitutional Duty
Back when Nancy Pelosi was speaker, the legacy media bemoaned the fact (as of last October) that the House had passed 420 bills that the Senate had not taken up. Journalists would never have dared label these bills “symbolic.” Rather, the problem was a “gap in productivity” between an energetic ...
Why Retiring Baby Boomers Will find Medi-Cal a Bust on Long-Term Care
The new administration of Jerry Brown faces many challenges, including a tough one that will get worse on July 1, 2011. That’s when the federal funds that have propped up California’s troubled Medi-Cal system will disappear. That is bad news for retirees, including baby boomers, who in 2011 will be ...
Insurance Brokers Should Reverse Their Position on Obamacare
Fair enough, many might say: The point of establishing this arbitrary accounting target was to ensure more cash flow to providers than to middlemen. This outcome leads to an unhealthy schadenfreude for me, because I’ve always thought brokers should have advocated strongly for individually owned health insurance, instead of the ...
Hospitals lure doctors away from private practice
While making the case for his health reform package, President Obama argued that his proposal would make life easier for small-business owners. Unfortunately, Obamacare threatens to undermine a group of small-business owners that is perhaps more important than any other to his reform effort doctors in private practice. The ...
