Commentary
California
Shooting the Messenger: California’s Proposal to Control Health Plans’ Rate Increases
California legislators are considering a bill, AB 52, that would give the executive branch the power to decide whether health plans should be allowed to increase their premiums at rates that keep pace with medical costs. Health plans may be a politically attractive target, but giving politicians the power to ...
Business & Economics
The tea party should hold fast on debt ceiling
Two weeks ago, Standard and Poor’s kept the U.S. government’s AAA debt rating, but downgraded its future outlook from “stable” to “negative.” The announcement roiled stock markets and underscored the need for tea party activists to keep legislators’ feet to the fire on the debt ceiling. Paul Ryan’s allegedly radical ...
Commentary
A Plan That Leads Health Care To Nowhere
President Obama recently offered up his plan for cutting the federal budget deficit by $4 trillion over 12 years. A big chunk of those proposed savings–$480 billion, or more than 10%–is supposed to come from federal health care programs. Unfortunately, the president plans to achieve those savings through heavy-handed rationing. ...
Commentary
Canada Still Working Towards Universal Health Care
Or, it would be if government planners could bring about such outcomes. In fact, five million Canadians have no access to a primary care physician. (That’s about 15 percent of the population.) Remarkably, the Canadian people’s response to this astounding government failure is to support government-run health care by a ...
Business & Economics
Public servants – more money, less accountability
Union arguments in favor of their members’ lush pensions are falling by the wayside as the public examines the facts. For instance, union officials argue that the average public-sector pension benefit in California is “only” $30,000 a year, while neglecting to mention that the number, according to the state’s watchdog ...
Blackouts
Moonbeams Over California: The 33-percent Non-solution
California Governor Jerry Brown recently signed SB 2x by Joe Simitian, mandating that 33 percent of the state’s energy come from renewable sources by 2020, an increase of 13 percent from the previous mandate of 20 percent. This signals bad news for California but reveals a key dynamic of our ...
Commentary
R.I.’s Medicaid waiver’s big influence
Rhode Island may be small, but when it comes to keeping costs down and resisting federal control of health care, the Ocean State punches way out of its weight class. Medicaid, the health program for low-income residents, is a strain on every states budget. A fundamental problem with Medicaid is ...
Commentary
Piping Up: Medical Innovation Critical To Bringing Down Health Care Costs
By the end of this decade, national health care spending is projected to amount to one-fifth of the country’s GDP. That’s more than four times military expenditures–and five times the amount spent each year on education. And that’s a conservative estimate. In a recent study, consulting firm Deloitte revealed that ...
Commentary
Military model works for students
President Barack Obama has highlighted the need to improve student achievement, and a recent report finds that U.S. military programs are doing just that. The report by the National Association of State Boards of Education notes that education officials are amazed at the militarys ability to take at-risk young people ...
Commentary
Obamacare mandate much like status quo
The legal wrangling over President Barack Obama’s health care law is heating up. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta recently announced that it would expedite its consideration of one constitutional challenge to the law. The case centers on the law’s individual mandate the requirement that all ...
Shooting the Messenger: California’s Proposal to Control Health Plans’ Rate Increases
California legislators are considering a bill, AB 52, that would give the executive branch the power to decide whether health plans should be allowed to increase their premiums at rates that keep pace with medical costs. Health plans may be a politically attractive target, but giving politicians the power to ...
The tea party should hold fast on debt ceiling
Two weeks ago, Standard and Poor’s kept the U.S. government’s AAA debt rating, but downgraded its future outlook from “stable” to “negative.” The announcement roiled stock markets and underscored the need for tea party activists to keep legislators’ feet to the fire on the debt ceiling. Paul Ryan’s allegedly radical ...
A Plan That Leads Health Care To Nowhere
President Obama recently offered up his plan for cutting the federal budget deficit by $4 trillion over 12 years. A big chunk of those proposed savings–$480 billion, or more than 10%–is supposed to come from federal health care programs. Unfortunately, the president plans to achieve those savings through heavy-handed rationing. ...
Canada Still Working Towards Universal Health Care
Or, it would be if government planners could bring about such outcomes. In fact, five million Canadians have no access to a primary care physician. (That’s about 15 percent of the population.) Remarkably, the Canadian people’s response to this astounding government failure is to support government-run health care by a ...
Public servants – more money, less accountability
Union arguments in favor of their members’ lush pensions are falling by the wayside as the public examines the facts. For instance, union officials argue that the average public-sector pension benefit in California is “only” $30,000 a year, while neglecting to mention that the number, according to the state’s watchdog ...
Moonbeams Over California: The 33-percent Non-solution
California Governor Jerry Brown recently signed SB 2x by Joe Simitian, mandating that 33 percent of the state’s energy come from renewable sources by 2020, an increase of 13 percent from the previous mandate of 20 percent. This signals bad news for California but reveals a key dynamic of our ...
R.I.’s Medicaid waiver’s big influence
Rhode Island may be small, but when it comes to keeping costs down and resisting federal control of health care, the Ocean State punches way out of its weight class. Medicaid, the health program for low-income residents, is a strain on every states budget. A fundamental problem with Medicaid is ...
Piping Up: Medical Innovation Critical To Bringing Down Health Care Costs
By the end of this decade, national health care spending is projected to amount to one-fifth of the country’s GDP. That’s more than four times military expenditures–and five times the amount spent each year on education. And that’s a conservative estimate. In a recent study, consulting firm Deloitte revealed that ...
Military model works for students
President Barack Obama has highlighted the need to improve student achievement, and a recent report finds that U.S. military programs are doing just that. The report by the National Association of State Boards of Education notes that education officials are amazed at the militarys ability to take at-risk young people ...
Obamacare mandate much like status quo
The legal wrangling over President Barack Obama’s health care law is heating up. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta recently announced that it would expedite its consideration of one constitutional challenge to the law. The case centers on the law’s individual mandate the requirement that all ...
