Commentary
Business & Economics
Lawsuits hurt taxpayers
We’ve all read and laughed at the stories of ludicrous lawsuits and the runaway juries who decide on multi-million judgments. Unfortunately, fellow New Yorkers, the joke is on us. A recent independent economic study conducted for New Yorkers for Lawsuit Reform — a statewide coalition of large and small businesses, ...
Commentary
New Yorker Would Have Done Better With Individual Insurance To Start
Laurie Rippon notes that (s)he lost his job after being hit by a car while crossing the street, which resulted in traumatic brain injury. After timing out of COBRA coverage, he would not have been able to buy an individual policy because he would not have passed underwriting. Mr. Rippon ...
Business & Economics
New Yorkers pay a high price for liability litigation
High taxes help make New York an expensive place to do business. A new report argues convincingly that costly malpractice litigation and insurance also kill jobs and drive away business. The report from the conservative Pacific Research Institute notes that from an economic perspective, New York state ranks near the ...
Commentary
Awful school funding formula plagues Alameda County
CALIFORNIA’S FISCAL outlook continues to worsen. Concern is mounting over the impact the state’s budget deficit will have on education funding. The California Teachers Association (CTA), along with state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell, claims California’s per-pupil funding now ranks 47th nationally. In reality, most experts agree California is ...
Business & Economics
Frosting on an already-sweet pension deal
When people have an entitlement mentality, enough is never enough. Even though government employees enjoy absurdly generous defined-benefit pensions that often allow them to retire with 80 percent to 90 percent of their final year’s pay guaranteed forever, employees game the system by taking advantage of various pension-spiking schemes. A ...
Business & Economics
Giving Thanks for Leading Health Technology Advances
While Congress debates an US$850 billion healthcare bill with questionable benefits, leaders in the technology industry are quietly creating products and services that will truly reform healthcare. This Thanksgiving, for example, Americans can be appreciative of the incredible price decline in genome sequencing, one of the most important health advances. ...
Charter Schools
Who’s Afraid of Charter Schools?
On November 12, parents of children at Gratts Elementary in Los Angeles received a flier, in Spanish, warning that if they signed a petition to convert their neighborhood school into a charter school they would be deported. This threat, though bogus, teaches parents and policy makers a lesson about the ...
Commentary
Cutting Medicare Benefits Will Not Protect Taxpayers
While much of the “savings” promoted by the deficit chicken-hawks are delusional (waste, fraud, abuse, and no longer “fixing” doctors’ Medicare Part B reimbursement), one is very real: Cutting actual Medicare benefits by reducing seniors’ choices of Medicare Advantage plans. Traditional Medicare Part A (hospital) and Part B (outpatient) benefits ...
Commentary
Hiding Health Reform’s Real Costs
Washington: Senate Democrats say their reform bill will cost $848 billion over 10 years. They’re misleading the public by starting the count in 2010. The true cost would be $1.8 trillion over a decade. The $848 billion figure is based on a 10-year run beginning in 2010 when there will ...
Commentary
What the Health-Care Debate Is Really All About
Rather, it’s about liberty versus equality, personal control versus governmental control, dispersed power versus centralized power, freedom versus statism, American Founding principles of limited government and natural rights versus Progressive principles of activist government and conventional (man-made) “rights.” There is nothing particularly noble, compassionate, or decent about helping to hold ...
Lawsuits hurt taxpayers
We’ve all read and laughed at the stories of ludicrous lawsuits and the runaway juries who decide on multi-million judgments. Unfortunately, fellow New Yorkers, the joke is on us. A recent independent economic study conducted for New Yorkers for Lawsuit Reform — a statewide coalition of large and small businesses, ...
New Yorker Would Have Done Better With Individual Insurance To Start
Laurie Rippon notes that (s)he lost his job after being hit by a car while crossing the street, which resulted in traumatic brain injury. After timing out of COBRA coverage, he would not have been able to buy an individual policy because he would not have passed underwriting. Mr. Rippon ...
New Yorkers pay a high price for liability litigation
High taxes help make New York an expensive place to do business. A new report argues convincingly that costly malpractice litigation and insurance also kill jobs and drive away business. The report from the conservative Pacific Research Institute notes that from an economic perspective, New York state ranks near the ...
Awful school funding formula plagues Alameda County
CALIFORNIA’S FISCAL outlook continues to worsen. Concern is mounting over the impact the state’s budget deficit will have on education funding. The California Teachers Association (CTA), along with state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell, claims California’s per-pupil funding now ranks 47th nationally. In reality, most experts agree California is ...
Frosting on an already-sweet pension deal
When people have an entitlement mentality, enough is never enough. Even though government employees enjoy absurdly generous defined-benefit pensions that often allow them to retire with 80 percent to 90 percent of their final year’s pay guaranteed forever, employees game the system by taking advantage of various pension-spiking schemes. A ...
Giving Thanks for Leading Health Technology Advances
While Congress debates an US$850 billion healthcare bill with questionable benefits, leaders in the technology industry are quietly creating products and services that will truly reform healthcare. This Thanksgiving, for example, Americans can be appreciative of the incredible price decline in genome sequencing, one of the most important health advances. ...
Who’s Afraid of Charter Schools?
On November 12, parents of children at Gratts Elementary in Los Angeles received a flier, in Spanish, warning that if they signed a petition to convert their neighborhood school into a charter school they would be deported. This threat, though bogus, teaches parents and policy makers a lesson about the ...
Cutting Medicare Benefits Will Not Protect Taxpayers
While much of the “savings” promoted by the deficit chicken-hawks are delusional (waste, fraud, abuse, and no longer “fixing” doctors’ Medicare Part B reimbursement), one is very real: Cutting actual Medicare benefits by reducing seniors’ choices of Medicare Advantage plans. Traditional Medicare Part A (hospital) and Part B (outpatient) benefits ...
Hiding Health Reform’s Real Costs
Washington: Senate Democrats say their reform bill will cost $848 billion over 10 years. They’re misleading the public by starting the count in 2010. The true cost would be $1.8 trillion over a decade. The $848 billion figure is based on a 10-year run beginning in 2010 when there will ...
What the Health-Care Debate Is Really All About
Rather, it’s about liberty versus equality, personal control versus governmental control, dispersed power versus centralized power, freedom versus statism, American Founding principles of limited government and natural rights versus Progressive principles of activist government and conventional (man-made) “rights.” There is nothing particularly noble, compassionate, or decent about helping to hold ...
