Commentary
California
Free(ing) Health Insurance in California?
State senator Sam Aanestad is still rolling out good health-care legislation in the Golden State. A few months ago, he introduced a bill that would improve California’s high-risk pool for health insurance, by allowing its beneficiaries to buy low-premium, consumer-driven policies, and allow different premiums for smokers and the obese ...
Commentary
The CTA’s Latest Ads: A Dishonest Defense of a Dysfunctional Monopoly
Flash Report (CA), January 23, 2009 Public school funding is plunging to the bottom of the national spending barrel, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s latest budget “attack” on education is to blame—or so the California Teachers Association claims. In their latest statewide radio ad campaign, the CTA claims California “sank” to ...
Business & Economics
Obama Set to Change Science and Tech
When Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States this week, he promised that his administration would “restore science to its rightful place.” Whether reality will fit the rhetoric remains to be seen, and there are reasons to be both optimistic and a little wary. ...
Business & Economics
Pattern is playing out again
There is no doubt that the United States and much of the world are in perilous economic times. Sensing opportunity in crisis, many left-leaning politicians and experts, including President-elect Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, are calling for a potentially massive expansion of the state without explaining how such action ...
Commentary
Taxpayer-Funded Lobbying for State Take-Over of Health Care?
Last January, governor Schwarzenegger’s expensive and unwieldy proposal for so-called “universal” health care finally gasped its last breath, after a long year of lobbying and coalition-building by the governor’s team. Good thing, too, as I wrote at the time. But those who advocated it are more active than ever. Daniel ...
Business & Economics
Governor’s tort reform will yield jobs
I commend Gov. Sonny Perdue for his efforts to enact meaningful tort reform in Georgia (“Perdue says tort reform needed,” Jan. 14). During this time of economic crisis, no state can afford to endure the unnecessary costs of an inefficient tort system. Excess litigation cost America’s economy $589 billion in ...
Business & Economics
Union stand could boost GOP clout
NOW that President Obama is settling into office, there is an issue Democrats will be forced to face: Is card check certification Obama’s Hillary Care? The answer to this question will have profound consequences for the Democratic Party, the labor movement that invested huge sums of money in the 2008 ...
Commentary
The Unseen Culprits in America’s Financial Crisis
To the long list of villains in America’s unfolding economic crisis … the politicians who encouraged risky lending, the bankers who bundled questionable mortgages into marketable securities, and the ratings agencies that gave inflated grades to sub-par debt … add the thousands of supposedly responsible citizens who served as volunteers ...
Commentary
Government Planning Makes Long-Term Planning Impossible
I envy the good people of Massachusetts at least one thing: (in my humble opinion) the Boston Globe has the best coverage of local health policy. (Pity me, I’m stuck with the Los Angeles Times, and its kin.) Prompted by the BoGlo’s coverage of out-of-control health-care spending in the wake ...
Commentary
California School Days
Education: California Gov. Schwarzenegger is at odds with his school superintendent over how long the academic year should be. But is educational success, key to global competition, a matter of time, money or choice? The argument over what to do about America’s struggling schools is still raging. Programs such as ...
Free(ing) Health Insurance in California?
State senator Sam Aanestad is still rolling out good health-care legislation in the Golden State. A few months ago, he introduced a bill that would improve California’s high-risk pool for health insurance, by allowing its beneficiaries to buy low-premium, consumer-driven policies, and allow different premiums for smokers and the obese ...
The CTA’s Latest Ads: A Dishonest Defense of a Dysfunctional Monopoly
Flash Report (CA), January 23, 2009 Public school funding is plunging to the bottom of the national spending barrel, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s latest budget “attack” on education is to blame—or so the California Teachers Association claims. In their latest statewide radio ad campaign, the CTA claims California “sank” to ...
Obama Set to Change Science and Tech
When Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States this week, he promised that his administration would “restore science to its rightful place.” Whether reality will fit the rhetoric remains to be seen, and there are reasons to be both optimistic and a little wary. ...
Pattern is playing out again
There is no doubt that the United States and much of the world are in perilous economic times. Sensing opportunity in crisis, many left-leaning politicians and experts, including President-elect Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, are calling for a potentially massive expansion of the state without explaining how such action ...
Taxpayer-Funded Lobbying for State Take-Over of Health Care?
Last January, governor Schwarzenegger’s expensive and unwieldy proposal for so-called “universal” health care finally gasped its last breath, after a long year of lobbying and coalition-building by the governor’s team. Good thing, too, as I wrote at the time. But those who advocated it are more active than ever. Daniel ...
Governor’s tort reform will yield jobs
I commend Gov. Sonny Perdue for his efforts to enact meaningful tort reform in Georgia (“Perdue says tort reform needed,” Jan. 14). During this time of economic crisis, no state can afford to endure the unnecessary costs of an inefficient tort system. Excess litigation cost America’s economy $589 billion in ...
Union stand could boost GOP clout
NOW that President Obama is settling into office, there is an issue Democrats will be forced to face: Is card check certification Obama’s Hillary Care? The answer to this question will have profound consequences for the Democratic Party, the labor movement that invested huge sums of money in the 2008 ...
The Unseen Culprits in America’s Financial Crisis
To the long list of villains in America’s unfolding economic crisis … the politicians who encouraged risky lending, the bankers who bundled questionable mortgages into marketable securities, and the ratings agencies that gave inflated grades to sub-par debt … add the thousands of supposedly responsible citizens who served as volunteers ...
Government Planning Makes Long-Term Planning Impossible
I envy the good people of Massachusetts at least one thing: (in my humble opinion) the Boston Globe has the best coverage of local health policy. (Pity me, I’m stuck with the Los Angeles Times, and its kin.) Prompted by the BoGlo’s coverage of out-of-control health-care spending in the wake ...
California School Days
Education: California Gov. Schwarzenegger is at odds with his school superintendent over how long the academic year should be. But is educational success, key to global competition, a matter of time, money or choice? The argument over what to do about America’s struggling schools is still raging. Programs such as ...
