Commentary
Business & Economics
’08 election lesson: Live free or die off
In the 2008 election, key swing states included Colorado, Nevada, and Virginia, all growing rapidly and on track for even more political clout after the 2010 census. A big reason for the demographic growth in all three states has been their expansion of economic freedom. Colorado , Nevada, and Virginia ...
Business & Economics
How to Pay Doctors? A Lawyer Chimes In
I have (gratefully) never had to engage a trial lawyer, but I know that many clients are very frustrated by the common practice of charging by billable hours. Writing in Forbes, Mr. Evan R. Chesler of Cravath, Swaine, & Moore, LLP, says that his colleagues should “kill the billable hour”. ...
Commentary
Canadian Health Care in Crisis: Eyewitness Account
Loathe as I am to traffic in anecdotes, I cannot resist recounting a conversation that I had around a friend’s dinner table while in Canada for the holidays last week. The crisis of government-monopoly health care in Canada is fast coming to a crescendo. My previous employer, the Fraser Institute, ...
Commentary
Private Health Insurance in Canada
Returning to Canada for Christmas, I was surprised to see that the country’s life and health insurers were lobbying the government for health savings accounts and pressing ever closer for the right to compete against the failing state monopoly on health insurance (a.k.a. so-called “single-payer” health care). Today, I was ...
Business & Economics
Why many Michiganians stay as others flee
Perhaps you can find a time in your life when conditions have been more difficult in Michigan, but I have been unable to do so. The state unemployment rate is approaching double digits. The Big Three automakers continue to announce cutbacks as they try to scale back their business model ...
California
Unhealthy ballot measures feed the “Blob”
As California teeters on insolvency, Republican state legislators have proposed a budget that transfers $5 billion from two health care programs that are in surplus. The funds in question are for mental health and early childhood development. They are in “silos” because they were approved via propositions. To “break the ...
Commentary
Wishy-Washy Wrangling over Water Works
Before the end of 2008, the Delta Vision Committee will send Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a Bay-Delta Conservation Plan, “one of the most ambitious infrastructure and habitat restoration projects ever proposed in America,” according to news reports. The plan will restore the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a prime source of drinking water ...
California
Unhealthy Ballot Initiatives Feed the “Blob”
As California teeters on insolvency, Republican state legislators have proposed a budget that transfers $5 billion from two health care programs that are in surplus. The funds in question are for mental health and early childhood development. They are in “silos” because they were approved via propositions. To “break the ...
Commentary
Health Savings Accounts in Canada – Ground Zero of Single Payer?!
Born and raised in Canada, by the time I got to adulthood I was pretty fed up with my contemporaries’ claim that Canada’s uniqueness, relative to the U.S., was so-called “universal” health care. (I was born in 1962, so my contemporaries and I had no conscious experience of Canadian health ...
Business & Economics
Tort reform can help states’ fiscal crises
The Wall Street meltdown, with the Dow hovering near its lowest level in years, has obscured a troubling reality. Economic growth in the northeast region has been stunted for a long time, for a simple reason. Four states in particular — New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island — ...
’08 election lesson: Live free or die off
In the 2008 election, key swing states included Colorado, Nevada, and Virginia, all growing rapidly and on track for even more political clout after the 2010 census. A big reason for the demographic growth in all three states has been their expansion of economic freedom. Colorado , Nevada, and Virginia ...
How to Pay Doctors? A Lawyer Chimes In
I have (gratefully) never had to engage a trial lawyer, but I know that many clients are very frustrated by the common practice of charging by billable hours. Writing in Forbes, Mr. Evan R. Chesler of Cravath, Swaine, & Moore, LLP, says that his colleagues should “kill the billable hour”. ...
Canadian Health Care in Crisis: Eyewitness Account
Loathe as I am to traffic in anecdotes, I cannot resist recounting a conversation that I had around a friend’s dinner table while in Canada for the holidays last week. The crisis of government-monopoly health care in Canada is fast coming to a crescendo. My previous employer, the Fraser Institute, ...
Private Health Insurance in Canada
Returning to Canada for Christmas, I was surprised to see that the country’s life and health insurers were lobbying the government for health savings accounts and pressing ever closer for the right to compete against the failing state monopoly on health insurance (a.k.a. so-called “single-payer” health care). Today, I was ...
Why many Michiganians stay as others flee
Perhaps you can find a time in your life when conditions have been more difficult in Michigan, but I have been unable to do so. The state unemployment rate is approaching double digits. The Big Three automakers continue to announce cutbacks as they try to scale back their business model ...
Unhealthy ballot measures feed the “Blob”
As California teeters on insolvency, Republican state legislators have proposed a budget that transfers $5 billion from two health care programs that are in surplus. The funds in question are for mental health and early childhood development. They are in “silos” because they were approved via propositions. To “break the ...
Wishy-Washy Wrangling over Water Works
Before the end of 2008, the Delta Vision Committee will send Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a Bay-Delta Conservation Plan, “one of the most ambitious infrastructure and habitat restoration projects ever proposed in America,” according to news reports. The plan will restore the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a prime source of drinking water ...
Unhealthy Ballot Initiatives Feed the “Blob”
As California teeters on insolvency, Republican state legislators have proposed a budget that transfers $5 billion from two health care programs that are in surplus. The funds in question are for mental health and early childhood development. They are in “silos” because they were approved via propositions. To “break the ...
Health Savings Accounts in Canada – Ground Zero of Single Payer?!
Born and raised in Canada, by the time I got to adulthood I was pretty fed up with my contemporaries’ claim that Canada’s uniqueness, relative to the U.S., was so-called “universal” health care. (I was born in 1962, so my contemporaries and I had no conscious experience of Canadian health ...
Tort reform can help states’ fiscal crises
The Wall Street meltdown, with the Dow hovering near its lowest level in years, has obscured a troubling reality. Economic growth in the northeast region has been stunted for a long time, for a simple reason. Four states in particular — New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island — ...
