Commentary
Business & Economics
A well-intentioned bad idea
There’s troubling legislation in Sacramento to open the state’s lucrative public employee retirement system to private employees. Unfortunately, there’s little opposition, which may make the scheme inevitable. As with so many well-intended government ideas, Assembly Bill 2940 ostensibly would solve a problem. But as is also so often the case, ...
Climate Change
Politics, Not Climate
If you think global warming is about climate, think again. It’s all about politics and, if you don’t believe me, maybe you will believe Fred Krupp, the president of the Environmental Defense Fund. An April 16 news release from the EDF was titled “President’s Remarks Recognize Political Reality of Coming ...
Business & Economics
Tax Day Is Over, but Internet Tax Threats Loom
As Americans stretched to pay the tax man this week, California Assemblyman Charles Calderon (D-Montebello) was working on the sly to institute a new digital tax. Such a move is not only short-sighted, but also could seriously harm the state’s competitiveness. It’s no secret that the digital economy is a ...
Commentary
Five myths of health care
Fictions don’t become facts through repetition. Keep that in mind next time you hear a politician breathlessly decry the horrors of the American health-care system and then explain how he intends to fix it. Some of the most popular talking points in the health-care debate pass as the gospel truth ...
California
California Benefits Mandate Mania: 85,000 To Lose Health Insurance
What is the point of passing a law that requires independent analyses of the costs of mandating which benefits health plans must cover, if the lawmakers are then free to ignore the results of the independent analyses? The California Legislature is considering ten bills mandating benefits that will cost $2.7 ...
Business & Economics
Commie Dearest
The Sacramento Union, April 17, 2008 SACRAMENTO – The Senate Education Committee held a hearing earlier this month on SB 1322, which allowed members of the Communist Party USA to teach and hold meetings in California’s public schools. This measure, authored by state Sen. Alan Lowenthal, a southern California Democrat, ...
Commentary
Health Plan Oversight: Will That Be One Regulator, or Two?
California’s health plans have the pleasure of two regulators, whereas other states have to make do with one. If you are a “health service plan” (generally Health Maintenance Organizations and some other forms of health plan), you are regulated by the Department of Managed Health Care. If you write “disability ...
Commentary
California’s Physicians: Do They Know Who Their Customers Are?
No sooner had I wondered at the CMA’s short-sighted and self-destructive sponsorship of a bill that would reduce competition in health insurance, than I see that they are sponsoring yet another bill that will further degrade the physician-patient relationship. A little background: Since 1994 it has been illegal in California ...
Commentary
Eat your greens: Shrinking our footprint will take more than a calculator
Two items rattled across my desk that, at first glance, didn’t appear to share much in common. The first, a letter from former U.S. Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall and his wife, Lee Udall, to their grandchildren, appeared in Colorado-based High Country News, “a nonprofit media organization whose mission ...
Commentary
Massachusetts Health Reform: Can the Last Smoker Cover the Last Uninsured Bay Stater?
The Boston Globe ran a story about the 2nd anniversary of former Governor Romney’s signing Chapter 58, the landmark Massachusetts health “reform”, which resulted in a joint individual and employer mandate to purchase insurance. According to the Globe, it’s still a “work in progress.” What “progress” remains to be done? ...
A well-intentioned bad idea
There’s troubling legislation in Sacramento to open the state’s lucrative public employee retirement system to private employees. Unfortunately, there’s little opposition, which may make the scheme inevitable. As with so many well-intended government ideas, Assembly Bill 2940 ostensibly would solve a problem. But as is also so often the case, ...
Politics, Not Climate
If you think global warming is about climate, think again. It’s all about politics and, if you don’t believe me, maybe you will believe Fred Krupp, the president of the Environmental Defense Fund. An April 16 news release from the EDF was titled “President’s Remarks Recognize Political Reality of Coming ...
Tax Day Is Over, but Internet Tax Threats Loom
As Americans stretched to pay the tax man this week, California Assemblyman Charles Calderon (D-Montebello) was working on the sly to institute a new digital tax. Such a move is not only short-sighted, but also could seriously harm the state’s competitiveness. It’s no secret that the digital economy is a ...
Five myths of health care
Fictions don’t become facts through repetition. Keep that in mind next time you hear a politician breathlessly decry the horrors of the American health-care system and then explain how he intends to fix it. Some of the most popular talking points in the health-care debate pass as the gospel truth ...
California Benefits Mandate Mania: 85,000 To Lose Health Insurance
What is the point of passing a law that requires independent analyses of the costs of mandating which benefits health plans must cover, if the lawmakers are then free to ignore the results of the independent analyses? The California Legislature is considering ten bills mandating benefits that will cost $2.7 ...
Commie Dearest
The Sacramento Union, April 17, 2008 SACRAMENTO – The Senate Education Committee held a hearing earlier this month on SB 1322, which allowed members of the Communist Party USA to teach and hold meetings in California’s public schools. This measure, authored by state Sen. Alan Lowenthal, a southern California Democrat, ...
Health Plan Oversight: Will That Be One Regulator, or Two?
California’s health plans have the pleasure of two regulators, whereas other states have to make do with one. If you are a “health service plan” (generally Health Maintenance Organizations and some other forms of health plan), you are regulated by the Department of Managed Health Care. If you write “disability ...
California’s Physicians: Do They Know Who Their Customers Are?
No sooner had I wondered at the CMA’s short-sighted and self-destructive sponsorship of a bill that would reduce competition in health insurance, than I see that they are sponsoring yet another bill that will further degrade the physician-patient relationship. A little background: Since 1994 it has been illegal in California ...
Eat your greens: Shrinking our footprint will take more than a calculator
Two items rattled across my desk that, at first glance, didn’t appear to share much in common. The first, a letter from former U.S. Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall and his wife, Lee Udall, to their grandchildren, appeared in Colorado-based High Country News, “a nonprofit media organization whose mission ...
Massachusetts Health Reform: Can the Last Smoker Cover the Last Uninsured Bay Stater?
The Boston Globe ran a story about the 2nd anniversary of former Governor Romney’s signing Chapter 58, the landmark Massachusetts health “reform”, which resulted in a joint individual and employer mandate to purchase insurance. According to the Globe, it’s still a “work in progress.” What “progress” remains to be done? ...
