Commentary
Commentary
Government is Fighting Covid-19 on Tape Delay
To great fanfare, the Biden administration just launched a website where Americans can request at-home COVID-19 tests, delivered by the U.S. Postal Service free of charge. It’s a sad commentary on the competence of the federal government that the successful launch of a website counts as a big win these ...
California
Gavin Newsom’s License to Misinform on Covid
Last summer, while trying to survive a recall effort, California governor Gavin Newsom claimed that Texas middle-class families “pay more taxes than middle-class families in California” and challenged doubters to “look that up.” A few months later, he swore that “violent crime and property crime” is “higher in Texas than ...
Business & Economics
The Empty Case for Stakeholder Capitalism and ESG Investing
Instead of promoting responsible behavior, these practices undermine the principles of good corporate governance. Larry Fink, the chairman and CEO of BlackRock, is selling the idea that the world economy must embrace stakeholder capitalism and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing. Don’t worry, though, he wants you to know that stakeholder ...
Commentary
At the ‘Pharmer’s’ Market, Patients Suffer While Middlemen Profit
Imagine a visit to the local farmer’s market. When you’re about to pay the farmer for some fruit, a man in a suit and sunglasses interrupts the exchange and offers to negotiate a discount with the farmer. Cool, right? Not so fast. The man in the suit didn’t tell you ...
Commentary
Will the independent medical practice become extinct in America?
Upon facing declining revenue prospects, physicians are shuttering their private, independent practices to partner up with larger hospitals that have near-monopolies on care in the regions they serve. This trend is depressing news for most Americans. Further concentration of market power in these health systems ultimately results in less personalized ...
Commentary
When Will COVID-19 Become ‘Endemic’?
With pandemic fatigue becoming ever more intense, there is increasing speculation about when the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, might become “endemic” – a time when outbreaks will be more modest and manageable and we can “coexist” with the virus. That juncture has been described as when the virus has become “annoying ...
Commentary
It’s time for hospitals to be transparent about their prices
More than a year after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services enacted a rule requiring hospitals to disclose prices for routine procedures, most still aren’t complying. That’s according to a new study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. As of last month, CMS had issued 335 warnings ...
Commentary
Don’t Fall for the ‘Certificate of Need’ Laws Con Game
Last week, the South Carolina state Senate voted overwhelmingly to end the state’s certificate of need program, which requires healthcare providers to seek government approval before building or expanding a hospital or purchasing pricey medical equipment. Such policies have long been justified as tools for avoiding duplicative or wasteful healthcare expenditures. Their only real ...
Commentary
Bureaucratic red tape is deadly
As omicron rips across the United States, the Biden administration has started handing out 1 billion rapid COVID-19 tests to Americans. But households are limited to just four tests. And they’ll have to wait nearly two weeks for their tests to arrive in the mail. In some states, the omicron ...
Climate Change
The Wrong Solutions: Climate Change Policies Increasingly Embrace Unreality
Advocates and public officials blame a growing number of seemingly unrelated phenomena, from tornadoes to medical problems, on climate change. As the list grows, they call for policies to tackle the putative crisis, while overlooking the flaws in their preferred solutions. Consider, for example, the rush into electrification to leverage renewable energy as ...
Government is Fighting Covid-19 on Tape Delay
To great fanfare, the Biden administration just launched a website where Americans can request at-home COVID-19 tests, delivered by the U.S. Postal Service free of charge. It’s a sad commentary on the competence of the federal government that the successful launch of a website counts as a big win these ...
Gavin Newsom’s License to Misinform on Covid
Last summer, while trying to survive a recall effort, California governor Gavin Newsom claimed that Texas middle-class families “pay more taxes than middle-class families in California” and challenged doubters to “look that up.” A few months later, he swore that “violent crime and property crime” is “higher in Texas than ...
The Empty Case for Stakeholder Capitalism and ESG Investing
Instead of promoting responsible behavior, these practices undermine the principles of good corporate governance. Larry Fink, the chairman and CEO of BlackRock, is selling the idea that the world economy must embrace stakeholder capitalism and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing. Don’t worry, though, he wants you to know that stakeholder ...
At the ‘Pharmer’s’ Market, Patients Suffer While Middlemen Profit
Imagine a visit to the local farmer’s market. When you’re about to pay the farmer for some fruit, a man in a suit and sunglasses interrupts the exchange and offers to negotiate a discount with the farmer. Cool, right? Not so fast. The man in the suit didn’t tell you ...
Will the independent medical practice become extinct in America?
Upon facing declining revenue prospects, physicians are shuttering their private, independent practices to partner up with larger hospitals that have near-monopolies on care in the regions they serve. This trend is depressing news for most Americans. Further concentration of market power in these health systems ultimately results in less personalized ...
When Will COVID-19 Become ‘Endemic’?
With pandemic fatigue becoming ever more intense, there is increasing speculation about when the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, might become “endemic” – a time when outbreaks will be more modest and manageable and we can “coexist” with the virus. That juncture has been described as when the virus has become “annoying ...
It’s time for hospitals to be transparent about their prices
More than a year after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services enacted a rule requiring hospitals to disclose prices for routine procedures, most still aren’t complying. That’s according to a new study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. As of last month, CMS had issued 335 warnings ...
Don’t Fall for the ‘Certificate of Need’ Laws Con Game
Last week, the South Carolina state Senate voted overwhelmingly to end the state’s certificate of need program, which requires healthcare providers to seek government approval before building or expanding a hospital or purchasing pricey medical equipment. Such policies have long been justified as tools for avoiding duplicative or wasteful healthcare expenditures. Their only real ...
Bureaucratic red tape is deadly
As omicron rips across the United States, the Biden administration has started handing out 1 billion rapid COVID-19 tests to Americans. But households are limited to just four tests. And they’ll have to wait nearly two weeks for their tests to arrive in the mail. In some states, the omicron ...
The Wrong Solutions: Climate Change Policies Increasingly Embrace Unreality
Advocates and public officials blame a growing number of seemingly unrelated phenomena, from tornadoes to medical problems, on climate change. As the list grows, they call for policies to tackle the putative crisis, while overlooking the flaws in their preferred solutions. Consider, for example, the rush into electrification to leverage renewable energy as ...
