Commentary
Charter Schools
CTA and Democratic allies move to torpedo charter schools
While many California school districts have floundered during the COVID-19 pandemic, Democrats in the California Legislature are taking aim again at charter schools, which are among the few remaining school-choice options available for parents dissatisfied with the regular public schools. AB 1316, authored by Assembly education committee chair Patrick O’Donnell, ...
Commentary
Democrats Ask All the Wrong Questions About the Public Option
The public option is back on the congressional docket. Last week, Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., the head of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who helms the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, issued an open request for information on how to implement a ...
Commentary
Telemedicine is here to stay
This week, lawmakers in the House and Senate introduced bills that could preserve access to telehealth for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries beyond the pandemic. The House measure would allow Medicare beneficiaries to continue receiving “audio-only” remote care — that is, by phone. The Senate bill would direct the federal government to come ...
Commentary
Medicare Expansion: A Gift to the Relatively Wealthy
President Joe Biden’s ambitious proposals to reduce Medicare’s eligibility age to 60 may not be the gift to older Americans that its supporters believe it to be. That’s the core finding of a new analysis from Avalere, a consultancy. The report concluded that lower-income adults would likely have to pay more for ...
Commentary
Government Health Insurance: An Offer Businesses Should Refuse
Executives at many large corporations want the government to take on a greater role providing health coverage and controlling costs, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation survey. That seems to indicate big business is sympathetic to the core of the Democrats’ healthcare agenda, including the idea of a public option ...
California
$12 billion to house the homeless, but ‘housing first’ doesn’t work
The governor has plans to spend an extraordinary sum of public money on the homeless, most of which would be used to put them up in hotels. Sounds compassionate. But it’s another empty promise. Housing-first policy is indistinguishable from housing-and-nothing-else. Part of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $100 billion “California Comeback Plan” ...
Commentary
Insuring more Americans’ health shouldn’t require big government spending
President Joe Biden announced late last month that he plans to permanently expand health-insurance subsidies as part of his $1.8 trillion “American Families Plan.” This new spending would be a waste of taxpayer dollars. The vast majority of uninsured Americans already has access to discounted health plans. But for a ...
Commentary
Private practices just became an endangered species
Last year was the first year in which physicians working in private practice accounted for fewer than half of all practicing doctors, according to a new new report from the American Medical Association. Many of these formerly independent doctors went to work for big healthcare systems. That finding may sound obscure. Why ...
Commentary
Biden’s Intellectual Property Waiver Puts Political Symbolism Before Saving Lives
President Biden recently backed a World Trade Organization proposal to waive intellectual property protections on COVID-19 vaccines and therapies — a move the Trump administration rejected just a few months ago. The White House’s decision is a catastrophe. The waiver will do nothing to increase access to vaccines. It will, however, undermine the system ...
Blackouts
Blackouts, Increasing Crime, Rampant Homelessness, And Man-Made Drought: Is This California Or A Third World Nation?
While still trying to process the unwelcome news that we’re going to have to grind through yet another year of drought, California energy officials told us to also be ready for the power to go out when the days grow long and warm. “The managers of California’s electricity system,” the ...
CTA and Democratic allies move to torpedo charter schools
While many California school districts have floundered during the COVID-19 pandemic, Democrats in the California Legislature are taking aim again at charter schools, which are among the few remaining school-choice options available for parents dissatisfied with the regular public schools. AB 1316, authored by Assembly education committee chair Patrick O’Donnell, ...
Democrats Ask All the Wrong Questions About the Public Option
The public option is back on the congressional docket. Last week, Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., the head of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who helms the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, issued an open request for information on how to implement a ...
Telemedicine is here to stay
This week, lawmakers in the House and Senate introduced bills that could preserve access to telehealth for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries beyond the pandemic. The House measure would allow Medicare beneficiaries to continue receiving “audio-only” remote care — that is, by phone. The Senate bill would direct the federal government to come ...
Medicare Expansion: A Gift to the Relatively Wealthy
President Joe Biden’s ambitious proposals to reduce Medicare’s eligibility age to 60 may not be the gift to older Americans that its supporters believe it to be. That’s the core finding of a new analysis from Avalere, a consultancy. The report concluded that lower-income adults would likely have to pay more for ...
Government Health Insurance: An Offer Businesses Should Refuse
Executives at many large corporations want the government to take on a greater role providing health coverage and controlling costs, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation survey. That seems to indicate big business is sympathetic to the core of the Democrats’ healthcare agenda, including the idea of a public option ...
$12 billion to house the homeless, but ‘housing first’ doesn’t work
The governor has plans to spend an extraordinary sum of public money on the homeless, most of which would be used to put them up in hotels. Sounds compassionate. But it’s another empty promise. Housing-first policy is indistinguishable from housing-and-nothing-else. Part of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $100 billion “California Comeback Plan” ...
Insuring more Americans’ health shouldn’t require big government spending
President Joe Biden announced late last month that he plans to permanently expand health-insurance subsidies as part of his $1.8 trillion “American Families Plan.” This new spending would be a waste of taxpayer dollars. The vast majority of uninsured Americans already has access to discounted health plans. But for a ...
Private practices just became an endangered species
Last year was the first year in which physicians working in private practice accounted for fewer than half of all practicing doctors, according to a new new report from the American Medical Association. Many of these formerly independent doctors went to work for big healthcare systems. That finding may sound obscure. Why ...
Biden’s Intellectual Property Waiver Puts Political Symbolism Before Saving Lives
President Biden recently backed a World Trade Organization proposal to waive intellectual property protections on COVID-19 vaccines and therapies — a move the Trump administration rejected just a few months ago. The White House’s decision is a catastrophe. The waiver will do nothing to increase access to vaccines. It will, however, undermine the system ...
Blackouts, Increasing Crime, Rampant Homelessness, And Man-Made Drought: Is This California Or A Third World Nation?
While still trying to process the unwelcome news that we’re going to have to grind through yet another year of drought, California energy officials told us to also be ready for the power to go out when the days grow long and warm. “The managers of California’s electricity system,” the ...
