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Half-Time Report
By: Jeffrey H. Anderson, Ph.D
2.25.2010
At the intermission, the president may be wondering why he decided to host this summit. Sitting around a table, almost as an equal (albeit a particularly chatty one) with members of Congress, does not afford him the same advantages he enjoyed when giving the State of the Union address or even when standing behind the podium at the House Republican conference.
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It’s Summit Day in Washington
By: Jeffrey H. Anderson, Ph.D
2.25.2010
A year into the health-care debate, President Obama will be hosting a health-care summit today at the Blair House — something it is humanly impossible to imagine a president with a keener sense of the stature of his office doing. When you watch, imagine the Blair House as President Obama will likely see it in his mind's eye, with a large “Health-Care Reform: Grand Reopening” banner draped across its entrance, bands playing, and children laughing.
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Obama’s Summit Challenge
By: Sally C. Pipes
2.24.2010
President Obama’s much-anticipated summit on Thursday is drawing near. The president will kick off the six-hour event at Blair House that will be televised on C-SPAN. Following him will be opening remarks by Republican and Democratic members of Congress who have been chosen by their associates.
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Why Race to the Middle?
By: Lance T. Izumi, J.D.
2.24.2010
BOSTON/SAN FRANCISCO – A day after President Obama and Secretary of Education Duncan laid out an aggressive plan to expand federal control over K-12 academic standards at the National Governors Association (NGA) winter meetings, a new report criticizes the national standards process as “opaque” and the federal push harmful not only to states with existing high standards but to all states that want its students adequately prepared for authentic college level work.
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What Are Republicans Talking about When Republicans Talk about 'Buying Health Insurance Across State
By: John R. Graham
2.23.2010
Ramesh Ponnuru's defense of allowing individuals to buy health insurance across state lines has been getting sensible push-back from readers (here and here). As he points out, all the "fixes" that Republicans have put forward are supported by conservatives because they are meant to move us in the direction of individual ownership of health insurance.
So, does Congressional preemption of states' powers to regulate health insurance within their boundaries move us in the right direction? I'm afraid not, certainly not as the Republicans are proposing. Unfortunately, the GOP's Better Solutions platform continues the policy of discriminating against people who are employed, by forcing them to get health benefits of their employers' choice, and not letting them use their own pre-tax dollars to buy individual, portable, guaranteed renewable, health insurance.
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Taking the "Public Option" in Schooling to Task
By: Vicki E. Murray, Ph.D
2.16.2010
The Washington Post again takes partisan opponents of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program to task. This time it's columnist George Will who documents the hypocrisy, writing:
Most Democrats favor a "public option" -- a government health insurance program. They say there is insufficient competition among the 1,300 private providers of insurance, so people should not be dependent on those insurers. But tuition vouchers redeemable at private as well as public schools are a "private option" providing minimal competition with public schools. Government, with 89 percent of the pupils, dominates education grades K through 12. So, do Democrats favor vouchers to reduce Americans' dependence on government education? Of course not.
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Do-Goodism Never Ends
By: Benjamin Zycher, Ph.D
2.9.2010
The hits just keep on comin'. The AP reported last Friday that "Vermont, already a leader in the effort to cut health care costs by reining in drug companies' marketing, could become the first state to require the firms to report how much they spend providing free samples of their wares to physicians."
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Sense of Proportion
By: Thomas Tanton
2.6.2010
In a Capitol Weekly article this week State Senator Fran Pavley attempted to defend AB 32, her colossal 2006 environmental legislation with the goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Unfortunately Pavley’s intent has been very different than the outcome for the people of California.
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California's New HMO Regulations
By: John R. Graham
2.5.2010
Perhaps the greatest absurdity of California state senator Mark Leno getting his single-payer bill passed in the state senate is that it happened the same month the Department of Managed Health Care announced its new regulations limiting waiting times for HMOs.
The new regulations will require that telephone calls be returned within 30 minutes; that health professionals be available 24/7; that appointments with general practitioners take place within ten days, or 15 days for specialists.
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An Overlooked Lesson from the Off-Year Elections
By: Vicki E. Murray, Ph.D
2.1.2010
Political commentators are still theorizing about the full implications of Sen. Scott Brown's (R-MA) Senate election-particularly in light of the gubernatorial victories in Virginia and New Jersey last November (see here, here, and here, for instance). Thus far they have focused primarily on the health-care debate; however, these elections underscore the importance of putting parents-not politicians-in charge of children's education.
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