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Lawsuits hurt taxpayers
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (NY)
By: Mark Kriss
11.29.2009
We've all read and laughed at the stories of ludicrous lawsuits and the runaway juries who decide on multi-million judgments. Unfortunately, fellow New Yorkers, the joke is on us.
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Frosting on an already-sweet pension deal
Orange County Register
By: Steven Greenhut
11.27.2009
When people have an entitlement mentality, enough is never enough. Even though government employees enjoy absurdly generous defined-benefit pensions that often allow them to retire with 80 percent to 90 percent of their final year's pay guaranteed forever, employees game the system by taking advantage of various pension-spiking schemes.
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Hiding Health Reform's Real Costs
Investor's Business Daily
11.25.2009
Washington: Senate Democrats say their reform bill will cost $848 billion over 10 years. They're misleading the public by starting the count in 2010. The true cost would be $1.8 trillion over a decade.
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LAUSD is selling out English Learners to fatten its finances
Los Angeles Daily News
By: Lance T. Izumi, J.D.
11.24.2009
IT recently emerged that many Los Angeles students placed in classes for English-language learners in the early elementary grades were still taking such classes when they entered high school. That's not a knock on the students, but a damning indictment of how government at all levels has sold them out and botched the delivery of English-language instruction.
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State must reveal, not conceal, school aptitude
San Francisco Chronicle
By: Lance T. Izumi, J.D.
11.24.2009
This year marks the 10th anniversary of California's Public Schools Accountability Act, an early legislative triumph of then-Gov. Gray Davis. While some good things have come out of the law, the act has failed in its two key missions: to inform parents and the public about the true performance of schools and students, and to impose widespread tough consequences on failing or underperforming schools.
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Screening for Cancer
John Goodman's Health Policy Blog
By: John R. Graham
11.23.2009
Having barely digested the U.S. Preventive Services Task Forces’ suggestion that women between 40 and 50 years of age don’t need mammograms, American women now have to deal with the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists’ recommendation that they don’t need Pap smears until they turn 21. But at least ACOG resisted the USPSTF’s recommendation to delay mammograms until age 50!
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A picture can be worth 2,000 pages
The Examiner (Washington, D.C.)
By: Michael Barone
11.23.2009
Jeffrey Anderson of the Pacific Research Institute, who has been writing scintillating criticisms of the Democrats’ proposed health care bills, has prepared a chart showing the true 10-year cost of the bill currently before the Senate.
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People vote for freedom with their feet and effort
Grand Junction Free Press (CO)
By: Linn and Ari Armstrong
11.23.2009
“Why are they all running to Colorado? What have they got down there that we haven't got?” So asks a villain in Ayn Rand's, “Atlas Shrugged.” He complains about Colorado's primitive, lazy government that “does nothing outside of keeping law courts and a police department.”
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Condition Serious but Not Hopeless
National Review Online Symposium
11.23.2009
Harry Reid scored a victory Saturday night. And part of the line of argument from those urging that senators vote against the motion to proceed Saturday night was: The bill is not likely to get better from here on in. So is it over? Abortion, high costs — is it all now a given? National Review Online asked a group of experts: What is a constructive, realistic conservative attitude toward Demcare in the Senate this Thanksgiving?
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The Republican War Still Rages
National Public Radio
By: Sally C. Pipes
11.23.2009
Two weeks ago on November 7, the House voted 220 to 215 in favor of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 1,900-page, trillion-dollar health-care bill. On Saturday, the Senate voted 60 to 39 to commence the health-care debate on Senator Harry Reid’s 2,074-page bill that will end up costing several trillion dollars over 10 years. Two battles have been lost but the war continues.
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Derailing public pension gravy train
Orange County Register
By: Steven Greenhut
11.22.2009
Defenders of government employees' current retirement system depict critics as haters of government workers who want public "servants" to spend their retirement years eating cat food and living in dire poverty. That's the response I always get when I point to the absurdity of the current pension system, whereby public employees who qualify can retire as early as age 50 with 90 percent of their final year's pay guaranteed for them and their spouse until they die.
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Why Americans dislike Obama's health care reform
The Examiner (Washington, D.C.)
By: Sally C. Pipes
11.22.2009
Earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., unveiled his chamber’s plan for health reform. The nearly 2,100-page bill boasts a price tag of about $850 billion and hues closely to the $1 trillion reform bill that recently passed the House. Democratic leaders have hit the airwaves to sell the country on the merits of their vision for reform.
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Truly a turkey
New York Post
By: Michael Tanner
11.20.2009
Just in time for Thanksgiv ing, Sen. Harry Reid has given us a giant turkey of a health-care bill. At 2,074 pages and more than 370,000 words, it's officially "scored" as costing $849 billion over 10 years -- $400 million per page, or $2.3 million per word.
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Roadmap to Victory
National Review
By: Jeffrey H. Anderson, Ph.D, Tevi Troy
11.19.2009
By proposing a health-care bill of their own, Senate Republicans can throw the extraordinary weaknesses of the Democratic bills into stark relief. In the wake of the Congressional Budget Office’s recent scoring of aspects of the House Republican bill, there is now an opening for Republicans to provide a clear contrast with the proposed Democratic overhaul.
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Reid's fuzzy math
New York Post
By: Jeffrey H. Anderson, Ph.D
11.19.2009
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is touting the Senate’s newest health-care bill as costing $849 billion over 10 years. But this uses the same accounting trick as past versions: 99 percent of the costs don’t kick in until the fifth year of that “10 year” period. And the true 10-year costs are well over twice what Reid's advertising: $1.8 trillion.
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Public schools mask poor performance, students suffer
Washington Examiner
By: Lance T. Izumi, J.D.
11.18.2009
Recent revelations indicate that Virginia's public schools aren't performing as well as educators claim, a classic example of the smoke screen phenomenon. In states across the country, officials hide the real performance of schools and students from the prying eyes of parents and the public.
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Dems' health reforms attack taxpayer wallets
The Detroit News
By: Sally C. Pipes
11.18.2009
While House Democratic leaders have gloated over their recent approval of a 1,990-page health reform proposal that would cost in excess of $1 trillion, the American people may be less enthused with the results. Congress should be working to make health care more affordable -- not more expensive -- for ordinary Americans.
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Deflating Copenhagen
The American Spectator
By: Peter Hannaford
11.18.2009
There must be something really wrong, I thought. Henny-Penny, founder and recording secretary of The Holy Order of The Sky is Falling, never calls at night and it was now 10 p.m. "It's a calamity," She squawked. "They've decided not to pass a climate change treaty at Copenhagen next month. The sky is going to collapse by the end of the year," she moaned.
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Buying TVs and cars, Soviet-style
Orange County Register
11.18.2009
Two new regulations suggest that California leads the nation in mandates that inconvenience its residents while gaining little for the environment.
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NY suer system stinks
New York Post
By: Carl Campanile
11.18.2009
New York's court system is among the most lawsuit-friendly in the country -- socking citizens with millions of dollars in wacky jury awards, higher taxes and increased costs of insurance and health care, a study released yesterday found.
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The U.S. Army honors PRI’s Lance T. Izumi
Event
11.17.2009
The U.S. Army honors PRI’s Lance T. Izumi with awards for his parachute jump with the Army's Golden Knights high-performance jump team. The event was held at the Army's Southern California Advisory Board meeting on October 23rd in Fullerton.
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My Health Care Doesn’t Need “Reform,” Thanks!
Mens News Daily
By: Amy Alkon
11.17.2009
I got a call yesterday, in the middle of a really crazy day. As you'll read in my book, my friends all know not to call me on my deadline days, so I'm always surprised when my phone rings on a Monday or a Tuesday. Well, this was a pleasant surprise. It was a nurse from Kaiser, my HMO, summoning me in to see my doctor. I've been so crazed on the book, I haven't had a physical or routine tests for a bit too long.
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Where’s That Inflation?
Reason Magazine
By: Veronique de Rugy
11.17.2009
From September 2008 to September 2009, the Federal Reserve pumped an unprecedented $2 trillion into the financial system by buying Treasury bonds and assets from banks. According to most mainstream economists, such action should create a general increase in prices.
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Study: NY Legal System 3rd Worst In U.S.
North County Gazette (NY)
11.17.2009
ALBANY—A new study of New York’s legal system conducted by Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a nationally known research firm, has concluded that New York’s legal system is the third worst in the country and is costing taxpayers millions of dollars through higher taxes and increased costs for goods, insurance and health care.
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'Reform' at your expense
New York Post
By: Sally C. Pipes
11.17.2009
The health-reform bill that the Senate will soon debate may differ markedly from the one written by Speaker Nancy Pelosi that passed the House -- but both would raise the cost of health care for ordinary Americans. Such an approach is at odds with the chief goal of reform -- to increase access to care by reducing the cost.
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Dispelling Health-Care Myths
Commonwealth Club of California
By: Sally C. Pipes
11.16.2009
Inundated with medical terminology and ill equipped to navigate the options available, most people probably could use a little health-care-system guidance. In this program, Sally Pipes offers her extensive experience in the field and an at-times controversial outlook.
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Sheriff Joe no role model
Orange County Register
By: Steven Greenhut
11.15.2009
Former Orange County Sheriff's Lt. Bill Hunt should know a thing or two about the dangers of an abusive law enforcement culture. He was a victim of now-disgraced Sheriff Mike Carona, who demoted him to deputy after Hunt ran for sheriff against Carona in 2006.
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Government Health Fixes Will Leave Us Broke
Real Clear Politics
By: Sally C. Pipes
11.13.2009
By a razor-thin margin, lawmakers approved the trillion-dollar health reform package proposed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi late Saturday evening. Proponents of the measure claim that it will eventually pay for itself -- and even lower the nation's healthcare costs and the federal deficit.
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John R. Graham on "Straight Ahead with Bob Grant"
UBATV.com
11.11.2009
John R. Graham, Director of Health Care Studies, is interviewed on "Straight Ahead with Bob Grant" on the proposed health care reform bill. John Graham talks about what is in the 1,990 page bill and the huge federal bureaucracy that will be created if this health care legislation passes.
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Mission Remission
National Review Symposium
By: Jeffrey H. Anderson, Ph.D, Sally C. Pipes
11.9.2009
Pelosicare may have passed the House, but the debate on health care is far from over. What should conservatives be doing to influence the next phase? We contacted a few of National Review Online’s health-care experts and asked them for their recommendations.
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Pork, water policy don't mix
Orange County Register
By: Steven Greenhut
11.8.2009
Advocates for government "solutions" for everything from health care to education argue that some aspects of life are just so darn complicated that only a centralized authority with taxing and spending power can handle such matters. Yet whenever we look at those areas of life dominated by the government, we find nothing but convoluted messes, political corruption and mismanagement.
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Government interference in health care not needed
The Oklahoma Daily
By: Jared Rader
11.5.2009
While the U.S. health care system needs reform, it can be done without government involvement, a 5th district U.S. Congressional candidate and doctor told an audience Tuesday in the Oklahoma Memorial Union.
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Prescriptions for disaster
New York Post
By: Jeffrey H. Anderson, Ph.D, Benjamin E. Sasse
11.5.2009
Don't buy the claim that the Sen ate health-care bill is substantially more moderate than the House measure. While Speaker Nancy Pelosi's legislation is even more onerous than the package created by Sen. Max Baucus and now championed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the larger story is how similar the two Democratic bills are.
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How best to lower health care costs?
San Diego Union Tribune - Letter to Editor
By: Sally C. Pipes
11.4.2009
In a recent column, David Broder proclaimed that “no one should be denied coverage options by virtue of where they live.” “Health care and states’ rights,” (Oct. 30). That’s exactly why Congress should allow consumers to purchase health insurance across state lines.
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SPN 2009 Conference: Final Day
Publius Forum
By: Warner Todd Huston
11.4.2009
The Wednesday session began with a breakfast address by James K. Glassman the former Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, U.S. Dept. of State during the George W. Bush administration. He spoke on Internet freedom (as opposed to net neutrality) and expressed his hope that a thousand Internet flowers would bloom without onerous regulation squelching it all.
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Exploring reasons for the rising cost of care in the state
NJBIZ.com - Corner Office
By: William Borton
11.2.2009
It seems that everyone has an opinion regarding what should be done to reform our health care system. Most people believe that changes to our current system need to be made, but not quickly and not by politicians. The costs must come down, but not by rationing, government price controls or higher taxes.
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Conservative Women Reject Government Takeover of Health Care
The American Spectator
11.2.2009
Women have largely been excluded from the healthcare discussion in a meaningful way. A new poll just released by the Independent Women's Forum indicates that women voters largely enjoy their own healthcare coverage, do not believe government is the solution and reject a so called "public option."
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Sneaky way to murder Prop. 13
Orange County Register
By: Steven Greenhut
11.2.2009
SACRAMENTO — There ain't no such thing as bipartisan, nondivisive reform. Any real change to California's dysfunctional political structure and culture must gore somebody's ox, stir up contentious battles and draw vicious rebukes. Real reform has to take on the special interests that are destroying California, otherwise the "reform" ideas will do nothing of substance to clean up the mess.
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Tort Reform Is Key To Health Reform
The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel
By: Tiger Joyce
11.2.2009
Though common-sense Americans repeatedly raised the issue of tort reform while discussing health care legislation with members of Congress during town hall meetings this past summer, too many lawmakers and analysts still stubbornly insist that medical liability lawsuits do not contribute significantly to rising health care costs. These lawmakers and analysts are wrong.
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L.A. Loosens Reins on School Administration
School Reform News (Heartland Institute)
By: Evelyn B. Stacey
11.1.2009
The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has decided to allow outside groups, including for-profit charter school organizations, to run one-third of the district’s schools and possibly open 50 new ones of their own creation.
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Medicare Reimbursement Cap Called Unlikely to Stop Fraud
Health Care News (The Heartland Institute)
By: Thomas Cheplick
11.1.2009
Responding to serious Medicare fraud and corruption in Florida’s Miami-Dade County, where five doctors from one clinic were found guilty of racketeering over the past three years, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is proposing a nationwide cap on Medicare reimbursements for treating in-home patients with chronic ailments.
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Lack Of Tort Reform Costing Pennsylvania
The Philadelphia Bulletin (PA)
By: Abhilash Samuel
11.1.2009
As Washington continues debating how to curb health care costs, one area largely ignored is medical malpractice reform. However, ample evidence from states indicates tort reform is central to overhauling the healthcare system.
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The Nanny State and the Cost of Unfunded Government Liabilities
The Market Oracle
By: James Quinn
11.1.2009
When I decided to tackle the national healthcare issue, I thought a good start would be examining the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to see what they had to say about the right to healthcare. I hunted and searched the various documents which created our country. I found that according to the Declaration of Independence, we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
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