Just a few months back it was noted that California was suffering through a resurgence of medieval diseases. Another plague of premodern times now threatens to visit the state this summer: darkness. Bloomberg News reported that “California may go dark this summer.” Pacific Gas & Electric plans...
When the state Supreme Court issued a ruling last year threatening workers’ ability to operate as independent contractors, it sent a chill through the gig economy. The temperature dropped a few more degrees recently when the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals determined the standards...
One of the hottest investment trends promises to do well while by doing good. This investment trend is called environmental, social, and governance investing, or ESG funds. Not all ESG funds have similar investment strategies. Some ESG funds actively invest in companies that meet specific environmental...
President Trump is expected to issue an executive order soon that could require insurers and hospitals to disclose the prices they've negotiated for various services. He hopes such transparency will increase competition and drive down health spending. The health care industry is less supportive. The nation's...
The U.S. economy thrives on innovation. According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, industries that intensively rely on intellectual property (IP) protections, which includes the biopharmaceutical industry, account for nearly 40 percent of the U.S. economy and are responsible for an outsized share of our...
A team of investigative reporters recently released a scathing analysisof the Obama administration's decade-old push to digitize patient health records. The report, conducted by Fortune Magazine and Kaiser Health News, revealed that electronic health records were responsible for thousands of serious, even fatal, medical errors. Needless to say,...
This week, the House Budget Committee hosted three representatives from the Congressional Budget Office to discuss their new report analyzing the prospects for a single-payer health care system in America. Democrats used the CBO report as an excuse to plug their preferred plans for reform. "It's not a question of...
Bill Gates, a key godfather of the Common Core subject-matter standards, wrote five years ago that the national standards “will improve education for millions of students,” but a groundbreaking new study shows that Common Core has actually decreased the level of student achievement. With irresistible prodding by Gates...
Last week, Gov. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., signed a bill to create a state-chartered insurance plan to be sold on the state's insurance exchange. That makes the Evergreen State the first in the nation to offer a "public option." State officials claim the new plan gives consumers one more option on...
Before leaving office, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told the Senate Appropriations Committee that Congress should create a new requirement for opioid approvals. New opioids should have to demonstrate superiority over those already on the market, he said. That would be a departure...